time difference to Germany - 8 hours



map of Guate



Adios Miami

Hola y bienvenidos en Guatemala said a lot of persons at the airport in Guatemala City last Thursday to me. After 9,5 h flight and apprx. 5 h waiting in Miami I finally flew to Guatemala!

Flight to Guatemala

I had little problems in the USA, because of two apples in my hand baggage, I wasn´t allowed to eat them in the USA, but they didn´t care about my carrot and the tomatoes, weird! But now I have a Visa for the USA until the 15th December, but Iam not gonna use this.

So Guatemala City, huge city!!!  I have great CS-host they showed me the city, of course it is different to Germany. The cars drive like crazy and the old busses from the USA (called chickenbusses, because people transport everything in it) are very colourful but they have exhaust gases, terrible! I the olf city centre they´re building at the moment a new shopping street, but all people go through the building lot, unbelievable in Germany. There was also a big market with a lot of good made by the indigenous population (here Mayas). What they produce is very colorful, I love it. Soon I will buy some things!

a Chickenbus in Antigua

a convent

me in a street

Today I have been in Antigua, a city with 40 000 people inhabitants near Guatemala City. In this city are still a lot of buildings from the colonial time. Two earthquakes destroyed a lot if this city, but they tried to reconstruct as good as possible. Before Guatemala City Antigua also was the capital of Guatemala. The city has so much churches and convents, it is unbelivable. I couldn´t see all today. It is also surrounded by volcanoes (Guatemala is a country full of vulcanoes), but today I only could guess the fully impression of the nearest volcane ´Agua´. But I will go back there in my 7 months Guatemala and write then more about this city!



Antigua with the volcano Agua (left)



Last but not least, I will tell you that I bought some jewellery from where my CS-host is working. This jewellery is made of garbage from women who worked before in the biggest dump of Central America. But a woman started a NGO saving the children of a life in the dump and also there mums. She started to give them the opportunity to educate themselves and create jewellery. The organisation ´Camino Seguro´ sell this bracelets, earrings, rings and necklaces. It is made of paper, the roll it together and color it, it is so beautiful! Check out pictures on this site:

´Creamos Futuros´ and ´Camino Seguro´



If somebody want to have some of this, you can write me the colour and shape you want (I think nothing exist twice) and Iam sure I will come back and organise that!

with my CS-hosts Cynthia and Claudia

So, the very last: Picture of the Guatemalan currency...the ´Quetzal´.