Hablamos un poco de Espanol!

A quiet start to the second half of our Spanish studies with Lara having a cough, and a minor earthquake! Lara felt it but Al didn´t! We went to school for the week as usual....not much to report as we skipped most of the activities because we´d done them all before.

The weekend was spent at San Pedro, with an Irish couple Ed and Yvonne where we got up to all sorts of mischief, in between lying in a hammock or having an afternoon nap! We left after school on Friday all set to get on a direct bus to San Pedro de la Laguna near San Marcos....after checking that our chicken bus was heading to San Pedro, near San Marcos we got on and spent 1/2 an hour happily bumping along.... until the conductor came to collect our money. We were then told that we were heading to the wrong San Pedro near the wrong San Marcos. So we got off the bus in the middle of nowhere (well not too far from San Juan) after the whole back of the bus discussed our options and advised that we would need to return to Xela to get a bus to San Pedro de la Laguna. We flagged down a chicken bus and in half an hour we were back in Xela.

There were no buses heading directly to San Pedro at that time of the day so we hopped on a bus to Panajachel, confirming exactly which Panajachel (there is only one) and arriving there at 8 o´clock at night. Too late to get a boat across the lake to San Pedro. so we stayed the night in Panajachel, otherwise known as ´Gringotenango´ (Place of the Foreigners) where we had dinner and watched TV for pretty much the first time since leaving Oz.

The next morning we got up and got a boat to San Pedro where we met Ed and Yvonne for brunch. We spent a very relaxing weekend - lying in hammocks, eating a lot and setting off fireworks. A very cheap and exciting way to spend time! We watched movies, went to some interesting bars and even had a traditional English roast dinner!

After spending a lovely weekend on the lake, we were sad to be heading back to cold Xela to continue our studies...but all our bags were still there so we had no choice! On our return to Xela neither of us were well, and Lara went to see a doctor - who said she had amoebas and a throat infection, and it turned out that Al had amoebas as well (yes Mums, we have been very careful with what we´ve been eating and drinking - unfortunately they seem to be a part of life in Guatemala, as it is completely normal for Guatemalans to suffer from the same kind of thing).

We have continued studying with the same teachers for the 6 weeks. Al´s teacher is Selvin, a uni student studying business admin. And Lara´s is Veronica, she works in finance when she is not teaching and has a very cute four year old daughter.

The highlights of our last few weeks in Xela were the Children´s Christmas party and the Festival of Guadalupe. Juan Sisay School sponsors 70 children in order to allow them to go to school. They pay for their school fees and all additional requirements. They have a party every three months, and this time it was the Christmas party. All the teachers and students put on plays and there were piñatas and presents. The children loved it and it was great to see where some of our money was going, and the excitement that they got from the party.

Two Aussies, Michelle and Simon, who we went to uni with in Sydney, turned up at Juan Sisay on one Monday afternoon after having gotten married in Port Macquarie 8 days beforehand! It was really lovely to spend some time with them and show them around Xela. We went with them, and a whole lot of other students to the Festival of Guadelupe (a Mexican virgin) in the nearby town of San Cristobal. The tradition in San Cristobal is for men to paint themselves as devils and terrorise the crowds! The men wear practically nothing, just some undies and then paint themselves all over. They then run around and rub their paint on the people watching. We had all bought cheap second hand clothes for the occasion and had a great time! None of us could figure out what the painted devils had to do with the Virgen de Guadalupe, but it was great none the less!

We are sad to be leaving Xela and the classroom after 6 weeks but we are looking forward to our real holiday beginning. We´ll be off to Honduras in a few days and will continue the blog whenever we get the chance!

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