Im back in Xela from lago Atitlan and here goes some of my free time for some stories.
I had some night classes on Friday because my teacher needed to go to a funeral during the day. We set out on foot to walk around the city to practice my conversational spanish and to find some place that could fixmy camera. We ended up taking a microbus ( a large van that holds around 20 people, but only has about 10 seats and serves the same purpose as city buses in canada) to the repair shop a good 5 minutes away. We had some time to kill while the guy was checking out the camera, and after walking around for a bit, we decided to sit at a small little bar on the street. One thing lead to another, and after talking like we´ve known eachother for years for an hour, we were a bottle of rum down and 15 minutes late to go check on my camera. Luckily the repairman was still there and he gave me a ¨specail price¨of around 60 dollars for the repair. He said i got a deal becasue we both know the guy who refered me to him, but im convince my deal was a rip off because he took me for a ¨stupid gringo¨ like every other white person here.
But i´ll live, so me and my teacher couldn´t find the micro bus stop, so we walked our way back and talked. I honestly felt like my spanish really improved that night becasue we didn´t say one word of english and we ahd a group conversation with some other people at that bar.
After we got back, he showed me a place for some cheap beers, so i grabbed some and headed out to the party for the people who are leaving the school this week. We had a meal, then hung out and consumed a couple bevys (beverages) for a while. Then we watched a celebration for the mayan new year, which was intresting, but got a little boring after a while as it was very repetitive and we weren´t exactly in the mood for a quiet celebration. After that we hung out for a while longer, then i headed off to bed.
I went to lago atitlan the next morning, where we took 3 chicken buses and a small boat to get there, but it was well worth it and i hope to return. It´s quite popular among hippes as there are many meditation and cleansing centers there with quite the atmospher. We walked aroudn teh small town of 3000 and then settled down for dinner as the daily rain storm came in. We ate at an italian restaurant where i polished off a whole large pizza to myslef to make up for the starving i´ve been doing.
A couple examples about my food intake. Last week, i only had a banana for breakfeast... and at that, i wasnñ´t even sure if it was a whole banana. It was in three pieces which looked like quaters of the banana, meaning someone else got a quater of ny banana. And for supper the one day, i had two mini-burgers..... so did the four year old girl...
the next morning, we got up early and i went for some pancakes, which are now my new favorite breakfeast.. its official. We then walked a little to a small place known as ¨the sacred rocks¨where we spent several hours swimming, hanging out, and jumping of big cliffs and rocks into the water. Note- I recieved a terrible farmers tan the day before from the boat ride, so i had to apply sunscreen to my burns and hoped for the rest of my body to burn into the same colour.. im still waiting on some results. After taking our time in the water we were on our way back on the boat. I then send bye to the couple from england who hung out wiht us quite a bit in the last couple weeks, their off to Belize now. Another little note, that my life went before my eyes twice on the chicken bus today, the first time we almost hit a truck then skidded to a halt before we went of a cliff. then next one we almost flew right through a construction site. Most of the passengers were most annoyed with the awful smell of rubber then the fact our driver was a moron.
Now i´ve been thinking of what to do with my time left here. My spanish is improving rapidly but i would still like to take another week, or possible two to really solidify the language. After that I´d like to travel around and maybe spend a week volunteering.. Any suggestions anyone?¿?¿ maybe to different countries in central america like mexico, belize, honduras and el salvador. I would like to go to cuba before it changes too much, but im not sure if that will work into my plans, with the airplane tickets and what not. But if anyone could help me out wiht some ideas, i´ñd love to hear them.
No comments:
Post a Comment