Trundling along in Elsie

Greetings from Guatemala City,
This Sunday finds us here for two meetings and then on to Peten in the north before entering Belize on Tuesday or Wednesday.
The past few days have been so hectic and we have covered a lot of ground.
Antigua is a really pretty city, old and with a lot of cool old buildings and a ton of character even though it is a total tourist trap.
There is also a huge volcano looming over the city but then I think Guatemala makes and exports volcanoes as there are so many of those awesome mountains here.
Yesterday we met with a wonderful lady who own a beautiful coffee plantation in the SW of the country - she wanted to see us about starting a luxury tented lodge on the property.
She is a biologist herself so she has made a remarkable effort in combining and integrating the plantation with the natural forest.
After walking the plantation and visiting with her we headed towards Guatemala City, getting here in the late afternoon tired of the insane traffic of the highway and unsure of how we were going to wade through the big city.
We muddled our way along fine until we were unsure of of whereabouts, that I called through the window to a cop passing us on the road, as to where the main Avenue Reforma was?
He pulled away indicating that we follow them and before we knew it we had the blue lights flashing and we were getting the "Royal Escort" into town.
They left us close to the hotel we were looking for but before long we were lost again but soon found our way and was happy to finally be out of the city traffic.
At the hotel we had another dilemma as Elsie would not fit into their secure parking garage (we never stop at any hotel unless it has vehicle security) so I told the manager I would park her right in front of the hotel and his security guards will just have to watch over her but this he did not like so we compromised and parked her across the road. As soon as he left the hotel the security dudes called me to come and move her to the front of the hotel as suggested.
When I went to check on her this morning she was the main center of attention with an admiring crowd around her who all had tons of questions about Elsie, us and our expedition.
Wherever we are she is quite the crowd collector :)
Sorry about the no pics but I cannot find the cable to pull the pics off my camera but hope I find it in Elsie a little later and will hopefully get more pics up soon.
Enjoy what is left of the weekend and have a great new week.
Paul and Angelika

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