Sizemores in Antigua -With PIX!

Our blog is long overdue (yes, we know!) but we have a good excuse...we've been entertaining a steady stream of visitors. Carol and Ron were here for a week. We spent most of our time with them here in Antigua. We saw the biggest procession of the season (and in the world), with ungodly large crowds, stalls with bizarre street food, and magnificent ‘carpets’ made of flowers spread on the streets along the parade route. Linda was sick and missed out on much of that, and somehow Carol was left behind when the boys left the apartment. Undaunted—though a little miffed-- she braved the throngs alone, on the most crowded day of the year, asking for directions as she followed the procession route to see the carpets. What a trooper!!  The four of us also did a village tour around Antigua with Victor, a local guide with terrific insights that he shared with us. Carol and Linda fabric shopped, and Ron and Roger toured the local hardware shops.

One early evening, hanging out on the rooftop terrace with several friends, we noticed that Fuego, one of the local volcanoes, was puffing black smoke every five minutes or so. Now, Fuego puffs often, but it is NOT Old Faithful, and we were intrigued. As we lounged, Ron paced around and announced every puff of smoke. Roger took advantage of the time between puffs to share yet another Customs story, when Ron shouted,  " Look at that!". Roger lost his audience as we all shifted our attention to Fuego, which glowed red. We saw a small stream of LAVA flow down from the crater. How cool, our first volcanic eruption! It was a real plus that we were not in danger.  As it turned out.

The highlight of the week was a day at the beach. Guatemala is NOT known for its Pacific beaches, due to a nasty undertow. But walking on the deserted black sand was perfect. The guys discovered and toured a local low-tech salt works and we all lounged in the hotel pool. The sea almost claimed Ron, knocking him off his feet in mere inches of water and sucking him out to sea half way to Guam. He claimed that cinco Gallo beers had nothing to do with that. That's his story and he's sticking to it.

We're having technical difficulties linking our Google Picasa album to this post; check again in a couple of days (that's exactly what Google told us!)
We might have found a fix!  Check our album https://picasaweb.google.com/106750917165477506851/2012Guatemala3#