I have done so much since I last wrote, that I don´t know where to begin... Right now I am in Flores, a little town built on the edge of lago de peten itza (a lake) way up in northern Guatemala. It is so beautiful here, and the weather is amazing. I have been swimming in the lake every afternoon because it gets really hot up here. So after my last day of school and my salsa dancing lesson in Antigua, I took a bus to Rio Dulce (sailor central!). It's a little port town on the edge of a river [View Full Entry]

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Saturday morning, after a long night of Cuba Libres and dancing, I discovered that my body had become accustomed to getting up at 6:30 in the morning… only a few short hours after I’d gone to bed. I managed to fall back asleep for a while until it was time to get up and hike up to The Alquimista, a vegetarian restaurant located in the hills overlooking Xela. It was supposed to be a relaxing day of yoga, mayan sauna and healthy veggie food. However, the yoga didn’t happen since we hadn’t warned the instructor that we’d be coming to the [View Full Entry]

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Well I had received several emails from home asking whether I was back from the expedition safe and sound, so rest easy because I´m OK. I had some trouble publishing my last entries before departing for the jungle so I hope everyone read those OK. Sorry to all my devoted readers who are struggling with my spelling mistakes, I blame my lack of formal education, these keyboards, lack of Outlook for spell checking and time constraints on the pay computers. I´m not sure who sent the anonymous comment about the filming location of Raiders of the Lost Ark (which is in [View Full Entry]

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I arrived in Guatemala a week ago yesterday... It already seems like much longer even though I feel as though time has been flying by! I guess that's just another contradiction of travelling... or maybe it's because I've been up before 7am everyday since I got here... I started Spanish classes on Monday, to try and jolt my brain into remembering the months of courses I've already taken spread out over the past six years in Spain, Canada and Guatemala. Besides this ''formal'' training, I'm also brushing up on ''street'' Spanish, hanging out with Guetemalan friends I had met on my [View Full Entry]

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Yesterday I began my trip to Tajamulco, after bussing for 4 hours I came at the starting point of the ascent. Only a couple of locals around who were surprised that I would try to climb this vulcan solo. Not only of going up solo but also with the weather conditions. Clouds everywhere, the cold temperature and ofcourse the strong winds. After 2 hours I really was thinking what am I doing here, not the cold, but the visability especially. The last 30 minutes lasted so long. I just got a glimpse of the summit a bit before, It did´t look [View Full Entry]

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So we paid our guide today for the 6 day excursion into unknown jungles, and were quite happy to find we have a genuine guide who in fact does not speak a word of english. Should be interesting. Guess well push our spanish learning into high gear. We were all happy to find out we leave at 5 am tommorow...NOT Anyways, we have a donkey and were not sure what to name it yet, somebody to manage the donkey (havent figured out a name for him yet) and our guide. We bring prettymuch nothing with us besides two pairs of pants [View Full Entry]

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Well we signed up for a trip today to see the Tikal ruins. For more information on these Id suggest you just google it, but in the meantime I will recount our delightful trip in the jungle. We woke up at 4:30 AM in Flores, so that we could catch our bus at 5am. This was to get to the ruins for sunrise, but holdups and late people prevented that from happening. The bus was packed, no room at all so numbness in my more lengthy limbs occured quickly but more pleasantly than expected. Then this guy beside me fell asleep [View Full Entry]

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Well we did it... finally the first country NONE of us have been too. We woke up at 6am and the goof that picked us up demanded 700 more pesos. We argued and cursed and told him to phone the guy at the bar we bought the tickets from (seriously) we drove into Palenque and it was "miraculously" sorted out. Good. Done with Mexico! We drove for awhile to an amazing breakfast. Did I mention it was an amazing breakfast? Ok let me explain this, back a few hours prior I was woke up at 5:30 AM from the alarm on [View Full Entry]

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Buenos Tardes! Well I just got back from climbing Pacaya, an active volcano about 1 and half hours or so out of Antigua. It was quite the journey! It took about two hours to get up, and all though that does´t seem like a long time, when you are climbing straight up it's quite the workout. It was especially hard hiking it in my jean skirt! I took all my dirty laundry to the laundromat yesterday and forgot to take my jeans out of the bag so I could wear them today. It was something like 7 km up or may [View Full Entry]

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I arrived in Quetzaltenango (or Xela) from the capital yesterday. The bus ride in was a little longer than usual given the state of the roads after hurricane Stan and its resulting landslides. In the few places where the Interamerican highway had been completely washed out, new one-lane detours had been built to by-pass the collapsed portion of the old road, making two-way traffic impossible and creating line-ups and waits. The continuing clean-up and reconstruction effort was evident along the highway and although we didn't pass through the most affected areas (Lago Atitlan, San Marcos and [View Full Entry]

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