Antigua take 2

We left Xela on Sunday morning after some sentimental goodbyes with new friends and the host family.

A four and a half hour drive brought us to Antigua. My second visit. I wasn't itching to come back but Dave had not been here, and it puts us within a feasible drive to El Salvador tomorrow.

Antigua is a beautiful city, but as far as colonial towns that are UNESCO world heritage sites go I've got a few I prefer over it- Oaxaca City Mexico, Luang Prabang Laos, and Hoi An Vietnam (in no particular order). Partially because I find it financially inaccessible, by comparison. And more importantly, the food is not nearly as good as any of the above mentioned. It is overpriced and the service is lacking, and they include the tip.

In Xela we ate flavorful, fresh Indian for 55Q each. Here a plate of blah nachos costs 50Q. In Xela fresh, homemade gnocchi was 70Q and flavorful minestrone soup was 25Q. A decent but unremarkable pizza was 75Q and the strangest onion soup I have ever had rang up at 45Q. Anyway, you get the idea.

That said, we did have a serendipitous travel moment upon our arrival. The challenge with the van is parking. Repeatedly we read or hear about how unsafe it is parked on the street, and we head these probably valid warnings. This means that we have to find parking for it. Upon driving in to town we checked out a parking lot by the market. He wanted 250Q for two nights and refused to come down. So we headed to a hotel we read about on the lonely planet forum that supposedly had rooms and parking for about 40usd a night. More than we would spend in an ideal world, but feasible. Much to our dismay no one was there! The cleaning lady said someone would be back in 2 hours. We had parked on the street (safe during the day, it's the overnight people have warned about) and decided to walk to clear our heads. We were both in pretty low spirits, the only other place we found with parking wanted 65usd a night plus tax, and that was way more than we had planned on. We started walking down the cobblestone streets...

Then I saw the sign for the tourist office and the lightbulb finally came on that we should ask them. Sure enough, the police offer free parking in their parking lot! FREE! SAFE (ish, the rumor is that the best cops work in Antigua and get special training for all the contact with tourists) FREE!

We then found a little hotel with a shared bath and a kitchen in our price range, and spent yesterday evening and today just wandering the streets and the market.

We cooked dinner in, quesadillas with peppers and onions and guacamole. Dave is forever in-charge of guacamole, his is great. I have relinquished all guaca-control. We also finally broke into the tequila I requested from Mexico. I hand-juiced 10 limes and an orange to make us margaritas on the rocks. I used the proportions I learned working at Janie's 8 years ago.
We couldn't have bought a decent appetizer from a restaurant here for what it cost us to make a delicious dinner with perfect drinks.

After dinner we enjoyed the movie Stepbrothers. By enjoyed I mean we watched a copy we bought at the market in Xela. It was obviously filmed by someone siting in the movie theater. This was confirmed by the presence of a person's shadow getting up and walking towards the camera. I would like think he or she was going to get more popcorn.

In the morning we head for the beach in El Salvador. Fingers crossed for a smooth border crossing...

Also, no pictures. Tear. Neither of us brought cords for the cameras, we were counting on the card-reader on Dave's computer, but it is busted. In Xela we were using Marta-the-Swede-with-an-Irish-accent's cord, but that's no longer an option. We're working on a solution, most likely involving Mom and her rendezvous with us in March.