The latest from Guatemala...

Hola friends! Thankfully we have learned more spanish in the past two weeks than just this greeting. We are enjoying the day to day goings on of life in Quetzeltenango (Xela) each day seeing some of the same sceens on the street and feeling more apart of the scene. Tomorrow we bid farewell to spanish class for a week and travel to Lake Atitlan for a bit of relaxing. The lake hosts a myriad culture of new age studies schools, yoga shops, middle easter restaurants and hostels made of recycled materials. The lake itself sits in the caldera of an ancient collapsed volcano. It is surrounded by 5 other volcanoes so there may be some hiking and we plan to visit one of the nature preserves in the region. This said the adventure begins on Saturday as we take our first long ride on a "Chicken Bus" the local version of an economy coach. I don't know if they got this name because of their cargo or because of how the drivers careen down the roads taking on all challengers! More to come....

A Fun Weekend

We are back in class for the second week and our brains hurt but it is going well. i had a basic level of spanish when i got here so the first week was some review but now... lots of new information, aye.
For the weekend we took a break from studying and hiked up a near by volcano. many people told us we should use a guide but we felt like we could find the way, luckily we had some spanish comprehension because we missed the turn and had to ask the nice farmer where the trail was, he drew us a map with his machete. The hike was arduous, up and up and up but the view was great, we got up there too late but apparently if you get up there early you can see another active volcano erupt!! After a long hike up and down we decided sunday was a great day to relax so we found the local chicken bus or local bus (they are old school buses painted in fun colors) the bus took us to a town 30 min away with natural hot springs and saunas. We enjoyed a natural sauna at a nice hotel, so relaxing. A great way to get back to studying.
Class has been going well, today we had a big group activity where the teachers taught the students how to make tortillas and the history of corn in the area, i had to translate for a new student... slightly comical but it was fun to see my progress.
Tommorrow is Thanksgiving... i dont think there will be any turkey on our table but we will enjoy so corn tortillas!!! Hope the day is wonderful for you all!!!

Week one of Spanish study done!!

We have settled into a nice routine here in Xela-quetzaltenanango. Our house family has been treating us well with typical meals and a nice house, I cant say the same for the bed which has obviously been used by many people as it has a huge sink hole in the middle but, what are you going to do- the question mark doesnt work on this computer so imagine there is one there- Luckily we are so tired everynight from all the new words we learned we dont notice the wacky mattress or the OLD pillows, at least they are clean!!

The language school has been great, it is the off season for studying so there are only 3 students at the school, John, Me and one other person!! that is great for studying but the school depends on the students to run the community center for local kids in the afternoon. The program is great but with only 3 spanish students we have alot of work to do to teach the kids in the afternoon. This week we contructed volcanos and today we will do the age old baking soda and vinegar experiment to make them blow up!!! Very exciting.

With the weekend here we have been talking to several other tourists to hear what we should do with our 2 days off. The plan for now is to climb a local volcano from which you can see another active volcano erupt every hour!!! After a big hike on saturday the only logical thing to do would be to find some hot springs to soak in on Sunday and as luck may have it we have found some so, thats the plan but in Central America it is always a good idea to be open to other options so we will see!!! Be Well... Elie and John

We Made it!!!

After weeks of waiting and intermittent planning we finally loaded the plane and flew down to Guatemala. We had alot of anticipation and curiosity about how all of our plans would fall together but each phase is working out just fine. We started in the airport where we felt like movie stars exiting into a crowd of people yelling and trying to get our attention... they wanted to take us to where ever we wanted to go. We spent the night in a small colonial town 45 min. south of Guatemala City called Antigua. The town was a safe immersion center as it is full of tourist. we only had 1 day to spend there so we took advantage of a popular volcano hike, little did we know that the rest of the town had the same plan. The tour up the volcano was the epitome of Latin America, we were packed into a small van, trucked up the mountain where several other tour groups also arrived, we were set up with a guide and started hiking along with 100 other people. Locals with horses followed us in case we got tired they could sell us a ride on the horse and to aid the men with the horses our guide made sure we hiked really fast up hill, a few sells were made that way. The trail was steep and rocky and the streams of people overwhelming but at the top we stood 5-10 feet away from flowing lava... amazing, people where roasting marshmellows!! All in all it was a good experience but I never had a minute where someone wasnt within 5 feet of me.
This morning we loaded a bus and travelled to Quetzaltenengo where we will study spanish for 2 weeks. We found our homestay house and got settled in, a nice feeling... tomorrow we start studying spanish, we need it!!
Be Well...Elie and John

We are Leaving!!!

4AM... (gesh who scheduled this plane flight!!) We are leaving the house and heading to the airport in the early morning. With so many transitions in the last few weeks we finally set down today to really look into our plans for the next few days and weeks, needless to say there are a few holes but I am sure they will be filled!!

We will be doing our best to keep the updates coming. Until then here are a few pictures of the Halloween Pumpkin Chuckin festival in Moab!!  I worked at the first aid tent and luckily I didnt see a single client and John helped one of the teams reach victory in the slingshot catagory... chuckin a pumpkin 98ft...(They were the only slingshot).

Phase One Complete...

The trailer is all packed up, our stuff is stored away in a variety of different places (hopefully we can remember where everything is) and we are in Michigan enjoying a few warm days, what a treat for this time of year. Early Nov. John packed up the last few pieces of our stuff and drove out to Michigan with Mason, the plan was that i would join them but i had a some last minute stuff to do for work and the prospect of school in Salt Lake City so I flew out to Michigan. But, now we are all here and I have already over done my TV watching and snacking, what are we going to the rest of the week? Golf? Bowling? A movie at the IMAX? so many options but either way it is a nice transition time before we head down south. Mason is still not sure about this place and what he is suppose to do but I am sure he will settle into the routine, he has already taken to getting up at 5am for breakfast but, he thinks he should eat again at 8am...hummm.

Well it is time for me to take a run around the neighborhood, I can only sit for so long!!!