Hi everyone, Sorry I didn’t get this out sooner. But I think from this long journey I greatly weakend my immune system and this past weekend, Saturday, I spent a very long day of throwing up in Guatemala. Fifteen times in eighteen hours, wow I am glad that is over. But anyways I am better now and I hope you enjoy!

30 hours on a bus Was able to take me back 3000 years!

Last Saturday Lena, Julia, and I embarked on yet another great adventure and I would have to say that this one was certainly epic. We set out for Antigua at 4:00 in the afternoon and by 7:00 we were one our next microbus to Guatemala City. We arrived in the city around 8:00pm but surprisingly the area of the city we were in was already empty, not a great sign. The bus station for Linea Dorada (Gold Line) is definitely in the heart of the city, and not necessarily the best side of town. The last few streets we drove through before arriving at the station were already abandoned, all the business locked up, just a few cars and trash floating around corners. Luckily we grabbed our bags quickly headed in the bus station and got everything sorted out for our bus ride north to Tikal. We had to wait for about an hour before boarding but strangely enough I met a couple in the station traveling on Vacation from their Job as Dive Masters/Instructors in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. It was great to talk to them for a while and they definitely got me back interested in going for my Dive master sometime soon.

We knew the bus ride ahead of us would be long but totally worth it. We boarded around 9:00pm and started out in our fancy coach bus. The bus was equipped with a bathroom, reclining chairs, sandwiches and drinks, and even an intransit movie. I never thought I would see Twighlight, the new teen movie, but I did and I got to see it with only Spanish subtitles (speakers weren’t on) and surprisingly I understood most of it. I think only understood everything because the entire movie was solely focused on teenage angst.

The bus ride was relatively uneventful, but extremely long! It was very difficult to sleep because no position was truly comfortable, so many times I found myself peering through the front window at what was out ahead in the night. I forgot to mention that our seats were perfect, location not comfort, haha. We booked through a company and they booked three seats in the very front row, which is even better in these coach buses because they are decked and you actually sit above the driver. This was perfect for my sleepless stints of staring at the road only lit by headlights. The first couple hours of the trip consisted of this giant bus winding around tight curves on the mountain roads headed out of Guatemala City. It was insane to be on these winding roads and pass the only other vehicles on the road in the middle of the night, which always happened to be giant slow moving eighteen wheelers. This was a little frightening but we made it to Flores at a bright and early 5:30am Sunday morning.

We were picked up at the bus station and transported to our hotel on the island of Flores where we would later be picked up to head to Tikal. In total I probably slept two hours, maybe, but surprisingly I was ready to go when the next microbus arrived to pick us up at 7:30am for Tikal. We picked up quite a few people and headed for the history. We made it to the park, and amazingly, the entrance is 17 km before you reach the beginning of the trails to walk to the ruins. The entire area is a giant nature preserve and it was amazing to be driving deeper and deeper into the heart of a thriving rainforest. The park itself is 550 sq km and I believe the largest or second largest in central America, and you really don’t want to get lost in it because it would be impossible to make it out of the jungle.

We decided to take it easy on ourselves and take the English tour and I am very glad we did. Our guide Benedicto was wonderful. He was Mayan and originally from the area and he seemed to have a deep connection with the land and the people that were his ancestors that had built the great city we were about to see. The tour began with the Ceiba Tree, the tree of life, one of the most revered plants within the Maya culture. This tree was the first life to rise out of their primordial chaos and links heaven, earth, and the underworld in their creation story. And to tell you the truth, I think it almost reached heaven, the tree was between 70 and 100 feet tall but stood alone in magnificence. From a biological standpoint this tree is fascinating, it is an extreme hardwood and at its top the branches grow straight out providing a great location for other plants to grow; bromeliads and cactuses right there on the branches not even in symbiosis. It was really a tree providing life.

We moved on to the Gran Plaza and I was overwhelmed with the size of the civilization that had been built here in the middle of dense jungle. The location of Tikal is quite unique because it is so deep within the Selva Tropical (Rain Forest). Apparently Peten where Tikal is located is considered the Cradle of Maya Civilization and is home to the highest concentration of Maya ruins today. The Maya were very learned in Astronomy and the Science of Time, they focused heavily on their calendar and we could see this incorporation into everything they built. In the height of Maya civilization, when the new towns or cities were to be built men would go out from the center of their city in the four cardinal directions, a theme very important within the culture. At one full days walk from the center they would position a new city and this is how the Maya spread across much of Guatemala, Mexico, and Belize.

The four cardinal directions was one of the first concepts that we learned.  It was fascinating how precise all of their symbolism was. The four cardinal points were used for town planning with a very important, specific, building at each with a very specific meaning. This plaza of buildings would be at the heart of the civilization and held the most importance.

The directions and meanings are as follows:

North- This was normally the largest temple built of limestone and painted white. This building represented Heaven and the kings were often buried below these magnificent templos.

East- This is where the sun would rise each day so the building was painted red like the sunrise. This is also where life begins. In front of this structure stand nine stellas each representing a month of pregnancy. It is amazing how similar their calendar is to ours, they had 365 days in their calendar 3,000 years ago.

West- This is where life ended. The structure built here was painted black to represent Death, but not much is said about the importance of this building.

South- Here a long building stands that is painted yellow because this is the location that receives the most sunlight. This structure however represented the underworld and the entrance to the underworld. This building had nine doorways (to nowhere), each with a giant mask above the entranceway. These doors symbolized entrances into the underworld where the kings would go after dying and before going to their place in heaven. The underworld in Maya culture was not a bad place just a location for preparing to go heaven.

In the center of all these building which I am sure were glorious in their day, lay another important symbol. The Ceiba tree, or life was represented by green in the central plaza of all these buildings. It is very hard for me to imagine these giant temples we saw painted completely, but we could still see remnants of the solid white and black buildings but all other colors had faded.

In the central plaza we also saw two rectangular stone benches/walls facing each other. This was the location of the famous Maya game in which not just the loser, but so we discovered, both teams would be sacrificed after the game was completed to appease the Gods. We also found out that this was a practice that only occurred every 20 years in the main city. But all of these amazing facts left me standing at the top of one of the structures trying to picture just a little bit how crazy it would have been to live there when Tikal was a thriving civilization. I would have liked to have viewd from a distance however because although very smart, the ancient Maya were a violent and a continually warring people.

