3/22/09
We are still learning more Spanish at school actually its not hard to when you don’t know much. The problem is trying to remember it. I don’t know if the neurons delivering the info to the brain are not delivering it or the neurons retrieving the info are not working right or if the info is being stored at all. Its sort of frustrating not to be able to communicate with the locals still. We are still working on all the scrambled verbs. But I am able to pick out more words in a conversation. I take comfort in knowing that I have forgot more Spanish than most Americans will ever know.
I have gone to two dentists here to get my teeth cleaned and checked. I went to two as I did not like the first clinic. The dentist was nice but she did not do a good job on the cleaning and the office was not real clean and the dental tools were not in sterile packs. The second place (Clinicas Ovulle, Antigua)was clean, had sterile packs, and modern equipment. This dentist did a good job on the cleaning and checkup like you would get in the states. It cost about $47 for the cleaning and checkup and $25 for a full x-ray, where the x-ray machine goes around your head. I went back to get 5 small cavities done for $47 each. Both dentist speak English. Alicia and Shannon go in on Monday. Unfortunately Jared had his 6 cavities done before we came for $1400 and that does not include the cleaning and checkup. If you have a lot of dental work to be done come here to get it done and you will pay for the rest of your trip in savings. A root canal goes for $125 or so.
On Wednesday we toured a coffee farm, macadamia nut farm and looked at a fabric store in a small town near hear. Unfortunately the tours were in Spanish and I did not get much out of them. I understood some of the coffee tour by looking at the equipment and what it did. At the fabric store they did a reenactment of a Mayan wedding with some of the people from our group dressing up as the locals, that was fun.
Friday we climbed the Pacaya Volcano. Or I rode a horse up and the others walked. I rode as we heard the trail was long and hard, but I could have walked it as it was shorter than the last one we did. Shannon rode the horse back down all by herself, I was led. When we got there the lava was slowly flowing so you had to wait till the leading edge cooled off to see the red hot lava as this flow was covered with cooled lava rock. I got with in 3 feet of this flow when I approached form the side.
There had been another flow the day before that must have been flowing like a river from the smooth shapes it dried in. We were able to climb on this flow and stand on the newly formed rock that was still pretty warm. Actually about 8 to 12 inches under us it was still red hot as we could see this through a fold in the surface. Our guide started a stick on fire by putting it into the side of this flow right down from where we walked up on to it. We roasted coconut covered marshmallows (from the store and are very good) down in the fold and made s‘mores. Some English guys were trying to roast there sandwiches in the fold by putting sticks across the sides, but the sticks fell in and promptly caught fire.
Our trip was dampened as a man in another group had a heart attack and died at the edge of the lava field. We were heading down when it happened Jared saw the man fall. From where we were across the lava field we thought he had stumbled and maybe twisted his ankle as the we assisting him. When we got closer and below the group on another trail we heard them say that he had lost conscious and a few minutes later start CPR. There was a doctor in another group that came up about then and helped out and found a pulse. We moved on up the trail to where the two trails meet and about 10 minutes later they brought the man up and we found out he had died. He was my age.
3/28/09
Its Saturday and one more week of school to go. I will be happy to be out of school as it is still real mentally tiring. But at the same time I wish we could do more (after another week break) as I feel I am starting to get somewhere. We really like Guatemala still and would like to see more. We really like our host family Silvia. She is a good cook (gives us too much food), her place is nice and she is a real good person. She has been taking Shannon to the market with her and Shannon really likes that.
Shannon only had one cavity which was filled yesterday and had Alicia none. I figure we saved at least $225 in cleaning cost (if it cost $150 in the states) and $1170 in fillings or $1395 or two airline tickets for here.
Yesterday the school had a field trip to see Maximon in a nearby village. Maximon cigar smoking Mayan god of desires. He is the god of tobacco, wealth, alcohol, and other things. They pray to him for more of all kinds of stuff and for help with addictions if wanted. Out in front of the building families were offering burnt sacrifices. They would make a square or circle with sugar then put stuff inside of it, mostly sweet stuff, aromatic wood and alcohol. But also one family was doing a blood sacrifice with chickens, where they would kill the chicken over the rest of the offerings and spread its blood over it. Then the feathers where added to the offering.
Shannon did not go on this field trip instead she and her teacher went to the market, walked to a nearby village and McDonalds. The McDonalds here is the nicest I have seen. It has a big court yard and garden.
To day we are off to the market again and dinner at La Pena de Latino. We went there the other night to listen to music from the Andes and had dessert. Both were very good, their chocolate mus was the best I have ever had. We will also buy a few of the bands CDs.
The temperature has also finally warmed up some which is nice. It has been colder that normal for the whole month.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
3/10/09
We are now into our 3rd week of school here and things are going good, We still like our school and teachers. Alicia has the hardest teacher again, mine and the kids are easier. We all get what we desire or what we can handle. Shannon is leaving us in the dust as far as conversation is going with a good accent and very little studying. Alicia is doing real well and Jared never talks much but I hear from other people he is doing well. And me I am struggling along. This week and next we have extra hours as we took off last Thursday and Friday to go to Tikal. When you miss a day you can make up two hours of it later, also the teachers can get paid for the days you miss that way. I think since I paid the school in for the week they should pay the teachers if I miss a day, not have to have them work in the two hours to get paid.
We really enjoyed Tikal and Yaxha. We took a shuttle to Guatemala City on Thursday leaving at 7am and caught the day bus for Flores. Flores is located on a small island connected by a causeway to Santa Elena about a 1.5 hour drive from Tikal. The bus (Linea Dorada) was run down but it got us there the whole trip lasting 10 hours. It was only half full so we were able to take two seats each and stretch out. East of Guatemala City it is dry with high hills and was like a desert with brush and cactus. After we got to the low lands it became more flat and very green with tropical forests. A lot of land was cleared for grazing, but in between is very thick vegetation. Near the east coast of Guatemala we drove north into the El Petén (the outback of Guatemala) where Tikal is located. My favorite area in Guatemala is the El Petén with its tropical forests and ranch lands. You can tell that the forest rules here as any unmaintaned pasture is taken over by trees in short order.
We spent the night in Flores (a nice little town) and took a shuttle to Tikal on Friday morning. Walking through Tikal and climbing the temples and palaces was a lot of fun. We climbed all the temples except one as Shannon was not feeling good. She was fighting the cold that I was fighting for 2 weeks but she felt better later in the day. Alicia and I were able to see more than we did 9 years ago, as they have uncovered and restored more in the last 9 years. We were lucky to finish when we did as it poured for about 15 minutes right after we returned to the visitor center,
On Saturday we took a private shuttle to Yaxha which is near the Belize boarder about 1.5 hours from Flores. We had to take a private shuttle as there are no scheduled ones to Yaxha due to the lack of tourists going there. Yaxha is smaller but we liked it a lot due to the lack of tourists. We arrived latter in the day at 12:30 and the other 4 groups that were there were just finishing up. When we walked through we did not see any other tourists. The grounds are very pretty. Yaxha has only two large temples with one sitting on a hill with a great view of the surrounding land and lake which it borders. They still have a lot to uncover in the area. We also saw spider monkeys and heard howler monkeys near by.
After we returned to Flores at 5pm we got dinner and hung around till the 9pm night bus left. The night bus is was not fun as it was full and the seats crowded. It was very hard to sleep with trying to get comfortable with the loud movie they had playing and stops to pickup people. But our shuttle to Antigua was waiting for us at 5:30 am and we arrived in Antigua at 6:30am. Laying down in bed felt very nice. We where going to go to church but over slept so only went to the last meeting.
On Monday evening we went over to visit a family from Church and had a great time getting to know them. They have a house in one of the blocks next to Central Square, that was had been his fathers. He works for the government running the training program to train guides. He was a guide in Tikal for 3 years when he was younger returning to Antigua every weekend on the night bus, I don’t know how he did it.
The Catholics have also started their weekly processions around Antigua starting with the first day of Lent two Sundays ago. They put art work on the streets either in sand, sawdust or flowers and carry floats with religious themes on their backs. The processions wind through town and end up at the Central Park. They are interesting to watch. Apparently the processions get bigger each week and climax at Easter. We miss Easter by one week, I should have checked the calendar as the Easter one would have been fun to see. Every thing in town is booked that week, with foreigners and locals.
We are off to Copan Honduras tomorrow (Friday) after school.
3/15/09
Back from Copan, we loved it. Only wish we had a few more days there. The trip over was not the greatest. We were to leave at 1pm but our shuttle picked us up at 2 pm. Then we had to pick up another person , not bad, but for some reason we drove into town to where the road leaves for Guatemala City (5min) then doubled back went right past our place the down another road, adding another 20 min to the trip. The shuttle had 13 of its 16 seats filled then we picked up 2 more in Gauti (as everyone calls Guatemala City) more time. We where pretty packed in. Some of our passengers were band members and they had two of their guitars inside with us, so I had my leg up over the guitars for part of the trip. There is not much leg room in these things. But we switch shuttles half way to Copan to a newer shuttle with better seats and they put the guitars on top. There was also a accident along the way that took a while to get by. Stopping at the border we had to pay our illegal exit and entrance fees. Under some agreement between Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua there are not suppose to be any exit or entrance fees, but the border guards still charge one with the money going into their pockets. They did give up a “official” receipt that we later found out got you back across the boarder for “free”. We ended up getting to Copan at 10pm when where supposed to be there at 7pm normally a 6 hour drive. So at 10pm we went looking for a hotel, I had requested reservations on line for one hotel but had not heard back. We had only gotten our shuttle tickets on Monday. We where going to walk to the hotel that we had the request, but after looking at a map found it was out a ways and we where having a hard time figuring out where we where exactly. Luckily we ran into a American that was teaching English in Copan and he recommended a place right up the street and even went over to ask if they had a room. We got the last one. It is a little unsettling to get into a town at late night, on foot and not knowing where you are going to stay especially if you have a family. Needles to say we were very tired and decided not to go find something for dinner and went right to bed. Jared and I on one bed and Alicia and Shannon on the other. We sleep well till 4am when some idiots started setting of fireworks and driving around the area with what had to be a sound truck. A sound truck is a vehicle with large announcing system on top used for advertising and they drive up and down the streets with the sound cranked up, very annoying especially at 4am. And the fireworks are not your firecracker kind they are larger aerial ones, larger than you can get in the States, that are very loud,. The locals like them down here. This noise went on for at least a half hour. We got to see some of the town in the morning its small and very nice. The surrounding area is hilly and covered with trees with farms in the valleys. The ruins are about a mile from town so we took a tuc tuc there and toured the site for 2.5 hours before running back to catch our noon return shuttle.
The Copan ruins turned out to be our favorite, its very pretty and has a special spiritual feel to it. These ruins has the best preserved hieroglyphics of all the discovered ruins in Central America and they are very neat. We could have just sat there for a while enjoying the site but had to hike through pretty fast. At the ruins they also have tunnels where they have dug down to older structures that had been built over. A lot of the temples have multiple layers where they had been built over by latter rulers. The tunnels are open to the public at extra cost. Hopefully some day we will be able to return to this area.
The drive back was on time and nice as we only had 4 other college students with us and they transferred to another shuttle after about a hour and a half and headed east. We did pick up 2 Australians in Guati but the that was only for the last hour, it was nice to have a whole row of seats to ourselves for most of the trip.
