There is no two ways about it, the title of this entry is a fully realized porkie-pie.
Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, is our Spanish studies. We are studying at a school just near the main plaza in Antigua. It really is a great school to study at (more on that in a sec) and I vow to put their name on here for a full advertisement as soon as I can find the leaflet for it.
For just $150 a week, we get 1 on 1 tuition with teachers that the school assures us are fully qualified and not, as many schools practice in Guatemala, just people who look cleanly that have been pulled off the street.My teacher, Maria, is helpful and patient. We have a good rapport and structured lessons. Lauren has a teacher who isnt as fluent in English as Maria, but they still have a great rapport with each other and Lauren finishes each lesson beaming.
We have also just today moved into a Guatemalan family home. Lauren, moi and a German guy called Arne are staying at Casa de Maria. A largish middle class Antiguan household with the Mother- Maria, father(totally forgot his name, damnit,) and the two children, Pricilla, 15, and by far the leader of the houshold, Gabrielle, 11. We have just had lunch with them and they seem really friendly and encouraging in terms of us learning Spanish. Luckily, neither Lauren, Arne nor I know that much Spanish at all, so we are all able to actively help each other out rather than some smarty pants (invariably from continental Europe because us Brits are too arrogant to learn other languages,) answering all our questions for us. I gotta say, I have only been learning for three days, and already I am feeling much more confident in my language use. Its been so worthwhile and were settled on staying on for (at least ) one more week.
Another thing the school organises is excursions, and yesterday afternoon we went in a minibus full of Danes to Volcano de Pacaya, an active (yes active!) volcano around an hour drive from Antigua.
When we got there (after driving through numerous shotgun-toting checkpoints,) we should have known we were in for a hard day when the minibus was swarmed with children offering to sell us sticks.
What we want a stick for, I was stupid enough to ask aloud. Relenting, Lauren bought one, as did the majority of the group, and I didnt want to be the odd one out, Im just not secure enough for that, so I paid my 5Quetzales (about 15 pence) and bought a walking stick too.
Here is us at the bottom, brandishing our sticks in the wild belief that we wont need to use them.
So the ascent began, within five minutes the group was pouring sweat. We pushed on,tempted every fifteen meters by locals on horses, humerously offering us a taxi to the top. Noone took one though, who would want to be that much of a wuss!
A break in the trees gave us our first real glimpse of our destination, the smoking summit of Volcano de Pacaya.
We had walked almost 2.5 kms by now, the majority of that being near vertical and it was time for a break. We stopped at one of the sancitoned and guarded waiting post and looked out over the world.
Not enough time for waiting about though, it was time to press on, especially as it was coming relatively close to nightfall and we were stuck right up a bloody active volcano.
The terrain noticably changed after the rest. The trees dissappeared, to be replaced with fine volcanic rock. Thicker than sand but slippery as hell, we scaled across the top of a mini-valley between the volcano and a twin peak.
Then came the best bit, at the top of the gulley, we took a deep collective breath. We looked down at the slope before us, sure we could keep going until we got to the pass, that would only take us ten more minutes, but we didnt want to. We wanted action and adventure. As a group, we half ran, half slid down the side of the volcano, sliding down the scree and sending swathes of rock and dust into the air. The point was to keep moving, dont lean forward and dear God, dont fall over the edge. At first Lauren had her doubts (Im not doing that Michael. Absolutely no way!) but as we stood there, the last two of the group to go, even Lauren wasnt afraid enough to do the walk of shame down the sanctioned safe way. We held hands, held our sticks aloft, and went for it. It was as amazing as running down a scree covered active volcano sounds.
This is the slope, unfortunately I only have a film of the actual running down it, and have yet to work out how to put that onto the blog…
Finally though, we were there, at the summit.
A picture speaks a thousand words and Im feeling lazy, so here is 4 thousand words…
As a special not on the above picture, how much does it look like Sauron is giving Guatemala the eye!
And finally, I apologize for some of the lackluster punctuation in this entry, but Im using a Spanish keyboard and when I want a question mark I get an É, when I want an apostrophy I get an È and when I want speech marks I get an È, go figure.
[Continue reading this entry]