Family Visit

My parents and grandparents (mom's folks) just came for a 10 day visit. This visit had the most people I've hosted and the longest amount of time. Several months back I booked hotels, one in Copan, and one in Antigua, Guatemala. Copan is known for it's Semana Santa, but Antigua is famous. I had seen pictures and heard stories, so I was pretty excited to get to go.

Copan is really hot at this time of year, so I put my folks up in TerraMaya. It has AC and is right next door to my house. Antigua is further north and in much higher mountains. The town is also full of people during Semana Santa, so I thought it might be nice to get out of town. With a lot of luck, a bit of word of mouth, and a smidge of research, I found the Earthlodge. It is a 20-30 minute truck ride out of town with a beautiful few of Antigua. It was cool and quiet, which was a very relaxing way to start the day and a fantastic way to end the day after being in the crowds in town.  Plus, we got to stay in tree houses.

The family arrived Thursday afternoon. I got a call as I was giving my last recuperation exam of the week (science) saying they had arrived in Honduras and were on their way to Copan. When I finished work, I went into town, took care of some business at the bank, and paid for my internet. As I walked back toward home, I came across two of my students. They decided to walk with me to the house. When we got to the house, two more students were sitting on my porch. Fernando, Elvira, Destiny, and Yoela "helped" me clean. I was getting short on time, so in the end I gave them the elephant book and put them on the porch (At some point or another Sofia, another student, came as well). As we got close to the time of arrival, I asked the kids to sit downstairs and keep an eye out. When my family did arrive, I had the kids line up, so as not to bombard my tired-from-traveling family. They greeted them, helped us carry the bags into the hotel, and left. My folks thought it was adorable.

The next day was Dia del Folklore at the school. We had spent the last several weeks making champas for each grade. The students had put together signs with information for their indigenous group, as well as preparing presentations and one girl and boy from each class has been selected for the indio bonito competition. For me, it was the perfect day to have them at school. I did not need to have lesson plans or keep control of a classroom while their was company. My parents and grandparents still got to see the school and watch me interact with my students. Plus, it's a very informative day on the different parts of Honduras. It was only a half day at school, so after we walked up to the bird park and walked around.

The next day we spent 7 hours on a bus going to Antigua. The original plan was to take a Hedman bus, but the only bus from Copan leaves too late for us to still be able to get a ride up to the hostel. So, we took a shuttle, which left at 6. We got to town, got to our pickup spot and waited for the truck to take us up. On the bus, I met a very friendly tour guide named Martin. I may be hopping on with one of his groups to Tikal later in the year, if I can find the time to go.

We got to Earthlodge, settled in, and just camped out for the afternoon. The mountains were beautiful, the walk up was steep, and dinner was only a few hours away. The cool air was much better for my family, but as the sun got lower, I got cold. We moved in and invaded the large couch with a pleasant young man sitting on it. Jorge (the pleasant young man) and, later, his friend Juanjo (who was also pleasant, I just talked to him less) and my family talked the evening away. Turns out that they were locals just enjoying an evening off outside town (I found that a good sign for my choice in hostels, that the locals would use it for a place to hang out).

The hostel dinner set up is family style, and Jorge, among other guests, sat at a table with us. We enjoyed good food, good drink, and good conversation. I did a lot less of the talking than I normally would have because my folks were enjoying sharing stories of my youth. Mostly centered around my eating habits back when I was a runner. Shortly after dinner, my folks headed to their rooms because we were starting the next day fairly early. Not long after they went in, I followed. (I think this is the only evening that I stayed out longer than they did. Most nights, I was the first one to bed.)

In the morning we ate breakfast, I exchanged e-mails with Jorge, and we went into town for mass. We went to the big cathedral on the central park. The palms people had were like ornate bouquets. They were beautiful. After mass, we walked around a while, enjoying the sighs. We were always careful to watch our bags, especially in a crowds. A tour guide honed in on us, and for a while I tried to put him off, but my folks liked the idea, so we hired him. He took us to a place for lunch and met up with us again after we finished. I was not thrilled at first, but by the end of the tour he had won me other too. We got to see many of the carpets, many of the buildings. We saw many of the churches and ruins with good explanations. We went to a jade museum too. At the end of the tour, he amended it, at our request, so we could see the Palm Sunday procession. It was beautiful.

