Estudiando y Disfrutando La Vida en San Pedro

Hola amigos y familia! We are currently writing from beautiful San Pedro, on Lake Atitlan, in Guatemala. But first we will fill you in on some adventures we had before coming here.

After returning to Antigua for a night we took an overnight bus up to the north of Guatemala to the town of El Remante. It´s a sleepy littly town, but super pretty with some great lake swimming, and is located 45 minutes from the famous Mayan ruins of Tikal. We spent the afternoon walking around and swimming in the lake. Quite refreshing, as it was close to 100 degrees outside.

This was the view from our room.

The next morning we woke up at 5 AM to catch a shuttle to Tikal. Though we didn´t make it in time to watch the sunrise, we still got to watch the jungle ¨waking up¨ from the top of old Mayan temples.

Though we don´t consider ourselves to be particularily ¨into¨ ruins in general, we were definitely impressed by both the ruins as well as all of the wildlife. Upon entering the park we were greeted by howler monkeys, which are so loud that Jess thought it was a recording at first. Thank you technology. But then we remembered we weren´t at Universal Studios, and we looked up and saw the noise was truely coming from the trees. We also saw woodpeckers. Don´t know why, but we were particularily excited about them.



After El Remante and Tikal, we spent the day in Flores while waiting for another overnight bus back to Guatemala City. Flores, like Antigua, is another cute yet touristy city with cobblestone streets, a ¨centro¨ with a park and a church, and burrito stands that are supposed to be ¨the best.¨ They were good... But nothing like we get at home. Mmmm. Burritos.



The Central Park in Flores

No one has anything good to say about Guatemala City, so as soon as we got there we hopped on a ¨direct¨ chicken bus to Lake Atitlan. Unfortunately there is no such thing as a direct bus... And, we got caught in a huge traffic jam due to protesters who had set logs on fire in the middle of the highway. The driver did put in a fair effort to get us through the jam, including driving down the wrong side of the highway (everyone was doing it), but we were still delayed a few hours.

We did finally make it to the lake, and were promptly greeted by Joe who is working at a clinic in a town close to where we are staying. The clinic was our first stop. Jeremy´s lovely little infection from India has decided to stick around, but no worries, it´s all under control now!
Lake Atitlan is beautiful, surrounded by volcanos, mountains, and farms. All the creature comforts one could want are here, but it´s still possible to find the locals and experience a bit of the traditional Mayan lifestyle and culture.



Joe took us on a tour around San Pedro. Lovely veiws, even on a coudy day.



After our tour of the town, we set off on a mission to find a Spanish school and a place to live. We lucked out and found an awesome apartment with a shared kitchen and garden space. Our neighbors include a guy from Canada who is also studying Spanish, and another guy from Holland who lives here permanently with his two adorable kids. Oh, did we mention he´s a massuse too? Three points for us!

We´ve been here studying Spanish for 2 weeks, and will stay for 2 more.



Here´s Jeremy on our move-in day.



And here´s the view from our balcony.

Tipical lunch here for us... Veggie tacos and a liquado (fruit-sugar-water-goodness)

Last weekend we met up with Joe and some of his friends and went to a city about 3 hours away called Xela. The bus was so crowded on the way there that the ayudante (ticket collector) had to climb over seats. Awesome.

While in Xela we enjoyed some good Indian food (Guatemalan style), a trip to some awesome hot springs, and a soccer game.



So that´s the update for now! We are really enjoying staying put for a bit. Our apartment feels like home, our teachers are great, and there´s lots of fun stuff to do around town. Last week we went to a talk organized by our school, from a local man who spoke about his experience in the cival war here. It was very moving, tragic, and powerful. We have also enjoyed a salsa dancing lesson, a few movies about the war, various happy hours, and a hike up the volcano that´s behind our apartment. More pictures to come.  

Sending love!