Un Fin de Semana Perfecto

---

Dias 6, 7, & 8
I can’t believe a week has already gone by! The last three days have been action packed, and this city continues to amaze me with all the wonderful and exciting things it has to offer!
Friday I woke up panicked to what I thought was gunshots. Turned out, the deafening banging sounds I heard outside my window at 6:15 AM weren’t in fact gunshots, but were firecrackers. Firecrackers for Dia de Los Padres, or Father’s Day. Firecrackers are more common here than you can imagine- I’d say even on a normal day, I hear them in the streets about 4 times a day! There’s a tradition here to set firecrackers off outside someone’s window on their birthday, to wake them up. And there’s also a tradition to set them off in huge numbers on any and all holidays. Friday was a pretty loud day, but it was festive and I didn’t mind as soon as I realized it wasn’t a showdown outside my window  I went to class, where we worked on grammar, chatted, and I learned some idioms, or common phrases in Spanish. I thought it was funny that some of the expressions are exactly the same as in English- for example, they say “tirar la toalla”, or throw in the towel, when you give up on something that is too hard. Some are very different though.. like “estar en callegon sin salir”, which means to be at a dead end of a road.. which means about the same as to be up a creek without a paddle. After our snack, where I tried chocolate covered papaya today (better than I expected!), we played a game called bananagrams, which is a little like scrabble. You have little tiled letters but there is no game board… you build words but as you continue to draw letters you can take apart previous words to make new ones. It’s sort of hard to explain, but it’s kind of like complicated scrabble.. but it was incredibly hard in Spanish! I can think of words when I need them for a specific reason, but to have a cluster of letters and try to pull words out of thin air? Much different! It was fun nevertheless, I hope to try again a little later and see if it gets easier!
After lunch we met back up at the school around 4 for a cooking lesson! Gladys, theowner of the school, and her mother, “el Corazon de la casa” (the heart of the house) showed us how to make a tradition mayan sauce called pepian. It is a sauce made from bread, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, oil, tomato, onions, and a few other things.. it looked like a lot of work (we mostly watched while Gladys mixed and explained) but the end result was DELICIOUS. A nutty, creamy sauce similar to mole, which we put over chicken. It seems like most people boil their chicken here, and it’s actually really yummy! It always turns out very moist… I wonder why we don’t boil chicken more in the US? I’m gonna try it when I get home… After dinner we all went out together to a place called “Smoothies y Rum.” They have a really cool room in the back that has very bohemian décor with a bunch of pillows on the floor that you sit on. We had a few drinks before out first salsa lesson, which was a total blast! Those of you who know me well know that I have ZERO rhythm, so I was pretty intimidated by the idea of dance lessons… it was definitely a struggle, I’m not going professional any time soon.. but it was fun anyways! We learned a few basic steps, 2 types of spins, and a few other small moves. The teacher, Erika, also teaches Spanish at our school and was really nice nad fun to work with. We rotated around between partners constantly, and we quickly discovered Stephen was secretly a great dancer! Afterwards he admitted he had taken a semester of ballroom dancing nad had gone salsa dancing a few times with friends, and he made us look like amateurs on the dance floor! ( which I guess we technically are…haha). Erika told me my homework for the week for salsa was to walk around on the balls of my feet to work on my balance, cuz I almost fell over a few times trying to spin  We all like the lesson so much we are gonna see if we can sign up for extra lessons outside what the program offers. After salsa, we went out on the town to expkore Xela’s nightlife. We went to a bar in El Pasaje Enrique where we chatted and got free popcorn with our drinks. It was a lot of fun, even though I’ve only known these guys a week we are all becoming really good friends! After the bar we went to a discotech (dance club) for about an hour before heading home.
