Camino Real

The rest of our stay in Antigua was nice. We ate dinner at a restaurant, during which there was yet another power outage (4th in 9 days). They had to close the iron doors immediately to keep out thieves. This one only lasted 15 minutes or so. We then paid a short visit to N, a colleague who has hosted Gallaudet Faculty in the past. He was incredibly friendly and knew a member of ASORGUA from a GSL class. In the morning we stopped by a children´s charity and the Hermano Pedro center for persons with disabilities before heading back to Guatemala City.
CA suggested we visit the Camino Real, which is a super fancy hotel on the Avenida de la Reforma, as something of a sightseeing venture (it looked like a palace inside, in contrast to the city outside its walls). There were metal detectors at the entrance and myriad important looking people. The new President, Colom, will be inaugurated Monday, and had invited leaders from many countries to attend, many of whom were staying at the hotel. This was a strategicdecision; not only will it make the event auspicious, but the presence of international leaders and members of the press may help keep disgruntled Guatemalan citizens on their best behavior. Perhaps now they won´t riot or protest so asnot to seem unsightly or embarrassing (asif politics were a WASPish dinner party.)
The climax of this story is that while CA and I were sitting on couches in the lobby, the press interviewed the president of Aruba and the Dutch Ambassador on the couch right in front of us! Wow!