Antigua

Flying back from Tikal we dropped our stuff off at the hotel and went to Antigua for the day. I LOVED this little town. It's like a little old Spanish town with a beautiful monastery and old court house building. It seemed "higher class" for sure with everyone dressing really nicely and the center town square being full of people eating ice cream and listening to marimba music. We stopped in a variety of stores and I kept trying on shirts in hopes to find one that fit… however… Guatemalan sizes don't get longer...they just get wider. I needed them longer since they all seemed to hit just below my belly button, which doesn't work for me hahha. We ate a restaurant there and stocked up on some banana bread (that we would all love on the 12ish hour bus ride up to the Polochic) at a recommended bakery- Panaderia Luisa. You could smell the bread as you started walking down the street and if I lived there, I would probably visit that store everyday until I’d tried all …I don't know..20 flavors of bread?! It was an amazing little shop.

We saw some adorable girls selling scarves. They spoke very good English and one even said, “business is business” when we discussed pricing- adorable. I purchased a painting (yep cross that off my list) from the actual artist himself whose name I still don’t know. He was sitting outside painting and had several recently completed photos next to him. I found one and bought it. He showed me the place across the street from us that inspired the painting (though he changed some coloring). He was so nice and a little shy, but incredibly talented. I’m so so excited to have this little gem. I love it and it will be displayed some where prominently in my house.  I also have to say that Antigua has a “Chocoalte Mueseum”…umm.. HELLO! Antigua is now on the list of one of my favorite places on earth! You could see (and make) the chocolate in all stages from the cacao bean to actual little squares. Super super tasty  chocolate ….expensive..but delicious. 

From there we met up with our group at The Barcelo Hotel (stopping briefly at a store to purchase some oreos, Ritz, and a couple 3 liter bottles of Pepsi for Tom to survive the wilderness. I grabbed some gingerale…just in case hahah). We were introduced that night to everyone and played some ‘get to know you’ games while eating dinner. We discovered that there were two Natalies, 2 Erins, 2 Kristins, 2 Andrews, 2 Scotts, 2 Megans, 1 Laura, 1 Lauren, 1 Charlene and 1 Shailene…umm though most don’t have the same spellings. Anyway, it kinda made things confusing for awhile but I love Natalie Burton, whom I met several years back in Arizona. She’s amazing and I’m glad I got to know her even better on this trip (and I didn’t mind that sometimes people would say, “Hey Natalies where is this or that?” haha). The next day we left on our adventure to the Polochic Valley- La Reforma to be exact….next post =)