This week we are climbing Pacaya an active volcano south of here.
We are now into our 3rd week of school here and things are going good, We still like our school and teachers. Alicia has the hardest teacher again, mine and the kids are easier. We all get what we desire or what we can handle. Shannon is leaving us in the dust as far as conversation is going with a good accent and very little studying. Alicia is doing real well and Jared never talks much but I hear from other people he is doing well. And me I am struggling along. This week and next we have extra hours as we took off last Thursday and Friday to go to Tikal. When you miss a day you can make up two hours of it later, also the teachers can get paid for the days you miss that way. I think since I paid the school in for the week they should pay the teachers if I miss a day, not have to have them work in the two hours to get paid.
We really enjoyed Tikal and Yaxha. We took a shuttle to Guatemala City on Thursday leaving at 7am and caught the day bus for Flores. Flores is located on a small island connected by a causeway to Santa Elena about a 1.5 hour drive from Tikal. The bus (Linea Dorada) was run down but it got us there the whole trip lasting 10 hours. It was only half full so we were able to take two seats each and stretch out. East of Guatemala City it is dry with high hills and was like a desert with brush and cactus. After we got to the low lands it became more flat and very green with tropical forests. A lot of land was cleared for grazing, but in between is very thick vegetation. Near the east coast of Guatemala we drove north into the El Petén (the outback of Guatemala) where Tikal is located. My favorite area in Guatemala is the El Petén with its tropical forests and ranch lands. You can tell that the forest rules here as any unmaintaned pasture is taken over by trees in short order.
We spent the night in Flores (a nice little town) and took a shuttle to Tikal on Friday morning. Walking through Tikal and climbing the temples and palaces was a lot of fun. We climbed all the temples except one as Shannon was not feeling good. She was fighting the cold that I was fighting for 2 weeks but she felt better later in the day. Alicia and I were able to see more than we did 9 years ago, as they have uncovered and restored more in the last 9 years. We were lucky to finish when we did as it poured for about 15 minutes right after we returned to the visitor center,
On Saturday we took a private shuttle to Yaxha which is near the Belize boarder about 1.5 hours from Flores. We had to take a private shuttle as there are no scheduled ones to Yaxha due to the lack of tourists going there. Yaxha is smaller but we liked it a lot due to the lack of tourists. We arrived latter in the day at 12:30 and the other 4 groups that were there were just finishing up. When we walked through we did not see any other tourists. The grounds are very pretty. Yaxha has only two large temples with one sitting on a hill with a great view of the surrounding land and lake which it borders. They still have a lot to uncover in the area. We also saw spider monkeys and heard howler monkeys near by.
After we returned to Flores at 5pm we got dinner and hung around till the 9pm night bus left. The night bus is was not fun as it was full and the seats crowded. It was very hard to sleep with trying to get comfortable with the loud movie they had playing and stops to pickup people. But our shuttle to Antigua was waiting for us at 5:30 am and we arrived in Antigua at 6:30am. Laying down in bed felt very nice. We where going to go to church but over slept so only went to the last meeting.
On Monday evening we went over to visit a family from Church and had a great time getting to know them. They have a house in one of the blocks next to Central Square, that was had been his fathers. He works for the government running the training program to train guides. He was a guide in Tikal for 3 years when he was younger returning to Antigua every weekend on the night bus, I don’t know how he did it.
The Catholics have also started their weekly processions around Antigua starting with the first day of Lent two Sundays ago. They put art work on the streets either in sand, sawdust or flowers and carry floats with religious themes on their backs. The processions wind through town and end up at the Central Park. They are interesting to watch. Apparently the processions get bigger each week and climax at Easter. We miss Easter by one week, I should have checked the calendar as the Easter one would have been fun to see. Every thing in town is booked that week, with foreigners and locals.
We are off to Copan Honduras tomorrow (Friday) after school.
3/15/09
Back from Copan, we loved it. Only wish we had a few more days there. The trip over was not the greatest. We were to leave at 1pm but our shuttle picked us up at 2 pm. Then we had to pick up another person , not bad, but for some reason we drove into town to where the road leaves for Guatemala City (5min) then doubled back went right past our place the down another road, adding another 20 min to the trip. The shuttle had 13 of its 16 seats filled then we picked up 2 more in Gauti (as everyone calls Guatemala City) more time. We where pretty packed in. Some of our passengers were band members and they had two of their guitars inside with us, so I had my leg up over the guitars for part of the trip. There is not much leg room in these things. But we switch shuttles half way to Copan to a newer shuttle with better seats and they put the guitars on top. There was also a accident along the way that took a while to get by. Stopping at the border we had to pay our illegal exit and entrance fees. Under some agreement between Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua there are not suppose to be any exit or entrance fees, but the border guards still charge one with the money going into their pockets. They did give up a “official” receipt that we later found out got you back across the boarder for “free”. We ended up getting to Copan at 10pm when where supposed to be there at 7pm normally a 6 hour drive. So at 10pm we went looking for a hotel, I had requested reservations on line for one hotel but had not heard back. We had only gotten our shuttle tickets on Monday. We where going to walk to the hotel that we had the request, but after looking at a map found it was out a ways and we where having a hard time figuring out where we where exactly. Luckily we ran into a American that was teaching English in Copan and he recommended a place right up the street and even went over to ask if they had a room. We got the last one. It is a little unsettling to get into a town at late night, on foot and not knowing where you are going to stay especially if you have a family. Needles to say we were very tired and decided not to go find something for dinner and went right to bed. Jared and I on one bed and Alicia and Shannon on the other. We sleep well till 4am when some idiots started setting of fireworks and driving around the area with what had to be a sound truck. A sound truck is a vehicle with large announcing system on top used for advertising and they drive up and down the streets with the sound cranked up, very annoying especially at 4am. And the fireworks are not your firecracker kind they are larger aerial ones, larger than you can get in the States, that are very loud,. The locals like them down here. This noise went on for at least a half hour. We got to see some of the town in the morning its small and very nice. The surrounding area is hilly and covered with trees with farms in the valleys. The ruins are about a mile from town so we took a tuc tuc there and toured the site for 2.5 hours before running back to catch our noon return shuttle.
The Copan ruins turned out to be our favorite, its very pretty and has a special spiritual feel to it. These ruins has the best preserved hieroglyphics of all the discovered ruins in Central America and they are very neat. We could have just sat there for a while enjoying the site but had to hike through pretty fast. At the ruins they also have tunnels where they have dug down to older structures that had been built over. A lot of the temples have multiple layers where they had been built over by latter rulers. The tunnels are open to the public at extra cost. Hopefully some day we will be able to return to this area.
The drive back was on time and nice as we only had 4 other college students with us and they transferred to another shuttle after about a hour and a half and headed east. We did pick up 2 Australians in Guati but the that was only for the last hour, it was nice to have a whole row of seats to ourselves for most of the trip.
This week we are climbing Pacaya an active volcano south of here.
Monday, March 2, 2009
it there.
On Saturday we came to Antigua, hating to leave the Lake. Antigua has a lot of tourist and on Saturday and Sunday a lot of people from Guatemala City. But the town is neat with all the old ruins and cobble stone streets. Our new family and home are nice. Silvia Garcia is our host along with her 16 year old son. The home has 5 bedrooms one of which they occupy and a court yard with its roofed dinning and seating area. She runs this family home stay as a business. There is another student at our house from Spokane WA
2/25/09
We finished our 3 day at our new school Ixchel Spanish School. We like it and our new teachers. The school is a lot larger than our old school, about 40 students with both the morning and afternoon classes. We had a fiesta last night at the school to celebrate the first day of Lent. They had dinner and dancing and eggs with confetti en them. They break the eggs on each others heads. Shannon had fun dancing. The teachers got Jared up to dance a few times, but not for long. Tomorrow most of the school is going to the beach for the day. We will do two hours of school then play the rest.
2/27/09
Our first week of school in Antigua is over. The beach was great yesterday. The school rented a chicken bus which was packed and we drove 1.5 hours to the beach in Puerto San Jose. We did our 2 hours of school at a hotel there then walked down the road to a restaurant that was cheaper than the hotels. I had 8 or 10 broiled shrimp, nice large ones, on my plate for about $8 and they were very good. At the hotel the meal would have been $16. After our meal we spent a few hours on the beach enjoying the ocean. Around 4:30 we were told to load the bus which we did and then sat there for 20 minutes in the heat waiting for the rest of the group. Most of us finally got off again and waited over 30 minutes before the rest of the group showed up. We found out the next day that the hotel was mad at the school because not enough people ate at their restaurant to off set their cost of us using their facilities and pool and wanted more money. The school also had use of a room to put all our bags in so we did not have to lug them around. During this dispute the hotel manager would not let anyone else get their stuff out of the room, most of us already had. The school finally came up with some more money and we were able to leave.
On Saturday we came to Antigua, hating to leave the Lake. Antigua has a lot of tourist and on Saturday and Sunday a lot of people from Guatemala City. But the town is neat with all the old ruins and cobble stone streets. Our new family and home are nice. Silvia Garcia is our host along with her 16 year old son. The home has 5 bedrooms one of which they occupy and a court yard with its roofed dinning and seating area. She runs this family home stay as a business. There is another student at our house from Spokane WA
2/25/09
We finished our 3 day at our new school Ixchel Spanish School. We like it and our new teachers. The school is a lot larger than our old school, about 40 students with both the morning and afternoon classes. We had a fiesta last night at the school to celebrate the first day of Lent. They had dinner and dancing and eggs with confetti en them. They break the eggs on each others heads. Shannon had fun dancing. The teachers got Jared up to dance a few times, but not for long. Tomorrow most of the school is going to the beach for the day. We will do two hours of school then play the rest.
2/27/09
Our first week of school in Antigua is over. The beach was great yesterday. The school rented a chicken bus which was packed and we drove 1.5 hours to the beach in Puerto San Jose. We did our 2 hours of school at a hotel there then walked down the road to a restaurant that was cheaper than the hotels. I had 8 or 10 broiled shrimp, nice large ones, on my plate for about $8 and they were very good. At the hotel the meal would have been $16. After our meal we spent a few hours on the beach enjoying the ocean. Around 4:30 we were told to load the bus which we did and then sat there for 20 minutes in the heat waiting for the rest of the group. Most of us finally got off again and waited over 30 minutes before the rest of the group showed up. We found out the next day that the hotel was mad at the school because not enough people ate at their restaurant to off set their cost of us using their facilities and pool and wanted more money. The school also had use of a room to put all our bags in so we did not have to lug them around. During this dispute the hotel manager would not let anyone else get their stuff out of the room, most of us already had. The school finally came up with some more money and we were able to leave.
it there.
On Saturday we came to Antigua, hating to leave the Lake. Antigua has a lot of tourist and on Saturday and Sunday a lot of people from Guatemala City. But the town is neat with all the old ruins and cobble stone streets. Our new family and home are nice. Silvia Garcia is our host along with her 16 year old son. The home has 5 bedrooms one of which they occupy and a court yard with its roofed dinning and seating area. She runs this family home stay as a business. There is another student at our house from Spokane WA
2/25/09
We finished our 3 day at our new school Ixchel Spanish School. We like it and our new teachers. The school is a lot larger than our old school, about 40 students with both the morning and afternoon classes. We had a fiesta last night at the school to celebrate the first day of Lent. They had dinner and dancing and eggs with confetti en them. They break the eggs on each others heads. Shannon had fun dancing. The teachers got Jared up to dance a few times, but not for long. Tomorrow most of the school is going to the beach for the day. We will do two hours of school then play the rest.
