Day 84 – Wednesday, September 18, 2013

We maximized our luxurious stay at the Barcelo as much as we could. We slept in until almost 8:00 AM. We then headed down to the amazing buffet breakfast and dined on their beautiful outdoor terrace near the pool. A real treat.

Later, we did a bit of shopping for authentic Guatemalan gifts and souvenirs. We had a lot of fun shopping and negotiating with our sales associate and the store manager. Julie notes “The store was filled with beautiful colourful items. And the staff were beautiful and colourful as well. I am not a shopper, as I may have mentioned during our many previous mall stops, but I could’ve spent all day looking at the gorgeous stuff with our sales clerk, Vanessa at my side ‘saying ‘Oh you will love this my friend. How about this my friend. Colours stay good my friend. All hand made my friend.’ And the great thing was they really did make you feel like they were your friends. Brad had a lot of fun haggling with the manager as well who kept saying ‘oh no my friend, that is too low, my friend’ and we left with our pockets a little emptier and our bags a lot heavier.”

It was then time to head back to our home on wheels. I think Julie was sad to leave but we do look forward to sleeping in our own bed. Julie notes “Yes, sad to leave the ambience but happy to be back in my comfy bed, even with the smells of the burning garbage next door et al. The trucks and busses have been celebrating our return as well with some pretty spectacular horn honking and engine breaking and it felt like the helicopters were dipping extra low on their steady flight path to let us know they were glad we were back safely.”

Guatemala City from the 9^th floor of the Barcelo Hotel Julie notes “This part of the city looks quite civilized in regards to traffic, etc. Don’t be fooled. Lesson #84 in travelling in Central America ‘One wrong turn can take you to the world of every which way traffic on what should be a one way street, resulting in the need for clean underwear.'”

They are tougher negotiators than they look J Julie notes “Size doesn’t matter when it comes to negotiating deals. These 2 gals were fun but firm on their bottom line despite the gringo towering over them.”

…take care all, the muleskinner and his sidekick

Julie notes “It was a very rainy afternoon and Brad settled into reading his book. I have read so much in the past couple months that I would almost welcome the distraction of Karen Schoepp reading excerpts from one of her motivational books out loud to me. When can you get here Karen? As I type this the rain continues to fall and the iTunes is playing ‘Rain, rain, showers’ by Michel Pagliaro.”

“Also this in from Aunt Doreen in regards to several topics and she is correct on at least one of them…

‘Julie, I think the cement piece is an end table for the patio. The shrub is a croton and the large purple flower is a banana. I can just see Herb if he saw that cement thing, he would be making a pattern, Lynne would mix the cement (cuz she knows how)…dd’