The jungle was so alive too. It was so wonderful me to see a glimpse of the wildlife that roams through the jungle from day to day, another amazing feature of this ruin buried so deep in the jungle.  We saw spider monkeys, we looked for howler monkeys but they never showed up, we saw coatis, oscellated turkeys, a bird similar to the quetzal, and the guide said that the roar we heard in the distance was a Jaguar (I think it sounded a little like a howler monkey but who am I to say.) The jungle was so rich and full of life it was just wonderful to walk around below the canopy.

My favorite thing about the trip was the last temple we climbed however. Temple IV was the most impressive and largest temple in all of Tikal. Temple IV is 64 meters in height which is approximately 200 feet tall! We climbed up many steps to reach the top that simply seemed to be running next to a very steep hill covered with trees and low-lying vegetation.  We reached the top, out of breath, after probably 350 steps and we were able to see the whole picture. We were in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of extremely dense jungle, and we could see 3 other giant temples rising out of the forest and we were standing on the fourth, the tallest. Now apparently there was a lot more clear and open land when the Mayas were present because they had cleared much for their city but it was hard to imagine how from what we could see. The Maya had conquered the jungle as they traveled through it to build their new civilizations and the jungle was re-conquering what they had built. Of the 200 feet of temple we were standing on, only approximately 35 feet of actual limestone structure was uncovered at the top the rest lay beneath the new jungle that had begun to grow on what the Maya had left. From the base you cannot see the top of temple IV and it takes you a moment to realize that you are climbing up stairs built in new ground that covers a massive temple not even uncovered. There is an estimated 250, 000 cubic yards of stone that comprise the temple, dad I think you will understand this measurement the best. And when built the population of Tikal was approximately 60,000 people. Can you imagine this many people in the middle of the jungle, wow!

It was really an amazing experience. Everything about the jungle and the city were fascinating and difficult to imagine. The Maya are a mysterious people, an intelligent people. Parts of their culture have lasted for millennia.

We returned to Flores, really starting to get tired by this time, but keeping ourselves awake long enough to return to the hotel and crash all night long. It was great to stay in a nice, quiet, calm hotel but I would have to say I couldn’t say the same for Flores. Flores was pretty dull. I think it was a town that “has been”. There were very few people in town, I think only people returning and looking for a place to stay after Tikal. Sadly, the food wasn’t great either but I will say the lake was amazingly beautiful. We spent the night and the next evening we would depart again at 9:00pm to arrive in Guatemala city the next morning. We hung out by the lake and finally got hot enough to go for a swim, yes in our clothes, but it felt amazing.  Another great adventure but I would have to say that it is worth the shorter airplane trip and maybe $150.00 extra to fly to Flores/Tikal instead of taking the bus. I slept about the same on the return trip, maybe an hour and half. The 30 hours of traveling we did that weekend amounted to some very very tired students the following week and I think my ensuing illness.

A trip to HippieTown

There is a very interesting dynamic here around Lake Atitlan. Because of its beauty, locale, inexpensive cost of living, and the relative ease with which you can travel in Guatemala, people from across the globe have ended up in Panajachel and in the other towns surrounding the lake. I can imagine the mixture of people, the cocktail, found in particular in Panajachel and San Pedro is a combination seen nowhere else in the world.

Panajachel has “warmly” earned the name Gringotenango for its ever increasing population of ex-patriots, but I find this slang name not nearly as interesting/entertaining as the secondary name for San Pedro, another town across the lake, Hippielandia. Interestingly enough, these are the names used by the locals in reference to their own towns or towns nearby, which brings me to my topic for this blog. This will be a slightly more political and historical entry but it is extremely important to understanding these people and a little bit more of the world the experience. Where to begin?

I think I will start with a history that I have come to understand through my Spanish teacher, Veronica. Let me begin with describing our relationship and describing a dynamic that has slowly developed week by week between us. Of the teachers in the school, my instructor is easily the least traditional. The traditional women here always wear the gϋpil (the traditional, handmade, colorful, shirt) and the corte(also handmade, colorful, wrap skirt, to their ankles). Much of their bodies are always covered except from their mid-upper arms down. However Veronica is very sassy, she has a very modern, very short haircut. She always wears jeans and very often low-cut, tight, revealing tops. Another difference I have experienced is that she doesn’t seem to have the same calm patience that the others have but instead she is very strict with me and corrects even the smallest errors, which in the long run I hope will turn out for the better. From the beginning I could tell that there was some sort of grudge because of the intensity with which she corrected me and the frequency. Also her general demeanor towards me was never very inviting. It was somewhat cold but cordial. Veronica would even tell me things like she would, and many others she new, would also talk much more readily to foreigners from every country but the U.S. It has taken me four weeks, but I am finally cracking the shell! I found out there was a story, there was a reason, there was a cause for all the tension I experienced daily for really the first two and a half weeks.

Guatemala is a country that is in healing. It is strange to think that I am in a location where the civil war just ended 15- 20 years ago, and the wounds are still deep. One day as I was working so hard to peel back the layers to this woman’s history, I was able to experience a taste of the turmoil she had experienced in her lifetime. I finally understood some of the hatred or anger I sensed in her. Veronica is very unique in the fact that she is a divorced woman with three children and has divorced parents, extremely uncommon for this culture, and in addition to her rough circumstance with no money and no husband she has very strong views of the ex-pats, in particular North Americans (USA) that live here on the lake.  And now I know why.

During the civil war the Gobierno (Government) basically was struggling for control over indigenous rebels (guerrilleros). During this time there was much extermination of the Maya (personas indeginas) and not just the indigenous guerillas. The government and the guerillas were killing innocent people who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and people constantly had to flee from their towns that had become inundated with fighting. The government had been stealing land from the indigenous people to give to foreigners to increase foreign investment in Guatemala. When the Maya descendents whose land was being stolen fought back they became known as the guerrilleros and the government began to exterminate dissenters and those that looked like them. Veronica was about ten when all this was occurring so she didn’t really have a great idea of what was occurring until many years later. During the violence her family was the only non-indigenous family in the area they lived and her family had a more substantial and well built home. At night for many months all of the neighbors came to stay with her and her family. The people filled the floor of their entire living room, all their neighbors. They slept in the floors and at night no one would make a sound because this was the most dangerous time.

Veronica lost many family members and new many people that were killed by either the gobierno or the guerrilleros based on suspicion alone. She had a grandfather killed by the government and an aunt saved by them from the guerillas. Later in her life when she began to understand things more she was very torn by this but the one thing she did know was about who helped the government in this time of need, the United States.

You may know from other history that the term Gringo actually comes from a phrase “green go away” in reference to the military in their green uniforms and I believe this term was started in Mexico when the people wanted the US out and uninvolved. This “endearing” term basically means get out of our country to the United States military. Well, this was certainly true during the Guatemalan civil war. The U.S. was involved and helping the Guatemalan government get the indigenous rebels under control. Veronica remembers seeing troops in many of the towns and surprisingly there is a lot of evidence of them here still today. There are a lot of part Maya part Gringo still in a few towns around the lake.

Veronica also remembered a time when she thought it was “Christmas” as the giant plans flew over dropping fliers throughout the towns saying don’t help the indigenas, which she didn’t understand at the time she just thought it the day was special because of the paper flowing down like confetti. The plans were of course those sent in assistance by the U.S. military, she even remembers being able to read the writing on the sides as they flew so close to the people in the highlands. In my opinion this is really a hard concept for the people of Guatemala to understand, “Don’t help my own people?”, the people that are fighting for what has been taken from me. A wild history that has so much more to it but I still need to do a lot more research. But this definitely brought to light for me the anger or distaste for those from the Estados Unidos.

So I have done everything in my power to show Veronica the kindness in some of our hearts and that I have many of the same values as she does, and is starting to work. Last weekend before I went to San Pedro Veronica joked with me and warned me about all the hippies, I had no idea. I was finally able to really see the contrast of culture and a pretty good reason why the locals have distaste for gringos/expats in general.  Julia and I went there last Sunday while Lena climbed San Pedro, the volcano just out of town.  We walked for a long time and saw the usual hippies with their artwork in the street but it wasn’t until we had been walking for about an hour that it hit us. We had walked down to the lake and came back towards town through a very traditional area of the village with individual’s small houses, corn, old unused traditional fishing boats, and horses and then we saw it. There was a giant A-framed canvas covered open shelter with short tables and tons of people, clearly not indigenous, lounging on the floor eating. Julia and I laughed at each other in shock and I proceeded to snap a few photos, not knowing that this is where I was going to come back to for lunch with Lena and the other hikers from San Pedro. We weaved through more of the town streets and saw places for massages, art lessons, more hippie art and I was struck with the contrast between the local culture and the now ever-present cultures from afar. Julia and I ate a snack in a traditional restaurant in San Pedro and there were many locals and it was perfect. We walked through the town and I noticed that some of the indigenous women were not as friendly and open to talking to us and I think this is because of their exposure to the other “invaders” in their town. The people are somewhat more hesitant in general unless they are trying to sell you a trip up the mountain or a tour around San Pedro. We saw lots of gringos walking around town with the carefree style, dreads, and kids with crazy haircuts, dirty faces, and no shoes. My favorite style!

After we met up with Lena, Dan, and a German girl Ana who had also been on the hike, they decided we should go to this really cool Restaurant called Zoola, that they had eaten at the night before. Julia and I just began to laugh but we said OK. We went into the little hippie haven called Zoola and had a lovely meal. (Sorry to all you hippies at heart reading this, I love you very much too, I just had a little trouble with the contrast).  The food was great, but the atmosphere was in such contrast with the rest of our environment it was difficult to laugh. There aren’t even many places in the states where you can lay on the floor, eat a meal, play board games, and listen to crazy techno/smoking music while just chilling with your shoes off.

After lunch I scrolled back through some of the pictures I had taken and tried to start putting the pieces together. It was very strange to me. I had a picture of a Maya carving in a garden with a machete lying on top and a picture of the traditional carved Maya fishing boats. And then I had pictures of the local women walking through the streets doing their daily work, carrying heavy things on their heads and always in traditional clothing. Then I had pictures of Christian influence in San Pedro, beautiful paintings on the sides of buildings saying that Jesus is the way. I believe there are as many churches in San Pedro as there are hippies and maybe because of this. Lastly I had the pictures of the restaurant and other places in town that definitely part of the “free” lifestyle, not the Maya lifestyle. There is even a health food store on the main road in San Pedro.

Panajachel is definitely filled with more tourists every weekend but the people here are happy to see them because they provide a valuable piece of the economic puzzle in Guatemala. But, in San Pedro the streets are more often filled with Ex-pats looking for a new life and grungy individuals on the back-pack trail looking for a Spanish school and a place to smoke pot. I don’t want to sound harsh in this because I love to backpack and all but when we were exposed to five young adults at Zoola smoking in public and broad daylight, I was certainly surprised. Veronica told me that it used to be much worse, that the second a gringo got off the boat in San Pedro people would openly try to sell them Marijuana. At this time the locals found out how profitable it was and took part in selling as well as the police. Thankfully, things have improved. It was just so hard for me to appreciate the foreigners living there when they were living in such contrast to the local population of Mayas. The Maya/Indigenous people here are normally so kind and loving regardless of who you are but we found that they are tired of travelers in San Pedro. They are tired of the strange individuals that loom around their streets. As Veronica put it, foreigners brought the Pot and it was just something for the tourists. Sadly it is true and the locals have deal with the consequences. Just last week, as helicopters circled around Pana, I found out that an American woman was arrested and eight local men that worked for her, for having a large farm for Marijuana in the hills very close to here. This to me is so sad. It is illegal here to and I really think that the people here, the locals, are tired of the influx and the influence.

So needless to say, there is some tension between cultures here. But I am happy to say that Veronica and I are really getting a long so much better. She has begun to joke with me more sweetly and laugh with me, not just at me. I don’t feel as dumb this week as I dad last week, good sign. I think it was finally when she realized that I wasn’t one of the drug abusing travelers, she has had a few who were high throughout the entire class, or an American who thought I was better than her, she began to let me in. Now I will be sad to leave my class and, haha, no longer afraid to enter it. I have a week and a half left and I really just hope and pray that our relationship will grow more each day. That I can be a light and not a annoyance.

I know they are long but please read the two it is definitely worth it, one about the volcano and one about transportation around here. I think you will like them, please comment!

Thanks

Kat

A little about Antigua but mostly about a hike I will never be able to forget.

Our trip to Antigua began with a very early rise Saturday morning. We left the house at 5:30 to be early at the tourist office that was arranging our shuttle ride. This was the first mistake of the day. We were supposed to leave at 6:00 and we arrived about 10 minutes early just in case. The shuttle finally arrived at approximately 6:30 and we were on our way. I should have known better from my last visit to Guatemala, when the lackadaisical schedule of the locals lead my boat captain to be two and half hours late and I thought I would never make it out of Livingston and back to Belize. But thankfully we boarded the “microbus” pronounced “meecrowboos” and set out on the extremely twisty turny ride to Antigua. On the ride we met a lady that worked for Outside Magazine which I thought was really awesome.

I didn’t feel great at all on the way there. The lack of sleep and food, mixed with an already funny stomach, lead to a slightly car sick trek to the city and it wasn’t helping me get my mind prepared for the hike to come. We arrived early found our hotel, food, and a little time for a nap before another disjointed ride in a microbus.

I think we took five laps around the city before we had finally picked up all our climbers, 13 total, and this was considered a small tour group. When we originally booked the trip we paid a few extra Q for what we thought was a fairly private group, maybe a few others. We also went over the business’s checklist: sandwich, flashlight, water, jacket, camera for lots of photos, and good shoes. Well little did we know we would have no time for the sandwich or taking too many photos (at least not the one hour of photos at the top that was promised), we wouldn’t need the jacket because we were hiking way too fast to get cold, that water just weighed you down, and I don’t think good shoes were on the list but I am sure glad we wore them for purpose of foot protection against melting. We really had no idea what we were getting into.

The trip to the beginning of our hike took about an hour and included passing though some of the rougher areas of Guatemala and stopping at a large gas station for a restroom where probably seven other microbuses and one large tour bus were parked all with the same aspirations of climbing an active Volcano, oooo how exciting. All the faces around us were young people in their twenties and a few in their very early thirties we found later that this was almost essential.

We arrived in a very small town after bumping up a narrow dirt road, one of the really curvy roads but this time filled with giant divots and pits from extreme wear. Our driver stopped in the middle of a tiny town, I don’t even know what the name is, in front of a little run down store. Everyone climbed out of the van not knowing what to expect. The driver told us that if we needed food or a flash light that we should purchase it there at the store and that Melvin would be our guide. Melvin was a young, fit local probably 18-20 years old who spoke very little English, only a few necessary words. He rounded the group up and told us to follow him. At the trailhead we first noticed many young boys handing out hiking sticks, surprisingly for free, then we noticed that there were men with horses for those who would not make it the entire way, and interestingly enough the beginning of the trail was paved with cobble stones but very steep. This cobble stone I believe gave a very wrong first impression of how easy the hike to come would be. There was no sight of the Volcano at this point, a little strange. Melvin our guide took off at a breakneck speed almost running up the trail with his legs that were definitely shorter than mine. We later found out he hikes the entire trail twice a day every day. We followed up the trail as fast as possible until our first break where the entire group paused and began panting as Melvin gave us our team name Los Tigres (the tigers) and somewhat useless information at the time about a power plant we could see off in the distance. This name would be the best way to keep us together but we couldn’t figure out why this was so important since we were, so far, on the trail mostly by ourselves with maybe one other reasonably sized team close by. As we pressed further up the trail the hike kept getting harder and harder and Melvin had to stop because one of the girls from Argentina could not keep up. This is when I realized what our guide was up to. At the convenient location of our pousa (break), there where two men with horses waiting to take people who couldn’t keep up with the pace up to the base of the volcano. The men said “Taxi?Taxi?” and Melvin convinced the girl that it was common for people to get tired and need a horse. Scam? I don’t know, but I am guessing he was helping them get their cut. We walked very hard and fast for a solid hour and half before breaking through the trees only to see that we were still on a separate mountain and there was a short decent before a crazy and still long climb to the summit. By this time we were all already crazy tired and the view ahead of us was very daunting. The people in our view on the volcano climb trail looked like small white dots miles away!

We made it quickly down into the valley between the mountain and the volcano. The descent was through a loose, large granular, eroded volcanic rock. This made for a quick slide and stop fluid motion down the mountain side. At this time we were entering an old, completely retired lava flow, you could see where the old flow came just shy of the trail to the left. I was really excited because the terrain was already something I had never set foot on but I was really nervous about having enough energy to make the next hour and half of climbing.

The ascent begins somewhat easily you tread up through the same somewhat loose, large granular, eroded volcanic sand. At first the slope was manageable but we could see how the grade changed drastically above us. We began to walk on basically the same material but on a grade probably close to 15 or 20%, drastic uphill. The steepness was only half the battle however. With the loose volcanic sand uphill was much more tedious for every step gained half that ground was lost. I found in this section sometimes I would take 20 steps and I would have to stop, not because my heart was pounding too hard but because my muscles were fatiguing like crazy with all the lost ground. After this endeavor, the first of many, we encountered a transition to volcanic rubble, grapefruit +/- sized rock. This section was again a little less steep and little bit easier to walk on only because the ground was a bit firmer, the rocks still wanted to move right out from under you. Next the climb transitions into pseudo crawling pseudo rock climbing. The lava rock size has increased to football, watermelon, and small child sized rock all interspersed still with the grapefruits. Now each of these descriptive tools for size really euphemize the rocks themselves. The lava rock has no smooth surfaces and it is very very rough to the touch, rough enough to fill your hands with little surface cuts, not discovered till afterwards in the shower when your hand becomes covered with hundreds of little white lines. By this time in the climb you are doing everything on your hands and feet to find the best placement and start the least sliding of rocks below you. Every placement of hand or foot was so carefully planned for me because now we were climbing on a grade steep enough that you didn’t always feel safe enough to stand up and if you started the loose rocks sliding below you, you might be sliding for a ways or taking out individuals. We pressed on and took many short breaks for water or pictures on the way up but there wasn’t much time to spare to make it to the top before dusk. Did I mention that the hike began at the base at approximately 3:30 in the afternoon?

We kept going as carefully as possible but luckily at this point we were climbing up surrounded by just a few members of our team; An Australian couple hiked behind the three of us, our leader was already nowhere in sight chasing after three guys in our group who had taken off ahead, and there were a few stragglers behind us. The caldera was now on the order hundreds of feet away, not exactly sure how far. The ground was beginning to level out just a bit but using your hands was still necessary. I began to notice the rocks I was touching were getting warm and a few of them to warm to touch. Thankfully it flattened out enough to walk upright again but we were suddenly experiencing a very hot menacing wind. I was leading the way when I noticed that we were really getting out on top of the hardening flow. I was starting to see glowing orange below us in cracks and the heat at times became unbearable. Our shoes were getting to hot to stand in one place and our guide was nowhere in sight. Julia and I panicked a little bit because I had no idea which direction was the best to cut across to where we could no longer see our leader and the rest of our team but we knew they were there and had somehow gotten there. We were on top of an active hot spot and with no direction. The ground is extremely treacherous because of deep cracks and almost expert sure footedness is needed to safely cross the field without falling and burning yourself. Julia were now far enough  in that where we were standing was unbearable, are shoe soles were starting to melt a bit and I could feel my toes getting really warm, not to mention the heat was strong on your face if you stayed in a venting section too long you would probably ecsficciate. (Don’t worry we made it!) Because I knew we needed to move I decided to take off and break for the side of the caldera that was not lava flow just a steep grade coming down to where the flow actually was on the side of the volcano.