2/27/09
Our first week of school in Antigua is over. The beach was great yesterday. The school rented a chicken bus which was packed and we drove 1.5 hours to the beach in Puerto San Jose. We did our 2 hours of school at a hotel there then walked down the road to a restaurant that was cheaper than the hotels. I had 8 or 10 broiled shrimp, nice large ones, on my plate for about $8 and they were very good. At the hotel the meal would have been $16. After our meal we spent a few hours on the beach enjoying the ocean. Around 4:30 we were told to load the bus which we did and then sat there for 20 minutes in the heat waiting for the rest of the group. Most of us finally got off again and waited over 30 minutes before the rest of the group showed up. We found out the next day that the hotel was mad at the school because not enough people ate at their restaurant to off set their cost of us using their facilities and pool and wanted more money. The school also had use of a room to put all our bags in so we did not have to lug them around. During this dispute the hotel manager would not let anyone else get their stuff out of the room, most of us already had. The school finally came up with some more money and we were able to leave.
On Saturday we came to Antigua, hating to leave the Lake. Antigua has a lot of tourist and on Saturday and Sunday a lot of people from Guatemala City. But the town is neat with all the old ruins and cobble stone streets. Our new family and home are nice. Silvia Garcia is our host along with her 16 year old son. The home has 5 bedrooms one of which they occupy and a court yard with its roofed dinning and seating area. She runs this family home stay as a business. There is another student at our house from Spokane WA
2/25/09
We finished our 3 day at our new school Ixchel Spanish School. We like it and our new teachers. The school is a lot larger than our old school, about 40 students with both the morning and afternoon classes. We had a fiesta last night at the school to celebrate the first day of Lent. They had dinner and dancing and eggs with confetti en them. They break the eggs on each others heads. Shannon had fun dancing. The teachers got Jared up to dance a few times, but not for long. Tomorrow most of the school is going to the beach for the day. We will do two hours of school then play the rest.
2/27/09
Our first week of school in Antigua is over. The beach was great yesterday. The school rented a chicken bus which was packed and we drove 1.5 hours to the beach in Puerto San Jose. We did our 2 hours of school at a hotel there then walked down the road to a restaurant that was cheaper than the hotels. I had 8 or 10 broiled shrimp, nice large ones, on my plate for about $8 and they were very good. At the hotel the meal would have been $16. After our meal we spent a few hours on the beach enjoying the ocean. Around 4:30 we were told to load the bus which we did and then sat there for 20 minutes in the heat waiting for the rest of the group. Most of us finally got off again and waited over 30 minutes before the rest of the group showed up. We found out the next day that the hotel was mad at the school because not enough people ate at their restaurant to off set their cost of us using their facilities and pool and wanted more money. The school also had use of a room to put all our bags in so we did not have to lug them around. During this dispute the hotel manager would not let anyone else get their stuff out of the room, most of us already had. The school finally came up with some more money and we were able to leave.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
2/6/09
We have finished our 4th week of Spanish school. I have many verbs and scrambled verbs running around my head (when I can find them) but not much to connect them to. We have meet some other students who have taken a lot of Spanish in high school or collage and still do not understand the locals when thy talk regular speed, so I don’t fell to bad about not understanding them yet, even when they talk slow. We have made a change in plans and will go to Lake Atitlan on the 16th for 5 nights, instead of staying here for 6 weeks. We need a break to rest and study what we have before the last 6 weeks
2/10/09
On Saturday we hiked Chicabal Volcano near San Marcos. We where supposed to meet at the school at 6:30 am to go to the volcano, when we got there only one other student showed up. We thought that the other 2 decided not to go as one of them was looking for us the night before. Then after 15 minutes the guide did not show up either. We waited another 10 minutes then Elizabeth the other student knocked on the door of the school to wake up Julio the school owner. He told us the guide and other students left at 6:15. We where not happy as apparently there was a change in plans and we were not informed and they left 15 minutes before we got there. Julio said he would take us to the volcano, so he grabbed his 10 year old daughter and we headed out. When we turned off the main road to the volcano we found our guide and other students hiking up the steep road which was 5 kilometer to the volcano. Apparently they had left early to catch the chicken bus which dropped them off at the bottom of the road. Our SUV was full so Julio did not stop to pick them up. On up the hill Alicia, kids and Elizabeth had to get out and walk because the SUV was underpowered for the hill. We thought that Julio would go back and get the other students but he did not. For us it turned out nice as we did not have to hike the 5 kilometers to the entrance. We hiked about a kilometer to the top and down to the lake in the crater and around the lake. It was very pretty and quiet I could have stayed there all day. For the Mayans it’s a sacred lake so there is no swimming in it. We had taken a dirt trail down to the lake but took the stairs back up. The girls counted 635 stairs on the way up. At the top we sat in the overlook and watched Satiaguito erupt. The guide and the other students caught a pickup truck on the way down.
2/14/09
This week we finished our 5th and final week of Spanish school in Xela. We had a Valentines Day party on our last day of school as they celebrate Valentines Day in a big way here. Each set of teachers and students made a different type of “enchilada” (our Tostitos). Then our family was given our certificate showing that we had competed level one. We were asked to speak Jared and my talks were very short and Alicia and Shannon’s were longer. Shannon sounded like a native, she then broke down and cried as she was going to miss her teacher. This is the girl who did not want to be here in Xela for the first week and a half. She also stated she could live here.
On Tuesday we had a lecture in the evening about the economics of Guatemala that was interesting. Went back to Fuentes Georgians hot springs, a lot more people this time. On Thursday morning we went to Salcaja about 30 minutes from here. It is known for its weaving. At one place we watched as they dyed threads bundles by hand in a tub. Actually by foot as they put the thread bundles in the tub of and stomped on it for a while then squeezed out the excess by hand using a stick. The thread bundles are bundles of thread that are tied together at predetermined intervals that allows the dye to penetrate certain areas leaving a green area then a white area on the tread for example. They can then tie off areas to add other colors to the thread. After the thread bundles are dyed they are hung out to dry. The next place we stopped was a open field where they take the tread bundles and unravels them out into long section and connect them to other bundles. The whole length of the finished section was about 200 feet or so. The finishing drying also takes place here. These long sections are then put on bundles to feed to the looms.
We went to see the weaving looms after we stopped at central Americas oldest Catholic Church. The church is 500 years old. We where not able to go in apparently the roof is in bad shape so they only use it on Saturdays.
The weaving loom was located on the upper story of the weavers home. The weaving in this area is all done by hand and the fabric is for the ladies skirts and aprons and other indigenous needs. The loom its self is wood and is worked by hand. It takes 20 hours just to set up a run of fabric. It takes 10 hours to make enough fabric for one skirt. it’s an eight step process from start to finish.
Saturday morning we took a trip up the Totonicapan to see the town and market. The town is about 1 hour and 15 minutes from here and the area is pretty with a lot of pine trees. We bought a section of cloth (the hand woven fabric) 8 feet $40, to put on the wall at home. I want Alicia to get some more fabric for a skirt. I also got pickpocket at the market they got 25 Q or about $5. On Thursday I had bought a wallet that has a string so you can hang it around your neck and drop it inside your shirt. I had seen other backpackers use these on other trips that’s why I bought one and it paid off as I was using it today. If I had been pick pocketed at the other markets we went to they would have gotten a lot more.
We went to a Indian restaurant tonight and it was very good . Another student a 18 year old girl from MA went with us. She is at the school for a month then she meets a friend who will travel with her for 2 of her remaining 4 weeks in Guatemala.
It is interesting I was reading a Michener book in which he was talking about the sound barrier to new language. The sound barrier is where the new language just sounds like noise as your mind does not recognize the language thus it is just noise as you have no understanding. But after you hear the language enough you then start picking up some words then at some point you break through and start hearing all the words (even if you don’t know the meaning) not just a lot of noise. This is when you can start learning the language. I have been hearing a lot of noise but am starting to pick up words, I hope to break the barrier soon.
For the most part temperatures have improved over the last few weeks. A few nights I went without my sweater. There weeks ago I think Xela was near a record low the temps made the national paper. They stated the Xela area was down to 5 C (=- 23 F). Last week we were down to 5 C again. Not to bad except nearly all homes do not have heat. On the warmer days the kids room is up to 55 F in the morning.
Tomorrow we pack for Lake Atitlan and warmer temps. Hopefully we can pack up our Under Amour and sweaters.
We have liked Xela a lot and would like to come back, especially at the end of the rainy season before it gets dry. Its nice to be in an area and not see many tourist, at least in our part of town. When we go out to the villages we hardly see any tourist, actually I don’t remember seeing any. I am not looking forward to all the tourist in Antigua.
2/17/09s
We are in San Marcos at Lake Atitlan. Its very pretty here the lake is 8 x 18 kilometers. Our hotel is right on the water the Jinava Bay and it is real nice. Our private boat took us right to the hotel dock, which turned out nice as it would have been a good hike up through town and back down to the hotel. The hotel is only $30 a night. And it is warmer here our room was 66 F this morning I think it was in the upper 70’s today. Its nice to have a week off of school. San Marcos is a hippy town with a bunch of holistic places. We meet a short hair hippy left over from the 60’s at breakfast. The town is small the guide book says 3000 people but I don’t know where they are. There is no banks or large stores, everyone shops in Panachel or San Pedro crossed the lake. We took a tut tut ( a three wheel transport imported from India} to San Pedro today walked around there then took a boat back. On the way back to the hotel we took a little path along the lake the path was pretty bad in places but it was pretty. There were cliffs along the way where people were sun bathing and we were told they cliff jump there. We sat on the beach, studied and swam a little. Right now
We have finished our 4th week of Spanish school. I have many verbs and scrambled verbs running around my head (when I can find them) but not much to connect them to. We have meet some other students who have taken a lot of Spanish in high school or collage and still do not understand the locals when thy talk regular speed, so I don’t fell to bad about not understanding them yet, even when they talk slow. We have made a change in plans and will go to Lake Atitlan on the 16th for 5 nights, instead of staying here for 6 weeks. We need a break to rest and study what we have before the last 6 weeks
2/10/09
On Saturday we hiked Chicabal Volcano near San Marcos. We where supposed to meet at the school at 6:30 am to go to the volcano, when we got there only one other student showed up. We thought that the other 2 decided not to go as one of them was looking for us the night before. Then after 15 minutes the guide did not show up either. We waited another 10 minutes then Elizabeth the other student knocked on the door of the school to wake up Julio the school owner. He told us the guide and other students left at 6:15. We where not happy as apparently there was a change in plans and we were not informed and they left 15 minutes before we got there. Julio said he would take us to the volcano, so he grabbed his 10 year old daughter and we headed out. When we turned off the main road to the volcano we found our guide and other students hiking up the steep road which was 5 kilometer to the volcano. Apparently they had left early to catch the chicken bus which dropped them off at the bottom of the road. Our SUV was full so Julio did not stop to pick them up. On up the hill Alicia, kids and Elizabeth had to get out and walk because the SUV was underpowered for the hill. We thought that Julio would go back and get the other students but he did not. For us it turned out nice as we did not have to hike the 5 kilometers to the entrance. We hiked about a kilometer to the top and down to the lake in the crater and around the lake. It was very pretty and quiet I could have stayed there all day. For the Mayans it’s a sacred lake so there is no swimming in it. We had taken a dirt trail down to the lake but took the stairs back up. The girls counted 635 stairs on the way up. At the top we sat in the overlook and watched Satiaguito erupt. The guide and the other students caught a pickup truck on the way down.
