From the cheering coming from the sports bar, I'm assuming someone just won a gold medal.

It is a quiet week on the blog, but that is because it has been a quiet week in Guatemala.  We stayed two days in Pana, enjoying our hot shower and an abundance of pretty good, cheap food.  We did spend a day at a small reserve where we saw some spider monkeys, although we were eluded by the coatamundi (for now, I will not rest until I lay my eyes on one!!)

We then went to a much smaller town called San Marcos.  The town is gorgeous.  The area down around the lake where all the travelers are has no roads, just little dirt and stone paths that snake through the banana trees to take you to the different guesthouses and restaurants and yoga schools.  This is where all the hippies go to meditate and align their chakrahs, so the food is all organic and highly vegetarian.  We considered taking some courses as we arrived just days before the next full moon cycle was to begin, but in the end we just weren't in the mood to be THAT chilled out. (Though we are still interested in taking some yoga.)

So we took a boat across the lake to another town, San Pedro, where the majority of the backpackers hang out.  At 10,000 strong, the town is twice the size of San Marcos, yet with so many more foreigners it seems even bigger than that.  The food here is decidedly international, though while I had the best burger yet in Central America, David can't seem to get a break with the pasta dishes, which are always a little...odd.  But the food is cheap, with many of the restaurants offering unbeatable atmosphere with views right over the lake.  It is the kind of place we wish we could bring people to meet up for meals.

We were wandering around today and found another spanish school, and before we knew what we were doing we had signed up for another week, so we will be staying here a while.  Our hotel is only $6.25 a night, which gives us plenty of room to eat like kings and still stay on budget.  But then we are eating like kings anyway - there is a local woman who walks around selling bread from a basket, and I am unable to resist her $1 loaves of banana bread.  (Or chocolate-banana bread, or cinnamon rolls that aren't quite like home but as close as I'm gonna get.)  She is aware I'm an easy target and beelines over to me whenever she sees me.

Right now I am having difficulty with the keyboard, which looks like an American keyboard, but it works like a Guatemalan one with all the extra buttons, so I'm having to remember where all the different keys are. I'm actually surprised at how well I'm doing, but still.  Tonight we have the difficult task of choosing a new restaurant to try, then review our spanish lessons to be ready for tomorrow.  Getting a new teacher is always scary, I feel like a kid on the first day of school.  Who knows what to expect?  Will we get the teacher jaded by experience, or the over-eager novice?  Hopefully we will get the baby bear teacher that is juuuuust riiiight.

Earthquake!

We were woken up this morning about 4:30am, not from fireworks, but because our room was moving.  There were a couple of good shakes, but it was over before I had woken up enough even to stand up (and run for the safety of outdoors, down here I´m not trusting a doorjam, and yes, I´ve thought about this scenario).  It was much stronger than any of the quakes we ever felt when we were living in California, but not strong enough to cause any damage, at least none we were aware of.  For a moment we thought maybe the volcano had erupted, but no such luck.

We got up and a little after nine we were packed and waiting for a bus out of Xela.  As we stood there an aftershock hit, not as strong as the first but still enough for us to stumble a bit and cause all the power lines to sway in the air.  All in all, pretty awesome!  Just looked it up online, and it was a 5.4 quake with an epicenter not too far north of where we were. 

We got on our bus with relative ease, they slow as they pass groups of people and scream out where they are going.  We were about 45 minutes early for the direct bus, so we just got on a bus headed for Guatemala City knowing we´d change busses when we got to Los Encuentros.  As we headed out of town, we made fun of the people who are afraid of chicken busses.  Here we were, saving almost 2/3rds of the cost over taking a tourist shuttle.  We´d even seen a guy with two goats at the bus stop, but unfortunately he didn´t get on our bus. 

Just as we hit the edge of town we made a stop, and about 50 people got on board to sell us stuff.  First it was the fruit guys, then the candy and gum girls, then guys with breads and then sandwiches and then tortillas and then drinks and then ice cream and then fruit again and finally a nice newspaper to read while you ate everything you just bought.  In the middle of it a burn victim stood at the front telling us his story, but the other salesman were all yelling over him and we couldn´t hear anything.  It was totally crazy and terrific. 

Then we took off, and I mean took off.  I am quite certain our bus driver had sold his soul to the devil, because were in clear violation of the laws of physics as we took corners at speeds the bus absolutely should have tipped over.  We whipped through this high mountain road, passing other cars (and other chicken busses!) gripping the seat in front of us trying not to fall over.  (We were seated, but at these speeds we were still in danger of falling over.)  We white knuckled it, and were not at all surprised to find that our driver had cut a half hour off a two hour drive.  Think about that for a minute.  Totally crazy.

It took us two more quick busses, but we are now in Panajachel, the main city on the shores of Lake Atitlán.  The important thing is our hotel has a kick-ass hot shower, so we may stay here a day or two before heading off to one of the smaller towns across the lake.

Volcano, check. Earthquake, check.  Gravity-defying chicken bus ride?  Check.  Guatemala is being generous. Let´s just hope Honduras comes through with the whale sharks.

We climbed a volcano, and watched one of six others erupt. In other words, a good day.

It is hard to believe we have now been in Xela for almost three weeks.  And today is, I believe, only day 41 of our trip.  School is really a time-sucker!  Friday was our last day of class, at least in Xela, I´m sure we will take more in other cities as we go along.  We both learned a ton over these two weeks (50 hours of one-on-one instruction!), and now we need a little time to absorb the information before we try and learn any more.  David especially got a crash course in conjugation, but the upshot is he learned past tense as well, so now we can practice with each other, which I think is going to be even more useful than class.

(Those teenage boys are here again tonight, and their wild giggles as they play whatever they are playing tonight makes me pee with internal laughter.)

Saturday we had made tentative plans to go climb a volcano, but Friday morning was terribly overcast, and the weather report predicted more clouds and rain for Saturday, so we cancelled the trip.  We haven´t been paying much attention to weather reports, as the weather has been rather cooperative with us, with only the occasional brief rain shower as we´ve gone along.  Trusting technology turned out to be a mistake, and Saturday morning was absolutely perfect and would have made great hiking weather.  The report for Sunday was identically poor, calling for clouds and rain, so we learned our lesson and booked the tour.

