Learning to speak spanish in Guatemala

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  Flores, Guatemala
Monday, September 11, 2006

Welcome back to the blog

Good to see so many people are checking this website out - more comments and more votes would be great, though. We are now up-to-date with James' travels and I am ready to start talking about what has been happening since arriving in Guatemala. Hang on to your mice because here we go!

So, we spent a week in the goofy-disney-history land of Antigua studying spanish. With over 70 spanish schools in the town it was probably inevitable that they would let in a couple of dud teachers and I, unfortunately, got the dud-ist. She had the animation of a rock and the intelligence of a rock. Luckily I spent most of the time talking at her rather than too her (she asked me around 8 times what the United States was like)

advanced spanish!!!

. Our language school also taught English to locals (or tourists who had oddly decided that Guatemala was the place to learn English). There was a poor Korean girl at our school who was trying to learn English from one of the most horrendous people I have ever seen. This teacher (I won't say where she was from as it will appear biggoted, but see if you can guess) talked non-stop at the girl at a decibel level approaching a small aircraft carrier (thus negating every other students ability to either hear or learn). She peppered her seemingly endless stream of thoughtless-mouth-dribble with errudite comments such as ''Show me where Korea is on a map? Is it near Seoul?`` and my favourite insight ``Cultures are so different... (blank pause)... like.... you guys eat weird stuff, right?''.

Anyway, we tried to avoid too much time at that school and instead spent our time climbing up another volcano. This one was AMAZING due to the fact that huge lava tunnels were flowing out of it as we walked (this may have been slightly more dangerous than I realised) and you could see red-lava flowing downhill about 5 meters away from you. Our guide demonstrated the ability of a stick to burst into flame when it was stuck into the lava (if only we had marshmallows).

We ultimately left Antigua and popped over to beautiful largo Atitlan which had been described to us as 'Eden'

chicken bus - best way to travel

. The fact that Eden is full of stoned out backpackers will probably surprise some Christians but maybe it is one of his mysterious ways (maybe the description is less-than-apt). Anyway, it was a really pretty lake and I hung out, chilled out and 'generic-word' out for a few days. I met a retired American guy who claimed to have been an ex-gun runner in Ethiopa many years ago. I didn't let him order any more coffee.

From the lake we headed to a really magical town called Xela to learn yet more spanish. One of the reasons to do this was Louise and I had around 5 further hospital interviews whilst we were there and so we couldn't really leave. This was actually amazingly lucky as after 60 HOURS!!! of further private spanish classes I was awarded a certifcate that said AVANZADO UNO (someone explained to me that this meant advanced and so I was really happy). We also stayed with an incredibly charming indiginous family whilst there who treated us like the many-children-they-already-had.

After a great 3 week spanish-polish up it was time to continue travelling. We first headed North to the beautiful rock-formations of Semuc Champai. There were two attractions here - a series of natural pools and a huge tunnel to go caving in. The tunnel was definitely an experience

Crazy man in Largo Atitlan

. Swimming in pitch blackness with an inch of breathing-space with just a little dripping candle for light is scary. Trying to climb a 4 meter nigh-lethal internal waterfall was even scarier. We also had a guide who found it amusing to taunt me - He pretended to DIE at one point (disappearing under the water after falling in) and then did NOT RETURN for 15 minutes - he found some sort of secret underground cavern where he could breathe leaving Louise and myself about a kilometer into a pitch black coffin with no light, no guide but a lot of rising panic.

After THAT experience we headed into Northern Guatemala and have just started another 2 week volunteer project with an animal refuge called ARCAS. I saw the jaguar-feeding today and, even though it was fed a bucket of dead-chicken, it was rivetting viewing.

OK - will write soon, lots of love

James

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

guatemalan girl	kim and felipo in largo atitlan	louise in chicastenango	man poking lava with stuff
semuc champai 1	semuc champai 2	street scape in colonia

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