MEETING SILVIA IN GUATEMALA CITY

Slept well last night in the lovely cool evening and woke up at 7 as we are still adjusting our clocks.  Went for breakfast to the cafe across the street and had ham cheese and pineapple wraps with melon and lovely papaya and pineapple licuado to drink.  Our driver Ernesto who brought us here from Guatemala City met us at 9 and we drove back to Guatemala City to a big hotel to meet up with Silvia. Together we went to the Archeology museum which was very quiet and chatted as we walked around the exhibits.  John and Silvia were able to talk about their old UN days when her parents and John's worked together on various UN missions from Pakistan to Kashmir and Jerusalem.  We hope also to put Silvia in touch with some other UN people who she has lost touch with.

Silvia took us to a nice Mexican restaurant where we could eat and drink and chat about our lives and our families further.  It was a lovely day and so nice to meet a real guatemalteca.  We hope that next time we meet Silvia might come and visit us in UK as she has not been there yet.  We were able to wish her luck in her new business which starts tomorrow giving life coaching and maybe language classes.

When we returned to Antigua we visited the 5 star hotel of Santo Domingo which is situated in an old monastery and there are various museums in the grounds.  We saw some macaws and visited the chocolate factory and treated ourselves to one chocolate each at £1.40 each!  The hotel was very elegant but rather quiet and we were glad not to be paying £150 per night to stay there instead of £25 a night for a double in our place!

We booked our bus tickets to take us on a 3 to 4 hour trip to Lake Atitlan tomorrow which is renowned to be one of the most beautiful places in the world.  Unfortunately we have to be up at 6am to catch the bus - but once there we have 5 days to relax.

This is us posing with Silvia outside the museum

This is us having a mixed meat plate with tortillas and a sauce made with green mil tomatoes which was very interesting.  John is showing his local Gallo beer.

This was in the entrance to the 5 star hotel of Santo Domingo

This was taken in the hotel grounds

This was a lovely walkway in the hotel of a flower like a climbing orchid

Here is a photo of John on the right with his brother Mark next to Silvia's brother Jorge.  We think it was taken in Rawalpindi.  Very sadly Jorge died recently of a brain tumour and the family really miss him since he worked hard to keep the family together.