Guatemala

                                We took a lot of pictures.

For years we have been hearing about the wonders of Guatemala from our friends the Stouts who were there in the Peace Corps a hundred years ago, and from Tyler and Meghan who spent a month there last summer studying Spanish.  Our good friends Mike and Patty Reeder had planned a week long vacation in Costa Rica so we decided that since we would be joining them in Central America we would stop off first for a week in Guatemala. Our first stop was Flores, a little island town that could have been Mediterranean from where we headed off to Tikal. Tyler had assured us it was spectacular and Wow! Was it ever! These are the best Mayan ruins in the world and we were truly impressed by their grandeur.

 

Mike and Patty

After Tikal we headed off to Antigua, a very charming city full of markets, restaurants and the local Guatemalans who live in the highlands, all seem to be around four feet tall and must dress in the most colorful garments in the world.

We had read about the colorful local market of Chichicastenango, so we hopped in a van and headed up into the highlands.  The market was a spectacular rainbow of Guatemalan weaving and handicrafts.  As we approached the crowded streets I reminded our group of how this looked like pick-pocket territory and we plunged right in.  Sheryl had buttoned her wallet into a front pocket. Mike zipped his into a front pocket.  Patty had her purse clutched to her chest and I stuck my hand into my pocket and held my wallet tightly.  The market was fabulous and we snapped photos, shopped and bulldozed our way through the tightly packed mass of humanity.  After about 45 minutes Sheryl shrieked, "My wallet's gone!"  Mike shouted, "mine too," and we were all just devastated by the thefts.  What could we do?  Quickly we realized, not a damned thing, we had been had.  It soon sunk in that we had better quickly cancel our cards and such which was difficult but with help from our friends the Pines, back in Oregon, we managed to get everything cancelled.  Thankfully they did not get our passports and no attempts were made with or cards so the real loss was the dollars in cash and the chaos it created in managing the money that Patty and I still had...so they stole our money, but not our trip.

  Patty quickly mastered all the Guatemalan musical instruments

         Lets see? Can you pick out which one is the tourist?