Explanations and goings on...

Hello!

A friend facebooked me and asked if I was still ¨alive¨ whereas another friend emailed and asked if I had any explanations for the lack of posts, pictures and the two simulataneously...

They had good points...it´s been a few days...possibly close to a week since I´ve given a thorough post about my trip here. Truth be told, I have parasites in my intestines!! WOOOO!!! But, I am afraid I can´t give that information just yet as I need to catch up with my activities over the past 6 days. I left for Tikal on Thursday, June 21 around 2 p.m. on a private bus...about 27 of us left from Celas Maya together. There were, in all, 21 from Celas and an additional 6 from another school. Josque, a maestro here and our ¨guide¨ so to speak, posted ads for the trip all around popular places in Xela to invite other students on the trip. These 6 were interested and joined our group. I must preface that the trip to Tikal was supposed to take a long and tedious time to arrive. We left around 2 and ended up in the capital, Guatemala City, at 7 p.m. We pulled up to a ¨mall¨ in which we were told our bus driver needed a few hours to sleep (3 was all we could spare) and to stay in the mall until we left as it was one of the few safe places for 26 Americans and 1 Swede to stay until departure. As such, the mall closed at 8 and we decided Pizza Hut would be a good eating and gathering place for so many of us. We had delicious veggie pizza and garlic bread. During dinner, Corinne shared with me some of her Valium that she bought for 2Q (approximately $.30) per pill. I found out it was Valium after calling Mom in the States to find how much and if we should take it. I know this sounds like a crazy plan, but for godsakes were headed on a bus for another 8 hours...I had to admit that a night of sleep, without interruption due to a Valium coma, sounded like an attractive plan. As such, I can report, an Corinne I´m sure would verify, that the ¨Valium¨ actually caused extreme and ridiculous alertness on the bus. It was 8 hours of absolute paranoia and hell. Corinne reports taking another dose because she was experiencing the same thing, only to have neausa and weird dreams. No more Valium or ¨Valium¨ for me.

We arrived in Las Flores (the island we were staying on that bordered Tikal) around 6:30 a.m. We walked the town and stopped at our hotel. Because it was so early, we dropped our things in 1 of the 2 hotels rooms we had reserved for our ¨things¨ until the other guests had checked out. As for pictures of it...these would be the sign reading ¨La Tablita¨, the name of the restaurant we ate at every morning for breakfast and the one to the left of it with the car parked close. This was a few from the restaurant. I absolutely LOVE the cobblestone streets here in Guatemala.

We didn´t have much time to change or clean up, before we were headed off to the ruins in Tikal. The ruins were rediscovered in 1848 at which time excavation began to restore and renew the area. To this day, they have only excavated (I think) 60% of the park and 20% will not be changed or excavated (not sure why...a conversation I overheard). As for corresponding pictures, those are the 5 below the restaurant sign. 4 are of the ruins themselves and one is of the view after I climbed to the top!! It had, in my opinion, quite a few steps, but was worth being above the treetops!! We walked around the park for some time, but I have to admit, it wasn´t as much fun as I would have liked, with the intense INTENSE rainfall while we were there. I must preface this story with: I have NO rain jacket in Guatemala. Turns out, I have come during the rainy season. What´s an Arizona girl to do!?! So, back to the ruins: We were there for about 30 mins. or so and soon the rain begain to fall...hard. It rained for about 40 mins. and with no jacket that meant soaking wet...pretty much all of us in the group!! I protected my camera sufficiently, but for some, they weren´t so lucky. All in all, I was elated to see and experience the history but frustrated to be cold and wet for so long. After the ruins, we came home, Rachel, myself and others went into the ¨hot¨ tub in the hotel. Turns out it wasn´t heated and after, oh 10 mintes, it was warm enough to hang out in. It helped to have bottles of whiskey and wine and the company. Later, we had dinner on a dock next to our hotel. The view was gorgeous and we chatted with friends we have made here at the school. After dinner, we took a shower and headed for BED!