2/14/09
This week we finished our 5th and final week of Spanish school in Xela. We had a Valentines Day party on our last day of school as they celebrate Valentines Day in a big way here. Each set of teachers and students made a different type of “enchilada” (our Tostitos). Then our family was given our certificate showing that we had competed level one. We were asked to speak Jared and my talks were very short and Alicia and Shannon’s were longer. Shannon sounded like a native, she then broke down and cried as she was going to miss her teacher. This is the girl who did not want to be here in Xela for the first week and a half. She also stated she could live here.
On Tuesday we had a lecture in the evening about the economics of Guatemala that was interesting. Went back to Fuentes Georgians hot springs, a lot more people this time. On Thursday morning we went to Salcaja about 30 minutes from here. It is known for its weaving. At one place we watched as they dyed threads bundles by hand in a tub. Actually by foot as they put the thread bundles in the tub of and stomped on it for a while then squeezed out the excess by hand using a stick. The thread bundles are bundles of thread that are tied together at predetermined intervals that allows the dye to penetrate certain areas leaving a green area then a white area on the tread for example. They can then tie off areas to add other colors to the thread. After the thread bundles are dyed they are hung out to dry. The next place we stopped was a open field where they take the tread bundles and unravels them out into long section and connect them to other bundles. The whole length of the finished section was about 200 feet or so. The finishing drying also takes place here. These long sections are then put on bundles to feed to the looms.
We went to see the weaving looms after we stopped at central Americas oldest Catholic Church. The church is 500 years old. We where not able to go in apparently the roof is in bad shape so they only use it on Saturdays.
The weaving loom was located on the upper story of the weavers home. The weaving in this area is all done by hand and the fabric is for the ladies skirts and aprons and other indigenous needs. The loom its self is wood and is worked by hand. It takes 20 hours just to set up a run of fabric. It takes 10 hours to make enough fabric for one skirt. it’s an eight step process from start to finish.
Saturday morning we took a trip up the Totonicapan to see the town and market. The town is about 1 hour and 15 minutes from here and the area is pretty with a lot of pine trees. We bought a section of cloth (the hand woven fabric) 8 feet $40, to put on the wall at home. I want Alicia to get some more fabric for a skirt. I also got pickpocket at the market they got 25 Q or about $5. On Thursday I had bought a wallet that has a string so you can hang it around your neck and drop it inside your shirt. I had seen other backpackers use these on other trips that’s why I bought one and it paid off as I was using it today. If I had been pick pocketed at the other markets we went to they would have gotten a lot more.
We went to a Indian restaurant tonight and it was very good . Another student a 18 year old girl from MA went with us. She is at the school for a month then she meets a friend who will travel with her for 2 of her remaining 4 weeks in Guatemala.
It is interesting I was reading a Michener book in which he was talking about the sound barrier to new language. The sound barrier is where the new language just sounds like noise as your mind does not recognize the language thus it is just noise as you have no understanding. But after you hear the language enough you then start picking up some words then at some point you break through and start hearing all the words (even if you don’t know the meaning) not just a lot of noise. This is when you can start learning the language. I have been hearing a lot of noise but am starting to pick up words, I hope to break the barrier soon.
For the most part temperatures have improved over the last few weeks. A few nights I went without my sweater. There weeks ago I think Xela was near a record low the temps made the national paper. They stated the Xela area was down to 5 C (=- 23 F). Last week we were down to 5 C again. Not to bad except nearly all homes do not have heat. On the warmer days the kids room is up to 55 F in the morning.
Tomorrow we pack for Lake Atitlan and warmer temps. Hopefully we can pack up our Under Amour and sweaters.
We have liked Xela a lot and would like to come back, especially at the end of the rainy season before it gets dry. Its nice to be in an area and not see many tourist, at least in our part of town. When we go out to the villages we hardly see any tourist, actually I don’t remember seeing any. I am not looking forward to all the tourist in Antigua.
2/17/09s
We are in San Marcos at Lake Atitlan. Its very pretty here the lake is 8 x 18 kilometers. Our hotel is right on the water the Jinava Bay and it is real nice. Our private boat took us right to the hotel dock, which turned out nice as it would have been a good hike up through town and back down to the hotel. The hotel is only $30 a night. And it is warmer here our room was 66 F this morning I think it was in the upper 70’s today. Its nice to have a week off of school. San Marcos is a hippy town with a bunch of holistic places. We meet a short hair hippy left over from the 60’s at breakfast. The town is small the guide book says 3000 people but I don’t know where they are. There is no banks or large stores, everyone shops in Panachel or San Pedro crossed the lake. We took a tut tut ( a three wheel transport imported from India} to San Pedro today walked around there then took a boat back. On the way back to the hotel we took a little path along the lake the path was pretty bad in places but it was pretty. There were cliffs along the way where people were sun bathing and we were told they cliff jump there. We sat on the beach, studied and swam a little. Right now
2/6/09
We have finished our 4th week of Spanish school. I have many verbs and scrambled verbs running around my head (when I can find them) but not much to connect them to. We have meet some other students who have taken a lot of Spanish in high school or collage and still do not understand the locals when thy talk regular speed, so I don’t fell to bad about not understanding them yet, even when they talk slow. We have made a change in plans and will go to Lake Atitlan on the 16th for 5 nights, instead of staying here for 6 weeks. We need a break to rest and study what we have before the last 6 weeks
2/10/09
On Saturday we hiked Chicabal Volcano near San Marcos. We where supposed to meet at the school at 6:30 am to go to the volcano, when we got there only one other student showed up. We thought that the other 2 decided not to go as one of them was looking for us the night before. Then after 15 minutes the guide did not show up either. We waited another 10 minutes then Elizabeth the other student knocked on the door of the school to wake up Julio the school owner. He told us the guide and other students left at 6:15. We where not happy as apparently there was a change in plans and we were not informed and they left 15 minutes before we got there. Julio said he would take us to the volcano, so he grabbed his 10 year old daughter and we headed out. When we turned off the main road to the volcano we found our guide and other students hiking up the steep road which was 5 kilometer to the volcano. Apparently they had left early to catch the chicken bus which dropped them off at the bottom of the road. Our SUV was full so Julio did not stop to pick them up. On up the hill Alicia, kids and Elizabeth had to get out and walk because the SUV was underpowered for the hill. We thought that Julio would go back and get the other students but he did not. For us it turned out nice as we did not have to hike the 5 kilometers to the entrance. We hiked about a kilometer to the top and down to the lake in the crater and around the lake. It was very pretty and quiet I could have stayed there all day. For the Mayans it’s a sacred lake so there is no swimming in it. We had taken a dirt trail down to the lake but took the stairs back up. The girls counted 635 stairs on the way up. At the top we sat in the overlook and watched Satiaguito erupt. The guide and the other students caught a pickup truck on the way down.
2/14/09
This week we finished our 5th and final week of Spanish school in Xela. We had a Valentines Day party on our last day of school as they celebrate Valentines Day in a big way here. Each set of teachers and students made a different type of “enchilada” (our Tostitos). Then our family was given our certificate showing that we had competed level one. We were asked to speak Jared and my talks were very short and Alicia and Shannon’s were longer. Shannon sounded like a native, she then broke down and cried as she was going to miss her teacher. This is the girl who did not want to be here in Xela for the first week and a half. She also stated she could live here.
On Tuesday we had a lecture in the evening about the economics of Guatemala that was interesting. Went back to Fuentes Georgians hot springs, a lot more people this time. On Thursday morning we went to Salcaja about 30 minutes from here. It is known for its weaving. At one place we watched as they dyed threads bundles by hand in a tub. Actually by foot as they put the thread bundles in the tub of and stomped on it for a while then squeezed out the excess by hand using a stick. The thread bundles are bundles of thread that are tied together at predetermined intervals that allows the dye to penetrate certain areas leaving a green area then a white area on the tread for example. They can then tie off areas to add other colors to the thread. After the thread bundles are dyed they are hung out to dry. The next place we stopped was a open field where they take the tread bundles and unravels them out into long section and connect them to other bundles. The whole length of the finished section was about 200 feet or so. The finishing drying also takes place here. These long sections are then put on bundles to feed to the looms.
We went to see the weaving looms after we stopped at central Americas oldest Catholic Church. The church is 500 years old. We where not able to go in apparently the roof is in bad shape so they only use it on Saturdays.
The weaving loom was located on the upper story of the weavers home. The weaving in this area is all done by hand and the fabric is for the ladies skirts and aprons and other indigenous needs. The loom its self is wood and is worked by hand. It takes 20 hours just to set up a run of fabric. It takes 10 hours to make enough fabric for one skirt. it’s an eight step process from start to finish.
Saturday morning we took a trip up the Totonicapan to see the town and market. The town is about 1 hour and 15 minutes from here and the area is pretty with a lot of pine trees. We bought a section of cloth (the hand woven fabric) 8 feet $40, to put on the wall at home. I want Alicia to get some more fabric for a skirt. I also got pickpocket at the market they got 25 Q or about $5. On Thursday I had bought a wallet that has a string so you can hang it around your neck and drop it inside your shirt. I had seen other backpackers use these on other trips that’s why I bought one and it paid off as I was using it today. If I had been pick pocketed at the other markets we went to they would have gotten a lot more.
We went to a Indian restaurant tonight and it was very good . Another student a 18 year old girl from MA went with us. She is at the school for a month then she meets a friend who will travel with her for 2 of her remaining 4 weeks in Guatemala.
It is interesting I was reading a Michener book in which he was talking about the sound barrier to new language. The sound barrier is where the new language just sounds like noise as your mind does not recognize the language thus it is just noise as you have no understanding. But after you hear the language enough you then start picking up some words then at some point you break through and start hearing all the words (even if you don’t know the meaning) not just a lot of noise. This is when you can start learning the language. I have been hearing a lot of noise but am starting to pick up words, I hope to break the barrier soon.
For the most part temperatures have improved over the last few weeks. A few nights I went without my sweater. There weeks ago I think Xela was near a record low the temps made the national paper. They stated the Xela area was down to 5 C (=- 23 F). Last week we were down to 5 C again. Not to bad except nearly all homes do not have heat. On the warmer days the kids room is up to 55 F in the morning.
Tomorrow we pack for Lake Atitlan and warmer temps. Hopefully we can pack up our Under Amour and sweaters.
We have liked Xela a lot and would like to come back, especially at the end of the rainy season before it gets dry. Its nice to be in an area and not see many tourist, at least in our part of town. When we go out to the villages we hardly see any tourist, actually I don’t remember seeing any. I am not looking forward to all the tourist in Antigua.
