Antigua, Guatemala

Yesterday the ship docked in Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala. When we woke up, it was raining pretty hard. We later found out, it has been raining here for days. We booked a shore excursion through NCL. It was “Antigua on your own”. Basically this is just a transportation package into the city. The cruise ship arranges a bus to take us to Antigua and then we have our own time to see the city before they bring us back. Since it is about a 90 minute drive into Antigua, it wasn’t cost effective for us to arrange private transportation.

Because of all the rain, the buses had a hard time getting to the port due to flooding. We were about 45 minutes late leaving for Antigua. It was still raining in Puerto Quetzal. While standing in line to get on the bus, we met a young couple from Atlanta. We talked with them throughout the trip. It was great to finally meet people around our age. They have a 3 year old daughter and they gave us some traveling tips with children. Their daughter is not on this trip with them though.

It was an hour and half drive from Puerto Quetzal to Antigua. Guatemala is an underdeveloped country. It was eye opening to see many of the people’s homes. Unfortunately many people in Guatemala are poor and they don’t have a lot for housing. With all the recent rain, there was mud everywhere around their homes. It was sad to see.

While on the drive to Antigua, we read articles that we printed out from WikiTravel. It basically told us we could not eat anything in Guatemala because of poor sanitation system. With being pregnant, we are being extra cautious so we only ate our snacks that we brought from home (granola bars and crackers).

Once we arrived to Antigua, we were dropped off at the Jade factory. The tour group basically wanted to sell us Jade. We did not stick around for the “free” presentation. There was no way we were buying any Jade so there was no point wasting any time there. We had 2 and 1/2 hours on our own to explore the city. Despite all the rain at the port, the weather in Antigua was perfect. It was partly sunny with no rain! I was so grateful. They said it had rained there for 5 straight days prior. The city had cobblestone streets that were neat to walk around.

We first went to the famous arch in Antigua. After getting a picture for our travel wall collage, we walked to La Merced Church. We paid to go into the church. Brian spoke Spanish to the women at the entrance of the church. They took US dollars. We walked around this old church for a while. It was neat because they had a giant rosary hanging at the front of it.

Next we went to the local market. The market reminded me of the markets in Asia. The people were not pushy to buy things at the market because it was local. They had everything at this market. There were clothes, toys, diapers, fruits, meats, etc. Some of the smells I did not like. The pregnancy has me more sensitive to smells. At times I could have vomited but I did not. I felt very out of place since it was obvious we were tourists. However no one bothered us in anyway.

After the market, we went to central park. We walked around there too. There were many street venders trying to sell us things. We went into a few shops on the streets to look around. Brian also spoke Spanish to the people in the stores. I was impressed how well he spoke with them. He says they were being nice to him but at least they were able to communicate. Since they didn’t speak English, it really forced him to see what Spanish he could remember.

Unfortunately our time in Antigua was short and soon we had to head back to the Jade factory where the bus was waiting. Then it was another long drive back to the port. During the drive, we read some of our bringing home baby book. We learned all about breastfeeding. Also on the drive back, we saw many flooded streets. About half way back to Puerto Quetzal, it started raining again. I guess it never stopped raining at the port. We were lucky that it was not raining in Antigua.

After we got back on the ship, we quickly got ready for dinner. I was hungry since I did not really have lunch. We had an early dinner then went to a hypnosis show. Once we came back to our stateroom, I was exhausted and went to bed.

Today we are at sea. We are relaxing and watching some movies. We are going to meet our new friends for dinner tonight. It will be nice to eat with someone other than ourselves. Last several nights, we have eaten dinner alone. We are running out of things to talk about. Tomorrow we will be in Costa Rica.