We managed to get to Guatemala in one piece and boy did I sleep. We had a nice time visting with family and Victor's mom seemed to have perked up for our visit. The visit was bitter-sweet as Victor's mom's health is not very good at all. She has terrible diabetes, high blood pressure, a tumor in her brain and now we have found out cancer on her liver. She did well while we were there..she can't see...but she seemed to get around the house okay and enjoyed having 4 grandkids around her.
We usually stay in a hotel and we try to take out cousins on separate outings that might appeal to them. The first outing was with Ana Victoria (15) and Monica (26 - expecting a baby this spring) to get pedicures. We took Victor-Manual (12) to the zoo and the most exciting part was watching the two major pro-soccer Guatemalan teams end a tournament with a kick-off. Yes, there were TV's on everywhere at the zoo! The girls participated in a fading tradition of going out at night, with a manger (posada) with a group of neighbors and stopping at homes for prayers and song with candles. We saw many "posadas" while in Guatemala before Christmas. So, it was nice the girls were able to do one. Christmas Eve was the usual cooking and cooking and throwing off fire crackers. At midnight, the city nearly blows itself up w/ the fireworks. Yes, worse than Montana! You can't actually see across the street due to the amount of smoke. I had my earplugs and the girls loved it. We then eat tamales, turkey and exchange gifts getting back the the hotel about 2am. We then had "santa" gifts hidden in the hotel room (in envelops so easy to carry) on Christmas day.
EARTHLODGE: We skipped out of Guatemala city for 3 days before Christmas. We went to Antigua where we were married, did some shopping, did the stop-by at the church we were married and took a long and curvy dirt road up, up and up into the mountains to the Earth Lodge. A eco-friendly organic avocado farm and lodge. A young American couple started it 6 years ago, so it is quite the crunchy, hippy, backpacker hang out. We had a cabin built into a tree, and the whole place was built into the terraced side of the mountain. You actually walk 300 meters down a steep trail to get to the lodge. The lodge over looks the volcanoes, Antigua and surrounding terraced fields of coffee, avocados, corn and flowers. They run an NGO, helping support the small village's school and sending older kids on scholarship to the schools in Antigua and they have about 20 Mayan employees for the farming and helping with the lodge. The food was vegetarian and wonderful. There were about 15 people staying there, either in cabins or camping from all over the world. The kids loved playing ping pong, chess and bumper pool on the terrace and in the lodge. Very relaxing. The kids enjoyed questioning the "young travelers" about their countries politics or "why do you have a queen?" , or "what is an anarchist and why are you one?" or listening to a white rapper....rap away with 5 words that Xela would provide. Very entertaining. We went on a 7 mile hike through the terraced mountains seeing the Mayans work and seeing their crops up close. We ended going with a canadian anarchist and a Swiss juggler. Hysterical to say the least. We got lost about 5 times, but always knew where we were because we never left the actual valley that we were hiking in. I was a bit slow and rundown from the Dengue and probably not the smartest thing to do since I ended getting sick again at the end of the trip.
Next entry is going to be about the big C. Still a felony to go, so I won't be using the name of the country. What an experience that was.
