Yesterday was Guatemala Independence day, Rees and I were ready for big things. We had heard humors that they get a guy drunk, put a bulls head covered in firecrackers on him, set him loose in the crowd and watch the good times roll (Rees and I were hoping to be that drunk guy).
The town was a buzz in the coming days with everyone sporting a Guatemala Flag and there were torch relays. The torch relays are the best, some kid will get an old beetroot can, stick it on the end of a chair leg, stick a rag dowsed in desiel in and start running around the town. Then poeple will start running with him and there's groups of these people everywhere, just running around. Our bus ride to and from the volcano had been slowed to joggin pace several times as we’d come accross a group running in the middle of nowhere, up some huge hill in the middle of the road.
Seeing it was such an important occasion, we had bought suits from the local op shop. So that morning we suited up, I shaved myself a proud moustache (not proud) and headed down to the central park to see what was happening. Not much except for a lot of people staring at two stoopid looking gringos in suits. So we headed to the Irish bar where we were meant to meet the Irish guy. He didn’t show. We bought a couple of 1 litre Gallo’s as we were also celibrating Rees finishing his course of anti-biotics. Few more 1Ls and we befriended a Nicaraguan guy, Carlos. Decided to check out a couple of other bars, not much happening except a few more beers and strange looks. By now the day had gotten on a bit and it was nearing 6pm, so back to the Irish bar for a good old fasioned trivia night. Some German guy turned up, so we grabbed him for our team, luckly, as he answered most of the questions and got us close to a win, coming second by one point. Carlos and the german left to leave Rees and I to reap the rewards of free beer for our efforts. The Irish guy turned up about 8hrs late, not to worry, then they closed the bar.
Headed down to central park, few people about and ran into Ed. He took us to a bar that used a book store as a front, with the bar out the back. Met two more ozies and a few others, till they finally kicked us out after exceeding their Sunday licence by more than 4 hours. So that was independence day, no drunk guy chasing gringos, nothing, except 6 hours spend in an Irish bar.
Woke up super dehydrated this morning, getting our stuff together and about to say adios (see, the spanish school was well worth it) to Antigua, heading for Panajachel.