antigua

i left the beautiful lake this morning on a bus bound for antigua. it was sad to leave the muy tranquilo community of folks in san pedro. antigua is a city of history as it was once the mayan capital, and has amazing architechture. the unfortunate side of that is the incredible amount of tourists that step onto the streets of antigua on a daily basis. there is a lot of english here, as it is the common denominator language of tourism.

i am at a hostel here for a couple of days until my flight leaves on monday morning... not much planned except for a possible volcano ascent tomorrow, depending on the weather...

el lago continued...

above is the pueblo san pedro.

then a pic of where i am learning spanish at San Pedro Spanish School.

below is one view of lake atitlan with the afternoon clouds.

la escuela en lago de atitlan

back to school today under a tiki hut next to the lake with a new lovely maestro.
only 3 hrs per day this week, as opposed to the 5 last week. needed a little more of a break. the days went by too quickly when i was in school half the day...

new hostel today too, on the lake with a hammock. sweet. it has a little bit of a carribean island feel here, and i keep forgetting i´m on a lake not an island.

i´m not sure i have the words yet about why i love this place. there is something about the mixture of culture, spirit, music, hope, poverty, and authenticity that is addicting. it´s a similar feeling that i had in india last year, except that everything was so completely different and foreign and overwhelming there... and here i get it a little more, especially now that the language is more clear.

hasta luego!

la laguna

arrival at lago de atitlan, which is probably the most beautiful area of water i have seen ever. very chill, tranquil environment. i keep thinking im on a carribean island actually. yesterday was a long travel day from xela to san pedro. there was supposed to be a direct bus, but since it was a holiday weekend there was only a bus to panajachel, which is across the lake. the "chicken bus" was a 5 hour experience of stopping at lots of little villages and picking up more and more people. they are our old u.s. school buses, but they pack them full with 7 or more people across a set of seats. and children dont count in those 7 people. then a very "exciting" boat ride across the extremely choppy lake. i actually flew off my seat several times...

the hostel here is this hippie establishment with a bunch of dried up ex-pats. funny place.

taking the day off today but will return to spanish school tomorrow. more soon...

one week?

the fair is in xela. not a whole lot different than your average county fair in the states, except bigger, more exciting, and probably more dangerous as evidenced by the ferris wheel that goes ultra fast and is quite wobbly... hence the new name of "meth wheel." good times.

bueno musica last night at "la fonda del che"... fun tiny cafe with an affection for "trova" music which is in short the latin american version of bob dylan and joan baez. count me in as a new fan.

the kid i´m living with now likes to play "ahorcado" (aka "hangman") with me which is hilarious because he knows spanish better than me, but i know how to spell better than he does. i´m not totally sure that the words he uses are actually words, but who´s gonna argue with a cute 7 yr old, especially in another language.

since it was the last day of school today for me here in xela, mi profesora and i walked to a bakery that she loves... it´s unique name is "bake shop." but really great stuff.

so yesterday after school we took a trip to fuentes georginas, the local hot springs. its about 30 min on a bus, and then you hitch a ride in the back of a pickup to go up the narrow winding mountain road. the most beautiful sight ive seen so far. lush green land with lots of indigenous peoples farming corn, onions, radishes, and squash. fuentes georginas is a little too developed, you know they gotta do that to touristy places, but it was still a great time and mucho relaxing. when we returned i went with 2 gals from the school to visit a local chocolate shop, where they sell this amazing hot chocolate as well as choc dipped fruit, i.e. a stick of frozen strawberries dipped in chocolate sauce. i think i will go back EVERYDAY. they also have amazing coffee.

after that, juegos los cartes y cervezas con mis amigos. i cant believe almost a week has gone by. i had a whole conversation with the grandfather at mi casa today. woo-hoo!! the family opened a panaderia (bread/bake shop) in the front of the house yesterday, so today they had their first customers, very cool. and that means i get mejor pan!

this afternoon we go to the fair, which is a carnival happening this week in celebration of dia de la independencia. it is a big deal, one of the biggest celebrations all year. muy interesante.

more soon... love to you.

one more thing...

