I HATE MOSQUITOS!!! Ok, maybe I don´t hate them, but I really do hate what they do to me!! The mosquitos and the sand flies or something little have had a hay day with my whole body, but mostly my ankels and feet. I have spent hours awake a couple of the nights in Puerto San Jose harnesing every ounce of my chi, and focusing to achieve every bit of my willpower to not scratch. While I´m reading or sleeping I´ll mindlessly scratch a bite on one foot with the other and soon enough, it is itching like crazy and soon enough both feet are itching and then my forearm, and my thigh, and then, it´s an all out battlefront. I scratched the front of my leg with my Chaco the other afternoon so much that I itched through the skin and it´s now a big scab, but it felt great the whole time! I swear I could scratch to the bone and love every minute of it. What I can´t figure out is why they don´t itch sometimes and other times, out of the blue its so incesant that I think I´m going to cut my foot off. If anyone knows, please let me know. I´d bought some stuff in Belize that maybe kinda worked, but more than anything I think it´s just a placedbo to just get you to not itch it for a minute. Here´s a video of Garrett during a day time attack while we were waiting for a bus in Monterrico.


After much deliberation, we decided to leave Puerto, and we´re now in Quetzeltenango aka Xela (pronounced Shela). I feel pretty good about coming here for the last couple days. It´s a really cool city. We just got here yesterday, and we met up with some locals that Garrett has been in touch with and went climbing today. We went with the guy that pretty much pioneered all the climbing in this area and it was great. I´ll tell you more about it later, but I´ll just leave you with this inspirational picture that Garrett took on one of our last days in Puerto.

Oh, and PS if you were remembering that we were maybe going to split up and I was going to go to Coban and Tiakl, apperantly, there was some forces conspiring against me and there was a flood in the city close to the road to those places so both were out of reach. So, thus here we are, and I´m bummed I didn´t get to go to those places, but I´m really stoked to be here in Xela for out last couple days.

I LOVE chocolate bananas!!! My frist time I ever had them was in Balboa in California at the Jacobsen´s house there. I had heard about them, and they truly lived up to what I´d heard. They are a little hard for me to eat because I have super sensitive teeth and they´re super cold, but oh, man, down here they are the freaking bomb!!! We have found this shop down there that has them, and the other day, they were out of bananas (but they still made us a banana strawberry shake??? go figure) so we had chocolate covered pineapple, which I´ve got to say is pretty freakin amazing. They don´t have the sprinkles down here, which is a bit of a bummer, but they´re also only like 30 cents as oppsoed to $6 or $7 in Balboa. They´re on our menu at least a couple times a day, it´s great. So, thanks, Anne for introducing me to this wonderful treat!!

We went in to Guatmeala City yesterday with Daniel and his brother, David that owns the hotel we´re staying in, and Garrett bought a surf board, so that he´ll have one that will actually float him. We went in to this big mall, and it was such a contrast being in there. It was a huge very American-esque mall with tons of American-esque shops. The difference in lifestyle is amazing. Out here, or in most of the other cities we´ve vistied, it seems like almost everyone, excpet for a few successful, motivate people are totally living day by day. If you try to pay for something with a Q100 bill (quetzals) which is like $15 everyone looks at you like you´re crazy. Even some grocery stores don´t even have enough change to give. But in the city, everything was American prices, and all the teenagers hanging at the mall were just the same. It was really interesting. I´m glad to not be in the city. Looks like we might be hanging out here, in Puerto San Jose working on surfing, and really working on my Spanish for another 5 or 6 days then leave Garrett here and go up to Tikal and Coban for the last couple days with my friend Mark South who is flying in today. Should be a great, relaxing last of the trip! Here I come chocobananas and chocopiña!!

Back at the beach....

