Team Cahill-Dawson arrived safely in Guatemala City, and then, eventually, in Antigua. On the bus ride out, Guatemala City struck me as similar in some ways to other Central American cities, but it did not have the menacing feeling that I recall from Managua, Nicaragua, back in 2015, when I visited there. Here in Guatemala, I saw a soldier ambling along a sidewalk, his rifle dangling down at his side, eating an ice cream cone. The highway from the airport to the hotel was four lanes, and in some places six lanes with a shoulder. There were no ox carts vying with motorized vehicles for space, and most all of the motorcyclists were wearing helmets. So, despite the coils of barbed wire atop many high walls, my first impression of Guatemala is that it is by no means the poorest or most fraught of Central American countries.
Driving into the streets of Antigua, Guatemala, like driving into Paris, France, the first overwhelming impression is: cobblestones. But in Antigua they didn’t get the memo about milling the stones to make them fit together. So, ladies, if you are planning to visit, leave the high heels at home, unless you intend to be carried through the streets in someone’s arms. The Hotel Quinta de las Flores is a heart melting oasis built around a garden full of colonial ruins and waterfalls. Tile roofs and bougainvillea draping along wooden colonnades lead to your white adobe, dark raftered room with wood-stocked fireplace: apparently the nights can be chilly.
As soon as I stepped into the quiet room onto the old square tiles, I felt that the destination was worth the journey. Gone were any lingering uncharitable feelings toward the airport official in Houston who wouldn’t let us check in because we looked like a group. Good will to the airline hostess who did not stop talking for two hours thirty minutes. Peace to the customs personnel who made us all wait while they sifted through a day’s worth of paper forms to resolve a question about one of the twelve trunks of equipment we brought.
Happy hour on the open terrace by the bar with the faux fruit Carmen Miranda style chandeliers got the team members introduced to each other. We are still waiting for a few more to arrive from different parts of the United States, so we plan to take our team photo tomorrow morning. Then, the plan is triage of an estimated seventy six patients. Already the orthopedists who have had advanced access to X-rays are talking about untreated fractures left to set at astonishing angles. Everyone is in good spirits, looking forward to a weeks’ adventure.
-Courtney Kim
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