Flying By...All about March.

Ahhh SHOOT DANG! I have been majorly slacking on the blog. I don’t know if that is worse for you all as “interested” followers or for me to have to try to remember what I have done over the past FOUR weeks! Yikes! Well I am going to shoot for brevity but you know how that went last time…

Let’s see here…ah yes. On Thursday, March 6th our group left to head north to the border. We needed to renew our visas’ for another 90 days so we decided that an extended weekend trip into Mexico would do the trick well. We went to San Cristobol de Las Casas which is located in Chiapas, Mexico. It is a few hours north of the Guatemala border. We stayed at a gorgeous “high class,” by all of our standards, hotel and our amazing director Villma negotiated the breakfast to be included in our stay. Each morning we were greeted by a breakfast BUFFET!! I guarantee that they were surprised how much we all could put down. We ate and ate and ate. More or less for three specific reasons. One, we missed the feeling of being full, especially on good food. Yeah, our host families feed us but it is nothing get excited about. Two, if we ate enough (which we consistently did each day) we didn’t get hungry for lunch, or really any food for the whole day until it came time for a late supper, thus saving us some pesos. Lastly, it was a BUFFET, I am pretty sure that doesn’t exist anywhere in Guatemala, yum! Highlights from Mexico…*VW Bettle (hundreds of old school bugs, the most intense rapid fire game of Slug Bug I have played in my life lasting for almost two hours until we arrived at our destination) *A women’s right protest/march *Thai food *Mexican Food *Oceans 11 (everyone piled in the room Steph and I stayed in to watch the movie together) *Beautiful, Quaint, Clean, Latino Tourist Town *and returning home telling ghost stories in the dark with thick fog blanketing the night as we told ghost stories from friends and about Xela as our van nearly slide off the side of a cliff!

Field Trip. Wednesday, March 12th. Takalik Abaj Mayan Ruins and Santa Anita Finca (coffee plantation). This field trip was not nearly what I had imagined. The ruins appeared to be strategically placed piles of rocks and everyone once in a while if you looked really closely with the help of the tour guide you might see an arm carved in a rock that once represented something important. The coffee plantation wasn’t a whole lot better as I left without a clue what a coffee plant looks like or how one would go about harvesting the coffee bean. But on the bright side there was a small waterfall there that turned out to be very refreshing. Santa Anita is also the finca that my professor buys his coffee beans from for his café, so that is kinda cool.

Spring Break! Friday, March 14th Steph and I left Xela at 4:00am to go meet Ted in Guatemala city at the airport. We got there with time to kill and our extremely social able Taxi driver Carlos pointed us in the direction of an Art Museum and an Artesian Market which successfully filled our time and proved very interesting and enjoyable. We gathered our friend and began our journey once again heading out of Guate City. After hitching a ride in the back of a pick-up (perfectly normal), hoping on a chicken bus and arriving at the wrong San Lucas, and then chasing down another bus towards Lago Atitlán we ended up in Panahachel too late to try to catch a launch to San Lucas de la Laguna. We were hoping to catch up with one of Steph’s high school friend who was at a mission there and would be leaving early the following morning. We did make the most of our time in Panahachel and finally caught one of the only direct buses we have ever taken back in Xela.

Highlights of spring break…*El Baul *La Muella *Siete Cruzes (Trek to Fuentes Georginas) This was a very intense FULL day hike. It was pretty gorgeous though as we went through four different ecosystems including, alpine forest, grasslands, cloud forest, and a bamboo forest. Tough work, but soaking in the hot springs at the end was very helpful and the following day weren’t sore just a bit tired. *Home Cooking (Ted’s hostel had a kitchen so we made full use of it and daily bought our fresh ingredients and spices at the local markets. The menu included pancakes and egg burritos for breakfast. Fajitas complemented by homemade corn tortillas, guacamole, and salsa [yes, our very own family “recipe”]. Fettuccini pasta and toast. And stuffed chili peppers. And yes, it all tasted great.) *Finding new good restaurants and cafés, revisiting known favorites, and hitting up the key street stands for our fill of hot dogs, cotton candy, and churros like you have never known before. *PDA watch in parquet central *Lots of long/good Church Services and *Holy Week Processions throughout the week parading through town and passing by colorfully designed saw dust carpets created in the streets.

Wed. 26th, Thurs. 27th and beyond. School! Wednesday I had a presentation on Free Trade with Chanti in our Human Rights class. Thursday I had my fourth round of testing for my Spanish classes. And from here on out intensive preparations for the end of the semester including a 20 page thesis paper, four papers of varying lengths and topics, two oral presentations, one long book, and continued intensive Spanish in an attempt to perfect grammar and greatly increase fluidity of the language. So that leaves me stuck in the books and typing away for the rest of this weekend and likely any time not already spent in class. Breaking up the time will be a trip to Tikal the legit and apparently pretty amazing Mayan Pyramides and Ruins. And a week excursion to El Salvador during which I actually had no idea what we will be doing. Then the end will be upon us before we know it.

Hey this isn’t half bad. It is only a page and a half long. Hopefully I didn’t forget too many major events. Once again and as always I hope this finds you all happy, healthy, and enjoying life.

P.S. You will have to excuse the poor English. As my Spanish improves every so gradually my English has taken a rapid decline.