http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Phus/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Phus en-us Sat, 22 Nov 2008 20:17:24 UTC Sat, 22 Nov 2008 20:17:24 UTC well i'm in nicaraguathe last time i posted i was wrapping up el salvador and all worked out well. for our last day we went to the Oscar Romero March celebrating the anniversary of his death which was amazing. It was so interesting because we met up with almost all the people who we had met during our stay from El Salvador. That includes people from the nonprofits we met and people from the ru http://www.travelblog.org//Central-America-Caribbean/Nicaragua/San-Juan-Del-Sur/blog-261780.html well let's see lots to get caught up oni had my 21st birthday party we all went out to dinner and then had a little dance party but as a result i broke my laptop screen so that's basically why i've gone so long without word but after countless hours on the phone arguing with dhl in spanish i was able to take the screen from the customs office. basically each time i had spoken to them they http://www.travelblog.org//Central-America-Caribbean/El-Salvador/Suchitoto/blog-258111.html well this is day four in el salvador and so far so good.classes have been a little on the abstract side which means it's been over my head. all in all we've had good class discussions and lectures from my professor. the deal with liberation theology is basically that it looks at jesus as a subversive person and focuses more on the preferential option for the poor that should exist. this form of c http://www.travelblog.org//Central-America-Caribbean/El-Salvador/San-Salvador/blog-250821.html well i made it to el salvadorafter my last blog i called my cousin marguerite to check in and explain how i'm doing. well from there she was gracious enough to extend an invitation to visit my other cousin Richard's Pacific house in Guatemala. Usually the trip to Antigua from Xela shouldn't take that long but the road construction made me about two hours late for meeting Marguerite and Tomas w http://www.travelblog.org//Central-America-Caribbean/El-Salvador/San-Salvador/blog-250104.html now i'm convinced that i'm not going to remember everything that happened in the past week but i'm going to do my best hereso wrapped up my studies at the language school here in Xela which was great. There was a graduation ceremony and all the other students and teachers showed up. The students were in charge of bringing the food while the staff would bring the drinks. Well since I don't know http://www.travelblog.org//Central-America-Caribbean/Guatemala/Quetzaltenango/Volcan-Santa-Maria/blog-248987.html so on friday i leave for Colomba where i will have probably limited internet access so the next time i'll be able to post won't be until i'm in el salvador. It's crazy to think i'm 13 done with my semester abroad.My group and I took part in a Mayan Ceremony on tuesday which was fairly interesting. Later we found out what our Mayan symbols were. I'm not entirely sure what to make out of all of it http://www.travelblog.org//Central-America-Caribbean/Guatemala/Quetzaltenango/Volcan-Santa-Maria/blog-246353.html alright considering my last blog attempt did not work out very well i hope that this will all work out.so last week we met with a businessman here in Xela who does development work with small businesses. he had a really interesting perspective on how guatemala needs development but that often entails sacrificing culture and environmental rights but so often those are the sacrifices that need http://www.travelblog.org//Central-America-Caribbean/Guatemala/Lago-de-Atitlan/San-Pedro-La-Laguna/blog-245317.html well let's see i believe the last time i posted i hadn't done the followingWe all woke up at around 530 in the morning last saturday to hike up Chicobal which is a volcano in Xela with a lake in the crater. the hike wasn't that bad. it started off being freezing the mornings here are actually really cold but once we were about half way up it started to warm up. There were some pretty great http://www.travelblog.org//Central-America-Caribbean/Guatemala/Quetzaltenango/Volcan-Santa-Maria/blog-240830.html Okay letrsquos see what has happened so far. We left Guatemala City at around 830 on Wednesday and got in to Xela around 130 or so. We had lunch here and had a little bit of class with our country coordinator. We went out to the markets and split into groups to buy food clothes school supplies and medical supplies with 25 quetzales each. Apparently 25 quetzales is the average daily income http://www.travelblog.org//Central-America-Caribbean/Guatemala/Quetzaltenango/Volcan-Santa-Maria/blog-239392.html okay so mom maria olga and her husband jaime dropped me off at the location where i was meeting up with the rest of the students. Before dropping me off we had lunch at Richards beautiful house with his sisters my aunt olga elaine stephanie and margarites husband thomas.everybody has been getting along really well and we seem to be meshing. so yesterday was really the first day of the pro http://www.travelblog.org//Central-America-Caribbean/Guatemala/Quetzaltenango/Volcan-Santa-Maria/blog-238831.html wow okay try to imagine the MOST beautiful wedding you could ever be apart of and then multiply it by ten. First off the hotel we were staying at Casa Santo Domingo was unreal. Antigua itself is beautiful but the hotel was out of this world. There were parrots just hanging out and the flowers were beautiful and there were probably thousands of candles that were all lit it was amazing. Ther http://www.travelblog.org//Central-America-Caribbean/Guatemala/Antigua/Antigua/blog-238074.html well I finally got packed and made it to guatemala when I arrived with mom my cousins and aunt olga met us at the airport to pick us up and then we went back to Maria Olga's one of my cousins house. There we all ate with the kids of my cousins who are around my age. The weather is unreal it is so beautiful here everything has been amazing and being with my family has been totally great. After http://www.travelblog.org//Central-America-Caribbean/Guatemala/Guatemala-City/blog-237254.html well let's see it's 248 in the morning and I'm still not done packing but I wanted to sneak in the first blog of my adventure. In about 50 minutes dad will drop off me and mom to the airport. For those who don't know what's going on my maternal great Uncle fell in love with my great Aunt in Guatemala and basically never came back. SO I've got a lot of cousins down there and one of them is ge http://www.travelblog.org//Central-America-Caribbean/Guatemala/Guatemala-City/blog-236670.html