I made it! after moving right past stressed out about the trip and straight through to panic, to almost leaving m passport at home, I boarded eight million planes and on Latin American time (read: an hour late through everything) we arrived a few hours ago, without our luggage, as it had been left in some other airport. It may or may not make it to Flores within the next few days.

pigs in Flores!

The town we’re staying in looks like a colorful village set in the rain forest, on a hill thats about a 60 degree angle, that I get to walk up and down twenty times everytime I want to do anything. I have my own “apartment” room with a family, a mama thats determined to make me gain ten pounds, judging by the way she’s preparing my meals (ie guacamole, fresh tortillas, fried potatoes, and cucumber salads until I want to throw up) and the bugs are the biggest things I’ve ever seen in my life.

I havent stopped sweating since we got here. the air is so thick you can taste it on your tongue. Random pigs and chickens and stray dogs roam the streets, and donkeys and horses are tied with fraying ropes to palm trees. Everyone swings in hammocks in bare feet…hammocks are the recliners and couches of Guatemala…placed in their houses with door open or on their porch.

The water on the lake is so clear you can see right to the bottom, and little fish nibble on your toes when you wade in. The lake water is so warm its barely refreshing. We’ve already had a few thunderstorms take us by surprise, but the rain feels amazing.

mi lago

The air smells like fires and camping because everyone has wood burning stoves.

We start spanish school on monday, and we are visitng Tikal next weekend, and going fishing with our instructor, who I briefly made fantastic plans to marry and spend the rest of my life here with in Flores, until I rememberd my father’s strict instructions specifically NOT to get married, and also found out that Ernesto is already happily married.

I’m still holding out for romance in Belize.

i love it here already.

hasta luego!

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