My first post ever.

Ok, so Im new to this whole blogging thing and at the moment cant find the apostrophe on this Guatemalan keyboard, so bare with me!

I arrived in Guatemala about 2 weeks ago...
After landing in Guatemala City, catching 2 shuttles and eating a bag of sea salt and vinegar chips that Rina had so kindly bought me the night before, I arrived in San Pedro to meet Sarah.

Sarah is a super sweet, smiley, giggley friend that i met during my time in Thailand.

San Pedro is situated in the Western Highlands of Guatemala on Lake Atitlan (the deepest lake in Central...and maybe South? America).  Several hippies claim the lake has super natural, life changing qualities.  However, upon arrival I decided that it was more likely that there was a large lago monster hanging out in Atitlan from prehistoric times.  My premonitions were later confirmed by my Spanish teacher Pancho who told me about the local legend of a Snake who lives in the water and eats kids who swim to far out in to the lake.  Although, he assured me, not to worry, the kids just probably drowned.

Anyways, San Pedro is a neat little lake town mixed with hippies, backpackers, and natives. Most of the women wear traditional Mayan dress, and all the locals spoke both Mayan and Spanish. There is an active volcano in the area, several hikeable mountains, and tons of cute little lake towns accessible via motor boats.
The hostel we stayed at, called, Xocomil, which means something like -the winds from the mountains-, was really nice, small and quiet.  The rooms were really basic and cheap but there was a medium sized courtyard with plenty of available hammocks to hang out in.
The owners of the place had a little girl named Emily, probably 6 years old, who was super quite and shy, but as soon as she got in the shower sang her little Guatemalan heart out. So cute.


Anyways, my first day in San Pedro started with Spanish class at Escuela Mayab.  I was introduced to my Spanish teacher, Pancho.  Reformed drug dealer, aspiring writer and philosopher, 20 year old Pancho made for an interesting maestro.  Also, because my name is apparently quite difficult to say in Spanish for the first class Pancho referred to me as -Joy-.  However, once we made the phonetic connection to -Angelina Jolie- things cleared up a bit.  There were several other teachers who worked there as well.  One in particular stood out... Me and sarah affectionately referred to him as -Gold Tooth- as he had gold rimmed around his 2 front teeth.  He in return referred to us as -Super Chicas- a title we attempted to live up to during our entire stay in San Pedro. (Side note: as dental work isnt readily available in Guatemala the general population has teeth that arent super attractive, so people have started little shops where they offer -dental aethetics-, one can get stars or other varies shaped plates on the front of their teeth.  they are bomb)

Throughout the week Sarah and I did several of the activities available in the area....

We went Kayaking on the lake on of the first days, the views of the enormous mountains juxtaposed with lake were amazing. Everything in this area is super lush and green and the weather was perfect.
We also went to the ChiChi market which is in the town of Chichicastenango.  It is one of the biggest markets in Guatemala.  On the ride there, our bus broke down so everyone had to wait on the side of the road for a little over an hour for a new bus.
During our wait we met Niko and his two friends.  Niko is probably in his 40s, greek, with a shaved head except for a little bundle of long hair on the back of his head.  He wore a shirt saying -I am the party- (which he took off at some point) with big striped haram pants. (below is an artist rendered sketch of Niko).  Im having a difficult time describing him in words...  there were lots of nuggies, mis-pronouned words (in reference to all the speed bumps we went over he would exclaim -eet is sooahhhh waievy!-) and giggles.  I hope at some point in my life I will bump into him again....Sarah and I entertained ourselves for days by imitating him, talking about him, and speculating about his life, friends, hobbies etc.

Anyways, the market was filled with tons of handicrafts, blankets, purses, clothes and food.  I ended up making *ahem* a few impulse buys. But nothing was regreted, so I think it was ok.

We also climed -The Nose- A mountain aptly named after the profile of a mayan man´s face.  We had heard that the watching the sunrise on the nose was one of the coolest things to experience in the area so we decided to do it.  Because we had assumed the identity of -Super Chicas- we decided to not take bus, shuttle or taxi up the mountain, but instead, climb it.  This turned out to be a questionable decision...

The night before we went for a short salsa session which turned creepy quickly (more on the men later, as machismo is RAMPANT in Gmala and requires more bitching...) so we returned to our hostel to get some sleep before the hike.
Waking up at 3am we met our guide down the street at 3 30.  He was pretty quite, old, stocky and missing teeth, but he seemed nice enough so we started our journey full of hope.  Turns out despite the local opinion that the hike is -muy facil- (easy) we had a pretty hard time making it to the top.  The entire hike ended up being about 2.5-3 hours solely uphill. However, it was totally worth it...we proved ourselves as super chicas and the view was amazing, the sunrise was like no other Ive ever seen.  There was also an active volcano we could see that was erupted a little bit every so often while. (pictures to come) I thought that was really cool, and a bit scary as Guatemala had a pretty intense volcano eruption last year....
We stayed up there a while, enjoying the view and the sunshine and then headed down to the bus stop (decided the bus was a better option to get back) stopping once for our guide to poop by a tree.
We spent the rest of the afternoon resting and reading.

On Monday Spanish School resumed and Pancho didnt disappoint with his lesson on Guatemalan Organic Argriculture.  His talk was aided by his personal drawings on our school white board of a cow, pig and chicken, with big lips, pooping and peeing (i guess that part was about manure?... I lost track at some point)

Anyways, before we left San Pedro we got in some good R&R, frequenting the hostel hammocks and solar baths.  The solar baths are these huge cement tubs overlooking the lake, filled with hot water thats heated by these black rubber tubes, which get super hot during the day and heats the water.  Anyways, they were awesome and cheap.

We also headed to San Marcos the town just across the lake from San Pedro.  Here they have spiritual, metaphysical workshops and retreats for every kind of granola bar there is.  As we walked through the town we came across a shoeless shirtless dreaded guy huging a girl saying,
-much love, much love, ok I gotta run and make some copies quick, Im kind of in a hurry-
umm what? theres a copy machine in this town? that was weird.
Anyways, San Marcos has cliffs and lots of sun bathing spots so Sarah set up her hammock and we just hung out for the day.

On Wedneday (2-9) we headed to Xela.  Sarah has now left to go back to Honduras (boo) but Im still here and tomorrow am starting another week of Spanish School.
More to come!