Misadventures In Guatemala
Before moving to Guatemala for Costa Rica I traveled there and it was a race against time to get as much accomplished as possible: finding a home, finding a school for my boy… etc. We wanted to make this transition for our son as smooth as possible, which usually involves gifts of some sorts in the middle of all the running.
That day we were going to get him a bicycle. The way this worked is that we bought him stuff and told him that it would be waiting for him when we arrive, so he’ll be excited to come back and would forget about leaving his life behind in Costa Rica. I was thinking of this when I remembered that at every store you arrive to in Guatemala you must leave your bags at the counter. Not purses, but stuff like shopping bags and back packs.
We entered into an empty store it was only us. Regardless, my husband had to leave his bag at the front desk. Thirty minutes we came out of the store after buying nothing (there was a good reason why it was so empty). When my husband got his things back we realized his phone was gone. And the only explanation we could think of was that it was stolen at the counter.
This taught me 2 lessons: first don’t bring anything valuable to Guatemala and the second one was make sure you have your phone numbers saved elsewhere. You don’t want to be like my husband freaked out about how he’ll contact any of his friends and co-workers again.
However, the stealing of the phone was not what impressed me the most but the ultimate fear he had about the new and somewhat creative way criminals are taking advantage of people here in Guatemala these days. Apparently what really matters is that thieves will be calling everyone in your phone book and extorting money from them by saying that they have kidnapped you and they want money. NICE!
So as you can imagine we spent the afternoon running around contacting his family members and whatever numbers he could remember of his friends and co workers to tell them that he’s alright and if they get any calls from an extortionist to ignore it.
S I started wondering do I really want to live here? However, I’ve been assured for the billionth time Antigua is completely different. And from my experience so far, I’d say it is.