Guatemala!

We just arrived back from a big adventure in Antigua, Guatemala.  My intent was to improve Charlie's spanish while enjoying a bit of travel myself.  We rented a house which came with a cook, house cleaners and a little pool so I was happy.  This was the first time we had been back in 5 years but the town is very much the same sleepy town with beautiful architecture and amazing gardens.  The chicken buses still spout terrible smoke which is annoying and both my mom and Charlie got a Guate stomach bug.  Overall we had a great time.  The town is surrounded by 3 volcanoes and we had a beautiful view of the Agua Volcano from the house. Volcano Fuego is active and we could see it puffing most days.  Here was our house and view of the volcano.

volcano agua from the patio

the fish man would come to our doorstep!

One of the kids' favorite thing about Antigua was getting around in tuk-tuk.  It's probably very dangerous but these ubiquitous scooter mobiles were the best way to get around.  Charlie and Diego screamed and waved every time one passed.

Charlie enrolled in a Guate preschool and then took a spanish class in the afternoon.  After the morning school we'd go get fresh squeezed orange juice and then make it home for a big lunch.  It was a very simple preschool but the kids loved him and he made a best friend named Dennis -- who he says he is going to stay in touch with by email!  The preschool - and Charlie too - marched  in the parade for Antigua Day.  Guatemalans (all of latin america?) take their parades seriously so these 3-7 year olds practiced their parade dance every day at school and came dressed in suits and gowns and stood in the heat for an hour waiting for the parade to start! (Charlie of course cried about the heat and the wait....). They marched for a block and then got on horse drawn carriages.  Here is Charlie in the parade.

 

Charlie celebrated his 4th birthday there with the craziest, largest pinata I've ever seen.  We only got the medium size - not the large size - and it was bigger than him!  We had to buy a 6 pound bag of candy to go with it.  Here are some pictures/videos from the birthday...

  

with his classmates before the smashing began!

After smashing the pinata in the kids sang to him and lined up to give him a hug!

Diego became somewhat famous in Antigua.  As you can imagine there are not many blond hair, blue eyed babies running around Guatemala so he stuck out in a serious way.  We couldn't walk a block without some one wanting to touch, hold or talk to him - it was almost as if they thought touching him would bring good luck.  He was especially famous among the indigenous mayan women who would often pop out of nowhere to pick him up.  Carlos instilled a fear of kidnapping in me so I panicked the first few times this happened. 

Our travel there and back was a bit of an adventure.  We stopped off in Fort Lauderdale for a great 24 hours of pool fun only to be followed by 24 hours of hell caused by Spirit Airlines.  I will NEVER fly on Spirit again - it's a scam airline that preys on low income people.  After 24 hours of hell we cancelled our ticket, bought an American Airlines ticket and took a cab to the Miami airport.  Coming back was also an adventure as our 'trusted' taxi driver stole our last 100 quetzales along with my mom's credit card. It left us with a bad last experience and made me realize that although I'd love to spend every summer there I don't want to be there without Carlos.  Here are some more pictures from around town: