I should really stop rubbing my knuckles and start, but it is very hard to be eloquent with this mish mash in my head. So the very boring 45 hours of waiting came to an abrupt end when we walked out the gates of Guatemala City airport. Straight into a corridor of twenty meters of barricades, with hundreds of guatemalans crammed against them, waiting for their families. I have never felt so tender and pale as every eye watched us stride, I mean scuttle through. Some man took us to his taxi, and we found a common bond in our $US10 bill that transcended language. He took us too a place with a bus, but I doubt it was the same place the lady at the airport calmly told us about. We pulled up and all these men started grabbing at the taxi, opening the doors, shouting I think place names. I really wanted to go back to the lady at the airport for a cuddle, but buck up Jill, we were bundled on a bus to Panajachel (on Lake Atitlan, opposite San Pedro).
The bus, so beautiful, like an old US school bus scrubbed up and painted in colours and patterns and given nice names like Wendy, Hannah or Melissa, then resprayed with mud. We sat there in a kind of delerious state of overtiredness and adrenaline as everyone pretty much ignored us. The driver looked like an old chinese master, the old clunky beast was a dancer under his hands. A boy works the bus with him, collecting money, climbing onto the roof for ongoing repairs, hanging out the door waving back trucks to let us back in the lane if taffic comes.
Through the city, the cloud forest, thousands of people for three hours when we came to the view of the lake. Perhaps the most majestic view I have ever seen, I saw only for a second before I fell into a deep sleep for the exact time of the decent.
Now to San Pedro, the baby, little Lily is of course beautiful. She hardly cries, and when she does she is very lucky to get lots of attention from Amanda and Flo. She will be a happy little girl, because not only does she have the happy Amanda for a mum, but Flo seems also to have this uber happiness. I will get my act together soon and get the photos on here.
Tim and I have started learning spanish at a school here, but we basically keep thanking, greeting and por favoring everyone who speaks to us. I can now get a great Hola.
So Adios,
Jillian
