Tag: antigua

Last Days in Guatemala

Guatemala is now several months in the rearview mirror, which has given me plenty of time to reflect and reminisce.  Our tour ended up being shortened by over seven months of cancer treatment to start and an early departure of ten weeks to accommodate Vietnamese language training and home leave.  By the end, we spent only 14 of the 24 months we were originally assigned to the country physically in Guatemala.  That left us with plenty of missed tourism opportunities, but we feel like we saw enough of the country to say that we got a full Guatemalan experience. 

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Holy Week and Religious Processions

Guatemala has built up some renown for their celebrations leading up to Easter, so much so that UNESCO designated Guatemala’s Holy Week an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2021.  For five straight weeks leading into Holy Sunday, you can find processions around the country.  The most famous is during Semana Santa, when residents of Antigua build carpets made of dyed sawdust, flowers, scraps of paper, and other materials, called alfombras in Spanish. 

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Autumn in the Land of Eternal Spring

After roughly six months of silence, I’m finally back with an update.  Between work, two nights dedicated to Spanish lessons, three nights booked for basketball, boxing, and tennis, and being the only one with the will or ability to cook real dinners in the house (sorry Misha), I’ve been finding it difficult to allocate time to write.  Luckily, the December slowdown and a few well-placed days off has allowed me some time to not only get a few posts written, but to actually do a few things worth writing about.

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Normality Returns

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.”

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Next Stop: Guatemala City

I doubt many people out there read these posts without also following one of our social media accounts, but if you are one of those people, sorry for keeping you in suspense. We found out only two weeks after submitting our bid list that our second destination with the State Department will be Guatemala City, which just so happened to be our top choice.

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