Y Tu Antigua Tambien

We end the first half of our trip where we began: L´Antigua, Guatemala. Twelve hours and four mini vans returned us here from San Cristobal de las Casas last Sunday. We crashed for the night on concrete-like beds at a restaurant/hostel called Kafka, which needs to spend less money on ambience and more on comfort. On Monday evening, we were picked up by our latest couchsurfing hosts. Mauricio and Meynor are two bachelors who share an apartment about 20 minutes outside of Antigua in San Lucas. We were delighted when we entered the apartment and were greeted by a fully decorated Christmas tree and a Westhighland Terrier puppy named Babushka, not to mention a fully stocked kitchen and huge flatscreen TV.

On Tuesday, we rejoined the crew at From Houses to Homes to paint and start building another house. This time the house is for a mom and dad and their three kids. There are many kids at the site, all of whom are helpful assistants. Sometimes there are not enough trowels for the volunteers because the kids are using all of them!

Yesterday was one of our favorite days of the trip. We had a yummy breakfast at "Y Tu PiÑa Tambien." In the afternoon, we visited Juan Jose, one of the builders from From Houses to Homes. He lives with his wife and two beautiful daughters in San Antonio, another little pueblo minutes from Antigua. His daughters (4 and 2) introduced themselves to us in tiny nervous voices: "Soy Gabriela Sofia Fernandez Lopez," "Soy Jaymie Vanessa Fernandez Lopez." Once the formalities were out of the way and the girls got more comfortable, Gaby sang her favorite song for us: Billie Jean by Michael Jackson.