Guatemalan send off

And here I thought our last day was going to be a quiet, uneventful day. We had another great breakfast at our Antigua hotel and learned that Rudolfo would be picking us up and taking us to his studio for a tour. (Rudolfo’s nickname is El Canche which means The Blonde. Which he is not, although he is fair skinned for a Guatemalan.) After breakfast, Joyce, Suzanne and I strolled the streets towards the convent church La Merced. Antigua in the morning is quiet with most of the shops not open and the square still mostly empty. Suzanne wins the medal for most improved shopper with a couple of last minute purchases and by the time we are back at the hotel, El Canche has arrived. We pile our suitcases into his car for the ride into Guatemala City.  His studio is in a gated residential area. On our way there, Jaime called to let Joel know that we are invited to his house (which you may remember we had previously discovered is next door to the studio) for lunch. This is hilarious to us because El Canche had joked about this very thing when at dinner the night before!

The studio is quite an amazing place, clearly reflecting the philosophy and creativity of its founder. He’s also a huge Star Wars fan, so there is paraphernalia all over the place, models, helmets, and a light saber with sound effects. He’s also got bits and pieces from commercial projects his studio has done as well as a really cool old Mercedes that he’s working on (along with appropriate paraphernalia that we model for photos). The studio does a lot of commercial work aimed towards Latin America but the project closest to El Canche’s heart is a project he’s doing called Alien Book which is a series of short animated films featuring a friendly grampa Martian telling Bible stories. His aim is to tell the stories by focusing on the positive values of love, respect, responsibility rather than some of the more violent, aggressive and angry aspects of the stories the way we are familiar with them.

After the tour, we head next door to Jaime and Lucky’s, and just as Carolina is arriving to join us for lunch. Jaime is an architect and he’s added to the original house to provide an amazing living space for his family of 5 kids. In addition to a whole downstairs living area for the 3 boys (including a game room and gym with sauna), there’s a beautiful master suite with a huge walk in closet. The house is surrounded in back by a wrap around deck and a large yard. The lunch is an amazing spread of Spanish tortilla, chicken paella and seafood paella finished off with a delicious almond meringue cake. Lunch is the big meal of the day for Guatemalans and two sons and a daughter are at home for the meal.

Our last stop was a beautiful new shopping center nearby called Plaza Cemaco. It’s a multi-use project with residences, shops and office space, plus lots of open space to walk around in. It’s not completed yet. Our final stop is the airport, after driving through some Guatemalan traffic. The airport check-in process is very smooth and the flight was uneventful. By the time I’m dropped off by Suzanne’s husband, it’s about 1:30 in the morning. It’s hard to believe it’s only been a week since we flew to Guatemala, and it’s been a really remarkable trip made extra special by the wonderful people we’ve met and the generous hosting by Joyce and Joel. It does feel really good to be home, though!