Sunday, January 20, 2019

Guatemala - Chiquimula and Drive to Mariscos - July 25, 2018

We spent the night in Antigua for the second time. This time was just over night cause the next day we had a long drive. The house we stayed in was really nice, we wished we would have stayed longer.

Kailee braiding Gracie's hair

Getting everyone ready to go!


We had to park the van in a parking lot because it didn't fit in the parking of the house

For some reason I had to take pictures of Colegio Italiano each time we drove past it.

Ellie's turn to do her presentation.

We had the adults do a memory of when we lived/visited Guatemala. I told the story of killing cockroaches outside our house. Aghh I don't like to think about it.


Casey's turn. I should have written down what these memories were cause now I can't remember.

Driving to Chiquimula

It has grown a lot since we used to visit as children

Otto told us some memories of when he lived in Chiquimula. He told us how he was so poor and they couldn't even afford shoes. And how he used to help his mom when she told tortillas. 


This is the area where Otto's house was. I remember visiting it. It had rooms around a courtyard. A couple were bedrooms and a kitchen. It was very humble and basic but I have happy memories of visiting there. One thing that I very clearly remember from there was a dream when we spent the night. In my dream I was sleeping on a bed and I woke up and at the foot of the bed stood Jesus Christ (I thought it was Jesus Christ at least because it was very bright around him) and I don't remember if he said anything but I remember feeling His love for me and His desire for me to return to my Heavenly Home. 



We left Chiquimula and while we were on the road on the way to Rio Dulce, we saw a stand on the side of the road and they were selling mameys Ahhhh I love mameys and I have never seen them in the US so we had to stop and get some


Cedric doing his presentation

And Jarom

We made it to Mariscos. A little town where we would catch our boat to Denny's Beach. We even made it before it got dark.

We didn't know how to get a hold of the people that were picking us up and the place where we parked the van last time was fenced off and locked so we couldn't get in. The owner came out and told us we couldn't park there! Hmm

Here are the guys talking to the angry owner


Well after the whole mess of finding our ride and the angry owner we finally got on our boats to the island in the dark again!

Monday, January 14, 2019

Guatemala - Atitlan - July 24, 2018

Atitlan is always beautiful!

View in our hotel

Breakfast time


Getting ready to go out for the day. 



Today we got a boat to take us to various towns around the lake Atitlan.



We got on a tuk tuk to go to various sites a little quicker. It was funny cause we had like 8 tuk tuks for all of us.

They showed us how the inditas wrap this around their heads.

We didn't get many pictures of all of us but here's one.

A local cathedral



Poor Casey wasn't feeling well today :(


They also showed us how they dye their threads.


And how they put it together.
The sickies for the day. It seems like we had a few different people feeling sick each day. That was our setback this time.



Brianna's presentation

Cee Ryle's presentation

And Shayden's presentation

Sunday, January 6, 2019

Guatemala - Zaculeu and drive to Atitlan - July 23, 2018

Today was Jasmine's birthday so Zildy got a bunch of balloons and we came in and sang happy birthday to her!

I had to take a picture of these men because Cee Ryle bought a jacket like the one they are wearing.

Parque central in Huehuetenango in the morning! One of my favorite things to do while on vacation is to go walk around the town for a little bit and just see the place waking up. Huehetenango is not very touristy so it was nice to just see what goes on first thing in the morning.

Morning walk with Derick and Cat and Casey of course.


Breakfast included with our hotel stay




Happy 14th birthday Jasmine!

Just have to take pictures of the hotel rooms

Trying to get out of the parking garage is always an adventure! For this one we stopped traffic for like 15 minutes!



This is how the women do their laundry in Guatemala

So we are driving down the road and cows are just coming our way... OK

Jasmine doing her report on Huehuetenango

Not as big as Tikal but it was good to see anyway!






It's so nice to have our own videographer with us!

They were filming a documentary on Zaculeu and this reporter interviewed us on camera.




We found this cute restaurant in Xela on TripAdvisor and the food was delicious! 

Back in Quetzaltenango we ate at this restaurant and I had jocon! Yummy! Then Casey and I went on wild goose chase trying to find the mission home. The address we had was wrong. We looked everywhere and got lots of steps while everyone ate but no luck!



Just the random things we see on the road. El Chavo (a favorite childhood show)!

Gracie's report on Atitlan