Travels thru Latin America: Xela to Antigua again

Being a native Cancerian, I become very attached to people and places and so it was with Xela, I had enjoyed my time there at the school enormously and the family that I had been billeted with in the homestay very simpatico. Martha our surrogate mother took pains to talk to us frequently and correct our Spanish. It was a valuable part of the experience, but even the knowledge that I might be able to land myself a weekly gig playing at a local café and that I had finally found the best venue to dance salsa were not sufficient in themselvs to delay the onward journey.

So I commanded a magic carpet a.k.a. chicken bus, to take me to Antigua, and on a grim and rainy afternoon I said goodbye to Xela as we were whisked away. We just made it in time to Chimaltenango for the last connecting bus, and while we were waiting we were greeted by this sight of a bored little boy amusing himself squashing his nose and making funny faces in the adjacent us.

Once again I was back in the cosmopolitan melee of Antigua, and during supper at Rainbow Cafe was entertained by a passionate political conversation with 2 girls from New York. It cheers me up that there are so many engaged and thinking Americans, curious about the world and travelling; not just the ignorant bigots that Fox news would have us believe populate the USA.

I spent the night at Umma Gumma hostel, and the next day was invited to breakfast by a friendly group who had prepared far too much to consume themselves. Again very bright, alive young people. The one guy Sam in the middle of a medical degree, but taking time to learn foreign languages so that he could eventually work for Médécins sans Frontières, and had just got engaged to his Columbian girlfriend via Skype, a Canadian girl who had lost all her money and travel documents (but who was very cheerful and hospitable nevertheless) and an American girl who was finishing a proficiency exam in Spanish prior to setting up a language school for infants in Washington D.C.

But the real gift of Antigua this time, is that in the early morning I was finally able to see the mountains and volcanoes that surrounded the city; all had been obscured by the swirling cloud for weeks.