IRTRA & Day of the Dead

It's been awhile since I've updated my blog. I guess that's to be expected when you have a one year old. I'll head back to September when we went to IRTRA for a weekend with a group from school and October when we took a trip to Sacatepequez for a Day of the Dead.

IRTRA is a popular park made up of two parts, Xetulul and Xocomil (pronounced like "chocolate milk"), located about 4 hours from Guatemala City. Xetulul is an amusement park and Xocomil is a water park. We spent two nights at Xocomil and had a good time. Sienna was still a bit small to send down a water slide, but she enjoyed splashing around in the giant pools.

Day of the Dead was on November 1 and for the second year in a row, I headed to Sacatepequez for a huge kite festival. It was Sienna's first kite festival and started out with an interesting adventure seeking out a parking place in the small town.

I was leading a three car caravan and had intended on parking in the same spot as I did the year before. We arrived and police with their large guns had the main road blocked off, so I thought it was a smart idea to follow their directions. Guess again.

This led us to the opposite side of the main road and would make it very difficult for us to leave when the crowds started rolling in. I knew we wanted to be on the other side of the street, but that was easier said than done.

I made a left turn down an incredibly steep and narrow road only to find that it was impassable due to a pick up truck parked on one side. There wasn't enough space to get a car through because the other side of the street had a few stairs leading to someone's house. No good.

I asked a gentleman on the street if he knew the owner of the truck, hoping we could get him to move it for a moment while we passed by, but he explained that he was gone for the day and wouldn't be back until tomorrow. This left one option. Back up an extremely steep road in my stick shift car with parked cars on my left and cement houses on my right. Each were so close that we had to pull in my rear view mirrors.

It seemed as if there was no way I was going to be successful without getting a serious scratch or ten on my car, but miraculously I NASCAR-ed my way out of there.

Our next issue was getting across the main road which was blocked off and lined on both sides with vendors selling everything from tacos to wrist watches.

We enlisted the help of a local guy who literally ran around the town, directing our cars to a street we could cross after a few sweet, old ladies moved their tortilla stand. Unbelievable.

We parked and happily walked to the kite festival, Sienna strapped in the Baby Bjorn. The day was spent watching the locals built, display and fly gigantic kites, as well as eating, drinking and being merry.


Sienna managed to fall asleep in all of the chaos and as we walked out amidst a massive crowd and blaring music, we laughed at what a little Chapina (Guatemalan) she has turned out to be.