The tour company was supposed to pick us up at 5am, so we set the alarm for 4:30.  I woke up at 4 though, not sure why but sure I had heard something.  A minute later, I heard a loud explosion that echoed through the courtyard and into our room.  It went off again several more times, and then was quiet.  David was up by this time too, and we were having a hard time explaining the noise.  Was it kids playing a prank with fireworks nearby?  Then it started up again, with a bang going off every minute or so.  The other woman who is staying at our place came out of her room, and we were hoping that since she has been living here for so many months maybe she would be able to explain it, but she was just as uneasy as we were.  After a half hour we were pretty sure it wasn´t kids, because they would be moving around to avoid getting caught.  It hadn´t been a wet night, but when we´d been in Campeche, after a heavy rain we had heard a series of loud explosions when an electical box got wet and shorted out, leaving half our neighborhood without electricity for a few hours.  So then I started to worry that there was an electrical problem next door, and we would leave for our tour and come back to a burned out room.

About 4:30 I finally had had enough speculation, so we ventured out into the dark street.  There was a heavy fog (which did not bode well for our hike), but I walked out cautiously hoping to see or hear where the noises were coming from, ready to bolt back to the door if I saw any suspicious characters about.  Of course as soon as I went out it was silent, and I slowly walked up the block waiting to hear it again.  A flash lit up the sky and the noise started up again, but this time I could at least tell it was coming from at least a few blocks away, which made me feel better about my doomsday fire scenario at least.  (There had been a fire a few days earlier in a hotel just off the main square, but the fire department had been able to contain it from spreading to any of the adjoining connected buildings, so I felt good about that anyways.)  I couldn´t make out anything through the fog, it was just a white flash, but from outside we could hear the explosion echoing across the city.  We speculated that if it wasn´t an electrical problem somewhere, maybe it was some kind of weird military thing, which didn´t really make sense nor did it make us feel any better.  The explosions continued, five or six at a time, then silence of a few minutes, then another rally.  Everytime it would get quiet we would hope it had stopped, but inevitably it would start up again.  We continued to get ready, and by five were out on the porch waiting for our ride.  The fog had cleared a bit by now, and as I craned my neck to see down the street without unlocking the gate, suddenly over the buildings I saw what was clearly a firework.  Just a simple little white flash, but definitely a firework.  Our original guess had been right, someone was shooting off bottle rockets!

Turns out Catholics are totally weird in this part of the world.  We knew last Wednesday was Ash Wednesday, and Friday was a huge celebration with a big firework show over the main square.  But apparently Sunday morning at 4am was time to celebrate or at least be a reminder for the residents of town to get ready for church or something.  I´m probably making light of something terribly important, but after an hour of being totally freaked out I think I´m entitled.  :)

Our tour bus picked up another four people, and we headed out to the foot of Santa Maria, a huge volcano just outside of town.  [Warning, the following information was not googled and is my interpretation of what the tour guide told me in Spanish, so take it with a grain of salt.]  The volcano last erupted in about 1902, destroying the city and actually opening a new vent and starting a new volcano on the (I think) westward slopes, which is called Santiaguito.  While Santa Maria has been dormant since, Santiaguito erupts every hour or so with steam and ash, and is rated one of the world´s ten most dangerous volcanos.  We were climbling Santa Maria, but it was Santiaguito we wanted to see.

The van drove us about twenty minutes outside the city, and dropped us off literally at the end of the road.  It was still dark, with just the barest glow of the coming morning starting to push through the fog, so for the first half hour we walked with flashlights up a steep path, following behind a guy with a donkey.  As soon as we got off the bus our local tour guide showed up to join us, a remarkably attractive and healthy looking dog.  As has happened to David and I several other times along our trip, the dog attached itself to us and started following us the mountainside in the dark.

Hold on a minute, this is important so I´m gonna google.  The city of Xela sits at 7656 feet above sea level, and it has taken me the last two weeks to be able to climb around the hilly city without losing my breath.  The summit of Santa Maria sits at 12375 feet, which means we had another mile up to climb.  The tour was rated as "moderately difficult".  In the states, moderately difficult generally means not that big of a deal, at least for avid hikers like we are.  So we were mentally unprepared for just how hard this hike was going to be.

From the first steps we were climbling probably a foot with each step, so I guess you could think about it like we were climbing uneven stairs for three hours straight.  Look at that photo again, and you can see that Santa Maria is not some mountain with nice Sound-Of-Music gentle slopes.   Fortunately for the five boys that were making the hike, there was one girl along too.  Since she had no male ego to worry about, she had no problem being the slow one of the group, which I have no doubt each and every one of us boys was grateful for.  "Oh, let´s be gentleman and wait for the poor girl."  (GASP, GASP, GASP.)

The fog soon cleared and the sun shone down, and it turned into a beautiful morning marred only by the increasing difficulty of breathing.  We made more and more frequent stops, the dog panting along with us, not being pushy but clearly in favor of any handouts of food when someone opened up something from their bag.  Having learned our lesson in the past on a 20 mile hike to the Cirque of Towers in Colorado, we at least had plenty of water with us, which I´m sure helped a great deal. The cold of the morning soon wore away and our extra shirts and sweatshirts were soon tied around our waists.  Thank goodness we had to keep waiting for the girl to catch up again.

It took three hours, but suddenly the pine forest thinned and disappeared, and another 15 minutes of hard climbing got us to the peak.  There were only a couple of other local guys at the top, and we just stared all around ourselves in awe.  We could see (again, assuming I was correctly understanding my guide) seven other volcanoes, as well as other plain old mountains.  The air was thin and it took a long time for my heart to return to a normal beat, but boy was it worth it.  The clouds were all below us, but we were lucky and they didn´t really obscure the things we wanted to look at.  We made our way over to the (I think) westward side where we could see huge amounts of steam seeping out of the Santiaguito crater and rising lazily into the air.  We sat to eat, quickly putting back on all of our extra layers as the brisk wind on this side made it suddenly very cold again despite the seeming nearness of the sun.

