I have been here for over a week already and its almost time to hit the road to the next stop - Tikal. As for Antigua, it is a priceless jewel full of amazingly nice people, diverse people, great food, and most of all a beautiful backdrop of mountains and volcanoes. I truly enjoyed immersing myself into the Antiguan community. In just a week of walking the streets you begin to see familiar faces and places. People stop to say ¨hola¨and then flash a warm smile.
In just a week I developed a comfortable relationship with my spanish teacher Amanda, 4 hours of spanish class a day would fly by, nothing like the one hour of class I dreaded back in highschool. Amanda would start by teaching me new verbs and then the conversation would de rail and we would be engaged in hours of chismo (gossip). I was completely drawn to hearing stories of the Guatemaltecos and especially those living in the pueblos. Its a reminder of how much we take for granted and how easy it is for us to acquire and fulfill our wants. Most of the people that live here are very happy with what they have and most of all happy of being here in Antigua amongst the nature.
When I wasn´t learning spanish I was going to salsa dance class and after an hour of shaking my hips ( or attempting to) I walk over to a local restaurant for some food and downtime or maybe even a movie. Movies are a big thing here in Antigua, many restaurants and bars have tvs some small and some nice big screens. Movies are shown all day long with the last showing at 8pm and they are all FREE ! (p.s. these are old movies ) but still its FREE !!!
I was at cafe sky on Friday evening - cafe sky is a hip restaurant with a rooftop bar that overlooks Antigua, again providing breathtaking views of the volcanoes. The night I was there ... mesmerized by the night sky, the stars, and quietness of the evening I looked straight ahead to the volcanoe right in time to catch the biggest brightest most goregous shooting star moving at light speeed in front of this giganitic natural mass of land ! There are no pìctures of this but you will have to take my word for how amazing it was.
Aside from the random shooting star everynight I was able to see a firework show. It was almost like what I experienced in Mumbai during Diwali except with real sky high colorful fireworks. However after a few nights of these loud explosions the ooooos and ahhhhs kinda stop and you hope for a little bit of silence .
The whole town is ramping up full force for the local Christmas celebrations and is full of tourists and locals from other cities ! Me , i´m ready to dodge the crowd and seek out some peace , quiet, and nature and I hope thats what Tikal ( the mayan ruins) will provide .
¡Hasta Lluego !
ritu
