I doubt he learned his lesson. I bet the next snake he sees hes gonna pick up for redemption. Hopefully he doesnt get bitten again. I hope we can get moving soon too. Hopefully tomorrow.
shut out....SHUT DOWN! 16-0. UCLA comes through in the clutch. Im loving it. Next week is gonna be a good game. Jaime, rock the LA gear...but not LA Gear, thats just out of style. Ill try to find them when we get down there for sure. I dont think this time around ill have time to stop and learn spanish, but perhaps when I come back from the trip to pick up my bag Ill spend a week with them.
And one more thing, as soon as I talk about how well I think the Lakers are doing, they crap out two games in a row. Que lástima!
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Two nights ago I became a man. On Thursday, Brandon (one of the four guys im gonna travel with) and I went to Fuentes Georginas. It was a clear day and the church was looking very pretty.
To get there, you take a bus from Xela to a town called Zunil. On the way, the bus stopped to pick up more passengers and this was my view from the window...not a coincidence I think.
From Zunil you hop on one of several pickups waiting to take visitors up the hill. We found one pickup and hopped on the back of it and took off up the hill. It was a lot of fun riding up the mountain in the back of a pickup with the wind blowing through our hair and driving through the clouds with the precipitation dampening our face. The view was great too; hillsides with all kinds of vegetables growing and the smell of onions and lettuce as we drive by. This is a shot of Brandon in the back of the truck as we head up to Fuentes Georginas.
The hot springs themselves are very relaxing. There are three pools with varying degrees of hotness..from tepid to comfortable to scorching! The scorching was my favorite at first..but soon i found myself lounging in the tepid waters to cool off. By the end of it I was shriveled up like a raisin..it was pretty nasty. Anyways, here are some photos from the pools.
We left the springs around 5:30 and caught a ride in the back of a truck of a family that was visiting Xela from the coast. The ride down was just as beautiful, if not moreso, than the way up. The sun was setting and the clouds looked a fiery orange, the hills dark green, and the wind was biting cold.
Well, it was a friday night and we were feeling good from the hot springs and wanted to go out and do something. I remembered that about a week before when we went to listen to some live jazz at a local restaurant, the waitress told us about a benefit party for one of the NGO's in town (of which there are hundreds, and there are these benefit type parties almost every week). TO make a looong story...less long...we had good music, good drinks, and good company all night. Around 1:30am we head back to the crib to call it a night. Or do we?
Twas a full moon and a beautiful night. Volcán Santa Maria looked lonely, longing for the company of a few travelers. There we were, a group of four ready to share our night with the mountain that betrayed Peter with a snake bite. At 2:30am we head out from the hostel and catch a cab to the base of the volcano. The nightmare begins. At 6000 feet in Xela, we began our ascent up to the 14000 foot summit which we hoped to reach before dawn. The moon shed light on our path and we didnt need to use the headlamps we brought. The rush of adrenaline gave us a false sense of confidence that we would continue our initial pace all the way to the top. Then the swtichbacks started, at first long and with a shallow incline. We reached the clouds an hour and half into the climb and the wet, muddy trail became steeper and the switchbacks shorter. Another hour passes and light begins to creep out of the east, as the moon sets in the west. We reach the spot where the snake bite took place, and know that the summit cant be far. But I cramp up, the lactic acid building up telling my legs to give in. The guys keep going. They are like mountain goats or something, the altitude, incline, weather...nothing seems to bother them. My guess is that its because they are from Colorado and climb mountains every weekend! Im there out of breath, out of life it seems. The sun begins to rise and I know the only reason they arent at the top yet is because they are going at my pace. I tell them to push on and that I will follow. Almost an hour and half later I finally reach the top, and the adrenaline that began this crazy ascent rushes back into me. Im at the top of the world! This is what I saw...
The last picture is of Volcán Santiaguito, the most active volcano in Central America, some 4-5 thousand feet below. On our way down, I got to see just how beastly of a mountain it was that we ascended.
I passed out for a good part of yesterday, a saturday...and enjoyed some live jazz again over a glass of wine. Life has been good.With any luck, well be leaving tomorrow for a farm a couple hours away to put in some manual labor and learn how to pick coffee and cocoa, learn how to process it, milk some cows and make tortillas the guatemalteco way. For 50Q a night, we get three meals and shelter, and the opportunity to help out and learn some skills. At last, Xela will be in the past.
Keep it fresh...like the air at 14000 feet...like the drama in my storytelling!
- Neil