After the adventure that it was to get to Antigua, it was really good to be there. In the Lonley Planet guide book, there´s tons about Antigua, but it is a really touristy place. There´s a lot of old Colonial buildings and it´s a cool city, but it was like a mini Eurpoe with all the non-native people walking around with all their quick dry clothes and cameras around their necks. Not thát I´m not a tourist, but you know, that´s not what we can down here for. We had been dropped off at a somewhat lame hotel, with very little personality and only one other group staying there. So during our first walk around the city we ran into a guy that we had met in Belize who was staying at a way better hostel called the Black Cat that we moved to the next day. It´s amazing what a difference a better atmosphere makes. We got some beds in a dorm room and the place was alomst full even though it´s not even high season. There was a restaraunt attached and the $8 per night included a great, big breakfast. It was just a way better place and we were lucky to find it, but I have been a little bummed that we haven´t found more like that. It would have been a bummer trying to travel by myself and not being able to meet people as much.The top pictrue and this one are views from our hostel. Really cool old, broked down churhes were everywhere. The next day we took a tour up to the Pacaya Volcano. It was really cool! It was pretty cloudy and a little rainy and cool the whole way up, then when we got to it, it was really warm and walking on the hardened lava I could feel the heat through my shoes. Here´s a video of some of the lava.

Garrett has been having a great time taking tons of pitcures and it´s cool to see his creative genius at work. Just so you know, in Nov he´s going to be having an art show that I´ll post about later, but he´ll show his pictures from this trip so stay tuned for some amazing photos at that show!We went on a police-escorted hike (they say it´s dangerous, but I think it probably is just at night and it´s a little bit of fear mongering going on) to an overlook of Antigua. This is looking at Pacaya Volcano that we hiked. It was mainly this kind of weather all the time if not more cloudy and rainy. It´s good with it being the rainy season because thére´s not many people here, but kind of a bummer when we are quarantined to our hostel by the occasional down pour. However, the clouds do lead to amazing sunsets. After a couple days in Antigua, we took a couple buses to get us to the coast, to the city of Puerto San Jose. The guidebook doesn´t really say much about this city, so it was a bit of a gamble, but we really lucked out. The first night we went to the first cheap place we could find. $3 a night, but it was pretty bad. Our room was really small, Garrett couldn´t stand up straight and it smelled pretty bad, so we had taken our mattresses out on the porch to sleep. That night was the biggest storm we´ve seen. It was prety amazing! More rain that I´ve ever seen, and fabulous lightning that was lighting up the whole sky, and thunder that rocked the whole place, it was really cool. Again, we were pretty much the only ones there except for the owner´s friends who we were pretty sure were in the mofia. There was a no guns sign bythe restaraunt, and a group of guys with thier prize girlfriends were there with a Marachi band serenading their lunch. So needless to say we were happy to find somewhere else to stay.

Garrett has been wanting to surf and we thought there would be a shop here to rent borads, but upon asking around, we found that there wasn´t one, but there was a guy who surfs, and these kids took us to his house. Turns out he is this great guy, Daniel, who is sponsored by Quicksilver and his brother owns a hostel. Daniel has a couple extra boards that he´s been letting us use. The problem is, he´s like most other Guatemalans in that he is probably 5` 4 or something and he´s a great surfer so they´re these little sporty boards that aren´t great for learning, especially for Garrett. But it´s been pretty fun to just go out and get worked. We went out without boards and just stood in the way of the waves to purposly get rocked to get back in the ocean mode. We´ve been here for a couple days and there´s been a lot of relaxing going on. I´ve been studying a lot of Spanish and I´m more than half way through the 1067 page feat of reading Atlas Shrugged and I can´t put it down. Here´s where I´ve been spending a lot of time.Daniel has three great kids who patiently help me with my Spanish, and come over to play every day because it´s their summer break right now from school. It´s great to play with them in the ocean too. It´s amazing how kids can play in the ocean forever and be super content, and how fun it is to be out there playing with them. We lucked out finding this place for sure. ´We´ll be here for at least a couple more days. Another friend, Mark is coming this weekend and we´ll figure out more when he gets here what we´re going to do, but we´ll probably head back up North to see the ruins of Tikal and go to this cool sounding place called Coban. Anyway, we´re enjoy the beach life, even though it was nice to be in a little bit cooler weather. I woke up early when Garrett went out to shoot to sunrise and went for a run, and I was so sweaty when I got back!! I´ll be stoked to get back to dry weather and snow!! from what I´ve heard! It´s amazing to meet people down here who are genuine and it´s sad how it´s out of the ordinary to find someone here who wants to help you to be nice, not for money or any other sort of compensation. Daniel and his family are great. We´re going to BBQ with them tonight and it should be really fun. Hope all is well with all of you! We´re down to less than two weeks left. It doesn´t sound that long, but when each day is stretched before you, and you really can enjoy and relish every minute, it´s tons of time to soak this all up.

