Visit to San Juan del Obispo

Yesterday afternoon, Stacey and I went with a group from the school to visit a convent/museum in San Juan del Obispo. That meant another ride on a chicken bus! Luckily (but somewhat disappointingly) it wasn’t crowded like the last one we rode. (I don’t think I wrote about that experience, but I know Stacey did on her blog, so you probably already know about it.) It wasn’t far… maybe 10-15 minutes on the bus. And since the school picked up the bus fare, the whole trip was free.

The place itself was interesting, though not quite as interesting as some of the ruins we’ve visited. I think the teacher from our school was expecting the nun who greeted us to give us the tour, but instead she suggested we just read the signs! They were interesting, but we didn’t get much time to read them, because the sister was shepherding us through the place pretty quickly. Apparently, she doesn’t like it when too many people are in the place at the same time, and some bigger groups were arriving just as we were leaving. I included a pic of her waiting for us to leave, in case you’re curious about what a nun in a hurry looks like.

This really made us laugh because of a language slip-up Stacey had made with Miriam, her teacher at the language school. When Stacey was telling her the story of her being chased by a monkey in Tikal (described here), she was telling it in Spanish, of course. But instead of using the word mono for “monkey,” she mistakenly used the word monja. Stacey told her about the monja chasing her and growling, and how she was afraid it would bite her. Miriam looked confused, so Stacey tried to clarify by doing the little monkey-scratching-its-armpits motion and making monkey noises. That’s when Miriam wrote on the whiteboard: “monja = nun.”

So yesterday Stacey and I had a whole new round of laughter between ourselves when we were chased out of the convent/museum by the monja.

By the way, I’m posting this from a Pollo Campero restaurant. It’s a regular fast-food restaurant, complete with a kids play area… except (1) it’s all in Spanish (of course), (2) they serve you at your table, and (3) it has wifi internet access. I’ll include some pics in a later post.

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