Radisson Hotel And Suites Guatemala City

... I didn't want it done hastily just for my sake. Hopefully they will send me pictures that I can later share with you.

We did, however, celebrate the groundbreaking at the Xecnup school before I had to leave! It was a great time, and a great turnout by the community members. Xecnup currently has a two room schoolhouse in which more than 90 students are being educated, but the overpopulated school had another more than 120 kids who had ...

... I sleep for what I think is all day. I get up and figure that I missed lunch and wander around a little bit to find food. I manage to get three small bags of chips and a bottle of water for $1 US. Back at my hotel room lunch arrives. They told the restaurant where I was and what room I was in!

I sleep all afternoon as well.

Everyone returns from the work sites and we ...

... concrete. It{s definitely low skill labour.

But my eyes are bothering me enough that I leave the site and head back to the hotel. I basically sleep the afternoon away. Now that{s my idea of a vacation! Minus the eye pain part of course.

I miss the orphanage visit that was scheduled for the afternoon. I{m not too bummed out because I find them really hard to ...

... into a large open space. In this open space they were building a Habitat house. To be honest, this sounds a little ´ritzy´ for Habitat but I´m not in the Donor Relations department.

The family is very nice. It{s a husband and wife. The husband works on site every day. The wife brings us juice or drinks every day at around ten thirty. They have a son, Eric who is learning English. They ...

... onto the floor. The toilet also leaks. On the plus side the hot water heater is on the shower head so we won´t run out of hot water. Assuming we don´t get electrocuted of course.

We head out for lunch at what turns out to be our main eating establishment. We will be eating breakfast and dinner at this location and will have lunches brought ...

... squeezed" is particularly apt - the American man to my left was extremely large. Tom was sat next to a stunning Ecuadorean lady, which enabled him to get his second Hispanic e-mail and phone number of the trip. Rather bizarrely, she gave him a pack of cigars. Initially I thought that this was bizarre. But as we came through customs, past a pair of excitable sniffer dogs, I wondered if there really were cigars. I gave Tom a wide berth and ...

... y nos fuimos a dar una vuelta...



Por la mañana seguimos el consejo de la francesita y después de desayunar en el mercadito agarramos rumbo al volcán Pacayá, después de 3 buses y un par de horas llegamos y no había nadie cobrando la entrada, subimos durante una hora en compañia de una perra traicionera llamada Panfila. A lo lejos se veía la lava pero hacía mucho frío, yo iba en shorts y Leyva en Pijama así que volvimos abajo ...

... so got out of the airport quickly. Victor from Dos Lunas was waiting for me, my cell phone was still working, and things were good. Now I am relaxing before dinner and wondering when Juan de Dios will arrive. I made a quick call to Lisa to let her know I arrived safely. It was good to hear her voice. Juan de Dios arrived about 4pm so I have no worries about getting to El ...

... was completely deserted and we were far from civilisation - and eventually I walked across to it with Michelle, her mum and a few other women from the bus to eat and use the loo (this was a safety measure as none of them would leave the coach alone or even in pairs once it was dark) then we went back to wait in the bus and waited for a couple more hours until eventually the road cleared behind us and we drove to Guatemala City ...

... gone, with a few notable exceptions, Bali foremost among them. Any local product that does sell well the Chinese can, and do, just knock off at half the price. The usurped become the usurpers, and yesterday’s prey become today’s predators.

So I go back to a place that once seemed liked home, to see what became of it. But that’s not Guatemala City. That’s Lake Atitlan, out in the Western Highlands. First I’ll ...