Puerto Quetzal Guatamala

Monday April 27

Today we arrived in Puerto Quetzal, Guatamala, and have not booked a tour at this stop. We decided to just hang loose and go ashore on our own. As it turned out it was about a 3 hour round trip into Antiqua, so we stayed close to the ship.

There was a market place just out side of the pier where we spent most of the afternoon in the heat and humidity bartering with the local mechants. This was a lot of fun! we would haggle over the price for a few minutes and get no where. They would ask “what will you pay mister” I would give a price which they would not accept, I would turn to Ray and say lets go and start to walk away. This they would not like and would call to you a lower price to which we would say NO and carry on. Then we most likely would hear “OK Mister 10 dollars” (or what ever we had offered). It was a hoot. We picked up a blanket and a few pieces of Jade, which is found in Guatemala. We had thought that Jade was green which is not true it comes in colours from White to Black depending on what other mineral it containes. If what they were telling us is true it is next in hardness to Diamonds.

After spending about three hours doing this it was time to have a cool one and head back to the ship. As we did not go far not many pictures were taken at this stop.