So, once again procrastinating on my homework to write my blog – works for me! I have noticed that I have not been nearly as good at keeping up with my daily journaling and more frequent blogs, but ‘tis life. A girl gets busy sometimes, especially in another country this will happen. Everything has been going well here in Xela. Everyone in our group went through the seasonal cold, since this is the time of a slight climate change here. My Spanish class was interesting for the few days that I didn’t have a voice, but I made it through and am now feeling happy and healthy again.
I will start with a week and a half ago on Wednesday, was a celebration in Central Park for the Superchivos soccer team of Xela. There was a concert, and lots of people (many venders of course as well). My host dad was very excited to take us all (he is an avid Superchivos fan). So we all took the short walk to the square around 8:30 and hung out for about an hour. It was a great “family outing,” I don’t get to see my host dad very much so when I do get to spend time with him it’s really great. He is really fun to talk to, and we have some great conversations. There was also a live salsa band playing at La Parranda from the Buena Vista social club (a group started a while back in Cuba) – so of course, despite how tired I was, I could not pass up a Wednesday night of dancing. The rest of the week and into the weekend was pretty routine. Out dancing on Friday after the party at the school, and out to the café to do some homework on Saturday. Saturday night we had a fun fiesta at John and Dennis’s apartment to watch the Olympics and cook some Guatemalan food! We made enchiladas, guacamole, beans, salsa, tostadas, carrot-lime salad, platanos, and horchata. Everyone dressed up as Olympian participants or fans, it was a great time, especially since I had not been able to watch any Olympics up to this point (my family doesn’t have the channel they showed on), which was driving me crazy! The best part of the night, though, was getting to pick up Monica from the bus station in Xela! She came to visit Rachel and I for the week.
Obviously last week was craziness, since we had all of our classes and a guest here to entertain. It was such a blast though! We took her out every night to get a taste of the city. A different café or bar each night, with people from our group and some of our friends from Celas. We even made an 11 O’ Clock McDonald’s run – the ice cream there tastes different than in the states, and so good.
A trip to the beach is always a good time, so a few of us decided to go this past weekend. We only went for one night because Monica’s flight left on Sunday. Short but intense trip. So we set out on Friday morning at 6:30 and headed to the terminal where we would board our first chicken bus of the day. Chicken busses are their main form of local transportation here in Guate, they can be described as old school busses, festively decorated with many colors on the outside, and the inside leaves some to be desired, and I’m pretty sure the name comes from their method of seeing just how full they can cram these things. 3, sometimes 4 to a seat on some of them. So we had to take a total of 3 buses to get to our destination of Monterrico. Expecting it to take us about 5 or 6 hours, we didn’t arrive to our destination until after a good 8 hours. We were so exhausted, hot and sticky by the time we got there. Drastic weather change to humid and very warm – which I didn’t mind at all, once we were finally on the beach.
We found a nice hotel to stay at for an equivalent of about $10/person/night – mosquito net included! As soon as we were able we hit the beach to relax and enjoy the water, which had a very strong current so all of us took our turns wiping out while wading. It was such a sense of freedom though, to finally be there on the beach, taking in the vastness of it all. Monterrico is a black sand beach on the Pacific Ocean. The black sand was fun! We watched the gorgeous sunset. Our dinner consisted of PBJ sandwiches, fruit, and some vegetables that we had brought with us from the market the day before. Living classy and cheap is what we do. But it was great! I hadn’t had a PBJ sandwich since I left the states! That night we lay on the beach for a few hours, watching the shining bright stars and listening to the waves crash on the shore - I fell asleep to this for a while – it was perfect.
Facing the early morning the next day, we met a tour guide for a boat ride down the canal at 5:30. We saw lots of wildlife, mostly different kinds of birds, many interesting plants and trees, and best of all the sunrise. It was very junglesque. So we got back and after our breakfast of PBJ we were on the beach before 8:30, talk about good time management! We were able to enjoy the beach for a while that morning until we had to leave at 11am. We wanted to make sure to get back in time before the buses stopped running, since they don’t leave after dark and with our luck, it would have been dark had we not left that early. We ended up with a record time of 5 ½ hours for the trip back – wohoo!
We met some interesting people along our way, as one usually does when travelling; it’s always fun to make new friends. We also had the privilege of riding one chicken bus with baby chicks – Mom, I thought you would like this – they were tweeting the entire way. Another bus we rode with a kitten that was wrapped in a sack, it started to meow, then must have went back to sleep (I hope…). On one bus ride a man (must have been a preacher) stood up and gave us a sermon, making us all feel guilty about spending our money on going to the beach instead of giving it away to the poor people. Strong words he had to say…
Seeing the families, sometimes all in one seat, asleep, was so sweet. Every time we stopped our bus would be bombarded by venders that came onto the bus to sell us anything from fruit, candy, ice-cream, fried platanos, sandwiches, etc. They literally line up outside the bus when it stops, and some hop on, sell their stuff, and then get off at the next stop. I had a hard time watching people through their litter out the window at least 4 times – I guess it’s a culture thing, but it’s still made me cringe to witness it so many times in one day. I was really touched though, one of the buses all of us were standing for a portion of the ride, then one by one, men sitting in the aisle seats offered their seats to us. A simple act of kindness that means so much.
So that was the outline of our crazy adventures last weekend. Times like those that are worth the experience. For time’s sake I didn’t include all of the funny stories, but all eight of us who went definitely have some good times to look back on, and plenty of things to laugh about.
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