Guatemala..The Adventure Begins

I do not have enough time to write about the whole trip right now, but I will at least start. We had to be at the university at 5:15 a.m. on Friday. We waited a while for the bus that was late. Once we loaded all the luggage on top and had people inside, the driver realized that there was too much weight, which meant we had to find another, larger bus. We waited two and a half hours for a larger bus. This bus was a mix of a coach bus and a school bus. There was way more space, but no AC and no t.v., like the other. We got going a little late. On our way we stopped at a Banana farm for a tour. In Honduras there are two large, American owned, banana companies. This farm was of Chiquita Bananas. After we got back on the bus and traveled to Copan, which is on the frontier of Honduras and Guatemala. This hotel was not one of my favorite, because of all the geckos, but it was fine. We at Jim’s Pizza, which is a pizzeria in town, owned by an American, Jim. We got up very early the next morning to have breakfast at a small restaurant. Afterwards we came back to the hotel to wait for our bus. Some girls realized that during breakfast some of their things had been stolen; 2 IPods, 3 cell phones, and a total of 250 dollars. After waiting some time in the hotel we were told that the bus was not working, and we had the afternoon in Copan. We went out to lunch and shopped at some of the small stores there. We returned later to the hotel to find out that we would be spending an extra night, because we had to find a new bus. The group went out to dinner and then to another place to watch a Honduras soccer game. Sunday we got up and got going on a new bus. Most of the day was spent on the bus. We arrived in Panajachel in the evening. We had some time to check out the principle road where all the stores and restaurants were. We got up Monday morning and walked to the lake front. The city is on a lake with many other towns. While walking to the boat, there were these men bothering us to buy these stupid pens. Sara and I were quickly walking down a flight of stairs to get away, and Sara fell, hurting her ankle badly. We got on the boat and went to the first town. Sara had to stay on the boat, because she could not walk. In the first town we went to a fabric company. They make fabric using old-fashioned wood weaving machines. To them it is not really old-fashioned, but to us it is. The fabric was beautiful. We then got back on the boat and went to another town on the lake. We ate at this really nice restaurant. I had a delicious steak. The beauty of the trip was that Calvin paid for ALL food, housing, transportation, and any trip related activities. After lunch we visited the Catholic Church there, and another religious site. We then had time to shop at the markets there. This was our first real chance to practice our bargaining skills. It was hard because we did not know what prices were good or bad for some of the products there, because prices are so different here. There were these two little kids who followed us the whole time wanting us to buy bracelets. It was annoying and sad at the same time. I ended up buy some from them in the end. We went back to the main town, and had the evening to ourselves. We ate dinner at a restaurant on the main road. The whole dinner time people would come up and ask if we wanted to buy their product. Some of us are softer than others, Katie being one of the softer ones. She had a hard time saying no. We shopped a little in the evening. Tuesday morning we traveled to Antigua. We had time for lunch and then met for a 3 hour walking tour of the city. I ended up staying back with Sara, because there was no way she could have walked for that long. Afterwards we went out to some markets. We had a group dinner at a fun restaurant. There was music all night, which made for a fun atmosphere. Later that night some people went to a bar-restaurant. There were some girls who wanted to leave earlier than others, so they left alone. On their way back, some guy tried to rob them, but they screamed and ran. The fronts of hotels are all locked at night, so they were banging on the front door loudly. That is when I came out to see what had happened. They were all alright luckily.