The next morning, after breakfast, we boarded boats, which sat close to the water and had benches for seating. Over our heads was a tarp that came to a point in the middle. The view, the breeze and the lake was absolutely beautiful. We took a tour of the lake area and came to the Zoo on another island. The two pictures above the restaurant pictures are from the Zoo. We walked across a bridge (15 people at a time) to the other side to view the animals. The picture next to it is that of a few I took next to the leopard´s cage. It was a small lagoon with a beautiful intertwining fence on our pathway. Zoo systems, admittedly, in Guatemala are considerably different. For example, I couldn´t see the giant leopard from where he was resting below by just looking over the fence, so I crawled over the fence and stood looking into the cage that way...much easier...perhaps a little more dangerous, but seriously 20ft away from this thing! Also, with the monkeys for example, Ned had an encounter in which he shook hands with one (several students as well) because they had broken through parts of their cage. Neither better nor worse...just a different experience. We continued with our tour to a ¨hill¨ of some sorts, which at the top had a treehouse-ladder thing to climb and see the entire view of the island of Las Flores and the lake (see the picture of me next to the tree!) After the view and the climb, we headed to a clean ¨beach¨ and swam for an hour or so. After we got out it POURED and our ride back in the boat to Las Flores was a little wet and a little cold. All the same...fun. We had dinner on another dock, which was also just as good! We tooled around the island for a few hours in search of hammocks for Rachel and goodies for the others. We were successful and now she was a ¨recliner¨ when she takes off for the peace corps in September.

We had drinks and hookah with the whole group and a restaurant owned by an unusual German man. He was friendly enough, but we had a hard time actually getting the food into our possession before it was time to leave the island altogether.

At 10 p.m. we boarded the bus and headed to Antigua. This time, I slept considerably better and considerably longer. We arrived in Antigua at 7 a.m. and had a fantastic breakfast at small garden spot. The restaurant was called ¨The Enchanted¨ and we sat on the patio, where above us were vines and beautiful flowers hanging down for us to enjoy while we ate! After the breakfast, Josque took us through the town on a ¨tour¨of various convents and missions. We paused for 20 minutes at one point to let a parade come through the town. It was the local Catholic church (the photo next to me at the top!) celebrating Corpus Christi and the feast of San Pedro. It was incredible to watch practically an entire congregation of people marching, playing instruments, children dressed as angels spreading flowers and the elderly men and women wearing veils and gloves in a procession around the padre who was praying into a microphone.

After half a day in Antigua, we boarded the bus and headed for home, in which we arrived here around 6:30. Because the host families do not cook for us on Sundays, we are to find our own means on Sunday. We headed to Blue Angel cafe, our favorite spot as it caters well to vegetarians here in Guatemala, for soup and sandwiches. It was there, that I find I wasn´t feeling so well...stomach pains and a headache. To be expected considering we had spent the better part of 20 hours on a bus!

Monday, however, it was much much worse. I have a new maestra this week and she is GREAT! Her name is Tonia and she is extremely dedicated to her teaching practices. She has good methods to teaching and we work well with each other. I feel lucky to have her. Also, Monday was ¨Teacher´s Day¨ in Guatemala and as it turns out, all this week, students do not have class due to the holiday. The stomach cramps and fever persisted both Monday and Tuesday. I took every anti-diarrheal I could get my hands on (luckily no vomitting) but the problems have not slowed down. Called Mom finally and asked if it was safe to take Cipro...supposedly the end all, be all of parasite-ridding medicines out there. I bought some here for less than $10. I´ve been taking for 1.5 days now and am starting to feel somewhat functional. Thus the reasons for the lack of posting! But! I´m hopefully bouncing back and killing any and all parasites in my body..woo!

As for today, I did not head to school and stayed in bead for most of my time before lunch. My host family has been serving me ¨soup¨ as they call it, but actually Ramen noodles (shrimp to be exact). Currently it´s hailing here...very strange...so strange that I´ve taken pictures to capture the moment. The other pictures are of Atitlan lake (the previous weekend excursion), my ¨treehouse¨ for a hotel, the hammock I frequented, the view of San Pedro Volcano from Santiago Island (it looks amazing with the cloud-coverage) and our group on our double-decker boat. The other pictures are of Escuela de la Calle´s walls we painted (which we finished YESTERDAY!!!...will post those pictures soon also) and of the Celas Maya sign outside of school..oh and a view from the top of the city here in Xela.

That is PLENTY for now!! will catch up with further news tomorrow