astrid

A perfect weekend on the beach....!!!

So yeah – I’m still alive….and sorry there haven’t been any news on here for a while, but for the last week I was just a bit caught up with my daily life here in Antigua – teaching German, going out, dancing, etc. … still went to do and see some new things, i.e. some galleries and museums and some of the nice hotels with swimming pools here…. Aaahhhh…great…. But nothing really special and extra-ordinary happened, and that’s why I haven’t written very much – well, not really anything – here on my blog…. Lo siento…

But the weekend was just amazing once again and now I have lots new and interesting things to write about…. Sonja and I went to SIN VENTURA on FRI night – almost as usual by now … had a really good time there and we met 2 nicec American guys who offered us a ridee to the beach the next day….. but we had already maded plans to drive down there with 2 other friends – Francisco and Hugo – so we dedcidedd to stick with our original plan cause they were also gonna drive back to Antigua on Sunday,and just told our American friends in which hotel they could find us in Monterrico….

So we left from Antigua about 10.30am on SAT morning and poor Sonja wasn’t feeling well at all cause she had actually been to the hospitel on FRI night / SAT morning at 4am and had got an injection against her ear infection and was on Antibiotics now…. But she still wanted to go to the beach for the weekend and was just sleeping on the back seat for most of the ride…. Poor girl…… it was a super-beautiful drive frfom Antigua to the Pacfific Coast – about 2 hours through amazing Guatemalan country-side – felt like we were in a different world….

The coolest thing was the little canal that we had to cross with our car to get from Puerto San Juse to Monterrico….. about 40m wide eand since there are no bridges to cross the water, all cards and other vehicles are just being loaded on little lanchas (Floesse) and then get shipped over to the other side….. it’s the coolest things ever..!!! I had never seen anything like that before…. There are about 6 ot 7 lanchas crossing the canal back and forth all day long – some of them are only big enough for 1 or 2 cars, others can carry up to 8….

From the other side of the canal to the beach it’s about another 30 – 40 minutes…. We stopped along the war to take pics of some of the many sponge plantations and the pashtes – raw sponges – that are drying alongsided the road…. Then we met this really sweet local lady who invited is to visit her house and her fish-farm, and even Huge and Francisco pointed out that the local people in this area are a lot nicer that anywhere else in Guatemala…..

Our hotel was a very basic but nice enough place right by the beach…. Victor had booked a room for Sonja and me and he was staying there with his family and some other friends as well this weekend….
We spent the afternoon by the beach – black volcano sand and amazing waves – and by the pool of our hotel….. just poor Sonja couldn’t enjoy the water because of her ears… aaahhh – we gotta go back some time when she’s fully fit again…. It´s so nice there and actually reminded me a bit of Vieques, but even smaller and more laid-back beach community…. SAT night we went to this beach bar – EL ANIMAL – just a few metres from our hotel and our American friends had actually found us as well and came with us….very cool place, not very huuge but enough space for a dance floor, the music was nice enough and they even played some Salsa and Cha-cha as well….. good thing that Miguel – one of the Salsa teachers from Antigua – was with us, so the dancing was actually really fuun…. And that bar – EL ANIMAL – stayed open much longer than any other places I´ve been to in Guatemala so far….. it was about 2.30am by the time we left frfom there to go to an After-Party at another hotel a few hundred metres further down the beach…. Was fun there too and much more comfortable hanging out in the pool there than sleeping on our hard hotel beds….. oh yeah – the weather in Monterrico is actually super-hot and huumid, not as mild and sometimes cold at night as in Antigua, so it was no problem to go swimming at 4am…..

When I got back to our hotel on SUN morning, Sonja still wasn´t feeling too good and after I tried for an hours to get some sleep on my hard bed – just stone and a thin mattress - but was very unsuccessful with that, , I went to buy some water and bread and bananas for her…. Funny how many people were up at 7.30am on a SUNmorning already and drinking beer in the streets….. different life there….

When I got back I met Victor´s uncle and sisters in the restaurant across the street from our hotel and they invited me to eat with them….was a great SUN brunch with steak, platanos, pancakes and fruits…..nice….

Sonja was feeling a little bit better later on too and came to the pool with us to get some sunshine and a bit of a tan at least…. Then we went to visit a little turtle and Iguana farm and spent the rest of the day with Victor, Miguel and Katalina en la playa and by the pool before we left from Monterrico about 5.00pm to head back to Antigua….

The same amazing scenery on the way back again, until it started to rain super-hard when we were about 1 hour from Antigua…. But with super-nice music and lotsa great memories of a fantastic weekend it didn´t really matter so much…. We got back about 7.30pm, and I just had some food and a shower and then went to bed at 10pm – super-tired after a night without sleep before….. what a perfect weekend…!!!

So now I´m back in Antigua to teach Eunice – my German student from Belize - for another week…. We have another Goodbye-Party for Hermance, JP and Katalina tonight (they´re all leaving tomorrow)…. Then I gotta figure out what to do with the other job that I got offered here in CAFÉ FLOR, where and how to celebrate my birthday and also when to leave for Mexico next week…. So if you don´t hear / read from me for another few days – please don´t worry – it´s all good here and I´ll write more news again as soon as they happen…. Promise…. xxxx

posted by Astrid @ 6:17 PM