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.