Let me take a short break to describe the lay of the volcano. Look at one of the slightly more wide shots of the top of the volcano when we are at a distance, the one with me staring at it in awe from a distance. You will notice the caldera at the top spewing smoke and then look down and to the right and it almost looks like there is another ledge or shelf, almost a growth on the side of the volcano. Well, that is actually where the lava flow comes out, down the side approximately 200+ft in elevation below the actual caldera. Of course this is where we were climbing, no one actually made it up to the very tip of the caldera. It was extremely steep and loose soil, not lava rock, but red soil.

So anyways, we made carefully and quickly across the flow to the soil coming down from the caldera. Here we rested our feet and tried to figure out how to get out to the rest of our crowd. Another interesting fact that, I think is because of the distortion of air due to the heat, is that you can’t hear anything more than 50ft from you. We had called our guide many times and he never came to save us, haha. I watched where others were going out across the flow to the far side to take pictures and I decided if they could do it I could so I headed out and Julia followed. It was hot but not as bad as where we were on the way up. The wildest thing about walking up there besides the heat was the rocks here just above the flow were very brittle and hollow because they were still cooling and you had to be extremely careful that you didn’t step on something that would break off and well put you in a really bad position. I made it all the way out to the moving flow, finally, and it was really worth it. At this location, the lava was bubbling over itself and turning black as it did and I luckily had enough time to snap a few pictures. But we then decided it was high time to start making the trek down. The sun was dropping fast and we wanted to make it as far as possible before the headlamps came on.

The first horror of our decent came when we walked back across the edge of the caldera soil to stay cool enough and we came upon a young man who was lying on the ground seizing.  Julia and I agreed quickly he was having a panic attack, his friends were around him and we helped what we could but thankfully a doctor from Cyprus showed up and the man started to relax some. We were now at this point in the way and needed to move on. Thankfully we saw him doing much better at the bottom of the mountain and walking around Antigua healthy the next day. I just think he got really scared up there, it was a little crazy.

Then the descent. We took a much better root away from the lava field where only had to cross a few hot rocks to get back to the trail. But this is where it got really quite tricky and I will say pretty dangerous. Like I said the trail is very steep and everything even big rocks move below you. But what made everything exponentially worse is that somehow they were probably about 100 people coming up and down not in the most difficult section of the climb. I don’t know where everyone came from because I certainly didn’t see them all at the top, am guessing  a lot of them didn’t make it all the way but here they were and we were all trying to get down to a slightly safer part of the trail before all our light faded.

The Bottleneck

Surprisingly everyone was taking it really slow and we moved like ants in a line behind each other. Some sections we crawled on our hands and feet down others we scoot on our butts or in the crab walk. With this many people moving down we were trying to move as slow as carefully because the rocks we start to move and then you would here the yells in front of you or behind you saying “CUIDADO, CUIDADO, CUIDADO” (careful, careful, careful). And I don’t remember how many times I turned around hands out to catch any rocks coming down and place them again solidly if only for a little while. I can imagine this feels something like a bottleneck on Everest, when a climbing team has one member who slips falls, and thankfully on these climbs they are all lashed together, but the others have to arrest their fall or everyone is going to be sliding for thousands of feet. A couple times I thought to myself wow if this kid slips behind me or I do we are gonna take out 10 others because of the steepness. Not a great thought. And not to mention one woman had fallen and hit her head and knee, so guides were carrying her down in front of us, not a great moral booster. They would make it only a few steps before one of the men carrying her would slide down on their butt with her still in their arms. But thankfully we also saw her at the bottom safe and ok.

We kept it going real slow and then the headlamps and flashlights started to come on around us but so so thankfully we had just made it out of the most difficult climb of my life. We made it down to the really steep sandy spot and made it down with ease and we were so happy to find the group at the somewhat leveled off spot and join back up with Lena.  The rest of the hike down was safe and fast even though it was really dark outside. When we made the crest of the short hill that came out of the valley between the volcano and mountain we had to hike down, all our struggles were made worth it. We turned around to see the red glow from the top of the caldera but even more exciting a river had started to flow on the far side of the lava field pointing away from the people thankfully. Remember, people were still hiking up at this time for the night viewing and climb, I think I will do this next year. We watched for a few minutes and the river grew and grew and hot red rocks started shooting halfway down the mountainside. INCREDIBLE! I am sorry I don’t have any great pictures but I really stopped taking them once the decent started and it was really hard to capture the light. But it was one of the coolest things I have ever seen.

We made it down safely a trip well worth it although I think my feet might be paying it for another six months but oh well, you only live once! We headed back to Antigua and crashed in our hotel not exactly sure of what we had just done. I still don’t think it has completely hit me.

There is so much to say about the way people move in this country and I don’t mean dancing (something not common at all in Guatemala). The people of Guatemala, The Guatemaltecas, perform amazing feats each day in the way they move from place to place; the way they save money and increase efficiency by traveling many together, but certainly not while simultaneously increasing safety.  I have really come to understand so much more about the people through the way they travel and it has certainly worked to negate any preconceptions I had about Latinos in the states who travel in ways that are so unbelievably illegal and dangerous to us in the U.S.

Some of the things we see on a daily basis:

One of my absolute favorites, Parents picking up their kids from school here in Pana. It Is a common site, seriously, to see a woman driving a scooter, small scooters, with one child in front and two children in the back holding on to her. The child in the very back wears her backpack and amazingly the mother puts the other two backpacks, one on each handle bar of the scooter and they putt on home. And what makes this even more amazing is that I have yet to see a local with legs long enough for the motorcycle they are riding, so when stopped they do amazing tip toe balancing on one side. Impressive!

Also, you often see three people riding on a small motorcycle.  Almost all the motorcycles here are under 200 cc’s so it is really fascinating that they can fit three people on them and make it around town and up the hills around here. Surprisingly, more often than not it is three young guys riding together.  For all you who know me well, you know I like to ride motorcycles. I ride a motorcycle with an engine three times the size of the majority of the bikes here and somehow all the skilled riders here make me feel so incompetent and silly on a motorcycle, the women too. I guess it is the fact that they ride small lightweight bikes as their primary mode of transportation everywhere and they have been riding since they were very young. Last week our house Dad, Theodoro, even told us that he had just let their youngest son drive with him on the back for the first time. Their son Andy is 11. Eleven and piloting a motorcycle through the crazy streets of Pana with his dad on the back. I am so jealous that I didn’t start at this age. But I do think all the crazy motorcycle riding around here has also given me confidence in the fact that if these people don’t get hurt with all the dangerous decisions they make than I probably won’t get hurt either when I ride at home. Maybe this is a silly conclusion.