We heard it before we saw anything.  In fact at first I ignored it as background noise, thinking I was hearing an airplane flying overhead.  But then it got louder, and our attention was quickly drawn to the crater below us as the white steam started growing and getting much darker in color.  A huge cloud of steam and ash suddenly burst through a layer of clouds that had started to obscure Santiaguito, spewing rapidly high up into the air.  It was totally awesome.  The cloud rose up and up until finally the wind caught it and blew it towards us.  Fortunately it curved around the mountain to our left, but even that was gorgeous.  At night apparently you can see the glow of the lava, but I can´t imagine making that hike in the dark the whole way.

After the eruption (I love that I just said that) we made our way around to the lee-side of the mountain.  Though we weren´t more than 20 feet away from where we had started, the lack of wind warmed us right up.  The poor dog was panting away, so David cupped his hands together and we gave it some water to drink.  I´m sure this is exactly what it counts on, but any dog that will climb a mile certainly deserves a little food and water for the effort.  We stayed up top about two hours in all, and soon droves of other people began arriving, almost all locals.  When we were ready to go, two hours after arriving, I was still short of breath in the thin atmosphere, and suddenly there are all these old grandmothers around me, having just climbed up in flip-flops.  Many gathered into groups and started having what seemed like church services, singing and praying.  One of the other guys commented to me "I know plenty of people who have a hard time getting up to go to church.  Imagine if you had to climb a volcano every Sunday morning."

After a long rest, we eventually started back down, which, as I had suspected, was practically worse than going up.  Though my heart wasn´t pounding as before, my legs were soon trembling with the effort it took to descend down such a steep and slippery trail.  You Albuquerque peeps know how the La Luz trail has those massive switchbacks that are so annoying because you walk so far to climb so little?  I was desperate for a switchback that was more than five feet in either direction.  Going up or coming down, there were exactly three places where I had the luxury of walking five or six steps of flat.  Everything else was slippery, uneven and, of course, steep.

At least the breathing got easier as we descended.  All in all, I think it was the hardest, most difficult hike I´ve ever made.  While I can´t say it was enjoyable exactly, I can certainly say it was totally, without a doubt, worth it.

One way to look at it is that I sort of almost got burned by a volcano.

I´m sitting in an internet café, which has a dozen terminals and all are being used.  I´m not far off the main road, yet I´m the only gringo here.  Ten of the other computers are being used by very excitable teenage boys who are all playing internet soccer with each other, screaming and yelling at each other every time (I assume) one of them makes a good play.  There are also a couple of girls (girlfriends?) who are standing just outside the door, laughing at their own jokes (or perhaps at the boys?).  I feel very out of place, but still it totally cracks me up.  When I traveled to Asia, all the teenage boys would be sitting in lounges singing karaoke.  Now they play internet soccer.  Ah, progress.  :)

We are just about to finish our second week of Spanish class.  There have been both good and bad days.  It is hard feeling like a child with a limited ability to communicate.  No wonder kids cry so much, they just don´t know how to tell you what they want!  However we do think we chose a great school, as they continue to take us on outings that, were we to have to pay a tour operator to take us, would cost about ten times as much.  Plus, getting there by local transport is a hundred times more interesting and fun than going in a tour shuttle!

Tuesday afternoon we took a chicken bus out to a village on a hill called San Andreas Xecul.  The town is mostly notable for a crazy church that people (including me) love to take pictures of.  We also walked up a steep street leading up the hill to similarly adorned but smaller church, and turned around to an amazing view of the valley behind us.  Next to the church was a lot where a man was doing a ritual with a fire in front of a cross.  Part of the reason the Catholic church did so well among the Mayans was that the Christian cross closely resembled the cross the Mayans worshipped which pointed the way to the four corners of the world.  Even today the Catholocism practiced here is melded with the old Mayan traditions, in ways that I´m guessing would be considered outright paganism in other parts of the world.  But that is just how it is here.

There were two other tour groups following us.  But with a quick question to a local we ditched them up another alley, and found the home that houses another incarnation of the venerated San Símon.  Unlike in Zunil, this was definitely not a tourist affair, and was therefore much more casual.  The woman of the house warmly invited us in, and didn´t even charge us admission!  Inside there were two effigies side by side, as well as a smattering of random small statues and Mayan carvings (which our teacher-guide assured us were real) crammed onto a long table.  We took photos and our teacher lit a candle to show our respects.  Outside facing down the valley (with that breathtaking view) and towards the sunrise, was a Mayan alter adorned with more old carvings, mostly of faces.  The altar was black with soot from the offerings that are made to the sunrise.  Totally awesome.

Wednesday was the birthday of the Italian girl that is also living in the house we are staying at.  She invited a few of her friends over for some (very interesting) chocolate cake.  We had to sing Happy Birthday to her three times to represent the languages present - Italian, English and Spanish.  We all spoke mostly in Spanish as it was the common language for everyone, which of course made me feel very cosmopolitan and fancy.  In reality I was just barely hanging on to the thread of the converstation, but still it was the best I´ve done so far.  And I got cake for my efforts, which was great even if it did seem to have some kind of orange marmalade mixed in.

The house has actually been rather interesting of late, as a few new people have moved in (including an actor from Chicago) which has prompted the landlady to make drastic efforts to redecorate.  We´ve had guys hammering and sawing at all hours of the day, and I swear every time I go into the kitchen the dishes and silverware are in a different location, which has the upside of turning every meal into a treasure hunt.  Will the bowls be up in the cupboard, in a drawer, or under the counter?  You just never know!  Also we still haven´t tired of the other residents of the courtyard, a couple of small birds that live in the tree.  To warm up we sit out in the sun for lunch every day, and these two birds fly over to a mirror on a windowsill and fight with their reflections.  It is the cutest thing.

