Tikal, etc.

Tara here. We had a wonderful 2nd week in Antigua staying with the Quizada-Perez family. The grandmother Maria cooked 3 meals a day for us all week and they were amazing. Her family was so helpful and gracious. We will miss them all. Thank you for your hospitality Maria, Luis, Olga and the rest of the family.

After five salsa lessons, our moves are starting to come along. Here we are with our teachers Carmen and Manollo "Mario Lopez".

Our last weekend in Guatemala was amazing! We took an overnight bus to Tikal, (Mayan ruins set deep in the jungle of northern Guatemala)and spent two days exploring. We made friends with a family of monkeys, saw tucans in flight, and witnessed some crazy wild turkey chases. On our first night, we bribed the security guards to let us stay in the park after closing and watch the sunset from the back side (off-limits/under construction)of Temple Four. Amazing! We then got our very own private night-time jungle tour as the two guards, shotguns and all, brought us with them on their night time rounds and kept us safe from the jaguars.

We stayed in the Jaguar Inn, one of the three hotels inside the park. The inn is powered by generators, and the electricity shuts off after 9:00 p.m. After that, it's all candellight! The next morning, we got up at 4:30 a.m. and did a half-hour sprint across the jungle with 50+ other tourists in order to climb up Temple Four in time to see the sunrise. Well worth it!

After Tikal, we took the shuttle-nightbus-taxi-airplane-taxi to get us to San Jose, Costa Rica. We were lucky enough to meet up with Marissa Mazzoncini (a b-school friend for those of you who don't know here) for lunch today at the San Jose Marriott before taking off in our new rental car. We decided to brave the roads here - the only "real" way to see the countryside! We drove through a cloud forest and then maneuvered down unpaved, windy, "under construction" mountain roads to arrive at Monteverdede, a little town in the rainforest that is the headquarters for zipline canopy tours. More adventures to come tomorrow.

Photos of volcano, tortillas

(Craig on it!)

So the big tragedy of the trip so far was my camera shorting out and blowing away my first week of photos. By the grace of Visa and the import taxes of Guatemala, I paid about $100 for last year´s model Canon.

TD was a good sport (and we needed the exercise) so we re-hiked the volcano and got some great pix. We also toasted marshmallows over the vents. There are clearly no lawyers in Central America.

We also visited the local tortillaria near our host family´s house. These woman work about 14 hours a day making tortillas by hand. They have a wood fire and a large metal plate that they hang over all day. There is a rush at lunch and dinner, when everyone in the neighborhood wants fresh tortillas. They are 3 for 1 quetzal. That is 21 for $1 US. Oh, and there are 12 people living in a 2-bedroom place about 20 by 20.

Finally, we had our last salsa lesson today. Took 2 group classes and 3 private lessons in 2 weeks. Our teacher was Mario Lopez from ¨Saved by the Bell¨, we´re almost certain of it. Picture coming soon.

Wrapping up Antigua.....

(Tara posting) Ok, so we haven't been as diligent in updating this blog as we said we would. In fact, we're almost two weeks in and we haven't sent the link out to you guys yet. I think that's a good sign - we've been incredibly busy and we're having a blast!

We signed up with a Spanish school last week and are taking four hours of intensive, one-on-one language courses each morning. Our teachers are great, and the school is run really well. Our Spanish is coming along, but we're still far from fluent. I was thrilled to find out that my Spanish maestro used to be in a rock band and is as crazy about Def Lepard as I am. The guy actually climbed up a security tower to see them in concert on their last trip to Guatemala. Outside of class, we're taking private salsa lessons and working on our salsa and merengue.

Volcano hikes are the main adventure here! We've hiked Volcan Pacaya (the second most active volcano in South America, I think) twice. The hike is about three or four hours in total, and the guides let us walk right out on lava rocks that were just formed the previous day. Toasting marshmallows on the lava flows was a blast! The second time we hiked Pacaya, the volcano was shooting lava sparks out the top and making lots of noise. It was incredible. There clearly aren't many lawyers in Guatemala - this is something that would never fly in the US! Although it's relatively safe and there hasn't been a major eruption since 2000, it's not completely unheard of for a hiker to slip and step a foot into the lava - ouch!

We spent the weekend in Lake Atilan (a giant crater lake surrounded by volcanoes) and ended up in San Pedro, a hippie and backpacker haven with lots of colorful people and a conspicuously absent police force. It wasn't exactly the relaxing lakeside retreat we were looking for, but it was a cultural experience nonetheless and had great hiking. On Saturday morning, we took a seven hour hike up the Volcan San Pedro. This was, by far the most excruciating physical activity we've ever done. On the hike, we were accompanied by two machete-armed guides who bounded up the mountain and the only policia in San Pedro. The first 3.5 hours were straight up hill, unbelievably steep and would put any stairmaster to shame. We lost one hiker along the way, but the rest of the group was in excellent shape and we pushed forward to the top. We were rewarded by a magnificent view and a short rest at the summit, and then faced an equally treacherous hike down, taking turns slipping in the mud and sliding down the steep trails. After this, hiking Pacaya again the following week was a breeze.

This week, we opted for the true immersion experience and are staying with a Guatemalan family. We live in a quaint little townhouse with two grandparents, two parents, and their three children (two daughters and a son, all in their 20's). It's quite the full house and we have to fight for bathroom space, but it's well worth it. We received an incredibly warm welcome when we arrived on Sunday night, and are enjoying the grandmother's Guatemalan-style home cooking, fresh, handmade tortillas and home made fruit juice every day. Thank goodness we're hiking and salsa dancing up a storm to burn it all off!

This weekend, we're off to Tikal to explore the Mayan ruins. More on that soon, and photos to come!

Guac, Corea, Volcan

FIRST POST!!! Tara and I are running around Central and South America for the next eight weeks or so. We´re gonna blog a bit to stay in touch and share the journey.

While we discover amazing things about Guatemala every day, sometimes the basics tell the best story. They grow a lot of avocado here so you can get it or guacamole at almost every meal. It is soooo good.

Fun night on Tuesday. We went to a small Korean restaurant (Corea in Espanol) and met some really cool people. The place had four tables and maybe 14 chairs to go with the five tables. It was called Veronica´s and I assume the lady who acted as hostess, chef, and busboy was Veronica. She had a fridge, a sink, a two burner gas stove and a couple shelves of plates and cooking gear...and a cooler full of beer, soda and shoju. About half way through the meal, two Korean students showed up, and then a couple from Norway, and some guys from the Netherlands and the UK. Great crowd. It was one of the Korean guys´birthdays and the lady went and got him cake from another place. They taught us how to pour and drink shoju. Pictures coming soon.

We´re off to a hike/tour of Volcan Picaya, one of the three live volcanoes in Guatemala. Rad.