Guatemala the Return: Part 2

I hopping in and out of current and past experiences in blog land here, it makes me feel like a fancy best selling author or something. Anyway, we spent the first two weeks of our Guatemala trip in Antigua studying Spanish. The final week we spent aboard, "Las Sirenas", a 40 foot catamaran sailboat.

"Las Sirenas" from the land

On deck of "Las Sirenas"

We cruised for a couple days on the Rio Dulce River followed by some time on the Belize Barrier Reef and Islands. Along the reef was where Harold and I first experienced snorkeling, C.O. having previous experience on a family trip to Hawaii. It took a little while to get Harold to warm up to the whole experience, but once he figured out what to do we could hardly drag him out of the water.

Our time aboard the boat wasn't perfect, we were a bit sea sick, terribly hot, at one point I had an allergic reaction to conch and C.O. accidentally touched a fish that made it feel like shards of glass were stuck in his hand. But we survived and lived to tell of another adventure. 

~AnnMarie

Guatemala: The Return

It's hard to believe it was two months ago that we returned from our trip to Guatemala. None the less, I want to share a bit from our time there.

Instead of staying with a family this time around, we opted to rent an apartment. We are so glad we did, it was great to have our own place and it was adorable!

Then there was also a huge backyard with ancient ruins for a backdrop.

Just like two years ago, we took four hours of Spanish classes in the mornings and used the afternoons to tour the area. Each of us had our own language teacher, even Harold who had the best time of all. His teacher took him around town and to her home to play with her grandkids. He went to the circus, the market, on chicken buses, on tuk-tuks and to a McDonald's birthday party complete with pinatas. What an awesome way to learn a language!

We also celebrated C.O.'s birthday during our first week of class. It was very special and great fun. The director bought him a cake and all the teachers sang him multiple verses of "Feliz Cumpleaños". Just when he would go to blow out the candles, they'd start singing again. Much giggling ensued.

Being our third time in Antigua, we know our way around pretty well and even know a few people around town. It's an entirely different travel experience to return to a place you've come to know fairly well.

~AnnMarie

Monterrico

We spent last weekend in Monterrico, Guatemala on the Pacific Coast.
We stayed at the Hotel Atelie del Mar and had a very relaxing weekend.

We did some of this:

Then a little of that:

And a little more of this:



A perfect weekend.

--AnnMarie

Lake Atitlan

We spent the past weekend at “The Lake”, Lake Atitlan. It's unique since it doesn't have any outlets to the sea and it's surrounded by three volcanoes. There are a number of villages surrounding this landlocked lake in Guatemala. We stayed in the village of Panajachel, which is one of the few villages around the lake that is accessible by road.

We arrived on Friday night after a treacherous ride in a van through narrow winding roads, with scary steep cliffs that were just a little to close to the road for comfort. To be honest, it made me pretty darn sick but it was worth the drive, both for the views along the way and the destination.

On Saturday we chartered a boat and a driver to take us around to three different villages around the lake. We started in Santiago which also happened to be the name of our boat driver.

When we got to Santiago we were approached by two young boys who wanted to be our “tour guides”. “No, grasias”, we said numerous times. But they latched on and ended up being a hoot and the best part of the day. They knew just enough English to tell us about a few parts of town and to remind us to be careful of the traffic. They even picked up on the fact that Harold needed constant supervision, so they took over as the child care. We were pretty impressed with the entrepenurship of these two 10 year olds.

We then headed over to San Antonio where a festival happened to be going on. We saw dancers, heard some music and watched part of a soccer game.

We stopped in one final village Santa Catarina for lunch then back to Panajachel.

--AnnMarie

La Esquela

Academia Colonial is where we are studying Spanish for the month of June. (Academia Colonial doubles as a Rum Bar & restaurant in the evenings.) We do four hours of one on one tutoring each day from 8 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

The teachers are wonderful and have a very systematic and effective method of teaching Spanish. They don’t speak much English during the lesson, the explanations are done in Spanish. At first it’s overwhelming but, amazingly, you do catch on by the second or third day. We still feel pretty at a loss for words but certainly know a ton more Spanish than when we started.

