Fish out of water
Trip Start
Sep 01, 2005
1
3
163
Trip End
Dec 04, 2006
Antigua,
Guatemala
Tuesday, September 6, 2005
Yo soy samson, mucho gusto!
After a 4 day drink fest in Dallas, I had to bid my farewells to Adrian and thank him for his crash course in living the American dream.
The flight was painful as I was severely hungover, and walking out of the airport it was extremely daunting but luckily had bumped into a guide who was taking passengers straight to Antigua, where it was supposed to be happening. The driver neglected to inform us of his pitstops along the way, so we spent another hour just cruising around Guatemala city picking up his friends and other tourists. Thank god I didnīt stay in the City as it was pretty run down and there were alot of slums, which didnīt look safe at all. Two hours later I had arrived into Antigua, cobbled streets and beautiful buildings lined the streets. Everything was virtually closed and it was 10 by then. Checked into a hotel for the night and decided to venture off for a feed as I was starving. Found a really nice place called Travel Menu which was run by Casper (Danish) guy. Had a nice chat and was given abit of advice about the general area.
The next day I set off to look for a spanish school, there are so many everywhere its almost too hard to pick on. But everyone I asked was very informative and met a girl called EJ who recommended her school IXCHEL and her homestay with a lovely lady called Carolina and her two dogs. She is travelling with her partner Mike and they are both from the UK. They had bought some crazy 4x4 and souped it up with Satellite phone, GPS and enought lights to light up a football field which they shipped over from London in which they are in the midst of driving around the whole of central and south america, how cool is that!
So anyway I took up her advice, and enrolled into both. Carolinaīs place is beautiful. She is a warm old lady who lives by herself with the other travellers and of course the dogs. Itīs a big house with a yard in the middle, with seperate rooms (5) and 2 shared bathrooms. Everyone in the homestay is extremely freindly and welcoming.
The town is filled with tourists, and is safer then most places in sydney. Volcanoes surround the town and the weather is a warm 23c. Beautiful
The spanish school had daily activities organised for the students and as it is my second day at the school. Tonight we have free salsa/meringue classes and tomorrow is a cooking class. How exciting.
Spanish is so complicated, but itīs rewarding. As english doesnīt get you very far at all in this place. Hopefully by the end of it I would be able to make conversation with the locals, hereīs hoping.
Iīll post up some photos soon for yaīll
Asta manana!
