My Last Week In Xela

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Here in Xela there is a Spanish School with a print of my arse on the wall. Sakribal has been really good fun, and I’ve learnt lots of Spanish, if only I could put more of into practice. My teacher for the third and fourth weeks of school was Carolina, she spoke only a few words of English, which meant that the lessons were much harder work for me – exactly what I needed. I bought the most horrible item in Xela as a thank you present, a Hello Kitty lamp/alarm clock combo, she really loved it so that was great.

Ok… so the arse prints, paint on paper on a chair, arse on the chair on the paper, reverse arse towards wall and the print is made. Sharon, Lizette and Christian (the crazy Danes of Quetzaltenango) also made prints, a certain sense of camaraderie emerged between the four of us during the week. We had planned the manoeuvre to ensure that no one would be around, a trip to school at 7.30am was needed. We found the ideal spot on the bright orange walls of Sakribal and thought about the designs we would use to embellish the prints. Mine white with a red cross, red and white for the Danes and blue for Scotland. Apparently the blue paint was much harder to remove than the other colours.

During the last week I learnt to dance meringue as well as salsa, Jeron and Sandra run a dance school near the center of Xela they offer private Salsa lessons along with group Salsa and Meringue lessons. The teaching has been perfect for what I need, the emphasis is on getting the basics right so that later when in clubs its possible to dance with anyone. Meringue is similar to Salsa, and most clubs mix music from the two styles, being able to dance both means that I can stay on the dance floor all evening. During the last week I really felt that I got the hang of both styles, on Friday I had so much fun dancing with Lizette. The best thing is now I have enough confidence in being able to continue dancing that I can make moves up on the spot and usually get Lizette to follow them. It usually ends up with some crazy moves that bare very little resemblance to what we were trying to do, and sometimes involves injury. I think Lizette nearly broke my nose last night, swinging round at high speed and cracking me with an elbow… only a little blood. Somehow we broke a table as well, though we were only sitting at it. It is really great in the clubs just being able to ask anyone to dance and knowing that it will probably be a lot of fun.

During the week I took two trips out of the city, one to Fueters Georgina some natural hot springs a bus and pickup ride away. The waters are heated from the volcano that they are located on, with lush tropical style plants flourishing in the high humidity and extra warmth from the springs. The pickup journey was one of those trips were due to the mist you can’t see anything until the last minute, vertical drops at the edge of the road, low hanging branches and other vehicles were all hidden until they were upon us, again lots of fun. Apa one of the teachers from school took us there, he has been the one teacher to have always been out with us at clubs and bars, a huge amount of fun. Entering the springs was like stepping into a hot bath and swimming around in the water was very relaxing. Right at the back of the pool is where the hottest water enters the pool. I sat there for nearly an hour, the warmest I’ve been since Palenque. At one point a small rock fall nearly spoiled all the fun, small rocks and pebble bounced down the side of the cliff and into the pool fortunately none of the maybe ten people in the pool were hit.

My other excursion was to Totonicapán a small village with a market on a Saturday morning. The market was a local market, meaning that we were the only gringos in the place. The usual array of fruits and vegetables were present but due to the lack of tourists there wasn’t the number of handicrafts that I had seen in other villages. The church was being swept out for what looked like the first time in 5 years, but was peaceful and simple. Outside the church we were asked to help with some English questions by a few local girls, we all filled in a questionnaire, to which I answered sensibly but couldn’t help correcting all the spelling and grama mistakes in the questions. If only someone would do that for my journal.

Despite being in an isolated mountain village with little in the way of modern conveniences I had a really nice ice cream and Sharon got a coke float.

Tonight (Saturday) is my leaving night… though I’ll probably hang around until Monday morning and catch a bus down to Antigua, in Antigua I hope to meet other travellers going south to either El Salvador or Honduras or maybe even further. I’m going to miss Xela and my friends and family here like crazy. For the last month it has been my home and I’ve grown really fond of the people I’ve known here, the places that I’ve hung out in, the people of Xela are friendly and kind. The guy who cut my hair last week says hello each time I pass and I’ve got to know other people in bars and clubs. But at the same time armed with my bad spanish equally bad salsa and dangerous meringue I know it is time to leave. The rest of central America is there for me to explore and I have less than two months left. Adios Amigos, adios familia, adios maestro y maestra, gracious por todos

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Photos

Sandra, Jeron and Jeremy
Of Latin Rythym Dance Studio... blame them.

Olga y Ali
Director of Sakribal

Graduacion
Carolina y Ali

Comments

[sharon petrie]

It made me laugh
Hey, good to hear from you, i went back and looked at the guate blogs - i laughed when i saw this again - it was a good time! hope you are cool shazza