The fourth city on my Argentine tour was Salta. We did a lot of walking, a lot of touring through the mountains. A lot of ice cream eating. And I almost brought a dog home with me. [View Full Entry]

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This past July, 2008, I went to Argentina for 22 days. I went to Buenas Aires, La Plata, Mendoza, Salta, Cordoba, and Colonia, Uraguay, and some of the towns surrounding those areas. In Mendoza, Kevin and I rented an apartment for a week. It was really nice. We went grocery shopping in the evening for our dinner of empanadas or pizza and for our breakfast of coffee, bread, cheese, and ham. We would eat around our table and watch the news, and there was quite a bit of news. Our apartment had maid service as well- a pleasant surprise- so we [View Full Entry]

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One of our afternoon activities was taking some of the ninas from the shelter to the zoo. After looking at the animals, we played on the many playgrounds in the zoo. [View Full Entry]

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About an hour and a half out along windy and bumpy roads is a community La Florida, an abandoned finca run by the community to produce coffee, honey, and other products. We took some school supplies for the children in the community and took a tour. [View Full Entry]

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The word for boat is lancha, for iron is plancha. . . it was an easy mistake to make. I was talking to one of the guides at our hotel about our journey and he laughed hard and long before trying to explain why what I said was funny. I wasn't sure exactly what I'd said till I checked a dictionary later, but I learned the word for boat pretty well and I don't think I'll make that mistake again. Unlike our trip to Lake Atitlan, we were not able to take a bus directly to the beach at Monterrico. No, [View Full Entry]

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Over shots of tequilla at La Paranda on Wednesday night, we each vowed to go to Lake Atitlan for the weekend. So on Friday after lunch, Alida and I loaded our packs onto our backs and headed to Parque Central to meet Katrin, Sara, Brandon, and Petra. The first adventure was getting to Terminal Minerva, what people loosley refer to as a bus station. It is not so much a station as it is a wide street that serves as the meeting grounds for the large brightly painted, former yellow school bus, chicken buses and their prospective passengers. And it is [View Full Entry]

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Classes My second week of classes, I somehow felt like I was understanding less Spanish than the first week, but I was still speaking or listening to Spanish five to eight hours a day and conversing with my teacher on such topics as the current state of education in Guatemala, the impact of import and export and cultural differences in worldview of time and personal interdependance and the banking situation. Pretty complex ideas to discuss and convey if I was really not understanding more. Maybe I'm just to the point where I know enough to realize how much I don't understand. [View Full Entry]

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Classes The first week here, I took my first dance class at my school. Very basic salsa. I have also listened to lectures on the history of Guatemala, the Mayan cosmovision, natural medicine, and the government's refusal to respect the people's decision to refuse a mining operation that will deprive them of what little water they have to grow their crops, will poison them, and will give very little benefit in return. Crepes My first Friday night in Xela, Alida and I went to a restaurant called Paris Royal and had some wonderful chocolate-banana-coconut crepes with a hint of orange zest [View Full Entry]

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As I understand it, during the winter holiday season, the government of Guatemala decided that there was alot of worn out money in circulation, so they took it out of circulation and destroyed it. Imagine the scene in the government office when it was realized that there was no new money to replace the worn out money and it became painfully obvious in the market place that this was indeed going to be a problem. Yes, there was a run on the banks, long lines at the banks, caps on how much could be withdrawn on any one day, as the [View Full Entry]

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My flight was not delayed nor cancelled due to the ice storm in north Texas, so I got to Guatemala City as planned on Sunday January 14. My farewell at home did not go as smoothly since my mother broke her wrist the Thursday before and was incapacitated and in pain, the forecasted worst ice storm in history shifted our schedule forward so that Heather and Dylan could get back to Denton safely, Cameron, my nephew, got sick, I spent the night at Kelsey's since mom couldn't drive me to the airport. I spent all night wondering whether my flight would [View Full Entry]

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