Saturday morning, we met at the school at 8 AM for a fieldtrip led by Eduardo, Gladys’s brother. Rachel, another student studying at the school who is a college student from Ohio, and Morgane, an incoming first year at keck who is in Xela for 3 weeks of language lessons, came with the four of us. We walked a ways to the chicken bus station and took a quick ride to the edge of the city. Chicken buses are VERY common here in Guatemala- they are basically old, run down school buses from the US that have been replaced or deemed unsafe.. so they are driven down here, repainted in wild, vibrant colors (think pink, orange, green, blue, etc… each has their own name and extra decorations as well! Every single one is different!). These buses do everything from short treks within the city to long hauls to places like Guatemala City, and are very economical. The thing about chicken buses, though, is you have to be willing to get very up close and personal with your fellow Guatemalans. They are normal sized bus seats, but when the bus is crowded, everyone sits 3 to a seat, sometimes 4 to a seat. Maybe you are thinking- hey, I used to do that, what’s the big deal? Don’t forget you were a CHILD when you used to sit 3 to a seat.. as adults, it’s very .. cozy haha… The funniest thing to me is they don’t even ask. As people load on, they sort of just shove you over and sit, or sometimes even put their kids on your lap. The buses get realy packed to the point that people stand in the aisles sometimes. And many people, especially artisans carrying their wares, will throw their stuff on top of the bus or carry it on their heads.
After taking our chicken bus, we waited a few minutes for a pick-up truck at the bottom of a winding dirt road. We paid about 50 cents each for a 10 minute ride in the back of a pick-up truck that deposited us at the foot of a steep mountain called Las Muelas, which translates to the molars.. because this mountain and its neighbors are laden with sharp rocks at their peaks that resemble teeth. We start our trek up the bottom of the mountain on foot, which is just a steep walk up a winding road. Poor Morgane almost immediately started feeling woozy and altitude sickness hit her pretty hard. By the time we reached the rocky part of our climb she was feeling faint, so she decided to stay behind as we went on. From our dirt path we passed ont a steep collection of large boulders, which we climbed with relative ease. As we made it higher and higher, the path started to get more and more difficult. Finally, we reached a place where two vertical rocks with about a 75 degree angle between them seemed to be our only way up.. and we were already on a platform of rocks about 50 feet up from the ground below. The boys shimmied up like spiderman, wedging themselves between the rocks and pressing outwards. Rachel and I each attempted for about… half a second? And gave up  Eduardo helped us make our way around to an easier path around the back. The rocks had progressively turned form boulders to smaller, volcanic looking rocks. We pressed on until we were forced to climb a nearly vertical ledge about 15 feet high, which was probably the scariest part of the trip.. but somehow we made it! And the view that waited for us at the top? Absolutely one of the most spectacular views I’ve ever had. You could see all of Xela below us, as well as many towns on either side of the valley in which it is nestled. Fluffy white clouds peeked out from behind a ridge a few miles from our peak, but the sky was perfectly clear and gaves us an incredible 360 degree view of all below us. I tried to capture the moment with my camera over and over, but the pictures just don’t do it justice. We goofed around a took a bunch of pictures, then headed back down to meet back with Morgan. The precarious trip back down was arguably scarier than the trip up, filled with almost-falls and slippery stretches of rubble.
By the time we got back down, we were pretty tuckered out and glad to be heading to our next destination, Los Baules. We took another pickup to arrive at a very isolated, rustic inn. The entire day I thought we were headed to hot springs, but these turned out to be natural saunas instead. With some volcanic activity nearby, there are many places near Xela where hot, steamy air simply spews from the ground. At a few of these locations, people have built small caves/rooms to capture this steamy air. The place we went, our sauna looked a little bit like a small torture chamber. It was fully enclosed cement/plaster with a large hole that opened straight to the ground. There was a small hole cut through to the sky to allow some light in. The owners periodically brought in large branches of Eucalyptus leaves to give the steam an herbal, earthy flavor, and the result was incredible! It was incredibly relaxing and soothing, but it was so hot I had to periodically enter and leave every few minutes! The warm, thick air was incredibly calming, but after a few minute my body would heat up to the point that I felt like I couldn’t breathe… so I’d jump out to get some fresh, cold air, then jump back in  WE did this for about half an hour, then rinsed ourselves off in cold water and dried off. It was JUST what we needed after our long hike 
We walked home in a bit of rain, but it was a beautiful walk through beautiful fields of flowers. By the time we got back to the language school, we were all EXHAUSTED. We went out separate ways for a few hours, and I napped, read my book (book 2 of the hunger games series!), showered, and had dinner with Gladys because Julia went to visit her son in Guatemala City. After dinner I went with Morgane, Mike, and Matt to check out Bajo la Luna, a small wine and cheese bar located right below La Luna Café. I had a hot chocolate and Matt tried a mango licuado. Licuados are sort of like smoothies, but not made with ice.. they are creamy, frothy drinks made with blended fruit and a little milk or water. You can get there anywhere and everywhere here, and for very cheap. We stayed out for about ab hour and then went home to sleep because we were all completely dead tired.
