Bienvenidos a Guatemala.

Guatemala.

A small country squeezed in among those other Central American countries that usually get confused.

Cerro de la Cruz-A hill overlooking Antigua

I couldn´t help but compare this country to what I experienced in Ecuador. But that´s all I could think about when I arrived in Guatemala City at night and all I could see were the busy city streets, motos zipping in and out of traffic, students sharing a bag of chips on their walk home from night classes, and Pollo Campero;  I was immediately transported back to my years living in South America.

Old colonial architecture in Antigua.

This feeling grew when I arrived in Antigua. The cobblestone streets. The colonial architecture.  The horse-drawn carriges circling the parque central, where locals, families and tourists stroll through the many cafés and restaurants that look out into the parque.  Men and women from the surrounding countryside walk around offering up their handicrafts to any passing foreigner. Their small children traverse through each place selling candy and gum.

This place truly was a smaller version of the Cuenca I had lived in for over a year. But Antigua has, in its own way, a unique and special atmosphere. Antigua draws national and international tourists for a reason. I felt it this evening, walking around the city and sitting in el parque at 4pm on a Friday.

Ruins in Antigua.

It was one of those days where the rain stopped early and the sun was making one last attempt to shine through the massive clouds. People were off work early, and throngs of people-tourists and Guatemaltecos on a weekend trip, filled the streets. I had not seen these kinds of crowds in the last few days. I had not seen this kind of activity and liveliness throughout the town until that moment.

I could tell people were just happy. There was a band playing in the background. A woman, balancing a large cooler on her head, was selling helados to kids on their way home from school. The vendors selling their woven cloths and wooden flutes had tons of people to follow around relentlessly. Their children got to walk a visiting family´s dog around the park. A group of people took pictures and laughed at the mime making a young American girl feel super awkward.

I sat in the middle, taking it all in. I wish I could have captured it all through pictures or taken a snapshot of that moment to show people at home. But if you´ve had an experience similar to this before, you know that nothing-not professional pictures or poetic words-can capture these moments.

San Jose Cathedral-Antigua