Monday, August 10, 2009

It's not Saigon


Time magazine recently described Guatemala City as "a gloomy capital that no amount of marimba music can brighten." I wouldn't disagree. This place feels nervous and buttoned-up and edgy, much more so than I remembered it from my last visit. 

But our family here is lovely, and has been hosting us and feeding us delicious meals (chicken stew, tortillas, bunuelos) and keeping my mother well-supplied with exotic candies that I keep filching. The candies are made from coconuts and figs and spaghetti squash and sweet potatoes, everything BUT chocolate, and I love them. The best candies in Guatemala are made in the town of Antigua, where we are going to be staying for the next five days. I don't know what the internet situation is at our cousin's house, but if there is a signal, I will have a lot to report.

3 comments:

  1. hello! i found your blog when dana stevens mentioned it on the Slate podcast and i have spent the last couple of days obsessively reading through your entire blog! thanks so much --i'm looking forward to your inevitable book :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Tipsy, I so hope you can blog from Guatemala -- I've been traveling vicariously through you all summer. And please bring back as many of those fig/squash/coconut candies as you and Justine can carry. I want to taste them!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I hope to hear soon from Tipsy that there's more to Guatemala than G. City.
    I also request a report on the coffee.
    Having had coffee in Wyoming, Vietnam and now Guatemala this summer, it seems a topic worth a full review.
    What country makes the best coffee?

    ReplyDelete