A Weekend In Guatemala - Pt5.2. Shooting Antigua

Hello and thank you for checkin' out the Bsombin' blog. I always say, mind over matter... If you don't mind, it doesn't matter! ...Such was the case, with the 6am alcohol poisoning I woke up to on Sunday morning, after all the drinking I had done since Friday. ...Never a good thing, when you get woken up by your legs trembling violently and uncontrollably. Not my first rodeo, however, so I knew what I had to do. After some projectile vomiting, I drank a lot of water and went back to sleep for a bit before waking up to start my day...

When I woke up 2 hours later I still felt a lot shitty. But I was too excited about going into to sleep. My Abuelita's house is in a small community on the outskirts of Antigua. So, while I waited for everyone else to wake up and get ready, I walked around the neighborhood and shoot a little. After a lot of comedy watching everyone wake up, we all cleaned up our messes, loaded up the cars, and drove out together. On his way back to Guatemala City, my brother dropped my cousins and I off in the center of town so we could meet up with my Auntie.

We wandered the streets for a bit, while trying to get a hold of Auntie, after getting dropped off. Cousin Mark and I took the opportunity to shoot, as we tried to get a call through on the cheap burner phones they bought for the trip. We finally got through to Auntie who told us to meet her at a restaurant a few block from where we were. We found her in a little "Mexican" spot eating nachos and drinking a beer. I couldn't even look at the beer, but the nachos were a welcome site! We sat down for a bit and told her the stories from our Saturday night adventures, as we finished off the nachos and had a few drinks. I stuck with the H2O, but cousins went for some "hair off the old dog's back" (I don't know how). Once the cups were empty, the plate was clean, and the bill was paid, we headed out to see some more of the city. We walked around shopping and shooting, for a couple of hours, before getting hungry again and deciding to enjoy a Guatemalan tradition... Pollo Campero! For those who don't know, Pollo Campero is one of the biggest fast food chain in Guatemala specializing in fried chicken. The place was a mad house, when we got there! You would think they were paying people to eat their food, the way people were cramming into the place. Since we couldn't even squeeze in the front door, we went through the drive-thru. And that took for ever too! But after a long drive around the Pollo Campero drive-thru, we finally got our pollo! What Auntie did next blew me away!

From the time we had driven into Antigua, Mark became fixated on shooting an old church that was in the middle of the jungle just outside of the city. The church had been abandoned for decades, if not more. It is fenced off and there is no were to park for a mile or more. So it isn't the first place I would have thought to go and have a picnic with our pollo. But Auntie thought otherwise. She pulled up right in front of the church, parked in the middle of the street, and said, "I hope you're good at climbing!" We all got out, climbed the fence, and took a seat on the large steps to eat our chicken. There was a grounds keeper who lived behind the church and his dogs quickly came out to see who was on the property. But, after I tossed them some chicken skin, we became friends. The grounds keeper came out and didn't know how to react to us (or the fact that his killers were too busy beggin' for chicken to chase us off the property) so he just went back to his hut after a long confused stare.

After about a half an hour, we finished our picnic, took pictures, said good-bye to the doggies, climbed back over the fence, and made tracks back to Guatemala City. When we got back, we were all exhausted and just rested the rest of the night....