Grand Tulip Innkal Futura Hotel Guatemala City

and caught a bus to Chichi. Sort-of.
First, was pointed towards a taxi who told me it'd cost $75 to get to Chichicastenango. I'd heard the most I'd have to pay was $30. But he warned me about the unsavory nature of the "publicos" and their "ladrones" (thieves). Then we came up with an alternate idea... he'd take me to Antigua (former capital) for $25, then I could catch a bus for $5 to Chichi from there.
...

... smoothly while I am in the States.

And thanks to you all and your astounding support, as well as the incredible effort of the people of El Zapote and the timely support of their local mayor, the school in that village is completely finished!! My very last days in Guatemala were spent working at that school, painting and putting the piping for the latrines in. I took some photos of my last days there, which you will see in the photo ...

... chicken. Move over KFC, you have competition!

We head back to the hotel pack and head to the ferry. We split into two groups. The first group has no idea where are going. The second knows. This happens by accident of course. I am in the first group. We head to the ferry stop that we know about. We wait. And wait. And wait. No sign of the second group. Yep, you guessed it: wrong ferry stop. We grab our gear and ...

... s. Malgré tous ces petits inconvénients et sur les conseils des routards français de la veille, on en chope un (tu dis où tu vas et tu montes dedans ;)) Oula la conduite est .... osée... à fond, il double n'importe quand, s'agrippe à la portière dans les virages pour ne pas tomber... ne ralentit pas quand la route devient mauvaise ...

... younger...what is happening to us..!!! They also run this odd buffet system. We should all be going into the village to eat the local food but the buffet is too enticing. We all sit together like in an alpine chalet and a guy rings a bell and we all surge forward like we've been starved or in prison. It's quite remarkable how it makes you behave. The food is delicious. Oh how we got sucked in. And if you are vegetarian you get to go first ...

... having discovered that he had a delicate constitutions I didn't take him that seriously. We got to the top of the mountain and he stopped the car and said that he needed to prepare himself for the decent!!!!! I didn't really know what to think, the guide book hadn't mentioned anything about danger on entering Antigua so I felt pretty calm. Once Ivan had had time to compose himself, wipe his brow and hands 2-3 times ...

... the next few days, you know who to thank. The hot springs themselves were just what we needed. There were three pools: a hot, a medium and acold (a cold "hot spring"?!?). We got straight into the hot pool, but it was way too hot. Especially for my extensive sunburn. I tried to persuade Tom to move into the medium pool, but he is a bit of a massachist and insisted on staying in the boiling pool. At least until the group of Norweigan ...

... done by guys going through the country on horseback, roughly guessing. It gave a really interesting view of the changes in elevation through the country and the different ecological areas. Our guide for the day was the professor who'll be teaching our geography class, Professor Castillano. He provided some great insight into all sorts of things about the country. Our next stop was the central square. I'd seen pictures of the palace, the fountain, and ...

... the Canadians were pursuaded to get back in by the promise that the fireman would follow us...which he did for 5 minutes then disappeared!! ha ha So we did eventually manage to climb the volcano. On the way up the view was stunning. We could see another active volcano puffing away in the distance as well as a couple of dead ones. It was still daylight when we reached the lava and as the sun set it got really really cold up there, but ...

... turned around and asked all the passengers if they'd rather go back or, 'for a bit extra,' take an alternate dirt road to another village and change buses (again) in order to get to Hue-hue - where I had to transfer again to get to Xela. Everyone opted for option number two and here we were going down the dirt road with the big American school bus. It was an amazing path up and down hills through small villages and on flooded muddy corners. Even the locals were in awe ...