We were greeted by Karla and her mum as we arrived in Guatemala. The first thing we both noticed is that Guatemala City doesn’t have much of a skyline as there are very few buildings that rise above a couple of stories. We checked into a quaint little hotel (Los Proceres) in Zona Viva the central hub of GC if you would, where most tourists visit and there is a good nightlife. We were treated to a family dinner with Karla, her four brothers and two of their girlfriends on the first night. We can’t be sure if this applies to all Guatemalticos or Chapines (as are their nicknames) but this family is extremely friendly, polite, probably too generous and accommodating. We tried their “world” famous beer Gallo (said Guy-yo) and a few local dishes that were delightful.
The following morning one of Karla’s brothers Juan Pablo (hereon referred to as JP) and his girlfriend Michelle picked us up to go to Karla’s graduation. A beautiful ceremony conducted mainly in Spanish so we couldn’t understand most of it, but we cheered when Karla was presented with the Sports award and her graduation certificate (Nat was so proud!). The festivities that night were quite amazing, check out the video and pics!!
We arrived in Antigua after Karla’s graduation and her family had arranged for their cousin who lived in Antigua to help us with accommodation. We were lucky to find a nice place owned by a Korean born Guatemalan called Pablo. He is a member of couch surfing and usually lets his place out free to travellers passing through Antigua. This meant we had our own private room a shared kitchen and we were the only ones there for the first few days.
We signed up for Spanish school and spent our first day walking around the city and checking out the hostels to see if any work was available as we were contemplating staying for a while. At the jungle party hostel the owner’s friend even offered Nat a job as a model (for 500 Getzales – 1 Aus $ gets around 6 Getzales so it was close to $100 for 3 days work), she turned it down as it would mean getting her hair cut and coloured blonde and she was not willing to go through the time it took to get the blonde out of her hair again.
The first couple of days of school were pretty uneventful as we got up early each morning for our 8 – 12 sessions and returned to cook lunch and type up our notes. We joined the other 80% of visitors to Central America on the Friday as we both came down with traveller’s diarrhoea. Junior didn’t have quite as bad a time with it as Nat but we wagged a day of school and went away to Karla’s beach house in San Jose for the weekend, which helped as it was a clean environment with good food and was also nice and relaxing. San Jose is on the west coast of Guatemala and is home to the Pacific Ocean and wonderful black beaches (check out photos).
