We are back! After many months mired in stagnation, frustration, impatience, and exasperation, we are FINALLY back to our regularly scheduled foreign service life. Or at least as normal as life post-cancer can be. Misha still has to fly back to Texas quarterly for check-ups, take monthly hormone-blocker shots, and daily doses of a separate treatment. However, we’ve settled into a routine, both working for the embassy’s consular section where we start bright and early at 7am. It’s funny that, for the second time in two tours, we work together. We were both in the economic section for a few months while in Tel Aviv, and now I’m taking the fingerprints for visa applicants that Misha interviews. Our days are long, mine repetitive and monotonous, Misha’s emotionally and physically draining due to the nature of visa denials, but half days on Fridays gives at least the semblance of a long weekend.
In addition to early release Fridays, we were able to take advantage of two long weekends in May and June to travel to the closest tourist destination outside of Guatemala City: the colonial town of Antigua. Antigua (not to be confused with the island) was the Spanish colonial capital until 1773, when an earthquake damaged many of the since-restored structures. Before traveling to the country, I asked a friend about the draw of the town, considering it is the most visited destination for American embassy employees in Guatemala. He said, “nothing really. You just hang out, eat and drink.” The town isn’t very big, has uneven cobblestone streets and large speed bumps that beat up smaller vehicles, and lacks landmarks that require anything more than a passing glance. Our friend assured us it was great, his favorite place in Guatemala, and only 45 minutes from the city!
Our immediate impression was…not great. Rather than the advertised 45-minute drive, it took nearly two hours to get there, the air quality was awful, the famous view of Volcán de Agua (Hunapu to the Mayan locals) obstructed by clouds, and to top things off, I locked ourselves out of the Airbnb mere minutes after our arrival. Not a hot start. However, we met some friends at Cervecería 14 for dinner and beers. Things immediately improved. The brewery is owned and operated by an American expat, whose influence is clear in the layout of the location. It features open air bars, food trucks, cornhole courts, and a grass amphitheater with an impressive stage. A local band named One Man Band (which is in fact a four-man band) rocked the house that night. The next day we had an amazing breakfast at a little place called El Local Bistro. We wandered around the town, saw the sights, and visited a few more breweries. Antigua Brewing Company had a great rooftop bar, but subpar beers. Antigua Cerveza, on the other hand, had solid beer to go along with an awesome beer garden. The El Bosque location was surrounded by trees, had bocce courts, a covered patio, fire pit, and live music as well.
Our second trip was only for one night, but we left before 8am, which seems to be the cut off to avoid traffic. This time the trip took slightly over an hour. We were told the air quality was uncommonly bad during our first trip, and this second trip gave us the opportunity to see Antigua in full daylight glory. The sky was bright blue with hardly any clouds, Volcán de Agua’s presence boldly asserting itself any time we turned down a south-facing street. We had breakfast again at El Local, and I got my seventh tattoo by a local artist we met on our first visit. We followed that up with a two-hour bean-to-bar chocolate workshop at ChocoMuseo, which was as informative as it was delicious. There were a bunch of local vendors of all kinds set up on the main square, enticing us to buy some sauces, street corn, and other gifts. We finished up the night back at Cervecería 14 for a few pints of Dale Pale Ale, my favorite Guatemalan craft beer not least because of the name (“dale” means “go ahead” in Spanish, not to be confused with the famous Oskar Blues brew “Dale’s Pale Ale”).
At the end of June, Misha had the unique opportunity to be an election observer during the Guatemalan presidential election. This is something the United Nations do to understand and report on corruption and intimidation. Misha did this over a decade ago in Ukraine when it was still under the Russian-backed Yanukovych administration. Observers aren’t allowed to interfere, just report on what they see. In the case of Ukraine, strongmen in expensive tracksuits standing with their arms crossed without voting was an obvious tell. Misha stayed in Guatemala City for this round of elections and didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, although plenty of shenanigans occurred in the country as a whole.
Otherwise, we’ve gotten lucky with weather this year, as the summer is typically very wet. Trips around the country are very difficult as the rain causes so much damage from floods, landslides, and sinkholes. We’ve been hesitant to travel for this reason, but aside from intermittent downpours in the afternoon, it hasn’t been nearly as intense as expected. We have two more trips to Antigua scheduled over the coming weeks before we head back to New England for our R&R. Aside from that, we’ll be trying to relax, visiting some new restaurants, and thanking our lucky stars that the hard stuff is behind us.
Beer and Diplomacy 
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