This has been a busy week! Over the last weekend, we went to a great perfomance of Talking With..., a contemporary play performed in English by local expat women. We had little time to get to the play from dinner, so decided to take a TukTuk, small vehicles imported from India that function as taxis in small cities here. Our driver promptly got a flat tire... and the next one we flagged down got caught in traffic, but we still made it on time.. On Sunday, we walked several minutes down a road out of town, to see the carpets being [View Full Entry]

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We finished our second week of Spanish classes yesterday...we have decided to take one more week of classes before moving on. We keep finding that we love where we are at each stop and hate to leave..and then find the next place even better! Since the last blog, we have taken a weekend trip out of Antigua to Lago Atitlan and a day trip with the Spanish school to Monterico on the Pacific coast. We have met some wonderful people, visited an education project next to the Guatemala city dump and even learned some Spanish! We are both loving the complexity [View Full Entry]

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We are now living with a local family, and going to Spanish language school every morning for 4 hours! Our new home is in a residential area of Antigua and we walk about 20 minutes to school each morning. Our host family provides three meals each day but Sunday, and conversation in Spanish at each meal. We don't eat with the family (there are three children aged 10, 12, and 15 and the two parents) for the most part, but someone usually sits with us to speak Spanish (and make us speak to them!). We are living on the top floor, [View Full Entry]

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We decided to climb one of the active volcanos outside of Antigua yesterday morning! The tour was to take 7 hours altogether, with a two hour hike up the volcano. We were picked up a little after 6:00 am at our hotel and rode in a van with the rest of our group (all under 30) to the base of the volcano. We were greeted by our guide (this is a national park, and the guides are very professional), along with several dogs, a very friendly young pig, and persistent boy who followed us all the way up the volcano looking [View Full Entry]

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After an 8 hour bus ride (first class), then a taxi ride and then another one and a half hour bus ride (this time on a local bus), we are in Antigua, the former colonial capital of Guatemala. On the way here from Flores, we went through rainforest, jungle, into farmland and then into almost desert before climbing into the mountains to Guatelmala City. The city is huge and sprawling and poor for the most part. There are armed guards in many places, since crime is high. A guard hailed a taxi for us at the bus station and made sure [View Full Entry]

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We visited Tikal today. The site is more hidden in the jungle than Chichen Itza in Mexico....so not as intially spectacular, but more impressive close up! I will attach a website for those of you who want more info on the history of Tikal.... Because it it located in a large national park, there is a lot of wild life. We were there during the mid day period, so we didn't see much: the best was a troop of spider monkeys (2 moms with tiny babies on their backs included) and a fox. There were lots of impressive trees, many with [View Full Entry]

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We left Belize this am, first in "collective" taxi to the border and then a collective mini bus to Flores. The collectives collect passengers til they are full to bursting....it cost $3.oo for a 2 hour trip! Belize was really wonderful! The people are charming and kind and helpful and the country itself is beautiful. We spent our last few days staying at the Parrot Nest in Bullet Tree Falls (named after the rapids there in the Mopan river...and the trees which are made of very hard wood...bullets will bounce off them). The Parrot Nest was great....the manager, who is the [View Full Entry]

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We are now staying at the Parrot Tree in Bullet Tree Falls outside of San Ignacio, near the Guatemalan border. We took a local bus from Belize City. Kids..it was an old school bus so I felt like I was on a field trip! It look a little more than two hours and was quite comfortable (and cost about $3.50 each). This area has a large Hispanic population, sizeable Chinese and Lebanese populations, and Mayans, and Americans! Our little hut has a palm thatch roof, and is near the river. There are lots of iguanas and butterflies here...! We went tubing [View Full Entry]

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We have decided to stay on here for another day....it's relaxing and friendly place to be! And, as you can tell by now, a hard place to leave... Today we took a boat trip to another part of the reef and then on to Ambergis Caye..this island is really built up now..full of cars and people (50 thousand in the main town) and shops and hotels...It's much nicer here! Snorkeling today was good..we saw a giant "ball" of fish all swimming together.. a moray eel, a giant lobster, and spiny black sea urchins..along with the usual colorful fish and coral. We've [View Full Entry]

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We had a busy day on too little sleep..(our neighbors were partying until the wee hours last night). I visited the school this morning. It is the only school on the island and is a Catholic school. It goes to 8th grade and the kids who want to continue have to travel by boat to either Belize City or Ambergis Caye for middle and high school. The principal told me that there is a push to build a high school since more and more parents want their children to finish high school. Up til now, most stopped at 8th grade. I [View Full Entry]

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