2/17/09s
We are in San Marcos at Lake Atitlan. Its very pretty here the lake is 8 x 18 kilometers. Our hotel is right on the water the Jinava Bay and it is real nice. Our private boat took us right to the hotel dock, which turned out nice as it would have been a good hike up through town and back down to the hotel. The hotel is only $30 a night. And it is warmer here our room was 66 F this morning I think it was in the upper 70’s today. Its nice to have a week off of school. San Marcos is a hippy town with a bunch of holistic places. We meet a short hair hippy left over from the 60’s at breakfast. The town is small the guide book says 3000 people but I don’t know where they are. There is no banks or large stores, everyone shops in Panachel or San Pedro crossed the lake. We took a tut tut ( a three wheel transport imported from India} to San Pedro today walked around there then took a boat back. On the way back to the hotel we took a little path along the lake the path was pretty bad in places but it was pretty. There were cliffs along the way where people were sun bathing and we were told they cliff jump there. We sat on the beach, studied and swam a little. Right now
We have finished our 4th week of Spanish school. I have many verbs and scrambled verbs running around my head (when I can find them) but not much to connect them to. We have meet some other students who have taken a lot of Spanish in high school or collage and still do not understand the locals when thy talk regular speed, so I don’t fell to bad about not understanding them yet, even when they talk slow. We have made a change in plans and will go to Lake Atitlan on the 16th for 5 nights, instead of staying here for 6 weeks. We need a break to rest and study what we have before the last 6 weeks
2/10/09
On Saturday we hiked Chicabal Volcano near San Marcos. We where supposed to meet at the school at 6:30 am to go to the volcano, when we got there only one other student showed up. We thought that the other 2 decided not to go as one of them was looking for us the night before. Then after 15 minutes the guide did not show up either. We waited another 10 minutes then Elizabeth the other student knocked on the door of the school to wake up Julio the school owner. He told us the guide and other students left at 6:15. We where not happy as apparently there was a change in plans and we were not informed and they left 15 minutes before we got there. Julio said he would take us to the volcano, so he grabbed his 10 year old daughter and we headed out. When we turned off the main road to the volcano we found our guide and other students hiking up the steep road which was 5 kilometer to the volcano. Apparently they had left early to catch the chicken bus which dropped them off at the bottom of the road. Our SUV was full so Julio did not stop to pick them up. On up the hill Alicia, kids and Elizabeth had to get out and walk because the SUV was underpowered for the hill. We thought that Julio would go back and get the other students but he did not. For us it turned out nice as we did not have to hike the 5 kilometers to the entrance. We hiked about a kilometer to the top and down to the lake in the crater and around the lake. It was very pretty and quiet I could have stayed there all day. For the Mayans it’s a sacred lake so there is no swimming in it. We had taken a dirt trail down to the lake but took the stairs back up. The girls counted 635 stairs on the way up. At the top we sat in the overlook and watched Satiaguito erupt. The guide and the other students caught a pickup truck on the way down.
2/14/09
This week we finished our 5th and final week of Spanish school in Xela. We had a Valentines Day party on our last day of school as they celebrate Valentines Day in a big way here. Each set of teachers and students made a different type of “enchilada” (our Tostitos). Then our family was given our certificate showing that we had competed level one. We were asked to speak Jared and my talks were very short and Alicia and Shannon’s were longer. Shannon sounded like a native, she then broke down and cried as she was going to miss her teacher. This is the girl who did not want to be here in Xela for the first week and a half. She also stated she could live here.
On Tuesday we had a lecture in the evening about the economics of Guatemala that was interesting. Went back to Fuentes Georgians hot springs, a lot more people this time. On Thursday morning we went to Salcaja about 30 minutes from here. It is known for its weaving. At one place we watched as they dyed threads bundles by hand in a tub. Actually by foot as they put the thread bundles in the tub of and stomped on it for a while then squeezed out the excess by hand using a stick. The thread bundles are bundles of thread that are tied together at predetermined intervals that allows the dye to penetrate certain areas leaving a green area then a white area on the tread for example. They can then tie off areas to add other colors to the thread. After the thread bundles are dyed they are hung out to dry. The next place we stopped was a open field where they take the tread bundles and unravels them out into long section and connect them to other bundles. The whole length of the finished section was about 200 feet or so. The finishing drying also takes place here. These long sections are then put on bundles to feed to the looms.
We went to see the weaving looms after we stopped at central Americas oldest Catholic Church. The church is 500 years old. We where not able to go in apparently the roof is in bad shape so they only use it on Saturdays.
The weaving loom was located on the upper story of the weavers home. The weaving in this area is all done by hand and the fabric is for the ladies skirts and aprons and other indigenous needs. The loom its self is wood and is worked by hand. It takes 20 hours just to set up a run of fabric. It takes 10 hours to make enough fabric for one skirt. it’s an eight step process from start to finish.
Saturday morning we took a trip up the Totonicapan to see the town and market. The town is about 1 hour and 15 minutes from here and the area is pretty with a lot of pine trees. We bought a section of cloth (the hand woven fabric) 8 feet $40, to put on the wall at home. I want Alicia to get some more fabric for a skirt. I also got pickpocket at the market they got 25 Q or about $5. On Thursday I had bought a wallet that has a string so you can hang it around your neck and drop it inside your shirt. I had seen other backpackers use these on other trips that’s why I bought one and it paid off as I was using it today. If I had been pick pocketed at the other markets we went to they would have gotten a lot more.
We went to a Indian restaurant tonight and it was very good . Another student a 18 year old girl from MA went with us. She is at the school for a month then she meets a friend who will travel with her for 2 of her remaining 4 weeks in Guatemala.
It is interesting I was reading a Michener book in which he was talking about the sound barrier to new language. The sound barrier is where the new language just sounds like noise as your mind does not recognize the language thus it is just noise as you have no understanding. But after you hear the language enough you then start picking up some words then at some point you break through and start hearing all the words (even if you don’t know the meaning) not just a lot of noise. This is when you can start learning the language. I have been hearing a lot of noise but am starting to pick up words, I hope to break the barrier soon.
For the most part temperatures have improved over the last few weeks. A few nights I went without my sweater. There weeks ago I think Xela was near a record low the temps made the national paper. They stated the Xela area was down to 5 C (=- 23 F). Last week we were down to 5 C again. Not to bad except nearly all homes do not have heat. On the warmer days the kids room is up to 55 F in the morning.
Tomorrow we pack for Lake Atitlan and warmer temps. Hopefully we can pack up our Under Amour and sweaters.
We have liked Xela a lot and would like to come back, especially at the end of the rainy season before it gets dry. Its nice to be in an area and not see many tourist, at least in our part of town. When we go out to the villages we hardly see any tourist, actually I don’t remember seeing any. I am not looking forward to all the tourist in Antigua.
2/17/09s
We are in San Marcos at Lake Atitlan. Its very pretty here the lake is 8 x 18 kilometers. Our hotel is right on the water the Jinava Bay and it is real nice. Our private boat took us right to the hotel dock, which turned out nice as it would have been a good hike up through town and back down to the hotel. The hotel is only $30 a night. And it is warmer here our room was 66 F this morning I think it was in the upper 70’s today. Its nice to have a week off of school. San Marcos is a hippy town with a bunch of holistic places. We meet a short hair hippy left over from the 60’s at breakfast. The town is small the guide book says 3000 people but I don’t know where they are. There is no banks or large stores, everyone shops in Panachel or San Pedro crossed the lake. We took a tut tut ( a three wheel transport imported from India} to San Pedro today walked around there then took a boat back. On the way back to the hotel we took a little path along the lake the path was pretty bad in places but it was pretty. There were cliffs along the way where people were sun bathing and we were told they cliff jump there. We sat on the beach, studied and swam a little. Right now
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Friday, February 6, 2009
2/1/09
Fridays field trip was fun. We caught the chicken bus for the 30 minute ride to Cuatro Caminos to see a glass blowing factory. These chicken buses are used school buses from the states that are hauled down through Mexico, then refitted with larger engines and better six speed gear box, fitted with roof racks (yes we have seen chickens up there) and painted usually with bright colors and chrome. We have learned that out side of Xela there have been some problems with gang extorting money from the owners of the buses, Some drivers and their assistance have been killed recently, but passengers have not been bothered.
When we got to the factory we where told that they were not working we where not to happy as I had heard that the last group got the same thing and the workers where on vacation. The teachers told us that the workers where taking a early lunch then they told us that something was broken down. Any way they took us to a church a crossed the valley a nice walk and climb about a mile away. After the church we decided to walk back to see if the glass factory was running again and luckily it was. It was interesting to see the men blowing glass into bottles, cups and chalices. There were about 20 men working, no one had any eye protection no gloves or any other heat protection. We did buy some of their products after the tour.
On Saturday we met the other students at the school at 6:30am for our trip to the archeological site and beach. It was nice to get off the mountain and down to the warm tropical area west of here. We started to drop down hill right out of Xela and where in the low lands in about one hour. The volcano Satiaguito erupted as we where driving down (like a giant Old Faithful it erupts about every 45 minutes). When we were eating breakfast it went off again except not as strong as the first time we saw it. The Abaj Takalik ecological site was neat it is a lot older than Tikal about 800 BC while Tikal started about the time of Christ. They think its one of the original Mayan sites in the area, it’s a big site but only a little has been excavated. The temples are not that high or large. A German botanist accidentally found it as he was studding plants he saw a stone sticking straight up and looked at it closer and found that it was carved.
We went to El Tulate Playa It was a nice drive there through the mostly flat farm land. At the beach we had to take a boat over to the beach on the island. There are a two hotels there and a few restaurants and houses along the beach. There were only about 20 - 30 people on the beach and in the covered areas. We were told that on Sunday they get a lot more people, which was evident by the number of seats in the covered area. It was nice to see the ocean again and walk along the water in the sun. We did not bring our swimming suits as we thought we were going to a different beach that was not as nice. We stopped in Retalhulea on the way back for dinner. The dinner was not to good but the town square was pretty. We also passed a water park in Xocomil. The park is very large and attracts people from all over CA and South America. Its sort of out in the middle of nowhere I think about 3 hours or more from Guatemala City and a hour from Xela that has no major airport..
2/4/09
Volcano hike “Santa Maria”
Well Shannon, Alicia and Jared and the other students Elizabeth and Gordon climbed Santa Maria a close by “non active” volcano. They started out about 4:30 AM on the trail. The trail at first was very easy, but of course worsened towards the top. It was a pretty hike, Lots of plants and tree’s all though the littering even up there was bad. It was cloudy at first but here in Xela it is all ways cloudy in the mornings. It was neat to work your way up and stop at clear places to look at the big city Xela and think how nice it is to get away! Once we got to the top huffing and puffing boy was it worth it! It seemed like you could see the whole world. Volcano Satiaguito sits right next to Santa Maria. Satiaguito is the most active volcano in Guatemala and we got to sit down and eat our sandwiches while we watched it smoke. Satiaguito was formed when Santa Maria closed it’s crater and then created Santa agito on her side. From the top of Santa Maria you can see seven volcano’s. Not all active of course. That I would have to say was a hard but worth while day. Shannon
John rested and walked Mercado democracia looking at all the stalls
2/6/09
We have finished our 4th week of Spanish school. I have many verbs and scrambled verbs running around my head (when I can find them) but not much to connect them to. We have meet some other students who have taken a lot of Spanish in high school or collage and still do not understand the locals when thy talk regular speed, so I don’t fell to bad about not understanding them yet, even when they talk slow. We have made a change in plans and will go to Lake Atitlan on the 16th for 5 nights, instead of staying here for 6 weeks. We need a break to rest and study what we have before the last 6 weeks
Fridays field trip was fun. We caught the chicken bus for the 30 minute ride to Cuatro Caminos to see a glass blowing factory. These chicken buses are used school buses from the states that are hauled down through Mexico, then refitted with larger engines and better six speed gear box, fitted with roof racks (yes we have seen chickens up there) and painted usually with bright colors and chrome. We have learned that out side of Xela there have been some problems with gang extorting money from the owners of the buses, Some drivers and their assistance have been killed recently, but passengers have not been bothered.
