Day 5 – Travel Day to Antigua

Today (4/7/2018) is a travel day, without any touring stops along the way.  As we are waiting to get on the bus and leave the hotel, I see this bird, not sure, what kind of bird it is. 

As we are riding past villages, we spot numerous shops, like this pottery shop on the side of the road.  At a couple of places, we saw where a kiln was in use, but never got a picture of them.

The road we are on in Guatemala is CA13 and we drive south right by the corner of Belize.  Up on the mountain we can see the Belize border patrol complex.  Well I guess we will not be trying to head across the border.  I wonder if they shoot you or just throw you in jail.

There are many shops on the sides of the road as we drive on towards our destination.  Before we reach Rio Dulce, we see a shop that has saddles for sale along with what looks like feed. 

We have seen many flowering trees such as this one.  Not being able to get a fair picture of one, we haven’t shown you any.  Until now and this tree is mostly in bloom.

Well I guess this is why they have saddles for sale in the different shops.  We finally see cowboys in a field near where we have seen cattle. 

Driving, we are still in fire smoke, sometimes denser then others, and every now and then we can see where the fires are located.  There are two fires going on at this mountain, one fire on each side of the valley.

We stop for lunch at the hotel we used for our bathroom break on the way north.  After lunch, I again went exploring looking for birds, but instead only saw this butterfly.

If I’m taking pictures of birds, and in this case butterflies, then I’m taking pictures of flowers.  I thought this was an unusual flower and was not sure if the flower is just the yellow flower or if it includes the leaf around the flower.

So here we are riding though town after eating lunch and see this convenience store.  Buy your chips and soda through bars.  Hope you don’t buy anything too large that it doesn’t fit through the bars.

As we are leaving this village, we see this fire coming up the side of the hill.  No one seems to have any concern, even with a truck nearby, although you cannot see it in the picture.

One of the many neighborhoods we have seen in the towns we have past.  As you can see, one house is built up against the other, maybe to save the cost of one wall.

Passing yet another gas station, we can see several things.  First, there is the guard standing outside with the shotgun.  Just about every station has had a guard with shotgun outside.  Second, a couple of the busses are in the background.  These are purchased from the US after they are discarded they are brought here fixed up and then used for passenger busses.  I think each bus is individually owned and operated.

We also pass by the Gallo beer brewery.  Too bad we couldn’t stop for a tour, like they have at Budweiser brewery.

Check out this McDonalds, it has eat-in, drive-thru, and delivery!  Now when you order a Big Mac to go, you don’t have to be there to order it, just call.

We reach Antigua in the early evening and just before we reach were we will get off of the bus, no big motorcoach like the one we are on in the old town, I was able to catch this old church.  As you can see this church was being used for a wedding.

Once we got off the big tour coach, it was easy to understand why we had to change transportation, the roads was very narrow.  Tomorrow we will walk the town and visit some of the old churches. 

After dinner, I decided to go around the hotel where we are stay.  Right outside our room is this infinity lap pool.  You have to be careful because if you are not paying attention you might try to walk across the pool.

Another corridor around the hacienda this hotel is in. 

In one corner of the hotel, I find these “figures” and thought they were interesting.  They were right next to the stairs leading down to the underground passage that went to the other hacienda on the other side of the street and the restaurant.

Finally, the courtyard near the entrance to the hacienda.  We will meet here tomorrow morning for our walk around the village of Antigua.