Today was another great outing.  A bunch of us took a chicken bus out to Xunil, where we boarded a pickup truck.  For transport the pickup trucks put a basic steel rack in the back, so people can sit or stand in the back to make trips where the chicken buses are less convenient (or in this case, don´t go at all).  There were ten of us that boarded in the back, and we took off up through the village and then up into the hills beyond.  The road, of course, winded its way perilously close to the steep dropoff beyond, which proved to be a bit much for a young French Canadian girl who became very pale and quiet as she clutched the support frame.  For me, however, it was a highlight.  The coutryside was filled with small farms, men in cowboy hats and women in colorful local garb tending the fields.  We got an amazing view of Santa Maria, a huge volcano nearby (that we are hopefully going to climb on Saturday).

Finally, up in the far reaches of  the mountain, we arrived at Fuentes Gorginas, a natural hot spring.  The locale was gorgeous, the main pool right up against the side of the mountain, with water trickling down the rock into the pool.  The water was hot tub hot, generally cooler the farther away from the mountain you got, but with patches of water so hot it was almost scalding.  In fact when I swam over to touch the water trickling into the pool (I knew better but couldn´t resist) I almost burned my hand.  Guatemala (and all of Central America) is rife with dormant and active volcanos, and thermal heat is nothing to play with kids!

I´m not sure what was in the water (David got a mouthful and said it had a sour taste), but it was incredibly relaxing.  We sat and talked under a canopy of lush foliage, steam rising from the water over our heads which certainly added to the out-of-this world atmosphere.  Several of the girls used the mud from the mountainside to give themselves facials while they steamed.  It was just terrific.  I hadn´t been super interested in coming, certain that the pools couldn´t possibly live up to the hype, but boy was I wrong.  The next time you find yourself in Guatemala, make sure you book a trip here.  (There are even cabins where you can stay the night, too bad I have class again in the morning or I might have just stayed over!)

When we got back to town one of the guys took us to this very out of the way café where I had an amazing mug of hot chocolate.  David got a hot chocolate that came with two scoops of ice cream floating in it.  A great end to a great day.

The take away is that I did NOT start an international incident.

Classes are going well.  I have no expectations of being fluent by the time we come home, but I´m sure going to know a lot more than I did coming in.  My instructor continues to crack me up, with long side conversations detailing the difficulty he has deciding whether Salma Hayek or Sharon Stone is the sexier star.

Thursday after class Maria, the woman who runs the school took David and I and another student (from Montreal) to another village close to town called Xunil.  We saw another beautiful church, and went to a weaving cooperative where the local woman sold their clothes.  Interestingly the patterns, colors and style of their clothes was quite distinct from the village we had visited on Tuesday, even though they are but a few kilometers apart.  

We also visited San Simón, an effigy of what I think is an evil spirit of vice, but one that the locals take very seriously.  Maria only speaks Spanish, so a lot of what she told us about him went over our heads, but the short version is that he is worshiped in several villages across Guatemala, and each village depicts him in a different way.  Here he was a plastic mannequin with shades and a cane or, as David put it, sort of like Michael Jackson.  He was located in the garage of somebodies house, and is moved to a different home every year so no one family has a monopoly.  People would come in and light candles for him, and there were far more people here than we saw at the church up the road.  Even Maria lit a candle for him as we left.  I wasn´t able to find anything googling him, but definitely need to get some more information on what I was seeing there.  (Also, I wasn´t going to post the photo, which I had to pay about sixty cents to take, but I´ve seen other photos up and around so I don´t think I´m violating any beliefs by doing so.)

Part of the reason I missed a lot of what Maria was trying to tell us about him, was that a very, very drunk man came in while she was talking, and began shouting and weeping at the effigy, yelling in his ear and then cuddling up with his head on its chest while he cried.  This, as you might imagine, was difficult not to enjoy.  He finally went over to light a candle, barely able to stand, and I was anticipating having to save him when he fell into the sea of flame.  Luckily another group of people came in, and he shuffled over to the side where he could crouch with his back to the wall.  (That is him in the photo, holding the can of beer.)

Saturday though, was on of my favorite excursions we´ve yet taken on the trip.  Seven of us met Maria at the school at 6am, and we walked through town to catch a minibus to an outlying village about an hour away.  Oh, and did I mention the village is on a volcano?  Because it is!  On a volcano!  From where we were let off we had to walk up a very steep road through the hillside village.  On the way up the village was just walking up, so we didn´t see many people, but the homes were all on plots of farmland, with cows and chickens running about.  We walked I think like three kilometers, which for David and I isn´t that far, but it was steep going the entire way.  I was worried about the thin air, but I guess my blood has thickened up finally and we both managed better than most of the others.  We reached a small office to pay our entrance fee, and then had to hike another 2 kilometers just as steep up to the ridge of the dormant volcano.  From the ridge we could see across to two other volcanoes in the area, one of which is still active and belches steam and smoke about every 45 minutes.  (Awesome.  We want to go there next weekend.)

But the reason we came was on the interior of the crater, where a lagoon surrounded by lush foliage sits.  The lagoon is considered a very sacred place by the Maya, so visitors are asked to be respectful and, for example, swimming is strictly prohibited.  We hiked down and had some snacks while we recovered.  Then we walked around the entire lake.  It was ridiculously beautiful, with beautiful flowers and orchids and berries all over.  As we walked the clouds started rolling in through the crater, and these huge clouds of mist would envelop us before being blown away again. Maria told us that people believe the water in the lagoon has beneficial health properties, so people will run their hands in the water and then pat the water into their hair, which is supposed to give you energy.  There were a few groups of locals sitting in groups, talking and singing and chanting.  At one point I was looking over at a group of people singing, and I glanced down at my feet just in time to avoid walking through a pile of black ash, were clearly a fire had been burned recently.  I looked up to see Maria, who was walking a ways in front of us, motioning madly at me to avoid the fire pit. Thank goodness I missed it, who knows what sort of riot I would have started had if I´d disturbed an offering the people were singing about.  (David, walking right next to me, didn´t notice it at all, so it wasn´t like I was being unusually aloof, it was just a flat circle of black ash sitting on top of the sand beside the lagoon.)  The offerings of flowers were easier to avoid at least.

