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Published: February 15th 2010
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The chicken bus
Reto, old school american style buses, the paintwork on each one is different and they are incredible Hi welcome to my travel blog,
After changing my flight three times due to the snow and then getting stranded in Dallas having missed my connection I was excited to finally arrived in Guatemala to start my trip! I'm not sure how good I'll be at updating my blog but will try to write at least twice for every country I visit.
Guatemala is amazing. After an eventful journey here I have quickly settled in to the Latin American way off life! I also have found out how it feels to be tall!! At the moment I am living with a guatemalan family in Antigua learning Spanish and salsa dancing! Antigua is a beautiful city with amazing architecture, cobbled streets and many students studying Spanish. It feels a pretty safe place to walk around in the day... not so at night! My "family" are lovely... very patient with my Spanish when I lose the word I need mid sentence and resort to hand gestures! The food too is amazing although I may look like Guacamole by the time I return!I have started my second week at the Spanish school, and despite a few hiccups I'm understanding more and more
everyday, and can ask for pretty much everything I need now. Apparently however, when you get asked what you had for breakfast the correct answer is not "yo tengo veintiocho aƱos!!." Vocabulary here is hard, with the same word meaning different things. Today my teacher asked me why the Norwegian girl I live with was sick, and not knowing the word for fever I tried "she is hot" but although my coffee was "caliente" being sexy is not an illness! I felt better though when I found out my friend had eaten "wednesday" for breakfast!
Last week I climbed Volcano Pacaya. It was one of the most incredible experiences ever. It is a couple of hours hike to the top of what is a live volcano. The stick I bought for Q2 off of a small local child was "moi necesario" as it was really slippery and the volcanic rock is really sharp (as my trousers found out!). At the top however you are rewarded with views of larva spitting out and red hot rocks crashing down...perhaps a little too close for comfort. The photos don't really do justice to the experience especially as the sun starts to
My tortillas!
It's harder and stickier than it looks! set, and you can look out across a row of volcanoes which seem to be floating in the clouds. Some people had even brought marshmallows up to cook on the hot rocks! It was dark by the time we climbed down and left the cone glowing behind us.
This week we took a break from Antigua and headed to monterrico to practice our Spanish on the beach. Deciding to get the Camioneta or "chicken bus" as it's better known was an adventure in itself. Believing we changed once we actually changed three times then had to get a boat!! Not the most direct route but fun cramming a minimum of 3 people to every seat and trying to chat to the locals. The boat trip took us through the mangroves at sunset with loads of stork like birds taking off and much wildlife to be seen. There is definately worse places to study Spanish than lying in a hammock on the beach! Quite a few cerveza's were consummed in the evening as the place took on a party atmosphere! I am the only British student at my school mostly out numbered by Norwegians who take the mic out of
my "posh british accent" asking me for cups of tea all the time! But with lots of people also travelling on their own it is a really fun place to be. In the evening we went down on the beach to help release the baby turtles that have hatched in the local conservation centre after the eggs were rescued from the beach. Having swum in the sea earlier in the day and witnessed how strong the waves were I really hope some of them survived past the vicious surf break!
Now I am back in Antigua where it is freezing in the mornings and with hot showers just a distant memory, showering outside on the roof terrace at 6:30 can only be described as muy frio! Though with beautiful sunshine for the rest of the day one can not complain. Visiting vibrant and colourful markets, bartering for local produce, visiting tiny villages and making tortillas with the locals (which is not as easy as it looks!) are just some off the other things that are making my time here so special. I have already come to love the place and the people.
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