Antigua

I made it to Guatemala!
I got in pretty late, so I was a little nervous about the hotel where I had agreed to meet lily being closed, and being stuck outside. Guatemala city is NOT a city where you want to be stuck outside. But it was open and I met lily, at the Pension Meza. Almost immediately a very talkative Colombian guy offered me a drink of his big bottle of gallo beer with a ¨salud¨. I felt appropriately welcomed. Che apparently once stayed at the Pension Meza, and the room he stayed in is almost like a little shrine, with pictures of him and revolutionary slogans scrawled on the walls.
Guatemala is big, dirty, and all around unpleasant so we came to Antigua in the morning. Antigua is very touristy and full of gringos. But its awesome, it´s surrounded by 3 volcanoes and has the very nice quality of a restored colonial city. The buildings are painted with soft pastel colors and there are various churches scattered round the city that have been wrecked by histories earthquakes.
We are staying at lily´s friend rachels homestay house, which is really fancy and nice. Rachels school has big avacado trees with citrus and loquats underneath and then chile plants at the bottom. There is lots of coffee under some kind of jacaranda looking tree.
We went to a show with the lead singer of buena vista social club. It was awesome to hear live cuban music. Most of the people dancing were short, stocky lation guys with gorgeous, tall gringas. I might have to learn salsa since its kinda the thing here.

Check my flickr for pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/13958737@N03/
(let me know if that doesn´t work)