To top it all off, we finally found some awesome bugs.  One was this fly/bee like thing, with a yellow striped abdomen.  We found it crawling on the beach, and when we disturbed it it fell back on its haunches to show us its red legs and underbelly.  It was a big sluggish, so it was hard to tell if it was just awkward, or whether it was a defensive posture trying to scare us away.  In any case, it was by far the best bug sighting we´ve had since we arrived.  (Sorry I can´t figure out how to rotate the pic.  But stop being lazy and just turn your head to the right!) Later as we were climbling back up the crater, we found another huge beetle that freaked out the girls (especially when David picked it up) but made us giddy with delight.  We didn´t see any parrots, although we found a pile of fresh green feathers, but David saw a small red finch-like bird, and I saw a pair of large bright blue birds with big crests on their heads.  Gorgeous when the sun hit them as they flew away.  

On the way back down the village was up and going, and just about every person we walked by had a smile and a "Buenas tardes" for us.  Even better were the kids.  In most places we´ve gone, the kids are either a little shy, or aware of us but generally nonchalant and uninterested.  Here the kids would wave and giggle and say hello as we passed.  So adorable.

We are doing great with our budget here, and continue to try and figure out where we want to go next.  I think we are pretty much settled on going to Lake Atitlán next week, and Antigua for more class after that.  Our South American plans have been changing rapidly as well.  For one heady day we decided to cut our trip short by a month (and cut the scuba) in order to fly down and out to Easter Island, but I think we´ve decided that for now it is just too big of a sacrifice.  So we are back to figuring out which route will take us to the Bay Islands in Honduras for dive lessons before we go to Belize and with the least amount of backtracking.

I will never again complain about having to get my car smogged.

I´m three days in, and already we have covered more grammar than I learned in two years of high school spanish.  I guess it helps that back in high school I was only peripherally interested in actually learning to communicate in Spanish, and now I´m motivated by the immediacy of needing to buy bus tickets and order dinner and all sorts of practical things. Monday we spent reviewing present tense and a lot of vocab, and yesterday we went over el pretèrito, or past tense, which I´d never really figured out before.  It is going to take a while before it is comfortable, but I´ve got the general idea down.  And it is so helpful to know how to say things like "I`ve been travelling for three weeks in Mexico, and I went to several ruins and ate lots of tacos."  Some things just can´t be expressed in present tense.

Today my teacher was mean, and just made me talk all day long.  Grammar wise we only did the por vs. para lecture (if you don´t know, you don´t want to know), but we talked a lot about all my travels and where I´ve lived and just about anything he could think of to ask in the past tense.  It was long.  But it was good. My maestro is named Jorge, laughs a lot, and since I´m a nurse has enjoyed teaching me all sorts of medical terms, including parts of the anatomy that an American teacher might have been embarassed to mention on the first day of class. 

David is also enjoying his teacher, and is also learning much more than he expected to by this point. We aren´t making decisions too far into the future, but we have decided to stay here in Xela for at least another week beyond this one.

Monday after class they showed us a movie (in Spanish but thankfully with English subtitles) about the history of Guatemala.  While I feel very strongly about the political issue of torture in America, it isn´t until you visit a place like this (Cambodia was similar) that you remember how sheltered we are in the US.  The massacres that took place here in the 70s and 80s were horrific, you just can´t understand how the human condition could allow people to be so callous and evil towards another human being.  It makes me realize how grateful I am that, at least in this area, we are more "civilized" in the US, while at the same time redoubles my determination to make sure that we stay that way.

Tuesday after class one of the instructors took David and I out to a village called Salcaja.  We went on another chicken bus (much less colorful this time, although we did get another of the health tonic hawkers), and while they called the place a village to us it seemed more of a suburb, not very far outside of Xela at all.  They had a big colorful market that we walked through, admiring all the gorgeous fabrics.  There are still tons of fruits and vegetables that I can´t identify. 

We then walked over to a smallish but sturdy church, which is the oldest (Christian) church in all of Central America, built sometime in the 1800s.  It is intersting because of all the pagan decoration they included to entice the local Mayan population, with fruits and animals symbolic of the Mayan beliefs much more prominent than the cross.  Inside I was fascinated to see statues of a black-skinned Jesus on the cross, with a very white Virgin Mary opposite.  (Sorry, but I can never bring myself to photograph things inside a church.  Even if it is "allowed", it just seems wrong.  By the same token, I hate taking pictures of locals on the street, even though those are the pictures I want most of all.  It just seems so rude.)

Finally we went into someone´s house where they showed us the loom they use to make the incredible fabrics the indiginous women wear.  Then they tried to sell us some homemade liquor they make out of fruit and who knows what else.  Besides a drink to sample, they also had apples and cherries that had soaked in the stuff.  The drink was very sweet, and VERY strong.  Neither of us cared for the fruit much though, and we declined to buy any.  (Speaking of alcohol, we´ve been amused to see Manichevitz listed on the menu of several of the restaurants we´ve eaten at in town.  There must be a large Jewish population hiding here somewhere.)

The children here are, of course, beautiful.  The indigenous women carry their children, seemingly up to age two or three, wrapped in a shawl on their backs or sometimes down on their side.  On the way home on the bus though, we saw a kid maybe just over a year, riding in a typically colorful shawl on his mother, who was dressed in typically colorful local dress.  The boy though was wearing a black leather baseball cap, with bright blue plastic sunglasses.  It cracked me up.  Even better as we got closer we noticed the kid was also holding a Spiderman action figure.

I´ve been tired a lot here.  Partly it is due to the high mountain elevation, Xela is 7500 feet above sea level.  For comparison, I also got very tired visiting Albuquerque, which is only about 5300 feet.  But the other issue is that I´m fairly certain I am suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning.  The streets here are very narrow, and everytime a car goes by, whether it is in a big puff of black smoke or not, you can taste and smell the exhaust coming out at you.  I want to go hike up the volcano but I´m not sure I´m up for it quite yet, I get tired just walking up the hills in town still.  At least I know my red blood cells will start to compensate, as long as the fumes don´t kill them off first!

