¡Hola! Hoy es Lunes y estoy volvo para mas tarea. Tengo various cosas para escribir hoy, etonces no tengo un titulo mejor. Aventura Este fin de semana, fuimos arriba en las montañas para visitar un “zipline”. ¡Fui muy divertido! Las nubes rodearon las montañas, etonces la cuerda desaparací en las nubes, y yo tambien. En el otro lado, todo el mundo aparací tambien. Hubo dos “ziplines” allí, corto y largo. El largo fui 250 meteres. ...

Extrañé dos dis para escribir por que fui enfermo. Hasta ahora no tuve nada dolores de estomago, pero aqui en San Pedro, supuestamente todos los gringos son enfermo uno vez. Ne se por que. Mi familia fue bueno para mí. Dio yo comida buena por mi estomago, y medicina tambien. Mi madre dijo la medicina fui natural. Pero cuando leé los ingredientes, yo reconocí ellos. Son los mismos como la medicina norteamericano “Pepto Bismol”, pero sin la tinta rosa. Etonces tomé por tres comidas. Tambien, tomé mi doxycyclin, quel traé por eso razón. Voy a tomar doxycyclin por 5 mas dias, por seguro muerto los microbios. ...

Spanish speakers… put on your thinking caps. This entry will be using a fair amount of imperfect tense, because it is doing double duty as a homework assignment. If you don’t remember how to decode it, just strip off terminations like -ían and -aban to get back to the root verb. Ready? Here we go! Mi fin de semana fue divertido. Todos los fin de semanas viajaba a algunas nuevos lugares en Guatemala. Este fin de semana, viajé a Monterrico en sur de Guatemala, en la costa del mar pacifico. ...

(Note: English translation is below.) ¡Ahora, ese diario tiene dos idiomas, español e ingles! Estoy muy contento con mi decisión para viajar a San Pedro. Ese ciudad está en la mitad entre San Andés y Xela. No es desmasiado poqueño, y tambien no es desmasiado grande. San Pedro me recuerda de San Andrés por que el tiene una buena vista del lago y montañas. Mi familia aquí es fabulosa. La casa es nueva, con agua caliente en la ducha. La casa recibe brisas frescas de la montañas. Los mismos brisas hace olas muy grande en Jabalito en el otre lado del lago, pero aquí pienso no hay muchas olas en la tarde. ¡Estes bueno por a nadar! Tal vez, mañana voy a nadar en el lago. Mi madre cocina la misma comida de mi madre en San Andrés. ¡Me gusto! Para desayuno comí tres panqueques y atol de plantano sazonó con canela. Para almuerzo, comí pollo con tomates, arroz, y tortillas. ¡Por fin, mi mano izquierdisto estuvo occupado! ...

As predicted in my last post, I decided to ditch Xela and find someplace else to study for the next two weeks. Because I liked Lake Atitlan so much, and because I am trying to meet up with Ben from Planet Online to explore the possibility of working for them for a few months, I decided to plan myself in San Pedro a little village on lake Atitlan. I have not been there yet but it seems to be much more like San Andrés, which I liked so much, so I’m hopeful. ...

I’ve had a few days to settle in to Xela now, so here’s some info about life here. Xela is Guatemala’s second biggest city, but it is a distant second to Guatemala City, with only 120,000 residents. It has several universities, so it is rumored to have the benefits of a university town. I did notice a flyer for a tofu store last night, so I guess that’s one of the benefits (?) of a university town. However, it is still a big city, which turned out to be a real shock to my system. I knew it was a city when I decided to come here, but I didn’t realize how accustomed I had become to rural Guatemala. The city is dirty and noisy and drove me crazy for the first little bit. I might still flee. ...

This morning I arrived in Xela, and have found my Spanish school, and the house where I will be staying. It is not as opulent as my last house, but mi madre seems much more communicative, so hopefully I’ll feel a little more at home here, and a little less like a foreigner. As an aside, I found my school despite the best efforts of the Lonely Planet cartographers to leave me baffled on a street corner in Xela the rest of my life. New travel tip: use the addresses, not the dots on the maps. Apparently the dots are added to the map by a blind left handed dart thrower. ...

Some more random observations about Guatemala… Guns People say Americans are crazy gun toting cowbows, but the real Americans who love their guns are the Central Americans of Guatemala. I have never seen so many guns as I have here. That includes growing up in a working class, rural city in the US. You see guns on the belts of police, and there are an average number of police here by US standards. But that’s just the beginning… lots of stores hire private security guards, and they are almost without exception armed. Every bank has an armed guard quickly questioning every person who wants to come through the door (one bank had a man-trap too, which is a pair of doors forming a vestibule, wired so that only one can be open at a time). Probably 70% of the delivery trucks have an armed security guard literally riding shotgun. When the truck stops, the guard gets out and watches the truck while the driver makes the delivery of Coca-Cola or whatever. ...

I got to Antigual yesterday afternoon after a long bus ride most of the way aross Guatemala. From Puerto Barrios to Guatemala City it was pretty comfortable. We were on a Mercedes bus which dated to the 80’s, judging by the decor. I invented another of my somewhat random travel tips. (You might remember the last one: when out of ideas on how to solve a problem, sit down and wait for something good to happen.) This tip is simpler: always sit on the side of the bus where a thief will pick up your luggage from. Here in Guatemala it is the right side, because they only load and unload it from that side. Then you can watch whenever bags come and go and see if any look a little too familiar. As it turns out, I need not have worried because they issued actual bag tags, and the guy actually checked the number before giving me my pack! That doesn’t even happen in Amerian airports! ...

I made it out of Livingston this morning with no problems. My plan to stiff the hotel worked perfectly. I feel about this bad (fingers really close together), but I’m certain the hotel lady will find a way to get the money out of the guy. He eats at her house all the time. In fact, he did while he was scamming me, which is part of why I fell for it. Afterall, if the nice lady in the hotel feeds him, he’s got to be a good guy, right? ...