MUNGO EATS Latin America

Here I sit, in my camper, still in Antigua.  Yes, we are still here, and I am not really sure when we will be leaving.  A few days ago, when we were still living with our home-stay family, Sara and Kevin came across a campground of sorts nearby.  I think Kevin kind of knew there was a place you could camp at from one of our guidebooks, but there was really very little by way of description to help us track it down.  In any case, one morning when they were walking Mungo, they saw a group of other campers in a field.  The field is really a type of courtyard surrounded by “old walls”.  The field also encompasses the tourist police station.  In Guatemala there are special “tourist police”, who’s job it is to take care of the tourists.  I guess letting us camp in there yard is a way of taking care of us.  There is not much to the field, and the weeds are about knee high, but there is a working bathroom and many showers, although they are cold water showers, so it will do.  Sean is slowly taking care of the weeds in the immediate vicinity by chopping them down with his machete.  Hmm, I guess it is a tool after all. 

We came to our new campsite yesterday after deciding that it might be better to wait until Monday to start traveling again.   We had to restock the trailer again and decided that one more day in Antigua would be a good thing.  By this morning we were talking about staying another week and it looks like this is the course of action we will take.  I think we will do one more week of school, and just hang out.  The weather is great, the camping is free, there is WiFi service, the cost of living is ridiculously cheap…so we will stay for a while longer. 

At the moment there are five camping units in the “RV park”, including ourselves.  There is a couple from Germany with a truck and camper.  They purchased their vehicle in the states, traveled up to Canada and to Alaska, and are working their way down south, but at a snails pace.  I think they said they have been camping here for 7 weeks.  They are not exactly traveling in a straight line.  In fact, they found  Mexico too hot while they were there so they are kind of waiting out the weather in Guatemala, with the plan of returning to the Yucatan Peninsula in October.   They said they had originally planned to travel for a year and a half, but amended this to 3 years shortly after arriving.  So you see, they have plenty of time to back track. 

The third group of travelers is a young couple from Argentina.  They are traveling in a  ” Jeep ” sort of vehicle.  It is not a camperized vehicle and really it is a car with a bed in the back seat.  It is a cool looking vehicle.  Kevin cannot figure out the make of vehicle, let alone the model.  It has a giant map of North, Central and South America on if and they are keeping track of their journey by drawing on the map.  Their vehicle is called La Celestina.  I haven’t really spoken to them to find out how long they have been traveling.

There is a single 45ish fellow in vehicle number 4.  He is a Frenchman, nice friendly guy.  He is traveling in a small camper.  He seems to have lots of toys for the small space he has.  I’m not sure about his travel plans.  I don’t know if he is traveling through the Americas or not.  I will try to find out.  Today, he was joined by the last vehicle in this gypsy caravan, an American couple from Florida.  They are friends of the Frenchman, but I have not spoken to them yet.  They are traveling in an eight foot camper/truck combo. 

Everyone seems very nice, very friendly.  They all seem to share tools, ideas, etc.  They are quiet at night.  Couldn’t really ask for better neighbors.