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Published: June 13th 2006
La Merced
A beautiful church in AntiguaIt's been a little while since I've posted on the blog here. I've arrived in San Pedro La Laguna, where I'll most likely be staying for a a few days, and maybe even up to a week. I am considering taking some Spanish classes here for a week or so, in order to hopefully increase my knowledge of Spanish to the point that I will be able to communicate with the locals effectively. I also think think that knowledge of Spanish might be important in the US in the future with the increase of Hispanic immigrants. Another reason is that I've found the act of learning the language so far to be quite enjoyable and I'm coming to think that knowledge of other languages is an important skill.
I'm somewhat conflicted about it though, because devoting a week here to taking Spanish lessons means that I will be taking another week away from ever-decreasing remaining time here, which ends on July 5. I think that it will be worth it, though. San Pedro seems like a nice place to spend some time, and it seems that there are lot of other international travellers here that are doing the same thing
that I am considering doing, so I think it will be ok.
After my volcano experience in Antigua, I wasn't ready to do much adventure tourism for a little while, so the following day I spent simply sight-seeing the town, looking at the various churches and church ruins, and climbing to a lookout point above the city, where I got a beautiful view of the town and some great photos.
The last night we were in Antigua, I decided to go out and check out a bar or two by myself because my friends I'm travelling with did not feel like going out, and I didn't feel like turning in yet myself. I ended up at this Irish pub kind of place called Reilly's, which had a lot of British and Americans in it. I ran into a couple of people from Kansas of all places, and plenty of Brits. It was kind of nice to go out by myself, actually, because I met a lot of people that night that I probably wouldn't have met if I had gone out with a crew. I ended up closing the bar with this drunk British guy who seemed like
La Recoleccion
A church in Antigua ruined by earthquakes. kind of a bum, the kind of guy that continually travels until the money runs out. We actually stayed until well after close.. the people that worked at the place didn't seem to care that there were 5 or 6 people still hanging around after the doors were closed. Everyone that worked there was a foreigner, and according to the British guy I was talking to, tourists would come and just end up working there for a few months basically for the fun of it. Before the bar closed, someone handed out fliers for an after-party at some random house on the other side of town. I considered going to it, and probably would have if there were other people with me that wanted to go, but I decided against it because it seemed kind of shady and I wanted to avoid going to a place like that as a solo foreigner.
We came to Panajachel the day before yesterday, which is a city on Lago Atitlan. Our main reason for staying in Panajachel was to make a day trip to Chichicastenango the following day, on Sunday, for the town's twice-weekly market day. Their market is a huge deal,
and apparently Mayan villagers from miles around will come to this market twice a week to peddle their wares. There were tons and tons of clothing, hand-made cloths, bags, all in beautiful, brightly-colored, intricate patterns. There were also all of the usual trinkets, along with food, and almost anything else you could imagine. It was quite an experience. I bought some stuff to bring back home as gifts.
There was a fairly bad flood that ocurred in Panajachel the first night we were there due to the torrential downpour. It was pretty insane. The Panajachel river overflowed it's banks.
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Miranda
non-member comment
Yuck.
Wow, your volcano adventure sounded pretty miserable. I'm glad you got over it fairly quickly. So, you'll never guess who I hung out with this past Saturday. Remember Sam Vaughn? YEAH. So, he went to Purdue, is doing grad school here at IU, and is engaged. I'm going to give him your e-mail address. Keep having fun, and hold on to your camera...sorry about that bad luck.