Central America - Costa Rica to Cancun: 3/27/11

Buenos tardes amigos,

Hope this post finds everyone well and cheering loud for the Canucks!! We are sorry for the amount of time since our last post have been studying four hours a day. We have been so exhausted that we haven’t been doing much else.

We arrived in San Pedro la Laguna a couple weeks ago with the intention of only staying one week and learning some Spanish. We stayed at Zoola, this Israeli run hostel the first night since our shuttle got in late. We were probably the only people there who werent Israeli and it made us feel like outsiders. The next day we got up early and went to check out the Spanish schools. We chose Mayab, which was situated in this cute garden with little palapa cabanas. It was pretty cheap, 70 bucks a week for 20 hours of Spanish and 55 bucks for the home stay for 6 nights with all your meals included. It worked out really great for us as we got to live with the owners son who also teaches at the school. He had two kids, a beautiful house, a wife, a lady who worked for them, Isabella, and was going to school to become an architect, while teaching Spanish at the same time. And he was only 26. We had heard from friends some horror stories of living with host families so felt incredibly blessed. (Although we never want to eat beans and eggs again.)

I am finding this blog entry a little hard to write, simply because we haven’t done much.

Long story short we ended up staying two weeks. I unfortunately had to have a different teacher the second week and found it much more difficult to learn. We made some great friends in San Pedro who live in Seattle so we will be visiting them for sure. Roberto and his family were incredibly kind to us and he even took us to the Mayan face, which is a mountain overlooking San Pedro which is reminiscent of a Mayan face. We hiked to the palapa lookout on the nose. What an incredible view!

We have decided that we probably have to skip the Bay Islands in Honduras due to time restrains. It is so horrible to have to pass up places to see, but you cant see them all, and really its just a reason to come back. Guatemala is a huge country so weve mostly decided to skip Honduras because of the overland travel time. The shuttles here are usually only a dollar more than buses and much more direct and apparently safer.

Guatemala

has been amazing so far, and pretty cheap for the most part. It is much cooler up here in the mountains around the lake and gets quite chilly at night. The coffee is freaking amazing. Greg and I skipped class one day because of bad hangovers and my teacher took us to the beach instead. We went kayaking one day. San Pedro is built on a hill, with volcanoes all around it so it was always a huge trek to go anywhere. Up and down the hill 6 times a day. There was a really great English pub that we loved, The Alegre. The lake is so picturesque on clear days, although its ridiculously smokey at night. We really loved San Pedro and found it incredibly hard to leave. Our Spanglish has improved slightly.

Last night we had a fiesta at the school to celebrate the arrival/departure of students. I made a wicked potato salad. The first two tries were with this horrible mayonnaise so I finally splurged on the Helmanns. We drank a little wine and a little beer. Had great conversations. Went to bed pretty late, and woke up late to get on a boat to Panajachel. We had a little breakfast at our favorite café, and said goodbye to Priya, since she wasn’t ready to leave yet. We will meet up with her in a week or so.

While on the boat we met a really awesome couple from Victoria, and realized we had mutual friends the worked at Sysco. What a small world? We spent the day here shopping and exploring with them. We had a little lunch and they took the 6pm boat back to San Pedro. I bought a really great little rug, Greg bought a hat. Tomorrow we will try and rent some horses and go the 9km to San Antonio Palapo, to check out this woodstove project. Tonight will be an early night, maybe a beer or 2 and some pupusas.

Everyday I wake up and think of places to cut out days so we can still go to the Bay Islands, but I really should just let it go. Our friends are meeting us in Belize in 3 weeks, otherwise we would probably extend our flights by two weeks. We will probably head to Semuc Champey and Lanquin next, then to Tikal.

Today is my la cumpleaña a mi Madre, Happy Birthday, Mom. Happy birthday also to Sara Heller, the most beautiful girl I know, and have ever known. I know she will be partying tonight!! Thinking of you!