My New Best Friend; or The Sexuality of Loneliness; or Mom & Dad; or Sarita; or Salsa Rosa; or Adventures in San Pedro; or Volcán Santa María and the Mirador So, I have seven ideas for blogs; above are the titles. Some of them, such as “Adventures in San Pedro” “Salsa Rosa” or “Volcán Santa María and the Mirador” would mostly recount activities and events. “The Sexuality of Loneliness,” which will probably never get written, would mostly recount they ways in which I see intercultural relationships manifesting themselves and the consequences of [View Full Entry]

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Tourist hassle From Lanquin I went to a small town Flores. This was the first time I took one of the tourist shuttles. So the busride was less interesting but surely much faster. After six or seven hours we reached the destination. But just before the busdriver stopped at an ATM nearby and said the ATM’s at Flores didn’t work. Kind of strange, especially when I saw later that the ATM’s did work. The guy that stepped in the bus said he was from the same company and wanted to drop us at a hostel and most people followed him. Of [View Full Entry]

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So I took myself off towards the north west of Guatemela to a town called Quetzaltenango - mercifully abbreviated to Xela (pron. Shayla) by the locals - to learn spanish. It´s the second largest town here with a paltry population of 125,000 compared to the 7 million in Guatemala city! I loved Xela; it´s relaxed, not very touristy, has a strong student population and alot of music. The english speakers who go there to learn spanish tend to stay for longer in central America and be on more of a budget than in Antigua. It was kind of comforting to be [View Full Entry]

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We had wanted to meet up with our friends in Belize when we got wind that they were going to be in the Cayes, but unfortunately their plans put them in Placentia instead which would have been another 5 hours past Belize City for us, and would make for some miserable travel with only 1 or 2 days of seeing our friends. So we opted to do our own thing and go down to Rio Dulce instead, which is small town on the river of the same name, and was only 4-5 hour bus ride from Santa Elena. Once there, we [View Full Entry]

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Keep on moving In Quetzaltenango I met a guy from Switzerland and we walked around the city the same afternoon. One of the most interesting places was the marked. With so many stalls with food, shoes and clothes. In the evening we met two English girls and we went to an Indian restaurant. I was surprised there even was one. The food was delicious and it was fun to talk about travelling. The next day I went by bus to Huehuetenango. Every time on the bus it is so much fun to look around what’s happening and look at the beautiful [View Full Entry]

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Hola erstmal. Sprachschule ist kurz gesagt cool aber anstrengen. Muss noch viel lernen aber es ist schon eine kleine Verbesserung erkennbar. Xela wird von Tag zu Tag cooler. Hat viele Parks, kleine Restaurantes und Bars und vor allem gibts hier richtigen Kaffee....sonst hats bisher immer nur Instant-Bruehe gegeben. Schon komisch, im Land wo der Kaffee waechst trinkt man Instant-Coffee weil der meiste Kaffee nach Europa verkauft wird....bei den Fruechten ebenfalls, waehrend es hier gerade Probleme wegen einer schwachen Ernte und dadurch entstehnde Hungersnot gibt werden Obst und Gemuese exporti [View Full Entry]

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We must confess we hardly gave Guatemala city a chance. We arrived from San Pedro on Monday afternoon, September 21. About an hour later we were sheltering from the worst rain storm we had seen yet. The streets flooded in a matter of minutes. After an evening meal of decent pizza (again!) we left the dark and dangerous night and hid in our hotel until morning. We arose early, took a few pictures in the Parque Central, and then boarded a nice air-conditioned bus to Santa Elena. At the Santa Elena bus terminal, we were greeted warmly by a horde of [View Full Entry]

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Hello Everyone, Ive made it safe and sound, and heres my first blog entry. i know its long, so pick and choose what ya want. enjoy: Headlines 1) 30 min after take off, i was where i was going. 2) Spanish School/host family 3) first weekend: hiking the lagun and a wine in the book store adventure 4) on my way again, and everything else. 1) 30 min. after takeoff, I was where I was going we all travel for different reasons, and i think my favorite one is the social aspect of meeting new people. (and from there seeing and [View Full Entry]

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Just enjoyed a quick 3 day trip to Semuc Champey before I get down to some spanish studies and serious house-building! After another 7 hours in a bus, including the last 20km on an untarred road we finally reached the beautiful wilderness of this place. Stayed in an eco-lodge i.e. limited electricity, only cold water, and an "interesting" smell from the toilet. It's a beautiful national park with towering cliffs, jungles, and a bridge of limestone pools over a river. We swam and jumped from 1 pool to the next, and took ropes down and up waterfalls while I bravely avoided [View Full Entry]

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Early on, we had planned on 3 weeks for Guatemala. Now that almost 2 weeks had passed, we had another week to spend and had heard such great things about the Mayan ruins at Tikal and beautiful journey down Rio Dulce. We had also wanted to see the famous market at Chichicastenago, or Chichi, which was held every Thursday and Sunday. So we made a plan to stay a few extra days for the weekend in San Pedro, go to the Sunday market at Chichi via chicken bus, and then head to El Peten (the jungle area where Tikal is situated) [View Full Entry]

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