I’ve been mewling a bit over the fact that Antigua is NOT an adventure.  Sorry.  My bad,  It was never intended to be one.  It was intended to be a nice place to go to escape the Wet Coast winter and, in that regard, it succeeds very well.

My excuse: I think I was approaching this vacation with my old-fashioned traveling mindset.  You know, like an Indiana Jones wanna-be?

We never used to travel for a vacation.  Not really.  Well,we went for a vacation-as-change versus a vacation-as-‘rest’.  The theory has always been a change is as good as a rest and laying about on the beach simply was not enough change nor rest for us.  So, our ‘habit’  has always been to ‘fling ourselves’ into some place and ‘wing it’ in some weird way and cope as best we could thus encountering some adventure in the process.

We’re a bit old for that kind of thing now.  Hard to wing it convincingly when you insist on a shower and martini at the end of the day.  So this time was supposed to be different.

And it is.  It is conventionally ‘restful’ and very nice.  I kept looking for the adventure but, except for the crime and violence of Guatemala City (which we avoided like the plague) there really isn’t any. This is just nice.  Finding the best restaurant?  Learning to drive the old diesel Land Rover|?  Wending our way through mercados and super mercados and trying to find a working ATM?  Winging it?  Yes.  Adventure?   I don’t think so.

No, I think the problem was with me.  I came with an expectation of adventure (like the old days) and yet we had really planned for a vacation in a nicer climate with plentiful avocados.  We aimed low. And we hit the target.

Still, there is a chance.  We’ll take the Rover on a tour of the area around Antigua over the next few days.  The house rules restrict the wandering to a 25 km/mile radius but that includes a dozen small villages and so we may find something of non-touristy interest there.  We are not permitted to go further for reasons of car-jacking reports.

I am not feeling so adventuresome that I need to violate that safety perimeter on purpose.

We’ll likely just have a very nice time.

I think ‘nice’  is going to show up a lot in the blogs for a while.

Which is just fine.  It is the weather not the adventure.  It is the weather NOT the adventure.  IT IS THE WEATHER NOT THE ADVENTURE!

Mindset change required.  And I’ll get there.  Eventually.  Sal?  Well, Sally has a deeper adventure streak than me so we’ll see.  Next thing on her agenda is climbing the most active volcano and descending into the centre.

So long as the martini and shower routine is not disturbed, it should be nice, doncha think?