Week 2 Cobán, via, San Pedro, Todos Santos, y mas

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  Cobán, Guatemala
Wednesday, March 22, 2006

¡Hola Folks!

Wow, nothing like a computer with an upside-down question mark ¿ and exclamation point¡. Since last we posted things have been pretty good, barring the more than occasional venture into the land of "oh man I wish I hadn´t have eaten that", if you know what I´m getting at.

First off, good news, no...great news! ¿Ready?

James was accepted to the Field Naturalist graduate program (his first choice) at the University of Vermont!!! (and then there was much rejoicing) We just found out this passed week. Super excited about it. Can´t wait. It should be great. WOOOOOO HOOOO! New England here we come!

01- Week 2: Self Portrait

That being said (woo hooo again), over the last few week and a half we´ve had a pretty varied experience. While still in San Pedro, we moved in with a local family for the week while we took spanish classes (one on one for 4 hours a day for 5 days, plus extracirricular stuff in the evenings). The family was awesome. It was Tina (our 2nd mom) who cooked TONS of food for 3 meals a day (most of which was wonderful, but James and I have both decided that we seem to have an "allergy" to frijoles negros). Then there was her husband, Ruben, who was a school teacher in the pueblo nearby, so we didn´t see a lot of him. They also had three kids, who are adorable and lots of fun to play with, Marvin (8), Evelyn (5), and Anna Maria (2.5). We saw a lot more of Anna Maria because the others were in school during the day (except for a 2 hour lunch break where they come home), and I learned lots of spanish from her...sadly, she knows more than us.

We had our own room in their house, which to us kind of resembled a motel. All the rooms open up to the outside, which was wonderful, being that the climate there is between 65 and 80 degrees F most of the time, and we were just passed the rainy season, so sun all the time. The kitchen had both a conventional stove-top oven and also a wood-fired stove for things like tortillas (which are not so great here in Guatemala, but we ate them with smiles at EVERY meal none-the-less). There was a shower with "agua caliente" in the house, which consisted of a shower head with this adapter on the head that heats the water via electricity as it comes out. Needless to say if you got to close to the head you did get a little shocked. The shower and toilet were both in the same concrete room with no separtation between the two... a bit different than at home

02 - Nicely constucted dock

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The school: The Coopertiva Escuela de Español (http://cooperativeschoolsanpedro.com/index.html) is phenominal. Very organized, good teachers, one-on-on instruction, and for our family stay, our 4hrs per day classes, plus salsa lessons, movies, and discussions on things like the recent civil war in Guatemala, the price of about $125 each was irresistable. I would highly reccommend it and the town of San Pedro de Atitlan to anyone.

We left San Pedro last Saturday to catch a bus to head for Todos Santos, a remote village in the highlands, known for good hiking and traditional dress. We spent ALL DAY on 3 different buses, one from San Pedro to Xela (pronounced Shay-la, but officially the name is Queztaltenango), then from there to Huehuetenango, and from there to Todos Santos. The last leg of which was about 2.5 hours, the first half on a paved road and the second half...lets just say not paved.

Now, Todos Santos is an interesting place. When we arrived Saturday afternoon, it was just passed market time for their biggest market of the week. The streets were filled with half drunk (and whole drunk, mind you) todosantoian men dressed all in shirts with massive colorful collars, red and white striped pants, and straw hats (think barbershop quartet but rounder on top) adorned with red belts and blue ribbons. Interesting. The small town of 3,000 left us somewhat wanting when we went looking for things to do around 7:00pm that night and EVERYTHING was closed. To top it off and to make matters worse, the mostly cold dinner we ate that night left me (Audrey) with what I will honestly call severe food poisioning

03 - View of San Pedro from the dock

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So, we left Todos Santos the next day, being that it is hard to hike when you can´t really move, and we returned to Huehuetenango for a day of me laying in bed and running to el baño and James being wonderful and taking care of me those times when I was awake.

That brings us about up to present. We left Huehue the next morning, with me feeling MUCH better. We took a bus from there to Sacapules where we had to stay the night in the only "hospedaje" in the tiny town, which was not very pleasant. Fortunately it was only one night. Then we thought we'd take a smaller 'mini-van' bus for the 5 hours it takes to get to Coban, where we are now. That turned out to be the worst ride yet. It was a van meant for about 15 people. When we left Sacapules, there were only about 6 in it. Along the way however we picked up more and more and more folks. It ended up there were 23 adults, 3 little boys, and a chicken in the bus for 6.5 hours (not the 5 we were told mind you). We also had a flat along the way which the men changed on a curvy mountain road without letting us out of the vehicile.

But, we´re here now, safe and happy and having a grand time

04 - Grandfather Tree

. We walked about a mile and a half this morning to see what was supposed to be an amazing orchid farm with like 200 types of orchids, but unfortunately there are no flowers on the plants after about mid-February...so poo. Then we wandered around the local shopping mall with stores with names like GAP PS (get it, there´s a gap). Then we watched a middle-aged mens futbol match from a hill in the national park located on the city limits of Coban. Ever seen older guys play soccer, it´s hilarious.

It may seem like our adventures so far have been a little bumpy, but it´s been great and will make great stories for years to come. Tomorrow we leave Coban for Semuc Chempey where there is hiking to be done and waterfalls and such to be seen. We can´t wait.

Muchos besos de Coban,

Audrey y James

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

05 - Audrey and her budha	06 - James in the ¨classroom¨¨	07 - San Pedro and his rooster	08 - An infamous chicken bus
09 - San Pedro at sunset from our school	10 - Typical christian sign in San Pedro	11 - Fishermen in the lake	12- Chickens in the market
13- James in Santiago (de Atitlan) on market day	14- San Pedro and La Nariz del Indio	15- La tienda, un gallo, y un perro.	16- La casa de la familia Gonzales
17- Anna Maria y James, very cool.	18- Anna is too cute.	19- Breakfasts of pancakes, bananas and chocolate	20- La cocina (the kitchen)
21- Marvin y Anna Maria	22- La Familia Gonzales	23- James´ new friend	24- Todos Santos from our hotel window

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