Sketchy situation, but we made it

When we were leaving Pana we decided to splurge ($5 rather than the $2 or $3 for the chicken bus) and take a colectivo. It came and picked us up from our hotel, and luckily it wasn't quite as crunched as usual, but Garrett and I have both had a little bit of stomach problems off and on, and he was not feeling great, so being in there anyway, especially on the really bumpy roads going fast wasn't that great. We were on our way, and this country is crazy because there was construction (like dirt roads with huge pot holes all over) for like 30 miles of the main country's highway. It was such a rough ride. It was raining pretty hard off and on and it was a pretty curvy slow road anyway, going through the beautiful mountains.
All of the sudden traffic came to a stop and our driver just turned off the car and said it happens all the time, but this time was different. We soon found out that there had been a landslide, and that one of the construction vehicles had been caught in it and had been swept down to the river. They also said that 7 cars had been burried, but we later found out that no cars were in it. So, we walked up there and unlike how it would have been in America, we all could just watch a had a good view of what was going on. The other bigger Cat had driven down there and was sinking a little trying to get the other one turned over because there was still a guy in it. It took them forever to actually get it over and I kept thinking about all these 3 to 1 systems we learn about to get a stuck J-rig off some rocks that they could set up but they eventually got it over and got the guy out, but the whole cab was totally full of rocks and mud and he'd been under it all for at least 45 min so he didn't make it. It was really sad. For a while when we were just sitting in the van, this older Mexican lady was complaining about how long it was taking and I wanted to yell at her that at least it wasn't her caught in there. It was frustrating, and it really made me realize how quick something like that can happen. But don't worry, all those of you who are worried about us, we'll be fine. Molly and Jess are both on missions and I know they're praying for us, and Molly's prayers for her future husband to come home are working for sure.
They'd been working on clearing the road the whole time and decided that it wasn't going to happen that night so we had to go back to Panajachel, stay there for a couple hours and leave at 4 am and go on a different road that wasn't safe to travel at night. So, 8 hours yesterday, 3 today, and we're finally in Antigua. Luckily, blessedly we made it!

STUPID FIREWORKS!!

The forth of July is always something to look forward to because of the fireworks and they´re great because they last for like a day, maybe two, and don´t go past 10 maybe 11. Well, here in Pana, they´ve been going for the last week straight that we´ve been here. And I´m not talking about cute little fireworks that you set off in your driveway, I´m talking about that ones that don´t even look cool, they just make a REALLY loud noise that you can hear, and feel anywhere in the city, and proabably the surrounding ones. They set them off all day, at no particular interval until 2 in the morning and on a couple days started at like 4:30 am. They´ve been celebrating Saint Francisco this whole week and at first we thought it was cool, because there was a parade the first day, and we were excited for the festivities, but when they had the same parade the next day, still cool, but it lost a little luster. Then other processions of carrying the statue of San Francisco to the church, that was cool, and interesting because they dressed up like the Conquistadors who I would think that they wouldn´t like but I guess they´re giving them thanks for bringing them Christianity?? The whole week there has been a fair set up but not too much action up there because it´s been rainy, and they were waiting until Sat when the real celebertion happened, which was a 13 piece band and tons of drunk guys dressed like Conquistadors and women stumbling - dancing around for hours.
Anyway, needless to say the festivities have been interesting and enjoyable and it´s made for some fabulous people watching, but seriously people! Can you just quit it with the damn fireworks for the love of San Francisco!

This video is from the parade. San Francisco (well, the weird looking statue of him) is in that thing they're carrying and I'm pretty sure the dude in the blue is one of the guys that was lighting them off the whole time and he probably has no hearing left. He hardly even flinches when they go off, and it was like 100 times louder in real life.