I’d also like to mention that this tutoring only costs us $20 per day, for intensive one-on-one training.

C.O. & Soledad

Lety & AnnMarie

--AnnMarie

Cafe Sky

Our Apartment In Antigua

When we first arrived, there wasn't a bed for Harold. So, we just put him to sleep in the cabinet in our bedroom. Once Reina found out, she found him a bed to sleep on.

--AnnMarie

Growing Pains

We’ve been in Guatemala for three full days now. It's been a challenging few days but good overall.

It's frustrating that we can’t communicate very easily with people. Being very social people, we feel trapped inside brains that can’t make sense of everyone else’s words or find the words to tell people what we're thinking. AHHHHHH!

Making arrangements or trying to figure out anything new is a laborious and frustrating task. We also have a lot of uncertainty as we learn basic day to day living.

We've been walking the city quite a bit, just to get to know each street, businesses etc. It is a little annoying when we walk, we are regularly approached by people selling handcrafts. They are lovely but we just don’t buy a lot of extra stuff so we are constantly turning down some pretty persistent people.

But at last, day by day, hour by hour we are figuring out how to live comfortably in Antigua, Guatemala.

Now for the good stuff. The family we are living with is absolutely fantastic. Reina, the lady of the house, is a sort of grandmotherly figure. She spoils us like crazy by attending to our every need. She also happens to be a wonderful cook. She lives two doors down from us and we simply walk over and join her for three meals per day. Reina's daughter, Claudia, watches Harold everyday when we are at class. Claudia has a boy, Diego, who's just a few months younger than Harold. They have lots of fun together. Did I mention we have our own apartment? Unheard of! It is small and very basic but more than adequate for the next three weeks.

We have had our first day of class, which went very well. The tutors are patient and do a great job of making us feel comfortable and not too much like idiots.

Here’s our typical day.

6:00 a.m. -- wake up (it's hard not to wake up since the church bells ring like mad from 6 - 6:30 a.m.)
7:00 a.m. --breakfast with the family
7:45 a.m. --leave Harold with family, go to class
8:00 – 12:00 -- one on one Spanish tutoring
12:00 – 1:00 – rest up for lunch
1:00 p.m. lunch with the family
2:00 p.m. siesta (Harold's nap)
3:30 p.m. walk around town and do one or more of the following:
drink coffee
sit in the park
eat a snack from a street vendor
shop
do homework / review lessons from a.m.
take a tour near or in the city
7:00 p.m. Dinner with family
9:00 p.m. Go to bed

Pretty intense huh? Or not. Is it possible to be totally relaxed but stressed out at the same time? That’s about how we feel now.

We’re feeling the growing pains of learning a new language but we're glad we are here.

--AnnMarie

Guatemala Trip

One of the most exciting trips we have taken was to Guatemala this past October. It was the trip that would end with the third member of our family, Harold, returning home with us.

Overall the trip to Guatemala City went wonderfully, better than we ever expected. Harold seemed to get used to us quickly, travel went smoothly, paperwork and meetings went flawlessly.

Guatemala is a beautiful country. I would recommend vacationing there to anyone. The US dollar goes a long way. We were able to stay at a 4 star hotel for $70 per night, we called for room service often and ordered things like steak and shrimp for about $12 per meal. One day we took a guided tour of Antigua, about a 40 mile trip outside of Guatemala City. We had our own tour guide, a driver, we were gone from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. and it only cost $120.

Rewinding a little, one of the hardest parts of the entire adoption process was when the foster mom met with us to give us Harold. We had an interpreter with us and she said that she had been crying since 5 a.m.and that she felt like he was her own child. It was very hard on her to give him up, we were so happy, meanwhile her heart was breaking. It's good to know that Harold was in such a loving home for his first 9 months.

Enjoy the video. -- AnnMarie