All tagged Edgardo

Yesterday we bid extremely fond farewells to Br Edgardo – his humour, compassion and sense of fun were gifts to us – and made our way to El Salvador. As we crossed the border, we noticed that while the Guatemalan officials wrote out our passport details by hand, the El Salvadoran migration officials had computers. The border crossing also brought us better roads and thus our first impression of this place, new to us, was that it seems to have much better infrastructure than its neighbour. After lunching at a Marist school in Santa Ana (the second largest city in this densely populated country), we then visited a shopping mall and a petrol station – El Salvador was starting to look a great deal more like a place that we could recognize…

Hola!

We set off in a much larger bus (a coach by anyone’s standard) for Antigua and Chichicastenango. We arrived in Antigua just before lunch and spent time shopping for souvenirs and soaking in the Mayan village experience. Br Edgardo who accompanied us had warned all Pilgrims that pick-pockets were rife. Well, Paul Herrick can account for the accuracy of this advice! Having just jumped off the coach, Paul was persuaded to have his shoes polished by a small boy. He quickly discovered that his wallet was no longer in his pocket and he desperately looked for the local ‘tourist police’ to report the atrocity. The police were terrific and found the culprit and Paul’s wallet was returned – a lesson for all!