When we got to the factory we where told that they were not working we where not to happy as I had heard that the last group got the same thing and the workers where on vacation. The teachers told us that the workers where taking a early lunch then they told us that something was broken down. Any way they took us to a church a crossed the valley a nice walk and climb about a mile away. After the church we decided to walk back to see if the glass factory was running again and luckily it was. It was interesting to see the men blowing glass into bottles, cups and chalices. There were about 20 men working, no one had any eye protection no gloves or any other heat protection. We did buy some of their products after the tour.
On Saturday we met the other students at the school at 6:30am for our trip to the archeological site and beach. It was nice to get off the mountain and down to the warm tropical area west of here. We started to drop down hill right out of Xela and where in the low lands in about one hour. The volcano Satiaguito erupted as we where driving down (like a giant Old Faithful it erupts about every 45 minutes). When we were eating breakfast it went off again except not as strong as the first time we saw it. The Abaj Takalik ecological site was neat it is a lot older than Tikal about 800 BC while Tikal started about the time of Christ. They think its one of the original Mayan sites in the area, it’s a big site but only a little has been excavated. The temples are not that high or large. A German botanist accidentally found it as he was studding plants he saw a stone sticking straight up and looked at it closer and found that it was carved.
We went to El Tulate Playa It was a nice drive there through the mostly flat farm land. At the beach we had to take a boat over to the beach on the island. There are a two hotels there and a few restaurants and houses along the beach. There were only about 20 - 30 people on the beach and in the covered areas. We were told that on Sunday they get a lot more people, which was evident by the number of seats in the covered area. It was nice to see the ocean again and walk along the water in the sun. We did not bring our swimming suits as we thought we were going to a different beach that was not as nice. We stopped in Retalhulea on the way back for dinner. The dinner was not to good but the town square was pretty. We also passed a water park in Xocomil. The park is very large and attracts people from all over CA and South America. Its sort of out in the middle of nowhere I think about 3 hours or more from Guatemala City and a hour from Xela that has no major airport..
2/4/09
Volcano hike “Santa Maria”
Well Shannon, Alicia and Jared and the other students Elizabeth and Gordon climbed Santa Maria a close by “non active” volcano. They started out about 4:30 AM on the trail. The trail at first was very easy, but of course worsened towards the top. It was a pretty hike, Lots of plants and tree’s all though the littering even up there was bad. It was cloudy at first but here in Xela it is all ways cloudy in the mornings. It was neat to work your way up and stop at clear places to look at the big city Xela and think how nice it is to get away! Once we got to the top huffing and puffing boy was it worth it! It seemed like you could see the whole world. Volcano Satiaguito sits right next to Santa Maria. Satiaguito is the most active volcano in Guatemala and we got to sit down and eat our sandwiches while we watched it smoke. Satiaguito was formed when Santa Maria closed it’s crater and then created Santa agito on her side. From the top of Santa Maria you can see seven volcano’s. Not all active of course. That I would have to say was a hard but worth while day. Shannon
John rested and walked Mercado democracia looking at all the stalls
2/6/09
We have finished our 4th week of Spanish school. I have many verbs and scrambled verbs running around my head (when I can find them) but not much to connect them to. We have meet some other students who have taken a lot of Spanish in high school or collage and still do not understand the locals when thy talk regular speed, so I don’t fell to bad about not understanding them yet, even when they talk slow. We have made a change in plans and will go to Lake Atitlan on the 16th for 5 nights, instead of staying here for 6 weeks. We need a break to rest and study what we have before the last 6 weeks
Friday, January 30, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
1/27/09
I forgot to add that we found out about how many people the local minibuses can cram in. In a minibus made to seat 12 people we had 23 +-1. This is normal for the minibuses that run all over town on their routes. They have a driver and a purser/yeller/crammer, this second person usually hangs out the door yelling out at each stop where the bus is going and takes your money when you get off. He is also the crammer as he is responsible to make sure the minibus is full to capacity. One of our students said he did not know how someone in back could get out at their stop or even let the crammer know you wanted out. We had a large group so it was easier to tell them we wanted off.
Saturday we studied on the roof in the sun, then went out for lunch. We went to a Chinese place near here then walked back the opposite direction to the mall that had a cinema. We got to the mall about 2 pm and found that the movie we wanted did not start till 3 pm so we walked around and sat at the mall for an hour only to find that the movie we wanted was in Spanish. There were other movies in English but they started later and we were worried about walking back in the dark. We stopped at the little zoo on the way home. It’s a free zoo with a few animals and birds, they are all in small cages. That night Jared got sick and was vomiting all night. We think it was food poisoning from the Chinese restaurant. Our host told us on Sunday that there have been problems there with the meat. The rest of us were ok but we had different plates. The place seems popular with the locals, but our host will not eat there. Anyway Jared stayed home from church on Sunday and from school on Monday, he is feeling well now.
Alicia and Shannon walked to the parque central on Sunday afternoon and amazingly made their way home after.
School is going better at least I am not totally burnt out every day. We are congregating verbs (I call them scrambled verbs) every day and getting more and more of them daily. I never heard of a scrambled verbs before Leah told me about them before we left home and I did not understand what she was talking about then. I can’t believe they can nearly make everything into a verb and then scramble it. The regulars have some order to them but the irregulars are all over the place and you just have to try and memorize them as I should be doing right now. A scrambled verb is when you take a verb then change it to go with I, you, he/she, we and us. You have to do these with every verb then you get past and present tense of the verb which Alicia is doing now ( she is ahead of the rest of us) I cant wait to get there. They can even scramble the word wood. I don’t know how you can think of which scrambled verb to use in a sentence when you are talking with that many scrambles, but I guess we may get there some time. There is a reason that 60% of the population does not understand the grammar. The kids are doing well at school Shannon likes her teacher as she is not tough. And Jared seems to like his.
We have another field trip on Friday to a glass blowing place. On Saturday a day at the beach is planned with a stop at a historic site. We like our Friday field trips as they are during school and the teachers go with us. Also Monday we will go to a town near here where there is a Mayan festival and our host will be playing the marimbas there. pictures tomarrow
I forgot to add that we found out about how many people the local minibuses can cram in. In a minibus made to seat 12 people we had 23 +-1. This is normal for the minibuses that run all over town on their routes. They have a driver and a purser/yeller/crammer, this second person usually hangs out the door yelling out at each stop where the bus is going and takes your money when you get off. He is also the crammer as he is responsible to make sure the minibus is full to capacity. One of our students said he did not know how someone in back could get out at their stop or even let the crammer know you wanted out. We had a large group so it was easier to tell them we wanted off.
Saturday we studied on the roof in the sun, then went out for lunch. We went to a Chinese place near here then walked back the opposite direction to the mall that had a cinema. We got to the mall about 2 pm and found that the movie we wanted did not start till 3 pm so we walked around and sat at the mall for an hour only to find that the movie we wanted was in Spanish. There were other movies in English but they started later and we were worried about walking back in the dark. We stopped at the little zoo on the way home. It’s a free zoo with a few animals and birds, they are all in small cages. That night Jared got sick and was vomiting all night. We think it was food poisoning from the Chinese restaurant. Our host told us on Sunday that there have been problems there with the meat. The rest of us were ok but we had different plates. The place seems popular with the locals, but our host will not eat there. Anyway Jared stayed home from church on Sunday and from school on Monday, he is feeling well now.
Alicia and Shannon walked to the parque central on Sunday afternoon and amazingly made their way home after.
School is going better at least I am not totally burnt out every day. We are congregating verbs (I call them scrambled verbs) every day and getting more and more of them daily. I never heard of a scrambled verbs before Leah told me about them before we left home and I did not understand what she was talking about then. I can’t believe they can nearly make everything into a verb and then scramble it. The regulars have some order to them but the irregulars are all over the place and you just have to try and memorize them as I should be doing right now. A scrambled verb is when you take a verb then change it to go with I, you, he/she, we and us. You have to do these with every verb then you get past and present tense of the verb which Alicia is doing now ( she is ahead of the rest of us) I cant wait to get there. They can even scramble the word wood. I don’t know how you can think of which scrambled verb to use in a sentence when you are talking with that many scrambles, but I guess we may get there some time. There is a reason that 60% of the population does not understand the grammar. The kids are doing well at school Shannon likes her teacher as she is not tough. And Jared seems to like his.
We have another field trip on Friday to a glass blowing place. On Saturday a day at the beach is planned with a stop at a historic site. We like our Friday field trips as they are during school and the teachers go with us. Also Monday we will go to a town near here where there is a Mayan festival and our host will be playing the marimbas there. pictures tomarrow
Friday, January 23, 2009
1/18/09
We survived the first week of school. My mind was swimming all week and felt very vacio (empty). We came home very tired every day and took a nap after supper. Supper is the main meal of the day for us which we eat at 1:30 pm. We like our teachers and the school.
On Friday afternoon we took a tour and walked to the chocolate factory. The walk crossed town was nice but the chocolate factory tour was sort of a dud. There was no tour of the factory just videos at the chocolate café and the videos were not that great. We did get to try some chocolate which was good. Bought a few blocks of chocolate which is going fast. Its sort of like Mexican chocolate but better.
Saturday we went to central park which was nice and walked around that area looking at the people and buildings. We were not planning to buy anything but ended up buying 2 carved flutes for about $15, now we are trying to play them. We really like the native weaving and will buy some before we leave Xela.
We also walked around the central market a little bit. I want to go back and explore the market more it is so neat to see all the people and the stalls. A lot of women still wear the traditional Mayan dress with all their colors. Apparently each town has its own collar on the shirts so the locals can tell where someone is from.
Today we attended the Ward closer to us, but Alicia and Shannon had to leave earlier as Shannon is fighting a cold. This Ward was not as friendly as the other which I think is due to its size I estimated there were at least 120 adults or teens about twice as big as the other Ward. But this Ward is the closest about 13 minutes away.
We are tiring to get mentally ready for the coming week. I keep telling the kids to think one day at a time, that’s how I will get through the Spanish school. Its not easy. I have enough problems with English especially grammar. They talk about verbs and nouns and after that I really don’t know what they are talking about..
John
1/22/09
It’s Jueves (Thursday) of our second week of school and last class day as we get to go on a field trip tomorrow during the class day. We are headed to San Francisco de Altos, which is the fabric capitol of Guatemala. Yesterday we took a trip to the hot springs Fuentes Georgians, about 30 minutes out of town with stops along the way to see the sights. Its amazing how they farm the mountain sides and valleys. Their gardens are on pretty steep grades on the mountain sides, these are not terraced. We were told that they do not use terracing as the steps would hold the cold air on the crops at night. With the slope the cold air moves on down to the valley floor. We saw the biggest carrots we have ever seen. I am surprised that they do not have erosion problems, but I did not notice any. It would seem that after all these years of their agriculture practice there would be no top soil left. There are also water lines running all over including stretching over valleys to reach the other side. We found out that a lot of villages have their own language, and there are 23 dialects of Mayan.
