I am currently living with a family in Xela and studying at a language school here just for a week since the mountain school was full this week. I have been studying 5 hours each afternoon with my teacher and have taken up coffee-drinking since I found I can´t think in either english or spanish after 5 pm. I have been a little overhelmed by ¨the big city¨ after spening two weeks sitting in hammocks at the mt. school. There are many worthwhile opportunities here in Xela, and having only one week has been stressful. I have also been learning the imperfecto tense, which has been quite frustrating. As soon as I felt I could actually say things in spanish, I learn a new tense and am back at square one. I have been lucky with my teachers though. Both have had wonderful senses of humor and have gracefully dealt with my sarcasm and stupidity.
I spent last weekend with two friends at Laguna Chicabal, a sacred mayan area. We camped for the night and did a bit of hiking. On tuesday night, I and a new friend of mine (who also loves walking) went on the full moon hike with Quetzaltrekkers. We met at 11 pm and returned the next day at noon. There were 24 of us, including 5 leaders. It has been hard for me to pay to go hiking, but it simply isn´t safe here for me to go alone so I have resigned myself to the fact that I must go with guides. It was a wonderful experience. I and two others were the first ones up the mountain, of course. We arrived at the top by about 4 am and slept for a couple hours as we waited for the sunrise. And the sunrise may have been the most spectacular I´ve ever seen. The entire sky was ringed with a deep orange/yellow and the many volcanoes in the surrounding areas formed a silhouette. Unreal. At the same time, there was an active volcano off to our right, which errupted every 30 minutes. I sure love mountains. Although it was VERY strange for me to be a part of a guided hike, and extremely annoying to have to wait for people who acted like they were dying, I loved it. And the most heroic part was that afterwards, I managed to survive my 5 hour class yesterday afternoon. I was quite delerious, but my teacher was gracious and we passed the time by telling each other interesting stories and talking about Egypt (all in Spanish of course).
This weekend I will go with a group to build stoves in a nearby community and possibly spend the night near some hotsprings before returning to the Mt. School for my final week of classes.
