Hotel Galindo Panajachel

... a sleeping bag, safe and quiet, the sounds of voices become distant and muffled as the day fades away. <br><br>In between...lots of work. I have gone from living the vida loca in Xela, salsa dancing late into the night to living the vida campasina here in Alianza. I wake up early to be at work either picking coffee or working in the processing plant. I work about 8 hours, with a break for lunch, and drag my tired body home around 5 to make ...

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... television, but didn't know that you could see<br>them up close in real life. Even if American kids have never been to<br>the aquarium, they've definitely seen dolphins on tv and know that<br>aquariums exist. She's also never driven a car or been to the movies.<br>Like we said in our last blog entry, things like that just make you see<br>the world a little bit differently. <br><br>Alright, enough thinking (this hippie air is really getting to us!), we're off to salsa class.. wish us luck

... Loofi at 17 was the eldest and had just graduated from high school, and Ada Marie who at 10 was the youngest in the family. They also had their cousin, Anderson, staying with them from Guatemala City, and their grandmother who spoke absolutely no Spanish, only Mayan dialect. <br><br>Now Lynda had only been in the country for a week so her Spanish only consisted of words like no, si, por favour and gracias. I had been travelling for 2 months through ...

After we finished classes on Friday, John and I made our way down to the Mercado Minerva in Xela, where we hunted down a bus headed towards Panajachel. I say hunted because, unlike modern bus terminals, this one (and many others in Central America) consisted of a large parking lot with lots of old US school buses. Known locally as ´chicken buses´ these buses are typically painted in bright colors, then packed to the gills with people and, perhaps, the goods ...

So, we arrived in San Pedro La Laguna about a week ago today...and<br>well, it's an interesting place. A little too hippie touristy for my<br>likes; however, it's the so called place to be and it is our home for<br>the next month. We have rented an apartment here and are studying<br>Spanish feverishly trying to get to at least a 8 years olds level<br>before leaving. Yeah, I sure wish I could recall most of what I learned<br>in Spanish in High School. <br><br>Our apartment is nice ...

... mother, Sara, agreed that this is a great remedy. I take 12-15 drops in water or juice and force it down; two doses yesterday and one this morning. But, ta-daa, I feel better today! Yesterday was quite boring, I cannot understand how one could spend more than 4 hours watching TV, but I couldn't do much except groan and stay in the fetal position. I watched "Scoop" (Woody Allen), "Dangerous Minds", ProjectRunway, National Geographic Special on ...

... a nerd. This probably comes as no shock to anyone else apart from me, but I was pretty impressed with myself as I memorised verb after verb to recite to my teacher (mi Maestro) the next day. However, by Wednesday afternoon I was exhausted so we decided not to continue with the Spanish lessons so it was time to say adios to my Spanish group and teacher and turn to planning the massive trek across the mountains and volcanoes to San Pedro. But before that there was the matter ...

... 3700m d altitude). La ville est remplie de cafe et de boutiques touristiques, c est tres joli. Nous avons fait l ascension du volcan Pacaya (sommet 2552m, nous avons monte jusqu a 2400m), un volcan encore actif ou on peut voir une coulee de lave. La randonnee se faisait en 5h environ et nous avions une vue sur 2 autres volcan et sur Guatemala city. Nous nous sommes rendus jusqu a la coulee de lave. Nous avions un guide et tout s est bien ...

... and hindu related activities. All the hotels are near the shore, but uphill is the actual town. There is a church, school, a central park... <br><br>We took our boat back to San Pedro to pickup our stuff and head to Panajachel. However, the trip back was kind of suprising. When we were going in direction to san pedro, there was a boat stopped in the middle of the lake. It had ran out of gasoline, so our boat, which had plenty of space went to ...