May 16 or thereabouts
The border crossing was as bureaucratic as the DMV and took about as long.  Guatemala looked different immediately.  Not just worse roads, more expensive food, and slimmer people, but dramatically volcanic and lush -- pictures later, it was cloudy today.
As always, I took a turn around the city to orient myself, and, as always, I got lost.  I can make myself understood in Spanish.  It's only a problem when they talk back.

So I will do a week of Spanish immersion, and visit with my old friend Freddy Clark, AFS Exchange student in 1974.  Antigua, the capital until 1776, is a wonderful place to explore, and the center of years of landscape upheaval.  When I came in 1978 with Lloyd Wattenbarger, the city was in ruins.  A UN Heritage site, it was wonderfully restored.  Too many American food franchises, but at least they match the colonial style.