Bienvenidos a Guatemala!!! After an initial one day orientation in Atlanta, we were loaded onto a plane and within 3 hours could see the mountainous highlands of Guate. The view from the plane was amazing as we could see volcanos, lakes, mountains and more green than I am used to. When we landed we were greeted by the Peace Corps staff who walked us through immigration and customs.
Our group is 52 people, 45 women and 7 men and Liz and I are the only couple. For a group this large it was unbelievable the amount of luggage we had, even if for 2 years, but the staff here was extremely organized and had mini buses all lined up to take and load the luggage, then we all boarded our first chicken bus (la camioneta), which is basically an old american school bus painted all sorts of colors and retrofitted with wider seats so that 3 can sit to a seat (which makes walking down the aisles in slalom skiing stance a necessity). We arrived in Guatemala City which is the capital, and after an hour of un-air conditioned bliss, we arrived in the small village of Santa Lucia, which is about 10 minutes away from Antigua. There we had our first meal of tortillas and rice and then got shots (yeah!). Attached are some pictures of our arrival as well as the village of Santa Lucia. Oh, and the picture of Liz has two volcanos in it and the other picture is of our active volcano.