Guatemala

We left Santa Elena at 10PM for the 8 hour bus ride to Guatemala City, the ride itself was really long, and there was little leg room for me (6ft3in). i was crammed into the corner but for the first part of the trip i had two seats to myself, which was really nice. We all had our malaria medication that day too, it didnt have any effect on ryan but it made craig and ,Especially me, wired. i was up all night in a really uncomfortable possition. not only that, but the bus was air conditioned. i know it doesnt sound that bad. but when it gets too cold for canadians whom just came from a very cold winter not to long ago.
when we made it to guatimala city we were swamped by taxi drivers wanting our money. we bartered the driver down to 1.10 USD. we made it to the appropriate bus station(because every bus company has their own station) and waited for the bus. The spanish phrase dictionary was left inside the taxi so we had to ask the guard holding the shotgun where the nearest bakery was using our poor grammer and knowledge of spanish. me and craig left to go to the bakery while ryan watched the stuff. like every morning we didnt buy a big enough breakfast, we ended up just buying a sugary bun of which i had know knowledge of for each of us. it filled us up for the moment so we assumed for some reason(again!) that we would be filled up for the rest of the 3 hour trip that was ahead of us. the trip to panachel was fairly comfortable, though i was running on very little sleep i still didnt get any sleep on the bus. we have desided to pay in exact change for the bus because we definately got screwed out of 10Q. The country side was incredible once we got out of the big city, i finally got to realize how high we were above sea level. A lot of the time we were over 1000ft above sea level. The road winded up and down and left and right over and over. i found my ears actually popping many times. the towns relied mostly on farming to sustain their economy in that area. but the fields were on the steep hills or on on flields that resemble stairs. they were the stairs of the hills, incredibly large stairs, but stairs non the less. we finally made it the bustling city of Panachel during peak market hours. thats when things really got crazy on the bus. people started piling in from every direction, the bus had many open seats before we came to the city. but by the time we came down town. people were triple to a seat. it hard to have a conversation with a person whom you dont speak the same language with. Slowly but surely im picking up the language, even without the spanish lessons. it reminds me of riviere du loup and trying to communicate with the locals in french. you have to improvise with what you know and maybe add a few hand gestures(not the middle finger).

we got off in the downtown area. We werent really sure if it was the right place to get off but it is what everyone else was doing and we were getting close to sea level. I think thats as close we were going to get to our criteria. we made our way to the tourist information centre and met this curiouse man from new york who was nice enought to guide us around and some information on taking the water taxi. By this time we were famished so he suggested we got to a nice resturant called "Deli", the man said that it was one of the more expensive places in town we ate some really good food there, i had milk for the first time sinse i got here 8 days ago. this is really unusual for me because i drink milk by the bucket full. i definately getting into the hot sauce around here. Im going to have a serious tolerance to it when i get back home. ryan had the banana pancakes, me, craig and Bill(new yorker) all had the burger. They were amazing. the bill was a little more expensive compared to the rest of Guatemala but we made do. for the three of us it cost 108Q or 14USD(approx) which is amazing. we then wen back up the main drag for a second time and went to the ATM to take out 2000Q(1USD=7.6Q)and then we went to the dollar store to get some more of the sweet, sweet, hand sanitizer.We were searching for more hand sanitizer because we have to use it before we take out our contacts, before we eat and after we eat. we were going through that stuff so very quickly that searching for some more ahead of time was a good idea. we were having no such luck finding hand sanitizer in the past week but bill was able to direct us to the dollar store where he bought his. he also taught us how to ask for it. and then we had success, woot woot. now we had to get the the boat. we had no luck haggling the boat owners down from 20Q to 15Q or 10Q they had a monopoly over the water taxi service in Penachel.

we eventually made it to san pedro and took the long trek to find a hotel. it felt like a wild goose chase to find the best hotel as well as get spanish lessons set up for the next day. the town is nothing but cobble stone and up hills and down hills. we were exhausted becasue we had already gone on several long bus rides, walking around Penachel, and running on little sleep. but we eventually found the best hotel for us. it had a good view of the water, had good access to our "school", resturants and lots 'o' hammocks.

the last 2 days blended together really nicely with the overnight bus ride. Today was perhaps the longest day(s) of the trip so far. but im excited/relieved to be staying in one spot for a while and able to settle in.