Blogs from Western Highlands, Guatemala, Central America Caribbean - page 96

Q: Were there guardrails on that curvy, mountainous road? A: The quality of the road was actually very good. Part of the Pan-American Highway runs through Guatemala (it starts in Alaska and ends in Chile), so the road is well maintained. However, this past week we had a lot of mudslides and part of the highway has washed out. There are now long detours, so the time from Guatemala City to Xela is now 7-8 hours instead of 4-5 hours. Q: How about the cooking? What type of stove and fuel? A: My host mother cooks everything on top of her gas stove. I don´t think she can bake, because it is very expensive to run the gas stove. Xela has tons of bake shops and places that sell cakes and other sweets. My favorite bakery ... read more

Hola guys! First email out of guatemala. Please excuse the atrocious typing to come, most of the letters have rubbed off the keyboard ( how I wish I had learnt touch typing!) nad some have been replaced in twink but not always correctly. Jamie and I arrived in Xela (pronounced shay-la) our final destination after a long but not entirely unpleasant journey via auckland and LA. spent an after noon sleeping on the grass by samta monica beach (aka Baywaytch Beach) and was surprised to open my eyes and find myself staring up at a Pohutakawa tree ( I wonder what they call them in american?)Guatemala city seemes like an interesting, if not exceedingly grotty, city, but we didn{t stay long. I was glad to sleep most of the bus ride to Xela as Janie informes ... read more

So away we go chasing Quetzals. Quetzals while being the basic unit of money in Guatemala are also large trogons of Central America and South America having golden-green and scarlet plumage and long tails. The latter are beautiful birds virtually impossible to find the former are common gold coins which are virtually worthless. So far we have merely managed to get our hands on a few of the coins. We arrived in Xela (Shay-La) yesterday pretty shattered. The twelve hour flight from NZ to LA went without hitch. I (Jamie) was stoked with the new Air NZ entertainment system, plenty of games including who wants to be a millionaire... We also got to watch the Southern Traverse 2005 for the humour value. Arriving in LA we decided to visit Santa Monica beach, much to our surprise ... read more

well its good to hear from the tikal crew. weve just retruned from chichicastenango, otherwise known as chichi, famous for its glorius sunday market and mix of pre christain and catholic religiousity. the shuttle ride tehre was fine, except we were forced to stop at the guatemalanb equivalent of a dennys for about 40 minutes- we figured that the dirvers (there were lost of shuttles there!) got free meals for brining in their "willnig" customers. they had a playground, which cedar liked, and clean bathrooms, which the rest of us liked. on to the market, the roads in guatemala- pretty nice condition, really, but at 30% grades and steeper, with- literally- 250 degree turns- we couldnt believe that fully loaded 50 year olds school buses and semis were taking this thing. it would never pass any ... read more

I feel that I am adapting well to life here in Quetzaltenango. I have quickly fallen into a routine. My day usually starts at 6:00am, with me waking up to the sounds of cars on the street. For two days now, a car has parked itself near my house, and has blared its horn while waiting for the person to come outside. I usually lay in bed and think about my plans for the day and start to review my spanish. I get up at 7:00 and study for about an hour at my desk. In my room I have a desk with a small lamp, and full sized bed, and a set of small shelves where I lay my clothes on. My host family has decorated my room with various paintings, rocks and figurines of ... read more