I´m tempted to read Harry Potter again, but in Spanish

One more funny update to the Chicken Bus experience.  All through the trip people would get on board to sell us things, usually fruit or ice cream bars.  So you have a nine year old boy with bags of watermelon and coconut and papaya hooked onto the spikes of a grappling hook pushing his way through the crowd to make sure everyone had an opportunity to buy his stuff.  After he´d make a round, he´d get off the bus a few miles down the road, presumably to get on another bus going the opposite direction.  One kid selling honey-roasted peanuts had the brilliant idea to give everyone on the bus one sample peanut.  Unfortunately I only had large bills at that point (which he couldn´t make change for) so I´ll have to wait for my next opportunity to get some more of those. 

As we got closer to Xela, a different kind of hawker emerged.  This one was older, in his late 30´s to 50´s, and they were selling what reminded me of those cure-all tonics that the travelling salesmen used to sell.  He would stand in the front of the bus and give a little speech about how his cream/pill/juice would make you healthier and happier.  I couldn´t actually understand most of it, but enough to get the gist.  Then he would walk around and give a bottle/bag/container to anyone who seemed interested to look at as he made his way to the back, and on his way back up people would either give it back or give him some money.  I was of course very curious about what kinds of things they were selling, some Guatemalan brand of Airborne I guess.

Friday morning we walked around the city looking for schools and a place to stay.  We talked to five different schools (they are everywhere down here), and really liked three of them.  It was hard to narrow it down, but we finally just went with the school that not only gave us a great vibe but also had a handful of other students that we would be able to get to know and practice with.  The woman who runs the school is awesome.  She doesn´t speak any English (Spanish and French), but with an immersion program that is sort of what you want anyway.  We will both have one-to-one instruction for five hours a day, five days a week.  I guess they also organize activities like hiking outings, or watching a spanish documentary, or volunteering in a village with various projects.  The language is primarily why I´m here, so I didn´t pay much attention to the rest, although if we stay here a few weeks I´m sure I will be more interested.

Several of the schools recommended a guest house for us to stay at, which was only two blocks away from the school that we chose.  When we arrived though, the front door had a huge padlock on it.  We stood there a minute, looking at our map to figure out another place to try, and a guy walking down the street stopped and asked if we were looking for a place to stay, pointing at the hostel.  I said yes, and he started talking a lot, most of which I couldn´t follow, but he motioned us to follow him.  Without a better idea, we did.  He walked us a few blocks away, and we figured he was going to take us to another hostel.  Instead he knocked on a garage door of a home, and a woman came out.  They talked, and then she ran back inside and came out with a set of keys.  She spoke at least a little English, and I could understand her spanish better than his.  Turns out she runs the hostel, and the guy is a friend of hers that didn´t want her to lose us as customers!  Such luck. 

She took us back to the house, which she opened up for us.  She usually rents the house out to groups, but didn´t have one scheduled until March.  There are four bedrooms to the place, and an Italian girl has been staying there all by herself for the past month.  The woman joked with us that the Italian girl would be very sad to now have to share her private house with us. (Her name is Erika and she has been lovely.)  Besides our room and a hot shower, we also have a kitchen so we can cook our own food which is nice.  For a week we are paying 500Q, which is about $62.  Not bad!

We are up in the mountains here, so it gets pretty chilly at night compared to what we´ve been used to in Mexico, down in the 50s.  Still we are wearing tshirts and sandals, while the locals are all bundled up in heavy woolen sweaters and look at us like we are crazy.  Almost no one speaks English here though, so practicing our Spanish will be very easy!  Friday night we went to a graduation party at our new school, where three girls who had been there a month were all leaving.  They cooked us an amazing dinner out on an open-flame grill, flat steak and grilled green onions and guacamole and potatoes, it was delicious.  ¡Estaba buenísimo!

We are just hanging out this weekend, getting ready for lots of homework.  We found a grocery store (David made us french toast this morning, we are really roughing it here), did some shopping, looked around the big market.  We will stay here at least a week, but probably more as long as we like our teachers.  From here there is an option to take a two or three day hike through the mountains to Lake Atitlán, the next place we want to go to.  There is also a volcano overlooking the city, and if you climb up it you can see down to the next volcano over, which is active and still spews hot lava, which of course we really want to see.  We started looking at flights, and getting down to South America is going to be pricey, but we really want to make it happen if we can.  So much ahead.

The man with the machete shook my hand and said "Welcome to Guatemala!"

Someone asked me last night what I did for my birthday last year, and I couldn´t remember.  This year, while unusual, is certainly going to be memorable.

We were up early, partly because our hostel was unsually noisy, and partly because we wanted to get up early in order to catch our bus to the border.  We arrived at the bus station about 45 minutes early, not only because we are now a bit anxious about bus travel after missing a bus we were practically sitting directly in front of, but also because we were hoping there would be some other travelers coming along for the same ride - there is safety and comfort in numbers when you don´t really know what you are doing. 

Sure enough there was a large group of Europeans, but they all boarded another bus, leaving the bus station practically empty.  Darn. But then walked in a vision of salvation in the form of two American farmer girls.  We chatted with them, and not only were they headed to Guatemala but also to the same city as us, Xela. Whew! 

The first part of the bus ride was easy, about 3 1/2 hours on a first class bus driving through gorgeous mountainy countryside.  The first class busses in Mexico always show movies (dubbed in Spanish), but it always a mystery as to whether you will get a comedy, a drama, or even an infomercial.  Yesterday we were treated with "Cheetah Girls 2", which from our perspective at least had some music, making it preferable to Hillary Swank lawyering it up in the courtroom.  (And it was much easier to follow as well.)  We found out that whichever of us gets the window seat looks at the scenery, and whomever gets the aisle seat gets sucked into the movie, so please go to David for a complete analysis of the subtleties of Raven´s performance.

