Guatemala, Day One

I thought I better get busy and start blogging about the mission trip my husband and I took during the last week of April to Guatemala with Medical Missions Foundation. It was more amazing than I could ever have dreamed, and I can't wait to share it with you. Bear with me, because I might not get to post every single day. Some days I might post more, but once a day is my goal at this point.

Here we are arriving at the airport in Guatemala, trying to get all of our bags off the carousel and off to customs. Apparently, customs normally took hours in the past. Ours was a comfortable thirty minutes or less!

 

Flat Stanley at Guatemala Airport

We woke up on Sunday, August 20th to leave for the airport at the ungodly hour of 3:15 a.m.! I think I was a zombie walking around at that time of morning. I don't do anything before 7:00 in the morning anymore. It was a stretch, let me tell you. When we got to the airport, many familiar faces and a few new ones greeted us. I was glad to see the ones I knew, and anxious to get to know others. Everything went smoothly, although my sunscreen bottle was over 3.5oz. and I had to leave it behind. Oh well.

 

Teresa, John's scrub nurse, brought with her a "Flat Stanley" (if you don't know what that is, click here). We took pictures of him on the plane and at the airport in Guatemala. I had a great pic of him on the plane with Teresa, but I don't know where it is. Probably still in my phone. Yes, I'm "that" woman.

 

Stopping to allow cows to cross

Next, we loaded the suitcases into a cargo van and then piled into two vans that would take us to San Lucas. It was approximately a 4-hour drive. I rode on the "hump" in the front seat, between the driver and my husband. I kept hitting the A/C button with my knee. Oops. The drive was really scenic and nice, in fact the driver was laughing at me taking so many pictures of what I'm sure he saw as not appealing in the least. What I would have told me if I were him, at that point, is..."just wait, you ain't seen nothin' yet". But then again, Guatemalans don't speak Hee-Haw.

Our Driver...Walter

We saw a few things that I would have remarked about on our trek to the Lake Atitlan in San Lucas Toliman, and that is the following:  Armed guards with shotguns outside routine places in Guatemala City like Domino's Pizza (yes they had one), the spot we had to stop and wait for 3-4 cows to cross the road, and last but not least...men hopping off trucks along the highway and urinating right there in front of God & country (and touristy American mission groups from Kansas City sitting in the front seat of a van taking pictures). However, I'll spare you those.   

Armed guard at Domino's Pizza in Guat City

I really enjoyed the landscape, as evidenced by how many pictures I took along the ride to the hotel. It was unlike anything I'd ever seen. The most amazing was when we cleared the cloud cover to come in for landing and dropped low enough to see the mountains and volcanoes. I've flown over the Grand Canyon and the Rockies, but this was unlike anything I had EVER seen. Absolutely amazing.

 

We eventually arrived at the hotel and were greeted by members of the team who had come down before us to get things settled. These included Carmen, who happens to be from Guatemala herself and is the primary contact and reason we can come here, her husband Dennis whose primary mission was to research ways to provide clean water resources to the region, our anesthesiologist Mike, and our CRNA Josie. They greeted us warmly, we put our bags away, and headed to the hotel restaurant for an amazing dinner before we crashed in bed! Here are some photos of the hotel and of our room, which had such quaint appeal. It reminded me a lot of our honeymoon cabin in the mountains of Colorado, actually!

 

Above is the front porch of our room...it had a front room sitting area (left) and a small kitchenette/bar area that separated it and the bedroom, with a 3/4 bathroom with a shower.

On the right is the large tree in the courtyard of the entrance. You can see the hotel restaurant behind it. Our room was to the right. The hotel grounds were breathtaking, and in the late afternoon/early evening, mist would come down from the mountains and the entire area would be thick with fog and mist. The romance of it all was enticing. Just beautiful. I took many pictures of it all, which I will share in future posts.

Here is a picture I took of a couple of children playing outside the hotel. Their parents are walking from further down the hill, probably having just come back from the market area by the lake shore, or possibly a boat from one of the towns around the lake, which can be seen behind them in the distance.

 

Much, much more to come...stay tuned & please leave me a comment!