Climbing Pacaya

Okay, so I was all ready to post pictures today. I came with my camera and USB drive so that I could take them off my memory card and save them too, but it turns out that the computer I´m using is too old to have a USB port. This is all very disappointing because today I climbed Pacaya, an active volcano about an hour from Antigua. It was absolutely incredible, but words really just can´t do it justice. I suppose I´ll go ahead and try though.

One of the guys in our training class´s host dad is involved with running a guide service to the volcano. So, he organized it for us and at 7 am a group of about 25 (which is pretty impressive considering there are only 32 in total) met up in Antigua to take a van out to the volcano. The hike is pretty steep, but with lots of incredible views along the way to stop and enjoy. It took about an hour to get to the highest point we were able to go to. We had to stop where we did because the volcano0 errupted just three years ago, and so the rocks higher up are still a bit unstable. We ate a picnic lunch and our guide even showed us how you could start a fire by just poking around a bit in the ground with a stick that had dead leaves on the end. Awesome. We used this opportunity to roast marshmallows and I think it was one of the coolest things I have ever done. For anyone considering visiting, we will definitely have to go!

Yesterday, my group from Magdalena went to Antigua for the afternoon. I´m pretty sure the market there is in the book ¨1,000 Things To Do Before You Die¨, and it really is quite an experience. It is more or less divided into two sections: the tourist section and the Guatemalan section. The tourist section is the artisans´market which is filled with really beautiful woven goods and people using broken English to try and convince you to buy from them. The more Guatemalan section is filled with vegetables, tropical fruits, pirated dvds, and just about anything else you could imagine. It´s much more boisterous, and slightly overwhelming. I guess this split makes sense as you aren´t going to need to buy a woven bag at the same frecuency that you might need to buy oranges.

Bargaining is huge in the market and while it really stressed me out at first, I think I was much better at it by the end. It actually became kind of fun and made me feel very proud and happy when I got a price much cheaper than the first.... which I know is exactly what they want, but oh well.

What else has happenned since the last time I posted? I still have really awkward conversatins with my host family every day. I´ve watched Aladdin and the Little Mermaid in Spanish and gotten laughed at (good-naturedly) by my host mom for watching cartoons. We got to watch the Obama inauguration, which was pretty cool to see from abroad. I learned how to wash clothes by hand, which my host mom chooses to do even though we actually have a washing machine. She doesn´t think it gets them as clean though-- so by hand it is. Jeans are the hardest I´d say. Other than that, I have just been trying my very best to learn Spanish and also getting a little bit clearer idea of what it is exactly that I´ll be doing for the next two years.