When we reached the border, we were dropped off opposite a generic but governmental-looking building, so we headed over there.  Inside it took us all of three seconds each to get our passports stamped, the official asking only "Va a Guatemala"?  (Are you going to Guatemala?)  Besides the two American girls, we also found there was another girl going with us.  She was asian, and didn´t speak much Spanish or English, but we assume our numbers gave her some comfort.  (Talk about brave!)  We got in a taxi that took us up a hill about 5 kilometers, and were very glad we didn´t try and walk.  (Even I admit that taxis sometimes are useful.  Sometimes.)  For the last 2 kilometers the street was lined with vendors selling everything from clothes to cell phones to stereo equipment.  Surprisingly our taxi drove us right past it all right up to the border, which was also a relief.  Although I´m guessing they weren´t there for the tourists, but perhaps for daytrippers from Guatemala?  Maybe I missed a great deal on a boombox!

Crossing into Guatemala was similarly simple, with the exception of being extorted for money.  We were charged a 10Q "fee", which is about a buck twenty.  We had been warned this might happen (this also happened to me in Vietnam, although there they only charged me the equivalent of a quarter).  There is always the option of asking for an official receipt (which of course they can´t give you), or even the time honored tradition of playing stupid.  But with five of us going through without the protection of any locals also going through, we just marked it up to a loss and paid it.  I´ve decided to believe they are going to use the money for baby formula anyway.

We then proceeded up another very long, very crowded, steep hilly road in search of some kind of bus "station".  We went so far we started to doubt that we were going the right way, and asked a local guy, who very kindly pointed back the direction we had been coming for and said it was about five minutes back.  We sighed, hot and sweaty in the sun with heavy packs on our backs.  Then another man walking by spoke up and said, no, it was another two blocks further from where we were.  Both men were friendly and didn´t seem to have any interest in leading us astray, but the second guy had an air of authority about him we decided to respect, despite the fact he seemed a little drunk.  Drunk or not, the second guy was right, and less than a minute later we saw where we were headed. 

A word about the chicken bus.  Remember when you were a school kid, and you´d wait on the side of the road for the big yellow bus to come pick you up?  Well, one day that bus decided to retire, and got sent down to Guatemala to be, essentially, a greyhound bus.  The drivers here own their own bus though, so it becomes a matter of pride to properly pimp out your ride.  The busses are repainted with flashy script and firewheels and dedications to Jesus.  People along the road just wave the bus down, which sometimes stops, sometimes just slows down enough for someone to jump on or off.  Inside the bus people squeeze on, cramming themselves into any available inch of seat - one family of five was sharing a seat originally meant for two schoolkids.  There is no awareness of personal space, but surprisingly it isn´t as aggressive or rude as it sounds either.  Everyone just accepts that they are going to have six people touching them at all times, especially at the front of the bus with people squeezing on and off as best they can. 

In addition to the passengers were two assistants.  One of them helped people with luggage, which got put up on the roof.  I´m not sure how it was secured, although nothing ever fell off even on some screamingly fast curves, so it must have been adequate.  He usually rode half hanging out the door, and would yell our destination out to people along the roadside in case someone wanted on, although sometimes he would disappear to the roof and stay up there a while, only to reappear in the back door having climbed down the ladder, while the bus was moving of course.  The other assistant collected the fares, and every so often he would squeeze down the aisle getting money from anyone who had boarded since the last time he had collected.  This guy was tall and broad, with his shirt open in the front but tied into a little knot at his belt.  He also must have been an idiot savant, because I have no other explanation of how he could remember who had already paid and who hadn´t.  The driver was going as fast as the curves would let him drive, plus a little more, and people were jumping on and off the bus all along the way.  The luggage guy was paying attention too though, because every so often he would start yelling at a passenger, who would get up and slowly start making their way to the front.  Just as the person would get there, the bus would arrive at the next stop, and the person would get off.  I found this to be rather well organized, so that the bus didn´t ever have to wait for someone to push through.  The guy would get off, three girls would get on, and we were off again. 

The mountain road we were taking was true to cliché and meandered along the edge of a steep cliff.  At one point we slowed as we approached a police car sticking halfway into the road, next to a crane and a bunch of onlookers.  That half of the bus all stood up craning their necks to see out the windows.  We were on the opposite side, but of course I could only imagine it was another chicken bus at the bottom of the ravine that was being hoisted up.  As soon as we passed the cop car though, the bus driver sped up and whisked us away.

The people on the bus were extremely friendly towards us.  An old cowboy with a machete at his side and a big white hat stopped as he passed us to wish us well, shaking our hands and saying "Bienvenidos a Guatemala!"  The asian girl was sitting in the seat in front of us, and when the guy came around asking for money, an old woman sitting next to her did her best to explain what the fare was, and when the girl pulled out American dollars instead of quetzals, the woman spoke at length with the assistant helping him figure out the exchange rate.  Later when she got off the bus she gave David and I this huge toothy grin.

Two hours along, the asian girl got off at Huehuetenango, and a few minutes later the bus stopped and the assistant indicated we needed to change busses to keep going to Xela.  I think the driver had just flagged down another bus heading the other direction.  So we got out, ran across the busy street and got onto another chicken bus.  Oh, and I guess I should say that while the busses were very crowded at times, there were never any actual chickens on board.  Maybe next time. 

Our arrival in Xela was straightforward, and although the hostel we wanted to go to was full, we found a hotel right across the street that had the best hot shower I´ve had since we´ve been traveling.  (Or perhaps I´m just getting less discriminatory, but boy did it feel good!)  The girls, Dee Dee and Debbie, agreed to come out to dinner with us to help celebrate my birthday.  We decided to forgo the stalls and splurge on a restaurant.  Unfortunately the Thai place listed in our guidebook was gone, so instead we settled for a fancy pizza place.  Holy crap was it good.  We had a great evening with the girls, they are organic farmers so like us have done quite a bit of traveling.  People who travel are just interesting!

