For the past two years Diane and I have motorcycled up to Sumpongo to see the kite festival. Obviously we enjoyed it, so when the Day of the Dead came around, we decided to go to one of the other two towns that have a festival. Prior to that was a meeting with the architect in Antigua. For those of you that don't know, Diane and I bought a piece of land in the Historic Polygon of Antigua and we are going to build a small bed and breakfast. Entertainment for ourselves, as this is our last year in education. So is the plan... We had decided that we would attempt to save some money by limiting our trips during long weekends. So this year, we decided to stay in the city and take some day trips.
We headed out on the bike to Antigua to meet with Jose. I was not paying attention and took one of the tumulos, speed bumps, at two high of a speed. The headlight popped out and my bargain priced topbox came off. Diane walked up the road expecting to see a destroyed topbox, but that was not the case. The headlight was popped back in and reinforced with some black tape, the topbox would require a bit more work. I strolled back up the road to see if I could find the fasteners and I did. With the fasteners in my pocket and the box on Diane's lap we headed to Jose's office.
Jose forgot his keys and that gave me enough time to reinstall the topbox. We hedged our bets, by running a couple of bungees around it too. Jose soon arrived and we, more or less, finalized the house design. Diane and I mounted up and headed to Santiago, a town quite close to Antigua.
There was quite a bit of traffic, but the motorcycle alleviated any difficulty. We arrived in Santiago and started to use the BMW to our advantage. Once we were deep into the town we went to look for a parqueo. I asked at the local police station and the people said that the bike was probably safer here then in any parqueo and the price was right too. We managed to lock away all of our gear and cover the bike with my old bike cover. What you can't see you don't think about stealing or so the saying goes. Of course the police here in Guatemala are often portrayed as not having a high degree of integrity. But, it is only stuff.
We begin to walk up to the cemetery where all the festivities are. There are hundreds of street vendors lining the walk to the cemetery. This must be the black Friday of Santiago. As we stroll up the street the crowd gets thicker, as you can see in the picture above. We are pushed along, with one little Guatemalan kid grabbing my mustache. The mom soon put an end to that by taking out a breast to nurse. That apparently was more interesting than my mustache. We continue on up through a ridiculously crowded street to enter the cemetery. As we approach, I understand what the problem is.
The thousands of people are being funneled through an entrance maybe 3 meters wide and in the middle of it, sits a woman with a child in a wheelchair begging for money. We are expelled out onto the cemetery much like ketchup is squeezed out of a bottle. As we walk along Diane discovers she cannot find her sunglasses. A little closer inspection reveals why. Someone had slashed her bag and removed her sunglasses and, worse, her motorcycle gloves. We haven't seen bag slashers since the black market in Mongolia. Disappointed we did not catch the thief, we move on.
The landscape for this kite festival is superior to the one in Sumpango.
But so far we are not feeling the love. The kites here in Santiago are right in the cemetery, as opposed to the football field in Sumpango. So though the people attempted to decorate the graves here, having thousands of people trample over them left them a little worse for wear.
The kites that we saw were, as always, quite impressive.
You can see how detailed the kites are made. All they are made of is paper and glue
However that scenic venue overlooking the valley has one negative attribute. There is a lot of wind. Good for flying kits, but not so good for display, especially if the wind hits them from directly behind. Some merely had a hole blown through them
Others suffered a much worse fate.
But as you can see below, the kites actually do fly.. not the 60 footers, but some decent sized one.
We pushed ourselves back through the crowd, Diane clutching her bag tightly to her chest. Back through the gate. We stopped at the first bag vendor and asked about a bag. Eighty quetzales, he says. I tell Diane, let's go that is a crazy price. Then we hear, 70, 60, 50, 40. Now 40 would be a fair price but this guy started out at the let's ripoff the gringo price, so he does not get our business. A few blocks later we stop at another vendor and Diane buys a replacement purse for about 35 Q's. We get back to the bike and see that it is indeed intact. We head back to the city knowing that this would be our last trip to the kite festival in Santiago.
On the way back we stop for a late lunch at the Mirador. An overlook just before the city. Our lunch of sausages, tortillas, salad and beans cost about three bucks. We head home to see what time the Movie will start.
The next day we had decided to ride to the beach to the shack restaurant that we go to for camarones/prawns/shrimp. The beach is not that far, but getting through the city can be a pain in the ass. I decide to be clever and look to take a back way to the Carretera. Well that certainly didn't work. We end up far from where I wanted to be and ultimately decide to go to Antigua to take the highway from there to the beach. I am pretty sure that I know where that is and I head there directly. Out through Antigua Viejo onto the road. After a short while I realize where we are. This is not the direction we want to go. But is it the correct highway? We ride down to Pastores, about 7 kms away just to look at the sign. Yep, right road, wrong direction. Back we go and we head towards Escuintla. Escuintla proves to be way closer than anticipated and we are now on the highway towards the Sipicate turnoff. We manage to take the correct exit and start heading towards Sipicate. Along the way we witness a BMW SUV that has crashed into a guardrail. It had managed to take the guardrail head on and plunge it through the engine,the body of the car and out through the tailgate. Yuck.
I take all the correct turns and as I am about to enter the roundabout for Sipicate, I notice that my brakes seem to lack the power they usually have. Yep, apparently the power assist has ceased to assist. Oh well, the brakes still work, but now they work more like the brakes on our 58 R50, then a modern era bike We take the turn and head the 30 straight miles to Sipicate, through the sugar cane fields. I only manage to not see one tumulo and we arrive at the beach town outside Sipicate. We go to our, now favorite, restaurant. I park in the shaded parqueo and ask the guy the price. He tells me 10Q and I simply tell him No. He looks perplexed, a gringo telling him no? I explain the last time the price was 5Q. He understands and accepts my offer. At the restaurant I opt for the ceviche. I ask the difference between the few options on the menu and girl cannot think of any difference between them. we have a good laugh and I order a large ceviche. As you can see I don't think I made a bad choice.
Diane, on the other hand opted for the Camarones con ajo.. Prawns with garlic. I don't think she made a poor choice either
After we left sated, we headed to the dock in Sipicate to buy camarones for dinner tomorrow. At the shrimp and fish seller, I ask if he has the jumbo prawns. We have gotten as good as 7 to the pound, this time it is 8.. He says the price is 60Q per pound, about seven and half dollars. I ask if he can do two pounds for 100Q, about 6.25 a pound. He contemplates and says yes. We pack the shrimp in the containers we brought along and ready ourselves for the ride back. I manage to negotiate the 30 straight tumulo ridden miles without any mistakes. Of course having brakes only powered by Harvey adds to my caution. We ride directly home, hitting rain on the way. It seems every time we return from the beach it rains. None the less, we arrive home safely and pack away our prawns until Sunday dinner.
Sunday is a lazy day, taking care of the usual errands after a breakfast at San Martins. For dinner we decide to go with Spicy Cajun Shrimp (http://www.cooks.com/recipe/br5264yt/spicy-cajun-shrimp.html) with snow peas and cous cous, with the house white wine. Turned out pretty good.
All told, a good weekend for about 450Q (less then $60) plus gasoline (about 45 dollars).