After a day of running around, being in the crowds, and making sure we stayed together, we enjoyed our quiet evening at the lodge. I went online (for the first time in 2 days!) and caught up on my e-mail. Jorge happened to be on and invited the whole family over to his house, his outside of central Antigua, for a late lunch the next day. I ran it past the family and we made a plan to meet in the park.

We took a nice slow morning. Mom, Dad, and I went on a little hike, and we didn't go into town until noon-ish. We ran into Tiffany and her Dad shortly after we got into town. I ran across the street to talk to her, leaned in for a hug, and my phone fell out of my bag. At first I thought a seam had split, but upon further inspection realized that my bag had been slashed. Luckily, nothing was missing. Within a few minutes, we also realized that mom's backpack had been slashed, and that nothing was missing. The amazing thing is that we had not been in any crowds and we both keep our bags in front of us. Before the day was over, I had found where my skirt, right next to where my bag had been, had been damaged, but not broken all the way through, by the knife. Dad kept insisting that it would have been for the best had he nicked me, because then we would have known when it happened. Thanks Dad.

We met up with Jorge, who was much taller than I remembered (though we had been sitting the whole time we talked in the Earthlodge). He drove us out of town, and to his house. We got a tour of the house. It was beautiful. We enjoyed a lovely view of the volcano and then ate lunch. Dad and I drank coffee and it was absolutely delicious.

The next day was our last day in Antigua. We went by the only church we had missed on our tour. This worked out nicely since we had missed seeing it due to the procession, and seeing it later meant we got to see the floats from the procession at rest in the church. We got a pick-me-up coffee at El Portal, which I know I went to a few times the last time I was in Antigua and used the rest of the day as a shopping day. We met up with Jorge one last time, went to lunch in a lovely restaurant, complete with a bookstore. It was fantastic.

When it was time to go, we gave ourselves ample time to haul our bags up the steep hill, slowly. We got up to the top and waited. As it got close to when our driver was supposed to arrive, Dad and I walked out to the fork in the road that I figured would throw him off. The hostel is only well known in certain circles and the aldea nearest is very small. It was getting to the point where I was going to have to buy phone credit to call the man I bought our tickets from when a mini bus came up the mountain. I walked up to the driver, who looked concerned, said, "Copan?" and a wide grin spread across his face as he confirmed that he was our ride.

We got back to Copan, which had a lovely thunderstorm that night. It was loud, wet, and earth-shaking. But the best part was, it cooled things down for us. My folks went to the ruins the next day, without me. I took the day to do laundry and other house-hold chores. We enjoyed lunch together and took the afternoon slow around town.

We tended to stick to mornings because of the heat. The next day we got to walk the nature trail by the ruins. We bought a few knickknacks and came back to town. On the third day, we walked up to La Pintata. I got to show them the corn-husk doll part of the women's co-op and the fabric part. On the way back to town, we got lunch and smoothies. We brought a smoothie to Dad, who had not been feeling well.

On the last full day, went down to go to mass. However, the procession, shockingly, came in a little late. We waited at Cafe Welchez with Vadal and Sarah Harrington. When it was time to go in, we did. All of the benches had been removed to make way for all the people. Most of mass was lovely. The announcements alone too 15 minutes. That priest is the chattiest priest I've ever known. Mom and Dad finished up their tourist shopping. The hammock man let us borrow his tape measure to see if the hammock chair would fit in any of the suitcases. Sadly, it did not. As it was the end of Lent, and Dad could now eat meat and drink beer, we ate dinner at the German bar. We had great German food and beer and Tomas gave us the tour of his brewery. I think it was the perfect way to end their trip.

This morning they all took off at 9. I have not heard from them, so I assume all went well.