All in all, definitely a birthday to remember. 

Today we walked around trying to find a long-term place to stay as well as a school to start our spanish lessons.  We found both, although my hands are cramping from all this typing so I´m gonna call it a day.  While so far Xela doesn´t have the charm of some of the other cities we´ve been to, we are very excited about the school we chose and can´t wait to start increasing our language skills.  Another perk is the giant volcano towering over us.  I´m sure we´ve got some hiking in our near future!

Apparently if you are caucasian and stay long enough here you are required to have dreadlocks. So on to Guatemala we go!

We made another grand departure from our itinerary, and stuck between threats of rain and an ever-growing desire to get to Guatemala so we can start our spanish classes already, we decided to bypass Palenque (for now) and headed straight to San Cristòbal de las Casas, a lovely mountain town where pine trees intermingle with the palm trees.  It is decidedly chilly, and for the first time we found blankets on our beds instead of having a ceiling fan.  Our bus ride was eleven hours long, which was actually nice because we were told it would be twelve. I can´t complain much, we both slept most of the way (the bus left at 10pm), and this being Mexico we had more leg room than you do on an airplane.  (That will change once we leave Mexico though and we start riding the chicken buses.)

We arrived not knowing exactly where to go, but we got a great sell from a tout for a hostel that offered a free taxi ride from the bus station - what more could a weary traveler ask for?  (There is nothing we hate more than paying for a taxi.  Remnants of being a starving actor in NYC I guess.)

We´ve been here, what, two or three days now, I´m having a hard time keeping track of the date.  It seems at times that we are in Tibet, with all these colorful flags hanging over the narrow, hilly streets like Tibetan prayer flags.  We both have a thing for stairs, and find it hard to resist a good set anywhere, and we´ve had several nice adventures climbing up the hills to find nice little churches at the top.  The town itself is gorgeous, with every building painted these crazy awesome colors, everything is bright blue and orange and yellow and red.  Several of the main streets are blocked off for pedestrians only, which makes walking around a lot nicer too.  Everywhere people are selling things, usually something to wear or something to eat.  Women walk around with babies slung on their backs and an armful of brightly colored blankets or scarfs or whatever.  My eyes love all the color, I would love to buy a stack of blankets to take home, but of course my backpack wasn´t made to accomodate much in the way of souveniers.  I wish I had a bag like Mary Poppins!

Our food adventures continue as well.  We have a tendancy to frequent these tiny little places called comedors, where someone will set up a few tables, and then make one or two dishes to sell that day.  Sometimes it is something familiar like pozole, sometimes it comes with a name we´ve never heard of and we just have to wait to find out what we will be eating.  Sometimes they don´t even ask us what we want, they just sit us down and bring whatever they feel like.  Without exception the food has been good, although sometimes it comes with bits and pieces that we politely shove to the side.  David ended up with a stew that had bits of things that may have been vegetable, may have been fruit, it was hard to tell, and though there were clearly three different kinds of meat, it was impossible to know exactly what kind of meat they were.  (Our vote was for pork, chicken and beef, but I hope he didn´t commit some unforgivable sin.)  The last pozole I got made me sweat it was so spicy, that darn habeñero.  They have dishes of it on the tables, and just the smell makes my eyes water.  Yesterday we sat down and the man yelled "torta, torta grande!!" at us a few times.  We've had tortas before, it is sort of a mix between a hamburger and a sandwich, with lettuce and tomato and maybe some avocado over some kind of meat.  He finally brought us these enormous sandwiches, with some fried ham that smelled delicious, but nestled on top of the ham were two raw hot dogs.  The last hot dog I ate was about ten years ago, and that was only because we went to Cony Island and that is just what you eat when you go to Cony Island.  Mixed in with everything else I managed to eat it though, I'm certainly getting more used to eating unusual things.  But you feel like you are sitting in someone`s kitchen, so picking it off would have seemed rude.  Manners over taste buds!

Not all of our meals are weird though.  Last night we found another great taco place.  And, believe it or not, but David is eating beans!  It is still somewhat reluctant, but he isn´t holding back either.  He has even had a few bites of my peanut butter, something I never expected.  See what adventuring does for you?

Our plan at this point is to head down to Guatemala tomorrow, to a city called Quetzaltenango, or, for short, Xela (pronounced SHEY-la.)  It is, I believe, the second biggest city in Guatemala, and has a repuatation for being the place to go if you are serious about learning Spanish.  It sounds a bit snobby to me, but they say the cities of Antigua or around Lake Atitlàn bring so many more tourists that you end up speaking English so often that your progress on Spanish is hindered.  I´m sure we will go to all three places so we can decide for ourselves, but we hit Xela first.  There are a couple of volcanoes around for us to explore on the weekends, and I´m sure we will have a great time if we can find a good teacher. 

After we´ve studied for a month or more, we will again start the exploration.  We are hoping that when we get to Tikal, we can return to Mexico on the river crossing and get back to Palenque.  It was a tough decision to skip it when we were so close, but we want to be ready to start classes on Monday and didn´t want to be delayed another week. 

We had the option of paying about $30 each to pay for a shuttle bus to take us to Xela from here, but we decided to rough it and save some money.  We got a bus down to the border town (about $7 each) tomorrow morning.  From there we hop in a taxi to take us the 5km to the Guatemalan border town of La Mesilla.  From there we will have to find and jump on a chicken bus either direct to Xela, or we may have to connect in Huehuetenango.  That part of the bus should cost us less than $5 each (according to our guidebook, which is now three years old.)  So it will take a little longer, and we will no doubt find the chicken bus an adventure in itself, but isn´t that the point?

Oh, I should mention that we got a new Lonely Planet guidebook for Central America.  We found it in a used book store here, and it is well worn and dog-eared.  As we paged through it we found some things circled and others crossed out, little notes written in the margins and the names of unlisted hostels marked on the maps.  I half expected to find "Property of the Half-Blood Prince" written on the inside cover.  Let`s just hope that we have the same set of tastes and expectations as did the previous owners!