The hot springs was real nice. It was up in the mountains at the end of a winding road. The springs are surrounded by cliffs that are covered in vegetation They have 3 pools at different temperatures. The main pool is real hot on one end, I did not see anyone go to the end where the spring was. I got to about 15 feet of the end before turning back. They have some cabins there that would be fun to stay in. On the way back we stopped at a women’s weaving coop. The women from the area bring the cloth into the coop to sell I think mostly to locals but it may end up other places. The weavings hear are very beautiful and bright. It takes a weaver, by hand, about 30 hours to make a cloth that is 18 x 48 inches.
We also made our trip to the bake shop this week and will weekly or twice weekly till we leave here.
School is going better now. My mind is starting to clear some as I am understanding more. But they give us so much each day that it is imposable to keep up. Alicia and I get about 2 hours of studying in a night Alicia a little more as she gets up earlier to study more. Alicia is picking up Spanish pretty fast using rosette stone helped her a lot. Shannon does not do much homework but is getting down the pronunciations very fast and is helping me at night. Jared is slugging along like me. I was about ready packup and leave on Tuesday as I was really tired and the kids had a bad day, but everyone is doing better no.
We asked for more blankets today as we have been cold at night still. The temperatures have dropped a little more these week. The kids room is 5 degrees colder than ours as ours has a better sun exposure. There room is getting down to 47 F in the morning. I have been sleeping in my Under Armor and warm-ups and sweater. The kids and Alicia also dress well for bed. Jared dresses like me and Shannon also wears her winter coat that she forgot to leave in UT. To night I have a extra blanket so I will sleep well. I have been sleeping with 2 blankets. We had 5 on the bed but they are not very wide so they do not fully cover two people. The blankets would just cover us if we were sleeping side by side on our sides with our bodies together. If you moved around much the other person would be exposed. So we divided up the blankets I got two and Alicia 3. Alicia has been warm. The kids have been cold also but they should sleep better to night with their extra blankets they now have 5 each. I would recommend that anyone coming to Xela this time of year bring a sleeping bag if they can.
1/23/09
We had a warm night given extra blankets. Still had to wear all our other bed cloths though.
We had a great field trip to San Francisco today. It is a large market with all kinds of stuff including livestock. They do have a lot of fabric and colorful ladies wear. It is neat to see all the women in their native cloths. There were also a lot of people.
Shannon stated she would like to stay here longer in Xela now, how things change from day to day.
We survived the first week of school. My mind was swimming all week and felt very vacio (empty). We came home very tired every day and took a nap after supper. Supper is the main meal of the day for us which we eat at 1:30 pm. We like our teachers and the school.
On Friday afternoon we took a tour and walked to the chocolate factory. The walk crossed town was nice but the chocolate factory tour was sort of a dud. There was no tour of the factory just videos at the chocolate café and the videos were not that great. We did get to try some chocolate which was good. Bought a few blocks of chocolate which is going fast. Its sort of like Mexican chocolate but better.
Saturday we went to central park which was nice and walked around that area looking at the people and buildings. We were not planning to buy anything but ended up buying 2 carved flutes for about $15, now we are trying to play them. We really like the native weaving and will buy some before we leave Xela.
We also walked around the central market a little bit. I want to go back and explore the market more it is so neat to see all the people and the stalls. A lot of women still wear the traditional Mayan dress with all their colors. Apparently each town has its own collar on the shirts so the locals can tell where someone is from.
Today we attended the Ward closer to us, but Alicia and Shannon had to leave earlier as Shannon is fighting a cold. This Ward was not as friendly as the other which I think is due to its size I estimated there were at least 120 adults or teens about twice as big as the other Ward. But this Ward is the closest about 13 minutes away.
We are tiring to get mentally ready for the coming week. I keep telling the kids to think one day at a time, that’s how I will get through the Spanish school. Its not easy. I have enough problems with English especially grammar. They talk about verbs and nouns and after that I really don’t know what they are talking about..
John
1/22/09
It’s Jueves (Thursday) of our second week of school and last class day as we get to go on a field trip tomorrow during the class day. We are headed to San Francisco de Altos, which is the fabric capitol of Guatemala. Yesterday we took a trip to the hot springs Fuentes Georgians, about 30 minutes out of town with stops along the way to see the sights. Its amazing how they farm the mountain sides and valleys. Their gardens are on pretty steep grades on the mountain sides, these are not terraced. We were told that they do not use terracing as the steps would hold the cold air on the crops at night. With the slope the cold air moves on down to the valley floor. We saw the biggest carrots we have ever seen. I am surprised that they do not have erosion problems, but I did not notice any. It would seem that after all these years of their agriculture practice there would be no top soil left. There are also water lines running all over including stretching over valleys to reach the other side. We found out that a lot of villages have their own language, and there are 23 dialects of Mayan.
The hot springs was real nice. It was up in the mountains at the end of a winding road. The springs are surrounded by cliffs that are covered in vegetation They have 3 pools at different temperatures. The main pool is real hot on one end, I did not see anyone go to the end where the spring was. I got to about 15 feet of the end before turning back. They have some cabins there that would be fun to stay in. On the way back we stopped at a women’s weaving coop. The women from the area bring the cloth into the coop to sell I think mostly to locals but it may end up other places. The weavings hear are very beautiful and bright. It takes a weaver, by hand, about 30 hours to make a cloth that is 18 x 48 inches.
We also made our trip to the bake shop this week and will weekly or twice weekly till we leave here.
School is going better now. My mind is starting to clear some as I am understanding more. But they give us so much each day that it is imposable to keep up. Alicia and I get about 2 hours of studying in a night Alicia a little more as she gets up earlier to study more. Alicia is picking up Spanish pretty fast using rosette stone helped her a lot. Shannon does not do much homework but is getting down the pronunciations very fast and is helping me at night. Jared is slugging along like me. I was about ready packup and leave on Tuesday as I was really tired and the kids had a bad day, but everyone is doing better no.
We asked for more blankets today as we have been cold at night still. The temperatures have dropped a little more these week. The kids room is 5 degrees colder than ours as ours has a better sun exposure. There room is getting down to 47 F in the morning. I have been sleeping in my Under Armor and warm-ups and sweater. The kids and Alicia also dress well for bed. Jared dresses like me and Shannon also wears her winter coat that she forgot to leave in UT. To night I have a extra blanket so I will sleep well. I have been sleeping with 2 blankets. We had 5 on the bed but they are not very wide so they do not fully cover two people. The blankets would just cover us if we were sleeping side by side on our sides with our bodies together. If you moved around much the other person would be exposed. So we divided up the blankets I got two and Alicia 3. Alicia has been warm. The kids have been cold also but they should sleep better to night with their extra blankets they now have 5 each. I would recommend that anyone coming to Xela this time of year bring a sleeping bag if they can.
1/23/09
We had a warm night given extra blankets. Still had to wear all our other bed cloths though.
We had a great field trip to San Francisco today. It is a large market with all kinds of stuff including livestock. They do have a lot of fabric and colorful ladies wear. It is neat to see all the women in their native cloths. There were also a lot of people.
Shannon stated she would like to stay here longer in Xela now, how things change from day to day.
1/18/09
We survived the first week of school. My mind was swimming all week and felt very vacio (empty). We came home very tired every day and took a nap after supper. Supper is the main meal of the day for us which we eat at 1:30 pm. We like our teachers and the school.
On Friday afternoon we took a tour and walked to the chocolate factory. The walk crossed town was nice but the chocolate factory tour was sort of a dud. There was no tour of the factory just videos at the chocolate café and the videos were not that great. We did get to try some chocolate which was good. Bought a few blocks of chocolate which is going fast. Its sort of like Mexican chocolate but better.
Saturday we went to central park which was nice and walked around that area looking at the people and buildings. We were not planning to buy anything but ended up buying 2 carved flutes for about $15, now we are trying to play them. We really like the native weaving and will buy some before we leave Xela.
We also walked around the central market a little bit. I want to go back and explore the market more it is so neat to see all the people and the stalls. A lot of women still wear the traditional Mayan dress with all their colors. Apparently each town has its own collar on the shirts so the locals can tell where someone is from.
Today we attended the Ward closer to us, but Alicia and Shannon had to leave earlier as Shannon is fighting a cold. This Ward was not as friendly as the other which I think is due to its size I estimated there were at least 120 adults or teens about twice as big as the other Ward. But this Ward is the closest about 13 minutes away.
We are tiring to get mentally ready for the coming week. I keep telling the kids to think one day at a time, that’s how I will get through the Spanish school. Its not easy. I have enough problems with English especially grammar. They talk about verbs and nouns and after that I really don’t know what they are talking about..
John
1/22/09
It’s Jueves (Thursday) of our second week of school and last class day as we get to go on a field trip tomorrow during the class day. We are headed to San Francisco de Altos, which is the fabric capitol of Guatemala. Yesterday we took a trip to the hot springs Fuentes Georgians, about 30 minutes out of town with stops along the way to see the sights. Its amazing how they farm the mountain sides and valleys. Their gardens are on pretty steep grades on the mountain sides, these are not terraced. We were told that they do not use terracing as the steps would hold the cold air on the crops at night. With the slope the cold air moves on down to the valley floor. We saw the biggest carrots we have ever seen. I am surprised that they do not have erosion problems, but I did not notice any. It would seem that after all these years of their agriculture practice there would be no top soil left. There are also water lines running all over including stretching over valleys to reach the other side. We found out that a lot of villages have their own language, and there are 23 dialects of Mayan.
The hot springs was real nice. It was up in the mountains at the end of a winding road. The springs are surrounded by cliffs that are covered in vegetation They have 3 pools at different temperatures. The main pool is real hot on one end, I did not see anyone go to the end where the spring was. I got to about 15 feet of the end before turning back. They have some cabins there that would be fun to stay in. On the way back we stopped at a women’s weaving coop. The women from the area bring the cloth into the coop to sell I think mostly to locals but it may end up other places. The weavings hear are very beautiful and bright. It takes a weaver, by hand, about 30 hours to make a cloth that is 18 x 48 inches.
We also made our trip to the bake shop this week and will weekly or twice weekly till we leave here.
School is going better now. My mind is starting to clear some as I am understanding more. But they give us so much each day that it is imposable to keep up. Alicia and I get about 2 hours of studying in a night Alicia a little more as she gets up earlier to study more. Alicia is picking up Spanish pretty fast using rosette stone helped her a lot. Shannon does not do much homework but is getting down the pronunciations very fast and is helping me at night. Jared is slugging along like me. I was about ready packup and leave on Tuesday as I was really tired and the kids had a bad day, but everyone is doing better no.