It is amazing how brave the people are here. Maybe Intersections in Pana don’t follow the same laws of Physics as they do in the Unites States. There are a few crossroads where motorcycle riders go through without even looking and there are no real stop signs in either direction. Not to mention the intersections are completely blind because they have buildings on every side of these very narrow streets. Cars and motorcycles often meet in the middle but I am yet to see a collision. I have found that the locals are very good at using their brakes.

Apart from motorcycles there are so many other fascinating ways to get around here. Bicycles are another great mode of transportation although slightly more dangerous. You often also see bikes with as many as three people on them. Mom or Dad in front, with a small kid sitting on the back finder or racks built for a number of things other than kids, for example a double rack for small propane tanks that doubles as a kiddie seat. One of my favorite bicycles I have seen in town has a small wooden seat attached to the frame in front of the main seat. The wooden seat looks like a mini bicycle seat and from it extend two little wooden pegs for a child’s foot rest, how creative and cheap to make a bicycle tandem this way, very different than the used tandem bicycle that Gavin and I just bought for a reasonable $165 in the US which is about  1400 quetzales something it would take a family here months to earn, hmmm.

In addition to bikes and motorcycles there are the other slightly more cramped modes, Camionetas (chicken buses), pick-ups, tuktuks, and microbuses.

The microbuses or shuttles are probably the best and most comfortable long distance transportation. We have taken them several places and basically they are eurovans made mostly by Toyota around here that have comfortable seating for 12 people. However on the way back from Antigua to Pana yesterday, I experience for the first time me and four other Pana locals crammed in a seat row for three for an hour and half. Surprisingly it wasn’t that bad because unlike us uptight Americans (USA), people here are completely comfortable with being in each other’s bubbles so we just leaned on each other a lot  as we came around the crazy mountain turns to get back to the lake.

Then the Pick-ups, these are actually kind of fun and really cheap. They are small pick-up trucks with benches built inside the bed on either side and a large metal frame around the outside for hanging on, which is totally necessary. These trucks take mostly locals from town to town around the lake and for a cheap method of transportation they also take people from city to city. This, to me, seems so dangerous as we observed yesterday. Mostly dangerous because the roads here are very very curvy up and around the mountains and when the Guatemaltecas use the pick-ups they pile as many people as possible in the bed and when it is full the men stand on the sides and hang from the tall frame, CRAZY when they come around the curves they way they do often right in the middle of the lanes and of course entirely too fast. Yesterday we even saw people hanging from the side of one of the microbuses with the door open. I just know this would be a bad choice for me because after hours of hanging on like this and winding through the mountains I would just get tired and fall from the van, eyes closed, oblivious, only to be found still asleep halfway down the mountainside.  The gusto the drivers take these curves with is really impressive. On the way home from the Volcano I was trying to decide which was more dangerous, the van ride home? Or the hike up and down the volcano? Which was very dangerous and I will write more about it later! In the van you fly around the turns, at least the roads are in relatively good shape, you pass trucks that seem to come within inches, and you pass slower traffic in the very short straight of ways even if there is oncoming traffic- everybody just seems to duck towards the ditches. I agree with Lena that it is often much better to look into the past (out the back window) than in the future (out the front window). But so far we have been safe and the drivers all seem to be pretty competent even though a little crazy.

The tuktuk (pronounced tooktooks) are awesome. Basically they are small gocart sized engines that have three wheels, one in the front and two in the back. They have a metal frame and a canvas roof with one seat in the front and a bench seat wide enough for three small butts in the back. These are good for getting you around town but not much else. However I have seen as many as six people in the back seat of one of these as well. Mom and Dad and four little kids, so amazing. All the tuktuks around here are red, but they are often really tricked out. Additions of flames, neon lights, stickers, special sayings, are all common. And wonderfully so, a lot of the sayings are about following Christ.

Lastly the camionetas (Chicken Buses) are another great cheap way to get around. These are the cheapest and also the most crowded. We have actually not partaken in this mode of transportation yet  but I think we are going to take one to the market in Solola this weekend. I am sure there will be more to come about doing this. But what I do know is that these buses load tons of people on them and their stuff. They are school buses that have also been modified and decorated to a T. Most of them have larger tires and maybe larger engines to handle the terrain. They are all painted with crazy colors, greens, blues, reds, silver, all kinds of patterns and statements. All of the buses have names and wild drivers. Can’t wait for the experience.

All of these methods for getting across the country side have given me deeper appreciation for the people. Often in the states we grimace at or make fun of those (particularly Latinos) who pack as many people as possible into one car, but I have come to understand that it is just what they are used to. It is so much more efficient. It is so much cheaper per person to travel in this way and coming from one of the poorest countries in the Americas, Guatemala, it just makes sense. Traveling like this is also a product of the fact that these wonderful people are so close to each other. The connections are deep and comfort with being very close physically and emotionally is very important and certainly not a taboo. I think this is really something we are missing in the United States. The young girls walk the streets holding hands with and chatting with their friends and the guys are not afraid that they won’t look manly if three of them are on a motorcycle or even bicycle together. I guess part of this because homosexuality is practically unheard of in Guatemala except for two very metro cities. Too bad we all just can’t be comfortable with being close.

Please visit Lena and Julia’s blogs for a different perspective.

