the power of patience
I was in Guatemala about 2 weeks ago for a short girls’ trip with my friends Connie and Emily. What a cool trip it was….
I left San Ramon early on Sunday to get to Santa Rosa to get to Copan Ruinas to get catch a shuttle (read: mini van) to get to Antigua, Guatemala. We made great time only to get to the office to hear “Well, we have 2 spots available on the shuttle”. Two spots?! Really? You can’t cram in one more person? You never seem to have problems when I happen to catch one of the shuttles that has about 25 people pouring out the side doors… we decide to wait it out to make sure everyone shows up and as luck had it, someone didn’t show up and we made the shuttle! Hooray! After a LONG ride (sitting on the jump seat for 6 hours isn’t always the most comfortable thing), we get to Antigua right before dusk. Antigua is a beautiful colonial town with a volcano backdrop. We spent the next hour looking for a hostel, find this really cool spot called El Hostel and begin our search for some dinner. Antigua can be expensive for a budget traveler (read: Peace Corps Volunteer) and most of the restaurants we found were out of our price range. After 40 minutes or so, we find this woman selling food in a small park. Awesome, awesome street food….so good, that we come back the following two nights. The best thing we ate was this ‘bean filled donut’, which was refried sweet plantains formed into a ball and filled with mashed black beans sweetened with vanilla, cinnamon and sugar. It sounds odd, but it was fabulous!
After a day of shopping in the artisan market in Antigua (overwhelming but sooooo worth the sensory overload), we took another shuttle to Lago de Atitlán. I cannot begin to describe how beautiful it was. A crystal blue lake with mountains and 3 volcanoes in the backdrop. Too gorgeous. We took a boat out to some of the towns along the lake, shopped some more, ate some typical Guatemalan food (lovers of the black bean are always friends of mine), and enjoyed the scenery. I would have liked to have spent more time out there, but like I said, our trip was short and we took a shuttle back to Antigua that night and left early that morning for Honduras.
I left San Ramon early on Sunday to get to Santa Rosa to get to Copan Ruinas to get catch a shuttle (read: mini van) to get to Antigua, Guatemala. We made great time only to get to the office to hear “Well, we have 2 spots available on the shuttle”. Two spots?! Really? You can’t cram in one more person? You never seem to have problems when I happen to catch one of the shuttles that has about 25 people pouring out the side doors… we decide to wait it out to make sure everyone shows up and as luck had it, someone didn’t show up and we made the shuttle! Hooray! After a LONG ride (sitting on the jump seat for 6 hours isn’t always the most comfortable thing), we get to Antigua right before dusk. Antigua is a beautiful colonial town with a volcano backdrop. We spent the next hour looking for a hostel, find this really cool spot called El Hostel and begin our search for some dinner. Antigua can be expensive for a budget traveler (read: Peace Corps Volunteer) and most of the restaurants we found were out of our price range. After 40 minutes or so, we find this woman selling food in a small park. Awesome, awesome street food….so good, that we come back the following two nights. The best thing we ate was this ‘bean filled donut’, which was refried sweet plantains formed into a ball and filled with mashed black beans sweetened with vanilla, cinnamon and sugar. It sounds odd, but it was fabulous!
After a day of shopping in the artisan market in Antigua (overwhelming but sooooo worth the sensory overload), we took another shuttle to Lago de Atitlán. I cannot begin to describe how beautiful it was. A crystal blue lake with mountains and 3 volcanoes in the backdrop. Too gorgeous. We took a boat out to some of the towns along the lake, shopped some more, ate some typical Guatemalan food (lovers of the black bean are always friends of mine), and enjoyed the scenery. I would have liked to have spent more time out there, but like I said, our trip was short and we took a shuttle back to Antigua that night and left early that morning for Honduras.
posted by Kathryn @ 9:42 AM
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