Hotel San Carlos Guatemala City

... over into the aisle. This has also happened in two restaurants because the tables were too low and the chairs too high. Anyways after getting off the bus when it stopped and defintely not being near where I needed to be I got on another bus that someone assured me went to "el centro". I got off when everyone else got off in what seemed to me to be a "centro" looking place. I proceded to follow my map in my travel guide. However, as I became intimately ...

... at every meal...I honestly donīt understand how she can make even the simplest dishes taste so spectacular. I will discuss more about the food in my next entry. 2) Heidi--the eleven year old daughter in the family. She and I have bonded over pirated Disney dvds (such as Up) and horrible Thai childrenīs movies (dubbed in Spanish, of course) that seem to be popular in these parts. She is perfectly adorable and I canīt wait to see what movie she has in ...

... them. Also saw some coatamundi (like raccoons) running around which really gave this new area a sense of the wild.

After a couple of hours touring around to different temples and living areas, we arrived at the center of Tikal...Temple I and Temple II. It was amazing to see the expanse of the plaza with the temples on each side while we were standing on top of the ...

Today is our last day in Guatemala and our last day in port for the voyage. We got up at 6:30am just 2.5 hours after we headed to bed and packed our bags. A hiking company came to pick us up at 7am so that we could hike the active volcano, Pacaya, before heading back to the ship. Thirteen of us squeezed into an eleven person minibus and we drove an hour and a half to the base of the volcano. Once there we ...

... and the people were amazingly friendly. Lisa was accosted by a Hispanic woman for talking to her husband... that was funny J Snorkelling was hard with a burnt front part of my body. Also my feet were pretty badly burned. When i put my flippers on they were full of sand. My god i hit the roof, but it did not deter me though, as I snorkelled thru the pain............Arrrgggggg!!!!! Got ...

... that Mika was actually a man. The last time I took a boat trip across a lake in Latin America - Lake Titicaca - the crossing was incredibly rough. This time it was fine, despite it being a much smaller boat. We got off the boat at the village of San Pedro, on the edge of Lago de Atitilan (a big lake). San Pedro is a nicely set village, at the foot of a volcano and the edge of a lake, but itīs very touristy. There ...

... main plaza. Total chaos. I have never seen 3 butch men playing the marimba. The marimba is like a massive xylophone. They say it originated here, but weīre not sure. All the tunes sound like the soundtrack to a nintendo gameboy. Hit the market for lunch. Typical crazy latin american market, lot of people shouting. Food was cheap and ...

... to get home early. Sunday will be a very long day, ending with a drive home from DC. We had a nice breakfast of cereal and juice this morning. After that we went to the worksite to say goodbye to everyone. We got a good group picture. When we got there the masons and some volunteers from two churches were staging to start the 11th course of block. Some were mixing mortar and others were ...

... you could stop by my webpage and donate $5 or $10 or something. What may not seem like much to you could go a long way down here. It would be a heck of a Christmas present if I could tell the 40 families of El Zapote that we ...

... on every door or little opening, even bars and paddocks on the doorbells. There was absolutely nobody, not even a live soul out after dark starting at about 6 pm. Very scary. I went to the "shopping center/mall/cinema/entertainment plaza for the evening (when in a big city, you have to do what big cities have to offer). I went to play bowling and see total control at the theatre. In the taxi back, driving through those empty streets at night was something. I arrived ...