Lena

http://lenagray.wordpress.com

Julia

http://jules-adventuresoflife.blogspot.com

The Lake, What can I say about Lake Atitlan. Well to begin, it is definitely, hands down, no questions asked the most beautiful lake I have ever been on. Because it is a collapsed volcanic caldera, the lake is surrounded by extremely steep, towering mountains on all sides and of course the three volcanoes. This week Julia, Lena, and I decided that our first adventure would be to voyage out onto the lake and visit the towns spotting the hillsides that creep up from the water’s edge. Our plan was to head to the dock and take the El barco puplico (the public boat) to four different towns and have about an hour in each, but we had also read that if you are good at bartering you can arrange a small private boat to stay with you and take you to as many towns as possible. Our first offer was 100q per person per town, approximately $14 US per town or $45 for three towns, per person. We found out quickly through other experiences in the market  that A) if you take a really long time to decide, discussing it in English of course and especially B) you decide to walk away saying that it is just too much to pay, the dealers come after you with a new offer, In our case one much more palpable.  The man returned with a price of 350q (quetzals) for all of us, this equates to about $15 per person to visit three towns on the lake and return to Panajachel. It is no small boat ride either. The lake is, at it’s widest, 10 miles across so our boat trip totaled approximately 20-25 miles around the lake. We visited three very distinct towns on the lake: San Pedro la Laguna, Santiago Atitlan, and San Antonio Palopo.  The boat ride began with a priceless picture of our understanding of Spanish. We all hopped into the 25ft long boat typical of Central America, long, narrow, covered, and with a small outboard engine. We took our seats and confirmed the price with the man negotiating our deal, he was not our captain, he looked us and said in Spanish 100 dollars right? And because of the delay between listening, translating in our heads, comprehending, and finally responding, Lena had plenty of time to snap a picture of Julia and I thinking to ourselves in Spanglish “what? A hundred dollars? No!” before we realize it is a joke and we break into laughter, “haha cien dolares, no, no, no tres ciento cinquenta quetzales Senor!” This is how many of my facial expressions must appear to the locals as I translate Spanish into English in my head and then English into Spanish to respond. I wish I had pictures of every time I didn’t exactly understand.

We headed out in the Lancha (small boat, I think) and I started my photo journey of the Lake. Of the hills and of the towns and certainly of the volcanoes.

The first Town we visited was San Pedro. San Pedro is a lovely town, the second largest on the Lake, but very different than Pana. You arrive at the dock to a few touristy restaurants and the road climbs at least a 10% grade to the center of town where it begins to flatten out. This town reminds me so much of Livingston, Guatemala on the southeast coast. The steep road is lined with venders for the tourists entering the town. The first intersection holds a road that to the left and to the right is lined with all the artwork and jewelry for sale. In San Pedro the absolute best find is the artwork. I have since discovered that the art is slightly different from town to town, each beautiful and distinct to the local people. In San Pedro there were quite a few Gallerias de Arte that exploded with the local colors. This was  the first exposure I had to Guatemalan art and I love it. I love color and the paintings these people create are synonymous with the brightest colors known to man. We all decided to walk past tourist town and into the heart of El Pueblo (the town). San Pedro is very unique in that, according to the guidebooks, it is the location that many hippies on the backpack trail who stayed in Panajachel decided to move to when Pana became too touristy (Pana is derogatorily known as Gringotenango because of all the expat settlers, mostly hippies, that loved it and never left).  I think because of this shift in settlement there are more evangelical churches in San Pedro: several Baptist churches and Pentecostal churches….they came to save the hippies, haha! Next we explored the local’s market filled with frutas and vegetales and traditional clothing and cloth for the women of San Pedro. San Pedro was wonderful it seemed like a town for the People of Guatemala. The churches were beautiful, the people were friendly, and they all seemed to proceed with a happy accord with their lives and each other. The town even had a school for disabled or debilitated children  “Centro de Rehabilitacion Y Educacion Especial, Somos hijos del lago”-Center for Rehibilitation and Special Education, We are the children of the lake. It was wonderful to see the people of San Pedro as they walk through the square holding hands, mother and child or friends, with smiles and compassion. Yet another example of the love of this Gente.

We then trekked on or should I say putted a long to Satiago Atitlan. The location of this town was astonishing. It lay at the base of the two volcanoes Atitlan and Toliman and across a channel from Volcan San Pedro. Sadly I have less heart for this town because of it’s exposure to tourism. Although there are less people in Santiago Atitlan than San Pedro, somehow it has become the premier site for the selling of tourist gift. Booths line the street as you head into town and there even seems to be a district solely for the selling of craft goods. The crafts are beautiful  but the people are often desperate. They invite you into their booth with a kind Adelante (come in) but if you don’t seem to go to something right away they begin to sell you what you are looking at by asking you what is price would you pay for it and if you don’t buy something they treat you with slight disdain. The children of Sanitago are also sadly the worst they sell as best they can but they are so young to be so pushy. You simply have to tell them no and walk away when they begin to place things in front of you or even in your hands. But I truly believe this is how tourists have conditioned them. At lunch I saw a gringo man give a young girl several quetzales so he could take a picture of her dyed chicks, I didn’t know what to think of this interaction. I took a picture from a distance of this incidence and wondered what must they think of us paying them for a photo of colored birds. Also at lunch a young boy came to the restaurant and a traveling woman accepted his offer of for a little money I will show you my house, this also seemed so difficult to grasp. At the end of our lunch he came to me and asked me the same thing, he was clearly very poor and also had a physical disability. I responded clearly with no, but right before I left I slipped 5q into his hand. I didn’t know a better way to help him at the moment, I did not want to buy a peek at his house, I did not want to buy his trust, but I felt a momentary connection with his simple thank you and even more blessed by the smile he had as he walked away. To me this has always been a very hard line to walk, whether or not to give money, but I feel good about my decision and I will continue to keep a special place in my prayers for this boy.

On to San Antonio Palopo, another amazing town on El Lago Atitlan.  This town was much smaller and had only a few boats coming to and from the docks. This town seemed one step closer to real life on the lake. Here there were no vendors on the shore except for the woman and child that came running down to great us at the docks. Since so few boats come into San Antonio on a given day, those selling things to tourists had to make every effort possible to make their income for the day. They were somewhat pushy but still kind. I ended up caving and bought two scarves from the woman that she had made herself. Most everything is clearly handmade but she made it very clear to me that she had some that were machine made and some that she made herself, of course more expensive. We walked up another steep path to the main street in the town. As we made our way a woman came down zeroed in on Julia with a beautifully woven cloth. Somehow again I bought something from her I scarf even cheaper. But I am truly glad that I bought cloth in this town because these people were the weavers. We entered one beautiful wooden building where women sat around weaving some on more modern wooden looms and others on their knees with a traditional warp tied to the wall. I took many photos for my mother because it was weaving like she spoke of when she was in art school. It was completely untainted, unmechanized, women weaving the most beautiful colors into indescribable final products: blankets, scarves, table cloths, and clothes.