... so i forgot to have the "soy vegetariana" conversation with mi familia. ha! i arrive for lunch yesterday and theres a slab of unidentified red meat sitting there with me. i of course have issue with being polite about such things, oh yeah, and im from the south where we dont "make noise" about such things, so i at (most) of the stuff. luckily dinner here is quite light and does not include carne. but today again at lunch... yep, some sort of vienna sausages. im a whole new person...

la escuela dia numero dos

i could have full conversations with my teacher today, it was very exciting. its amazing what a few verbos conjugados will do for your social life.

last night i checked out the nightlife of xela with a group of fellow estudiantes. xela has quite a large population of european and american students and travelers. we had las cervezas at a hostel and then at salon tecun, which is supposedly the "hip" place to be these days. but it was just a pub really. tonight we head to a place with music, something thats supposed to be like folk.

during lunch mi familia had the news on, i think it was a station from mexico, and they did this long special on sept 11. it was all very odd to watch en espanol, especially when i couldnt really find the words to talk about it with the grandparents that were sitting at the table with me.

today i finally bought some sweaters at these ropa de pacos stores which are basically thrift stores filled with american donations. i think they probably come from church groups that come down. anyway i walked all over xela and had great people-watching while buying a Columbia sweater for $1.50.

tomorrow is a trip to fuentes georginas, the natural hot springs at the top of a nearby mountain. its supposed to be amazing. theres some complicated way to get there via bus and pickup truck, so im sure it will be an adventure.

the guats are incredibly kind and accomodating. very interested in talking & helping. there is a great latino way of not saying "no" so that even if they dont know the answer to your question, they answer you. extremely interesting way of going about life. and confusing at times.

i also found a womens co-op weaving school, where i may have purchased some gifts for some of you lovely people.

te extrano mucho y cuidante!!

como se dice "brain dead?"

5 hours of espanol this a.m. is a lot.
the amount of coffee that is consumed here is incredible. so my teacher tells me this story about the people in Guat who are quite poor... when the young children can no longer breastfeed, the families often put coffee into their bottles... at age 3 or 4! because coffee is so much more accessible than water. so by the time they are adults the caffeine is nothing. therefore everyone here drinks coffee at dinner... i may not sleep for the next 2 weeks.
my teacher has been teaching espanol at this school for cinco anos. she is great.... she tells me a lot about Guat society, class, politics, etc. her husband is in kansas or missouri... lost in translation... so she knows some english and knows quite a bit about los estados unidos.

mi nueva familia has one young boy, age 7, who is way cute. he watches scooby doo with me at dinner! today he was watching "happy feet" and taught me how to say "penguinos bailar" when the penguins looked like they were dancing. they live only a block from the school, which is especially helpful for the 8am class. tonight my homework is to conjugato mucho verbos.

yesterday was muy importante eleccion por presidente, so today was a holiday. and saturday is dia de la independencia, another holiday with festivals, parades, etc. so it's a big week in xela. huge city but very spread out, very crowded, no bldgs above 3 stories probably. odd mix of colonial influence, mayan history, and u.s. commercialism.

Quote of the day: I passed by a blind man playing a guitar and singing "...f**k the devil in Christ's name..."

Seriously.

tomorrow afternoon is salsa dancing!

estoy en xela

So I didnt have much luck in keeping my regular blog up to date, but its always a great way to keep up with everyone when i am traveling. (by the way, the ctrl and shift button on this keyboard seem to have a different system... i have not figured out when they are on or off, so ignore the punctuation...i am trying)

arrived in guat city yesterday early morning and took a 4 1/2 hr bus ride to the highlands, where i am staying in xela with a host family while attending the great spanish school celas maya.

although there are quite a few americanos around, ive still learned more espanol en una dia than in cinco anos. turns out you have to use it to eat, get agua pura, find the bookstore, etc.

my camera decided to break. so im weighing the difficulty of explaining what is wrong with it in broken espanol to a camera shop versus just buying a new one. i think i will buy a new one. hopefully then i can share pics with you via blog.

more to come...