Guatemala

Guatemala has been an interesting place. Must admit I wish I hadn´t tried to cram it at the end of this giant trip. I saw very little of it, mostly regretting the lack of ruins visited. But, I got a very nice idea of Lago Atitlan.
I first stayed in the little town of San Pedro de la Laguna. Can you say hippieville? I haven´t spoken so much english since I left home!



The first day, I had a really rough time finding someone to help me with my project, it was depressing asking 30+ people and getting shot down. I had given up and was just wandering the town when some poor bloke asked me how I was and I just gushed. The cool part, it was my first spanish conversatin with an american! So, Kent, after getting a second explanation in english, volunteered to help, all on his own! Take that all you other meenies!He was lots of fun, we had some good talks, to the detriment of getting work done in a timely manner!A very amusing group of boys came down to inspect us during all of this. They had papayas down their shirts, and were eating green peaches (ow tummies!) Lots of fun, gave us very obviously madeup names (think Don Juan, ha), and were facinated by the mud that I had pulled up from the bottom of the lake. Don´t think I´ve ever made someone so happy as I did when I gave them each their own clod. Odd boy. Had dinner with Kent that night, and his sailor buddy. It was grand.

The next day I had another helper who had volunteered the day before, but just needed time to finish her own stuff. Sharon was a cool girl from New Zealand. A birds nest, with eggs!!! I think it is the nest of a grebe.
We went to the nearby town of San Juan. This place was so nice compared to the druggie gringo atmosphere of San Pedro. The kids absolutely loved getting their pictures taken. Everyone we passed screamed, photo, photo! And just for the joy of posing and potentially seeing it on your screen. So darn cute!
This fence almost came down, they were leaning on it so hard to get to us
Then, lucky old me, I got sick, again! This time with a standard old cold! Bugger. But, I met some really cool kids in my horrible hostel (I forgot to tell you the biggest joy of San Pedro! It is coffee country here, and I know you all think coffee smells lovely in the morning, well, it doesn´t. Not the real stuff. My hostel was smack between the coffee processing area - think giant mounds of rotting coffee husks, believe me, that´s not pleasant, and the cattle slaughtering shed. Lovely!)But, life got reasonably good again when I left. Was still sick, but went to a tiny little town called Jaibalito on the other side of the lake with John, a british guy from my stinky abode.

Meet John

We found a tiny little posada set in a beautiful garden, run by a bearded german man. It was so peaceful and lovely.
Some mild earthquake issues

Lovey, except the horribly off key, beat, any sense of decency :) religious music that was blaring all night! But, it was wonderful. We spent the days in the hamock, with little walks to explore the area. I even found a patch of my plant that had stems over 4.5 meters tall! Almost drowned trying to get them, since the water was 2 or 3 meters deep with waves and everything. But, I proudly carried my plant around till we got back to the hostel, got more funny looks, but that is my life. :)
Now, I am in Antigua for the night, and fly out tomorrow afternoon! I cant wait to get home!!!!!