Vacations 3

After being home for three weeks, you wonder, were you ever really on vacation, which is one of the reasons I am stretching this blog post into three sections. Our final destination in Guatemala was Guatemala City, where we stayed with a family as part of our international host/traveler exchange, Servas. My family has been traveling this way for twenty-five years, and it has consistently provided us with the most awesome and memorable moments of our travels, as well as many new friends. Servas is not couch-surfing, nor is it a hotel or bed and breakfast. The goal of the organization is to facilitate peace by breaking down barriers between cultures. People visit for two nights, and the emphasis is on getting to know each other. Through Servas over the years, I have done things I had never planned to do while traveling, including attending a Welsh poetry recital at a local school, viewing a private collection of museum quality Native American art, riding a horse bareback (my daughter did this–I was chicken), and spending two days in a remote cabin in Ontario, accessible only by canoe.

And it was not in our travel plans to attend a reception at the National Palace with the President of Guatemala, but that it was what we did.

Our Servas host turned out to be the Director of the National Park System there, so after spending the evening before chatting with his friendly and hospitable family, and the day touring Guatemala City with his lovely twenty-year-old daughter, we stopped back at his office where he told us he wanted to bring us along to a presentation on sustainable tourism and preserving Mayan culture. And, oh yes, the President would be there.

In addition to the President’s short speech, we were treated to a performance of Mayan music and dance, and a video and presentation on the past, present, and future of the National Parks. Good thing our Spanish was in good shape by then. I didn’t get all of it, but I got about 80%.