April 17th

President called and invited us to a "quick trip to Antiqua".  We never turn those down!  So off we went.   We visited Pastores, a small town a little north of Antiqua, where they had a lot of really good leather shops.  Eldon bought a nice leather belt.
Next we visited Jocotenango and stopped to take pictures of a cathedral.

Cathedral

Then we went to Antiqua, had lunch at the Pollo Campero and checked out the big central market next door.  It is the closest we have seen to La Concha in Bolivia where we use to go 2-3 times a week.  I bought a lovely fancy apron like the natives wear here in Guatemala, a lovely blanket just right for cool evenings and a small bag to take my possibles when we go shopping.  I still use the money purse that I bought in Cochabamba to carry cash as it is the most secure way. 

Lunch at Pollo Campero

Apron like the Guatemalans wear.  Some are much fancier.

Beautiful light blanket to snuggle in.

All in all a productive day.

Wednesday we walked to Price Smart to pick up a couple of things since we had not gone shopping Monday.  Since I had walked all that way and obviously burned off at least 200 calories, I treated myself with a 300 calorie frozen yogurt.  Not sure really how many calories either activity has but you get the idea.  It was a cooler day as we had a huge rain last night but still very warm.  The humidity in the air makes if feel "thick" to breath.

April 11th Week

We went to the Popal Vuh and the Ixchel Textile Museum here in town on Monday.  The Popal Vuh is the written book of the Mayan's history from the creation.  When the Spaniards came they destroyed all the books they could get their hands on, quite effectively destroying the Mayan history.  A very few survived and someone wrote down all they could remember later.  It is the history since the creation and is told in glyphs in some of the ruins.  There were a lot of pottery pieces and things of that nature but we were not allowed to take pictures inside the museum.  You can read part of what it says at this site. http://www.criscenzo.com/jaguarsun/popolvuh.html

Popal Vuh

Jaguar image

The Textile Museum was very cool and showed the different designs of the huipiles (blouses) that designate different areas.  They are all basically one size fits all and made in a square to put over your head.  Some areas tuck them into their belts and some just leave them out.

Huipile

The older huipiles are hand embroidered.  More modern are machine done.

Huipile and skirt

Skirt, shoulder wrap, man's loincloth on bottom right.

It was a great excursion.  The rest of the week was mostly normal except on Friday and Saturday we were inundated with participants at the Temple.  We ran out of clothes in the roperia (clothing rental) and the laundry was kept very busy trying to bring us more clean cloths.  It was a good week.  I like it when we are busy.

Easter Week plus

Easter week was interesting around here.  The Catholic girls school across the road did these little parades carrying these huge "floats" of Christ and of Mary around the block.  They spent a lot of time creating designs on the pathway out of sawdust and flowers.  Took a lot of time to make and a minute to destroy.  Kind of like fireworks without the ooo, aaah. They were waving incense burner things and playing music.  There were men on both ends of the floats to boost it ever once in awhile as the young ladies drooped on occasion.  Apparently people have to pay a small fortune to be allowed to carry the floats.

Sawdust road decor

Designs and colors were awesome

Girls lining up along the pathway

Note the floats swaying back and fourth

President had the audacity to go to Antigua for the Pascua (Easter) parades without us and saw a lot more impressive one than we did.  He promised next year we could go.

Antigua  

Antigua float

Antigua float

Antigua street decorations

 

Monday March 28th
Last Monday we went to the central market next to the main plaza.  It is mostly tourist stuff and dad bought a couple of "man bags" and I purchased a couple of Guatemalan blouses.  The blouses are gauzy material and cool.  They are also very bright colored.  We also found a molcajete (stone bowl with a pestle for grinding stuff like chocolate).  The Dibb's got a phone call from their grand-daughters mission president that they could visit her in San Lucas for lunch.  She was being transferred the next day.  So Normans, Dibbs and we Hursts headed to San Lucas and had lunch with her and her companion Sister Ziga.
After lunch they took us to one of their areas and dropped them off.  We headed for home and low and behold we got lost but with the GPS we finally got home.  She did take us on some out of the way roads.  We decided to go grocery shopping the next morning.

GPS Lola's idea of getting home

Conference was great Saturday and Sunday.  Between conference Sunday we had a dinner with all the missionaries but since that is our traditional time to do a Skype chat with all the kids at once, we ate quickly and excused ourselves.  We didn't want to give the kids a chance to talk about us too much.

The flowers are gorgeous here though not much if any smell to them.  We see cascades of what seem like Lilacs from a distance but they are not.  And no smell.  So disappointing.

These are not Lilacs.

Close up of "Lilacs"

We also have telephone booths all over.  Not big enough for Superman to change in for sure.