Guatemala 2017: Guatemala city

We hadn't planned on staying in the city. The plan was to be in San Raymundo until my sister gets here on Sunday and then spend a few days in Antigua with her. Plans change. For one we were all longing for a hot shower! The air is a chilly in the mornings and evenings in the town we are in and it makes showering in cold water just painful (spoiled American, I know but I have a lot of hair!). Second, there are a lot of things I wanted to see or wanted my kids to see in the city so I just decided, why not? And we came. The normally short ride took several hours because of road repairs but the kids were champs! We dropped off our bags at the hotel and headed to the zoo.

Minutes after arriving the sky opened up and it didn't ever stop pouring. We decided to go ahead and walk around the zoo. No jackets, no umbrella, cold, hard rain. However, the kids loved it! The animals are all really easy to see and they had a ton of them! We didn't get to see everything because the hard rain got to be too much but we still enjoyed ourselves.
At one point a Guatemalan woman saw the girls and said (in Spanish) 'the poor babies are cold' and she proceeded to rub their arms and hug them until they answered the question 'tienes frio?' with a 'no'. It was so sweet and I don't think anything like that has ever happened to us anywhere else.
When we left we were literally soaked down to our socks and underwear (side note 72 hours later, clothes still wet). Our hotel is less than a mile away, we had planned to walk but took a taxi instead. A hot shower has never felt so good. I peeled off the kids clothes, and after their showers they were so happy to get under the blankets and watch cartoons in Spanish. They stayed that way until dinner and bedtime. This is the first minute of technology they have had since leaving the U.S., we opted not to bring the DS and kindle to play games on. I was totally fine with it today though after they had had such great attitudes the entire, long day.

Saturday we woke up to a Guatemalan breakfast and headed out to 2 museums. #1 the archeological museum then #2 the children's museum. Our shoes were still wet from the zoo rain and our spare shoes were still wet from the day before that, so we went with wet shoes.

The archaeological museum was amazing! I loved seeing more of the history of the country. It was beautiful and full of ruins, maps, replicas, and history.

The children's museum was next and I had no idea what to expect. I hadn't read reviews or any information because this was a last minute trip so I told the kids not to expect it to be similar to our children's museum. It also surpassed my expectations! The exhibits were all great but my favorite part is how they run it. Each exhibit has a friendly worker who shows you what that exhibit is all about and only lets one kid to the exhibit at a time. It's great because sometimes I want to sit down and explain something to the kids but instead I have to focus on not losing one of them, they do all the explaining and most of them in English. They even played with the kids at each area. This keeps chaos at a minimum and everything stays very clean & organized. We all loved it!

Shoes were still wet and feet starting to blister after 2 museums, lunch, and ice cream so we headed to a mall type place to look for dry shoes. First store I entered had Toms for $7 and Vans for $9! I would have been a much happier shopper if I had space to take stuff back in my bags but I'm not even sure the $6 pair of Levis tennis shoes will make the cut back to the U.S.

Kids were worn out so we relaxed in the hotel again that night while I logged all my receipts for my grant online. My grant only covers some of my expenses, but none of the kids expenses so I have to keep meticulous notes on spending and receipts and every time I have WiFi at night I organize and log my expenses.

The last day in the city (for a few weeks) we went to a random place I saw online called Mapa en Relieve. I didn't know what to expect but it was so much better than anything I could have hoped for! It is a 1:10,000 scale 3D map of Guatemala. I absolutely love maps! Have hundreds of them decorating my class and home. This map was enormous!!! It showed the mountains I have been on, where I am going in Guatemala, and had flags for all the towns of my students! It was eye-opening to see how tall the mountains are and makes so much sense why it takes hours to get somewhere that is so close on my regular map. I only suggest going there if you are a huge fan of maps and have been around Guatemala or plan to.

We ended Guatemala City with picking up my sister at the airport. Now onto Antigua.

Sleepy babies in Guatemalan traffic