Monterrico

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Woohoo! Definately our favorite spot in Guatemala so far. We planned on staying and studying for 2 weeks and ended up staying for a month. It´s really great here. Monterrico is a hard place to describe because it is just a tiny quiet town right on the ocean during the week, but on the weekend tons of tourists come in to enjoy the beach. Personally I like it better during the week when we are the only whities roming the one street town. There were many many nights when we were the only people at our hotel. I think we don´t like other tourists anymore, slightly hypocritical seeing as how we are tourists, but its just the truth. The heat of Monterrico is something else. It was an average of 40 degrees and heaving humid air. It definately took some getting used to. During the whole month there wasn´t a single cloudy day.
We began a certain routine while in Monterrico. It went something like this. Wake up - eat a banana with peanut butter - go to school for 4 hours - eat lunch from chicken lady - go to the beach - go in the pool - hammock time - eat dinner from meat lady - drink licuados at the school - sit around - go to sleep. This worked quite well for us and we mastered it quite nicely. There were a few exceptions for this routine. Monterrico is on an island surrounded by mangroves so a friend took us out to show us around the winding canal. This was great and it seemed really simple to push the little boat with a long stick. (i know, sounds simple) So one day we thought to ourselves ¨hey, lets take the little boat out fishing by ourselves¨. So we asked our friend if we could use his boat, long stick, and fishing stuff. He reluctantly said yes. The normal choice of bait is small shrimp but there was no way I was getting in that brown water with a basket to catch them, so... I thought salchichas would catch a big one. Salchichas are hot dogs. It really didnt work and to top it off, meanwhile small boats filled with locals are driving by starring at the token white girls trying to catch fish with hot dogs. Even worse still, the current was pushing our small boat down stream at a faster rate than i could push with the long stick. Eventually we made it but never never again. never.
At the moment we are not in Monterrico but I can´t wait to get back.

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Photos

Going to the Beach
Our favorite daily activity. Beach time.

Hammock time
Ahh, maxin and relaxin in the hammocks.

The beach
This water might look nice, but beware, those waves can be vicious. You need to choose your swim times carefully. Rule of thumb - if locals are swimming, you can too.

La Palma Hotel
This is hotel number 2 of 3. It was cute and clean. We like clean. AND...you could do laundry there for a mere 20Q.

Mangroves
This is a path through the mangroves about a meter wide, just big enough to fit our little boat.

Mangroves 2
This is more of the mangroves, sadly the pictures don´t really do it justice. It´s really beautiful.

Kaimans
This is why we never hang any limbs out of the boat in the mangroves or canal.

El Mar
Approximently 2 minutes after a huge wave came and soaked me in my clothes.

Johnny´s place
We never stayed at this hotel, but we used their hammocks. They have good licuados.

Puesta del sol
We watched the sunset most nights on the beach as did most people, locals and gringos alike.

Our School
Proyecto linguistico Monterrico, this is where we went to school for 2 weeks.

Comments

[Georgie]

Great learning experience
Hi Girls, It looks like you are having a marvelous time learning the culture along with the language. I enjoyed reading about your travels so far. Have you been shopping much? Are you fluent in Spanish yet? How many attend the school with you?

[sessen]

cool
hey Kimia and Lauren, looks like your having a great time. Every thing's normal where i am. maybe when you get back you could teach me some of the language. See you in the summer. --sessen