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