Posada de los Volcanes Panajachel

... Life here, generally, is good. People, including me, are happy. <br><br>I will probably be here another week in a half or so, back to Xela to run errands and visit friends for a couple days, and then I need to head towards Mexico or Guatemala City to renew my visa. Neither Guatemalan City or the Mexican border are my ideal destinations right in the midst of the coffee harvest when I want to be here working. <br><br>Pictures to come soon.

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... up about it. Maria also loved the idea of ice<br>hockey (though it was pretty hard to explain), and said she hopes to<br>see ice, and hockey, someday. After our lovey dovey bonding sesh, we<br>thought it'd be a good time to give Maria the gifts we had brought from<br>home. We gave her a cutting board and maple syrup (both made in CNY), a<br>Colgate University sweatshirt, and some books and pencils for the<br>ninas. She looked liked she ...

... and, for once, won´t look like total idiots. (note: this is a generalisation and I am sure there are lots that don´t fit the mould)<br><br>The boys, bless their hearts, really tried to salsa. The girls got into the beat relatively quickly but the boys struggled that bit more. Al stepped on a few of my toes and we had to count out loud how many steps we would do of all the different moves before changing over. However, the lack of dancing ability in the ...

September-October happenings&#8230;<br><br>Besides researching, revising web projects, and making contacts for AUDA,<br><br>I was hanging out around Lake Atitlan:<br><br>Hiking to San Jorge<br><br>Making lots of friends, and group dinners<br><br>Kickboxing and pilates with LuAnn<br><br>Hiking in San Pedro to a beautiful overlook and quiet beach<br><br>Kayaking in the lake to thermal waters<br><br>Staying overnight in San Pedro to enjoy the atmposphere (and enduring the torrential ...

... Guatemala and one of them is in a town near here. My teacher from school to me to visit him. The saints here can be really remarkable. I am really fascinated by the plurism of Maya religions and Catholicism. I mean, what did the Catholic conquistadors expect. Imagine if you were a Maya person and had never seen a white man before and your people have lived forever worshiping the mountains and sun and trees, and all the sudden they show up, kill a bunch of you friends and family ...

... who were on our boat tour yesterday &#8211; we spent 2 bus rides with them). I was rather pleasantly surprised when instead of the chicken bus I'd expected a nice looking coach pulled up. Once again we had our luggage tagged (I like it that they seem to really care that you get your own luggage in Guatemala!) and set off in rather comfy reclining seats! Needless to say we both managed some serious nape time on the 6 hour journey to Guatemala City &#8211 ...

... Reunited we shared food, laughs and jokes. <br><br>All too soon we were off again and the wide open path soon turned into another narrow and treacherous muddy trail with severe, steep switchbacks, but thankfully we were going downhill and were constantly confronted by amazing scenery. It truly was a Buena Vista with mountain ranges as far as the eye could see, waterfalls, valleys and rock faces, villages and cultivated fields carved out of the mountain slopes. The banter ...

... various locals creating sand paintings. Pablo and I stopped at the local market to grab something to eat before boarding the boat. <br><br> The final destination of the boat cruise is a little village San Antonio Palopo. At the boat, I could tell Liz was a little disappointed that we did not explore Santiago, together. I apologized to her for not sharing the guide services of Pablo. As we approached San Antonio, both ...

... Sacatepequez, Chimaltenango, Tecpan, etc., each town with both a Catholic AND an indigenous name, patron saints watching over each and every. It&#8217;s best to hedge your bets, I suppose, the more gods the better. The indigenous names themselves seemingly date from a previous central Mexican incursion, adding the -ango/-nango (&#8216;place of&#8217;) suffixes everywhere, though you&#8217;d be hard-pressed to find such endings anywhere on the map ...