GUATEMALA

Yes, we traveled to Guatemala - by plane - even though the Pan-American highway does go to Guatemala City. We traveled with our daughter, Carrie, our minister and his daughters and another minister from PA met us in Miami. Our purpose was to visit missionaries and see students that we had been supporting in the Christian schools.

Linda MacRae, a missionary with SETECA - a school for students preparing to be missionaries or ministers, arranged our travel plans and was our guide for this 10-day trip. THANK YOU, LINDA, for putting up with us!! She also put all my photos on her computer when my digital camera card got FULL. We are still trying to get them from her computer to mine. CDs come to me empty and Picasa e-mails direct me to her "gallery" which is also empty. Frustrating!

The Pan-American highway has become a 4-lane divided highway. We took a similar trip with both daughters in 1991 - our first time to go outside of North America! Our group was around 30 people then and 7 now. Much more family-like in a 12-passenger van this time. The roads are still very curvy and up and down because of the mountains. Guatemala City is a mile high and surrounded by volcanoes and other mountain peaks. Every possible piece of land is cultivated. Yet there are miles and miles of forest.

Once you leave the main highway, the roads become more curvy, steep and narrower. At least the van could make the switchbacks without stopping, backing up and trying again. In the towns the streets are even more narrow. We didn't notice as much honking or as much smoke and incense this time, but that was probably because the rainy season really was rainy this time. When the afternoon showers began, they poured through the night! Many areas along the highway had rocks blocking two lanes OR two lanes were undercut leaving only the pavement hanging over open space! Maybe the corn fields contribute to the erosion.

The Santo Tomas hotel in Chichicastenango is a favorite because of the parrots and macaws brought out to the courtyard every day. One of them was on the ground and we used Carrie's cane to collect him and put him back on a perch. The next morning he was in a bush, so we put the cane near him again, he climbed on board and we put him on the perch.

Thursday market day was larger than we remembered, but the people insisting we should buy their wares was the same. We enjoyed walking around looking at all the different things available for sale - touristy things to clothing to live animals, veggies and fruits.

Another very favorite place is Panajachel, a vacation community on Lake Atitlan ringed by volcanic peaks. We had a leisurely boat ride along the lake shore looking at wealthy vacation homes. So many steps to get down to the lake or down from the road to the homes - wow! Very good bird-watching area, too. The hummingbirds were too numerous. We couldn't see any one long enough to identify it. Some were LARGE, some tiny, saw a red bill, blue head, white ear patch, but not on the same bird!!

Discovered that Utatlan is the name of a mighty Mayan tribe of native people. Went to a Mayan ruin of a different tribe which worked with the Spanish conquistadors during the Conquest to defeat the Utatlans. Then this tribe realized the Spanish only wanted their gold and other treasures. So the native Mayans just slipped away one night and disappeared to Panajachel and Antigua areas to avoid the Spaniards. Today only the ball courts and stone walls of their homes and temples are left - the thatched roof coverings are long gone.

We toured small one-room factories that make wooden fruits, bowls, etc OR blown glass items OR fabric-mache dolls made on glass bottles showing the costumes of different areas of Guatemala. We also had a class to understand the Mayan wedding customs. Gary was the groom and was dressed in the appropriate clothing, had flowers sprinkled all over him and then we shopped and ate a wedding meal of a tasty broth with rice and a chicken drumstick.

Our accommodations were excellent, so was the food and Carrie loved the marimba band at our last hotel in Antigua. The men played on two marimbas and invited Carrie to come up and "play" with them! She insisted we stay the second night after dinner to hear them again! We wrote down all their names: Juan, Vicente, Felix, Javier, Francisco, Cerman, Pablo and Rodrico. And we bought two CDs to listen to on our way home from Chicago's O'Hare airport.

Here are some new Spanish words:

derrumba - landslide or fallen rocks

tumulos - speed bumps

limonada con agua - lemonade (not fizzy)

New birds we could identify:

rufus-collared sparrow, blue-gray tanager, clay-colored robin, white-collared seedeater, bushy-crested jay