This morning was another early morning—we met at the language school at 7 to go to a small town called Chichicastenengo, where a huge market is held every Thursday and Sunday. We walked partway before catching a “microbus,” which is essentially a minivan that’s somewhere between a taxi and a bus. These microbuses usually have a normal route they take with a final destination. They cost less than 15 cents to take. An “ayudante,” or helper, is always leaning out the van yelling out the destination. Often times they do this while leaning out the open sliding door of the car, hanging outside as we are moving. These buses, like the chicken buses, require you to be VERY comfortable with your neighbor, and are often seen packed to the point that handfuls of people hang out the doors to fit. Our ride on the microbus brought us to El Terminal, the bus terminal on the edge of town where you can buy fruit, fake Abercrombie clothes, and used shoes. You can also catch a chicken bus to almost anywhere in Guatemala. Luckily we were right on time to catch a chicken bus direct to Chichi. The buses that leave from terminal have an extra but of entertainment compared to the chicken buses that run only within the city. While you wait for the bus to leave, dozens of vendors come on and off the bus, trying to peddle their wares. From young children to old men and women, these people pushily try to sell you everything from gum to fried plantains, from water bottles to pens. Some sell magazines and trinkets, while others sell tamales or sweets. My favorite, though, was they guy who was selling a “magic salve.” He jumped on the bus with great conviction, and assertively grabbed the attention of the whole bus with his booming voice. He began with a bible quote, them pulled out a tiny jar about the size of a lip balm. He went on and on about the miracles that could be realized with his magic concoction- simply rub a little of it on your head when it hurts, and poof! Headache gone! Your tooth hurts? This will fix it! He even went on to say if you rub it on the belly button of a child who wets the bed, they will stop wetting the bed. His schpeel went on and on, getting more ridiculous by each minute. I tried really hard not to smirk, but I couldn’t help myself. And, to my disbelief, he actually sold 3 jars!! I wish I had bought a jar just to be able to imitate him for you all when I get home 
After a pretty precarious 2 hour bus ride (the chicken bus drivers are well known to take curves at full speed) we finally arrived in Chichi around 10 AM. We descended into a very bustling, busy market filled with lots of beautiful, handmade wares. There were dozens and dozens of stalls filled with carved wooden masks, embroidered table runners, colorful scarves, turquoise jewelry, decorated machetes… Many stalls sold trajes, the traditional Mayan skirts and blouses. Children and women bustled through the crowd, practically attacking you with their toys and scarves, pleading you to buy one. Like most markets like this, it is ESSENTIAL to bargain if you decide to buy something. I don’t want to give away the souvenirs I bought, but let’s just say I paid less than half of the first asking price on everything I bought  It was a blast, and I found osme really unique handmade things that I am really excited to bring home. After shopping a bit, we headed over to the town’s cemetery, which was strikingly beautiful. With so much rain here, it is customary for people to be buried above ground, and often in mausoleums built for entire families. Most of these structures were painted with vivid, bright colors of pink, aquamarine, and spring green. And a large portion of the graves were adorned with fresh flowers. Many people here in Guatemala go every Sunday to put fresh flowers on the graves of their families and loved ones. Most graves have built in shelves for these flowers.
WE had lunch in a café with a good view of the church near the central park, which was originally built int eh 1500’s and still stands beautiful today. After lunch we took a chicken bus back to Xela, and it was a LOT more crowded than the way there- I sat three to a seat almost the entire way. I was pretty tired when I got back, but gave my Dad a call on Skype to wish him a happy father’s day and catch up a bit. I already miss all of you so much, but I am having so much fun that thankfully I don’t have much time to dwell on it  I am headed to bed now, but am excited to be starting another week in this beautiful city! Buenas noches!!

---