On the surface Xela (pronounced shay-la) appears to have little to offer. with its mish mash of old and new architecture (due to earthquakes-felt a small one(tremer) was kinda like the tube passing underneath) and narrow cobbled and beat up streets it doesnt have an obvious charm. it turned out to be a really good place to study spanish. with its friendly locals, slow pace and little bakeries we relaxed with our new surroundings and settled in with a week of study.

the deal included a week of staying with a family with all meals and the 5 days of 5 hours a day one on one tuition. we chose to stay with seperate families to improve our spanish and the week flew by being quite intensive. the Xela cemetary was full to the brim with Xela folk as they cant afford cremation. they build up rather than down with families being buried together in house like graves. louise really liked their situation towards death in that it is much more celebrated over here with brightly coloured graves and they celebrate the day of the dead yearly with fiestas everywhere. thats the way to do it! mike found the colourfull over exposed cemetries sitting on hills a little unappealing and requested not to be buried in a bright red, pink and yellow grave on a hill(to be burnt will be sufficient hola).

we hired a couple bikes after being told of a ride out of xela and down the mountain that lasts 2 hours. we set off first having to climb a big old hill thats harder than 2 maybe even 3 archways (i aint kidden ya) and then found ourselves on a sharp decent that didn't end. we descended through towns and through valleys as chicken buses and trucks weaved through. it started to rain then bucket down and i found myself wondering why i was riding a bike down a hill in the rain, wet and cold (xela is about 2500m above sea level) and as we past the second lot of memorial crosses sandwiched between a chicken bus and truck, we decided to jump a chicken bus back. the guy at the shop managed to convince us to keep the bikes and ride to the beach the following day. we would need to ride out of the mountains then grab a bus the rest of the way and stay the night. the ride turned out to be like nothing before. the scenery was beautifull and slowly changed from hills covered with patchwork gardens (does anyone like spring onions in their omelete) to valleys to tropical plantations to dry heat. gliding down the hill with sharp turns was fun and i almost hit a vulture with a 2 metre wing span as it took off in front of me. i came off the road into a ditch after not being able to pass a truck on the inside but all was well. so we made it out of the mountains and caught the chicken bus to the beach which was a resort town for guatemalans. with its black sand, its pier falling down (used to be a port town) and railroads dissapearing to nowhere it was not your ordinary beach town. the people were hard to understand with their slow slur from the heat and there were many people on bikes. we managed to win a beach ball from a dodgy st fair vender thingy where you throw balls at cans. louise almost lost her cool with the old lady who kept touching (no tocar, no tocar) and moving the cans. we headed back to Xela the following morning by chicken bus and on the drive up the mountain considered ourselves lucky this driver wasnt coming the other way as we came down. he spent half the time on the otherside of the road overtaking slow trucks and came close to several head-ons, but that is the nature of the chicken bus driver god bless him.