Hello from Antigua

Hi everybody! This is Madeleine. Sorry I haven't posted for so long. I will start where I left off before. Boquete was really nice. We went to a flower show and at our hotel a toucan kept on flying into the dining room. We were going to stay longer, but Dad's computer crashed. That meant we had to leave early for Alajuela (a city near San Jose in Costa Rica) so he could get it fixed. We took two bus rides to get there, ten hours in all. At the bus station, someone was selling tons of cute little chicks for 75 cents each. In Alajuela we went to a butterfly farm where they raise butterflies to sell to live butterfly exhibits all around the world. The butterfly exhibit in Philadelphia has butterflies from this place. It was interesting, but in the end they gave a long and reeeaally wierd speech about finding your inner butterfly. We also went to the top of the Poas Volcano. The crater was huge and smoking. The sulfur SMELLED when the wind blew the smoke cloud toward us. I would like to say that we had alot of traditional Costa Rican food, but we mostly ate at a Tex-Mex place. We got to fly from Costa Rica to Guatemala in first class. We got comfy seats and cushions, our own mini-TVs where we could watch free movies, and a whole meal that looked fancy and actually tasted good. We are now staying in the city of Antigua in Guatemela. In Mom's words, it is a charming colonial city with cobblestone streets and many ruined churches and monasteries. We have spent alot of our time here touring them. There was one with an underground room that had an amazing echo. We have also gone to the Antigua market. There are lots of beautiful Mayan products like huipiles, but also lots of fruit, dvd's, confetti, and underwear. We have had to be careful about what we eat and drink here because certain foods and tap water can give you diarrhea. It's kind of annoying. I hope I will be posting again soon, but I don't know if we will have WiFi in the places we are going to next.

Goodbye!