We asked for more blankets today as we have been cold at night still. The temperatures have dropped a little more these week. The kids room is 5 degrees colder than ours as ours has a better sun exposure. There room is getting down to 47 F in the morning. I have been sleeping in my Under Armor and warm-ups and sweater. The kids and Alicia also dress well for bed. Jared dresses like me and Shannon also wears her winter coat that she forgot to leave in UT. To night I have a extra blanket so I will sleep well. I have been sleeping with 2 blankets. We had 5 on the bed but they are not very wide so they do not fully cover two people. The blankets would just cover us if we were sleeping side by side on our sides with our bodies together. If you moved around much the other person would be exposed. So we divided up the blankets I got two and Alicia 3. Alicia has been warm. The kids have been cold also but they should sleep better to night with their extra blankets they now have 5 each. I would recommend that anyone coming to Xela this time of year bring a sleeping bag if they can.
1/23/09
We had a warm night given extra blankets. Still had to wear all our other bed cloths though.
We had a great field trip to San Francisco today. It is a large market with all kinds of stuff including livestock. They do have a lot of fabric and colorful ladies wear. It is neat to see all the women in their native cloths. There were also a lot of people.
Shannon stated she would like to stay here longer in Xela now, how things change from day to day.
We survived the first week of school. My mind was swimming all week and felt very vacio (empty). We came home very tired every day and took a nap after supper. Supper is the main meal of the day for us which we eat at 1:30 pm. We like our teachers and the school.
On Friday afternoon we took a tour and walked to the chocolate factory. The walk crossed town was nice but the chocolate factory tour was sort of a dud. There was no tour of the factory just videos at the chocolate café and the videos were not that great. We did get to try some chocolate which was good. Bought a few blocks of chocolate which is going fast. Its sort of like Mexican chocolate but better.
Saturday we went to central park which was nice and walked around that area looking at the people and buildings. We were not planning to buy anything but ended up buying 2 carved flutes for about $15, now we are trying to play them. We really like the native weaving and will buy some before we leave Xela.
We also walked around the central market a little bit. I want to go back and explore the market more it is so neat to see all the people and the stalls. A lot of women still wear the traditional Mayan dress with all their colors. Apparently each town has its own collar on the shirts so the locals can tell where someone is from.
Today we attended the Ward closer to us, but Alicia and Shannon had to leave earlier as Shannon is fighting a cold. This Ward was not as friendly as the other which I think is due to its size I estimated there were at least 120 adults or teens about twice as big as the other Ward. But this Ward is the closest about 13 minutes away.
We are tiring to get mentally ready for the coming week. I keep telling the kids to think one day at a time, that’s how I will get through the Spanish school. Its not easy. I have enough problems with English especially grammar. They talk about verbs and nouns and after that I really don’t know what they are talking about..
John
1/22/09
It’s Jueves (Thursday) of our second week of school and last class day as we get to go on a field trip tomorrow during the class day. We are headed to San Francisco de Altos, which is the fabric capitol of Guatemala. Yesterday we took a trip to the hot springs Fuentes Georgians, about 30 minutes out of town with stops along the way to see the sights. Its amazing how they farm the mountain sides and valleys. Their gardens are on pretty steep grades on the mountain sides, these are not terraced. We were told that they do not use terracing as the steps would hold the cold air on the crops at night. With the slope the cold air moves on down to the valley floor. We saw the biggest carrots we have ever seen. I am surprised that they do not have erosion problems, but I did not notice any. It would seem that after all these years of their agriculture practice there would be no top soil left. There are also water lines running all over including stretching over valleys to reach the other side. We found out that a lot of villages have their own language, and there are 23 dialects of Mayan.
The hot springs was real nice. It was up in the mountains at the end of a winding road. The springs are surrounded by cliffs that are covered in vegetation They have 3 pools at different temperatures. The main pool is real hot on one end, I did not see anyone go to the end where the spring was. I got to about 15 feet of the end before turning back. They have some cabins there that would be fun to stay in. On the way back we stopped at a women’s weaving coop. The women from the area bring the cloth into the coop to sell I think mostly to locals but it may end up other places. The weavings hear are very beautiful and bright. It takes a weaver, by hand, about 30 hours to make a cloth that is 18 x 48 inches.
We also made our trip to the bake shop this week and will weekly or twice weekly till we leave here.
School is going better now. My mind is starting to clear some as I am understanding more. But they give us so much each day that it is imposable to keep up. Alicia and I get about 2 hours of studying in a night Alicia a little more as she gets up earlier to study more. Alicia is picking up Spanish pretty fast using rosette stone helped her a lot. Shannon does not do much homework but is getting down the pronunciations very fast and is helping me at night. Jared is slugging along like me. I was about ready packup and leave on Tuesday as I was really tired and the kids had a bad day, but everyone is doing better no.
We asked for more blankets today as we have been cold at night still. The temperatures have dropped a little more these week. The kids room is 5 degrees colder than ours as ours has a better sun exposure. There room is getting down to 47 F in the morning. I have been sleeping in my Under Armor and warm-ups and sweater. The kids and Alicia also dress well for bed. Jared dresses like me and Shannon also wears her winter coat that she forgot to leave in UT. To night I have a extra blanket so I will sleep well. I have been sleeping with 2 blankets. We had 5 on the bed but they are not very wide so they do not fully cover two people. The blankets would just cover us if we were sleeping side by side on our sides with our bodies together. If you moved around much the other person would be exposed. So we divided up the blankets I got two and Alicia 3. Alicia has been warm. The kids have been cold also but they should sleep better to night with their extra blankets they now have 5 each. I would recommend that anyone coming to Xela this time of year bring a sleeping bag if they can.
1/23/09
We had a warm night given extra blankets. Still had to wear all our other bed cloths though.
We had a great field trip to San Francisco today. It is a large market with all kinds of stuff including livestock. They do have a lot of fabric and colorful ladies wear. It is neat to see all the women in their native cloths. There were also a lot of people.
Shannon stated she would like to stay here longer in Xela now, how things change from day to day.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
1/18/09
We survived the first week of school. My mind was swimming all week and felt very vacio (empty). We came home very tired every day and took a nap after supper. Supper is the main meal of the day for us which we eat at 1:30 pm. We like our teachers and the school.
On Friday afternoon we took a tour and walked to the chocolate factory. The walk crossed town was nice but the chocolate factory tour was sort of a dud. There was no tour of the factory just videos at the chocolate café and the videos were not that great. We did get to try some chocolate which was good. Bought a few blocks of chocolate which is going fast. Its sort of like Mexican chocolate but better.
Saturday we went to central park which was nice and walked around that area looking at the people and buildings. We were not planning to buy anything but ended up buying 2 carved flutes for about $15, now we are trying to play them. We really like the native weaving and will buy some before we leave Xela.
We also walked around the central market a little bit. I want to go back and explore the market more it is so neat to see all the people and the stalls. A lot of women still wear the traditional Mayan dress with all their colors. Apparently each town has its own collar on the shirts so the locals can tell where someone is from.
Today we attended the Ward closer to us, but Alicia and Shannon had to leave earlier as Shannon is fighting a cold. This Ward was not as friendly as the other which I think is due to its size I estimated there were at least 120 adults or teens about twice as big as the other Ward. But this Ward is the closest about 13 minutes away.
We are tiring to get mentally ready for the coming week. I keep telling the kids to think one day at a time, that’s how I will get through the Spanish school. Its not easy. I have enough problems with English especially grammar. They talk about verbs and nouns and after that I really don’t know what they are talking about..
John
We survived the first week of school. My mind was swimming all week and felt very vacio (empty). We came home very tired every day and took a nap after supper. Supper is the main meal of the day for us which we eat at 1:30 pm. We like our teachers and the school.
On Friday afternoon we took a tour and walked to the chocolate factory. The walk crossed town was nice but the chocolate factory tour was sort of a dud. There was no tour of the factory just videos at the chocolate café and the videos were not that great. We did get to try some chocolate which was good. Bought a few blocks of chocolate which is going fast. Its sort of like Mexican chocolate but better.
Saturday we went to central park which was nice and walked around that area looking at the people and buildings. We were not planning to buy anything but ended up buying 2 carved flutes for about $15, now we are trying to play them. We really like the native weaving and will buy some before we leave Xela.
We also walked around the central market a little bit. I want to go back and explore the market more it is so neat to see all the people and the stalls. A lot of women still wear the traditional Mayan dress with all their colors. Apparently each town has its own collar on the shirts so the locals can tell where someone is from.
Today we attended the Ward closer to us, but Alicia and Shannon had to leave earlier as Shannon is fighting a cold. This Ward was not as friendly as the other which I think is due to its size I estimated there were at least 120 adults or teens about twice as big as the other Ward. But this Ward is the closest about 13 minutes away.
We are tiring to get mentally ready for the coming week. I keep telling the kids to think one day at a time, that’s how I will get through the Spanish school. Its not easy. I have enough problems with English especially grammar. They talk about verbs and nouns and after that I really don’t know what they are talking about..
John
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Hi
We have now completed 3 days of Spanish school and our minds are swimming. We like the school and the teachers. There are 7 other students there. The secretary had her birthday today and they had a birthday party for her with a lot of singing.
Our house is about 4 blocks from the school. Chipe and Isabel Lepe are our hosts. They have 3 grown children who are out of the house. He is a well known marimba (a traditional Mayan instrument) player and has traveled the world playing his marimbas, He also makes the marimbas that take a year or more to make.
We have attended church and really like the people, but we found a Ward closer (we can see it from our patio) and will attend that one next week.
We have walked around a little bit going to the outdoor market (its very nice and clean with great fruit and vegetables) and finding the ATM (it worked). Also found The Bake Shop with the best doughnuts we have ever had.
It is summer here that means no rain, but it is cool. We are at 7000 feet. Everyone wears a coat or sweater most of the time. Midday is the only time it is short sleeve weather. The mornings and nights are cool and the homes do not have heat. Our room is usually about 60 F in the morning. Thank you Stephenie Kay for the warning about bringing warm cloths otherwise we would be very cold every day. I wear my Under Armour cold gear to bed.
We have now completed 3 days of Spanish school and our minds are swimming. We like the school and the teachers. There are 7 other students there. The secretary had her birthday today and they had a birthday party for her with a lot of singing.
Our house is about 4 blocks from the school. Chipe and Isabel Lepe are our hosts. They have 3 grown children who are out of the house. He is a well known marimba (a traditional Mayan instrument) player and has traveled the world playing his marimbas, He also makes the marimbas that take a year or more to make.
We have attended church and really like the people, but we found a Ward closer (we can see it from our patio) and will attend that one next week.
We have walked around a little bit going to the outdoor market (its very nice and clean with great fruit and vegetables) and finding the ATM (it worked). Also found The Bake Shop with the best doughnuts we have ever had.
It is summer here that means no rain, but it is cool. We are at 7000 feet. Everyone wears a coat or sweater most of the time. Midday is the only time it is short sleeve weather. The mornings and nights are cool and the homes do not have heat. Our room is usually about 60 F in the morning. Thank you Stephenie Kay for the warning about bringing warm cloths otherwise we would be very cold every day. I wear my Under Armour cold gear to bed.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Arrived
We arrived safely. This is the first chance we have had to get to the internet. We love our familia. They are very nice. The husband Jose is a famous maramba musician in Guatamala who makes and plays the traditional Mayan instrament. Yesterday we went to church, everyone was lovely and friendly. Several people spoke English. Today was our first day of school, everyone is very tired, they worked us hard. How is everyone there. We miss you allvery much. Xela is pretty good size with two volcanos near by, one active. Have you had more snow.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
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