Semana Santa in ANTIGUA

We did more running around at Immigration offices and had the restriction on my husbands' passport lifted.  We crossed over into the Guatemalan border for a few days of Semana Santa in Antigua! Antigua was beautiful - reminded me of Miami with the pretty colours - but colonial. The temperatures in Guat were much more comfortable than El Salvador.  This was a very touristy place to go - not your typical Guatemala I know - but I really wanted to see it as so many people I know in Canada love to visit Antigua.  The bus ride was 5 hrs to Guat City and then another hour to Antigua in traffic.  We just drove through Guat City - which reminded me of Mexico City. 

This is the famous Arch.  Loved the cobblestone paths everywhere - like so many colonial towns in El Salvador and our roots in England have these gorgeous cobblestones everywhere - loved them but after walking on them for nine hours in wedges we were ready for serious foot massages at nightime!

                          Many fab churches!

Everyone in our fam loves Mango with salt, lime and chili sauce! Mangos were everywhere!

Purple people everywhere and a procession coming right at us!

Gorgeous carpet made entirely of rice that the purple people are about to destroy!! Saw about three of them. 

Oh, don't I look so "holy" - my palm decor that the local villagers made in front of the gorgeous yellow church - only $1.50 each.  It made it back to San Salvador a little worse for wear!

Villagers making the Palm crafts to hold during the mass/procession.

Our hotel was right around the corner from this gorgeous church. 

View from our Hotel room - stayed at an awesome little boutique hotel that I would thoroughly recommend, "Casa Christina".

My favourite "float". We spoke with one of the ladies afterwards and she said it was quite heavy to carry.  They carry this for hours around the town route.

Close up of the devotion/exhaustion.  Love the veils - gettin' their Mary on!

Loved all the indigenous villagers! Their clothing is very thick though - that surprised me. 

We really loved all the beautiful crafts and colours - went a bit crazy - but hey - we're admitted shopoholics!  We were dissapointed about the silver jewellery - for some reason we thought it was supposed to be a great place to find silver and we didn't find much of that.  We did lots of bargaining - which is of course the Latin American way!

Wading Through the Red Tape

I've been in El Salvador for over a month now to assist my husband in leaving this country. I didn't expect it to take this long - but fortunately no bribes were needed and our resolution was favourable - we just needed to have patience on court dates being changed at the last minute (like when we have already got up early & are at the courthouse & then are told of change).

We have submitted our petition to have the restriction on his passport removed & are hoping there will be an answer by this Friday so that we can book our flights to return home to Canada next week. We are looking forward to getting back to our Canadian life - although Douglas thinks we should stay here another few months as I hardly eat anything here & then would have a slim figure! Ha ha I think I've had amoeba dysentary since I landed.

We have enjoyed many daytrips all over the country & this has been wonderful since the only thing I like in the city is the historical core.

We attempted to go to Guatemala on Sunday but the lawyer flubbed & the restriction was still on the passport so we had the embarrassment of sitting at the Frontera for an executive bus to take us back to San Salvador. We had paid $73.00 for the tickets & were told they would not reschedule or refund. Douglas kindly asked the Supervisor for an exception - & lucky enough they decided to offer one comp ticket if we purchased another - so we did so and are looking forward to an adventure in Antigua for a few days this Saturday.