Our first week in Xela

It has been nice to be able to stay in one place for a bit. Kim and I are studying Espanol in Guatemala's second largest city, Quetzaltenango, more commonly refered to as Xela. Its a town of about 200,000 people, and as in most of Guatemala, mostly Mayans. The women, and the occasional man, wear the amazingly embroidered and hand dyed and woven 'ropa tipica' making any outing into the narrow cobblestone streets an amazing experience. I wonder how many times they drop their groceries off their heads as they are learning to balance it up there!

Our school, Celas Maya, is a school that teaches Spanish and Quiche, one of the many Mayan languages. The complete immersion into the culture and the language has been great. We are living with a Mayan family, the Jocols. The mother, Juana has been great, welcoming us into her home and feeding us yummy food.

In the photo below we went up the road to grind some corn which we later used to make tortillas 'a mano' or by hand. These are way tastier than the ones Kim and I make in the States with Maseca.



This morning we went to Fuentes Georginas, a local hot spring where they've built a couple of pools and a bar. This rivals the relaxation offered by David's sauna.


The trip there was fun, we took a local bus, more on these later, and then a pickup truck up into the hills. The views from the back of the pickup were great, the fields were more like raised bed gardens, with carrots the size of your forearm coming out of the rich earth. Here's a short video(mute your sound):



Have you ever wondered where the US school busses go? Well, they're here! And bright yellow is just one of the colors. You can't imagine what great paint jobs, right down to each wheel lug nut, they put on them. After they trek up to the US to get their bus, I think the first thing they do is mount a ladder and roof rack. Next comes amazingly shiny chrome everything, and then they smoke a lot of pot and head to the paint store. These busses will certainly be a subject of many of my photos. Here's a primer

And now, turn up the sound for this video, and I doubt your speakers will compare to air horns on narrow streets:


The school has kept us amazingly busy, homework, activities, and then there are the markets and so, so much to see and do. Hope everyone is great!

ps. we've updated our links on the right - new photos and videos.