Sunday was an adventure to yet another town on the lake. After our day spent out on the boat we decided to take a different approach to reaching one of the much closer towns that we knew had a safe walk. Santa Catarina Palopo was an hour and a half walk southeast of Pana. This was a great decision. The walk was on a well paved and traveled road that climbed up and down the mountainside skirting the lake. There were surprisingly large houses dispersed on the steep hillsides in between the two towns, where vacationing Guatemalans from Guatemala City or foreigners stayed for long weekends or weeks on the lake. After an hour and fifteen minutes of walking the town came in to view and from the hillside it was the most picturesque I had seen so far. We could see the green lawns of a very nice hotel but also of a very nice soccer field where a game was going on. We made our way into town and experience more beautiful art but no desperation from the vendors. These people didn’t ask at all they just invited you to look with their smiles. Wandering through the town we walked down to the waterfront and found the soccer field. Lena, Julia, and I sat down on the stone benches with not surprisingly only men viewers around us. I think we saw two women there the whole time. But somehow the men didn’t seem bothered by us or even really interested in what we were doing. The two teams seemed pretty professional, with matching uniforms and lots of skill. After watching we went to the waterfront and walked along the worn trail that supposedly goes almost all the way around the lake, although not safe to walk in it’s entirety. On the lake we found fishing boats (tiny wooden canoe like boats), women washing clothes, and further down people swimming and bathing. It was very very beautiful. We ate lunch on the water and just enjoyed the break from speaking Spanish as much as we could and rested in the stillness of the lake. Julia, Lena, and I spent time sharing with each other  and laughing at the crazy stories we were going to be able to tell. After lunch we took the cheapest and easiest transportation back to town, in the back of a pickup truck. The walk that had taken us more than hour took what seemed like less than 10 minutes on the way back! The drivers are paid 5q per person each way and they drive like maniacs. Ok maybe not crazy just very skilled as they sling you around the sharp turns next to the large cliffs, at least there are guard rails.

Our weekend was close to over once we came back to Pana. We spent more time studying and enjoying just hanging out. We had an ideal weekend on the lake and we learned so much about the people and four completely different villages/towns on the lake.

Well, one thing I didn’t expect at all was not getting any sleep at all. We are in a busy town but the house Lena and I are staying in is far enough away from the heart of town that at night we are not plagued by the usual sounds of buses, bars, and horns. Instead we experience a much different cacophony here on the other side of the river. The evening begins with the chatter of dogs all around us. There are many many feral dogs in Panajachel and there are many with home. Our family’s dog is Spike. Then , and I noticed for the first time last night, that the dog barking often coincides with the local cats caterwauling. Last night I noticed three cats prancing across the tin roof next to our rooms on the second floor (too bad the roof wasn’t hot). These cats proceeded to pick up their lovely song as I was really trying to drift off around 10:30. One cat in particular chose to sound like a wining/moaning/crying baby for probably an hour and a half, yay, I guess he thought he sounded nice for the ladies. I disagree! But as the cats settled down and the dogs everywhere which bark on off although the night settled down I began to doze off again.   Completely restless sleep because the dogs never stop barking was completely ended at 3:30 am when the first of many bombas went off. Which brings me to my next point.

It is amazing to me the gusto with which these Ladinos love their fireworks and explosives of various types. It’s crazy and I would really love the fireworks if it didn’t always occur when I was trying to sleep. The first morning we were here Lena and I were woken up in slight horror when what sounded like a fully automatic machine gun fired for 10 seconds at 6 am Tuesday morning. Later at breakfast I found out that the sounds came from what we would call m-80’s or cherry bombs or ¼ sticks and many many many of them. We also found out that it was very common for this to occur for someone’s birthday, not just in the morning at any time throughout the day around the clock, all 24 hours! And a night has not passed since that we haven’t heard this long string of pops occur at least once a night, most of the time at least 5 times but none worse than the first night because it had to be on the roof of one of the houses right next to us. Isn’t that how fires get started? But last night was infinitely more terrifying. Earlier in the evening we heard a few bottle rockets go off, not so bad. But AT 3:30 AM I almost jumped out of my bed when the first whole shell went off. I thought we were at war with one of the towns across the lake, haha. I went outside after the second boom to see where it was coming from. I figured if I had to be awake I was definitely gonna see the fireworks. Well that never worked because they are so intermittent that unless I stayed around the whole night I would never see them. I went out again at 6:00 or so to see them, they were so random so you could never catch one, I went to the bathroom one went off while I was in the bathroom but by the time I went out, no more. At breakfast this morning we discovered that it is a special day for the Catholics across Guatemala. It is the day for Christos Negros, uhh Black Jesus. The best we can tell it is called this for the singular piece of wood that a Christ figure is carved on the cross. This piece of wood is, mandel negro, is a type of black wood hence the name of the holiday?? I will have to look this one up. But it is really almost impossible to describe the sound that these full sized shells (firework shells) made here in Panajachel. First the shells went off less than ½ mile away and second the Giant wall of mountains that complete surrounds the lake creates giant echoes, the loudest fireworks I have ever heard.

The last and possibly most glorious sound of the night and early morning is the gayo/gallo sp? This is the rooster, everyone seems to have them. There is one in the yard directly behind the house and they all start about 3 am and go till at least 7 am. There are so many roosters and dogs that my dreams have been filled with them. I hear the sounds at night and have been incorporating them into my dreams. One night I dreamt of lots of puppies playing, fighting, and barking! And another dream included a person screaming just like one of the birds outside that has a really shrill ascending call, haha.

So I have one request for anyone reading. Please pray for me because I am getting sick from the lack of sleep. Today I am going to the grocery store for earplugs. But despite these minor struggles I really really really love Panajachel and Guatemala.

God is very good!

Hola readers! Como estas? So yesterday, as we do every day, we work one on one with a teacher. As I have said Veronica is my maestro and she is so so wonderful. She is very patient and oh so helpfully she corrects me whenever I pronounce even a syllable of a word wrong. Which I am really hoping will help me in the future. At this time I am really focusing on learning more words (aprender mas palabras) and the regular verbs –ar, -er, -ir all in the present tense.  Yesterday was our third day of class and near the end it hit me that I was almost on my 12^th hour of intense training, how exciting. Before our break two and a half hours into the lesson I was so tired and my sentences were rough, broken, and frustrated. We take a 20 minute break and then return for approximately one hour more of learning. When we started into the last hour somehow I was completely refreshed. We spent much more of this hour talking alone, not writing; I even read Veronica my first story and was able to tell her in four or five sentences what happened in the story. Although what I was doing was basic and still somewhat broken I realized I was catching on, which I can’t describe to you what a breath of fresh air it was. I was truly beginning to speak Spanish with words in the correct order and tense and in multiple sentences. Can you believe I am starting to learn Spanish? I would have to say the hardest thing however is unlearning French at this time. There are a lot of pronunciation and order errors that I like to make often or even accidently use French words sometimes when I am speaking to Veronica, I think it is pretty entertaining for her. I really can’t wait to see where I am in 6 weeks.

Aprender espanol es muy dificil!