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Articles Tagged ‘xela’

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Jan. 15/16 – Guatemala

Saturday, January 21st, 2006

Day 167/168 – Woke up ready to get some writing and website work down, but to our dismay the whole city lost electricity. The power was nonexistent until the evening, so we spent the day wandering the city more and drinking coffee.

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ummmm.. coffee.


view from the cafe above Parque Centro America

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more pics of Parque Centro America

Monday, our first day of school!! We dressed in our best clothes and put on our backpacks to meet our new teachers and classmates. Okay, not really – we put on what was left of our non-dirty clothes, picked up our notebooks, and walked to school. The school has a very nice courtyard, rooms for focusing on studies, and a quaint kitchen where the bread, coffee, and tea are for break. In the middle of each morning we take a half hour break to consume the delicious treats and talk with all the teachers and students. The lessons are one on one and can be prepared according to each students motivation to learn. We both learned more on the past and present verb tenses, and I learned more vocabulary and general conversation. Jason learned more economic and social based conversation. On our second to last day, Jason’s teacher suggested we have a small group discussion on the social and economic situations in Guatemala. That was a very interesting and great discussion. INEPAS is located on 15a Ave 4-59 & 5 calle – t. 765.1308 www.inepas.org


Our host family!! They are wonderful! lft to rt: Ana Maria, David, Juan, Ana Maria, April, & Jason 🙂

Today we also met our host family that we will stay with for the whole week. Their house is only 20 feet away from the school, so it is an easy walk for us. 🙂 Ana Maria and Juan (aka Paco), the parents, along with their daughter Ana Maria (aka Ana) and her son David all live in the house. Also, Rosa lives in the home. She is a university student from the north of Guatemala and rents out a room from Ana Maria and Juan while she attends school. Senora Ana Maria Gutierrez de Fuentes is always welcoming guests to stay in the apartments while they are in Xela. Her address is 5a calle 14A-30, right near INEPAS, t. 7763.0237. Recommended.

Our luck with Xela’s utilities has not been too good. We found out this evening that the water in the city will be shut off for three days, starting tomorrow, while the water system is being worked on. The city was granted money by Japan to update their water system, but they had a strict deadline to complete it. We were also told that the water availability has been a problem all year. We took our last shower for a few days and hope all goes well with the work.

Posted in 09 - Guatemala | 1 Comment »

Jan. 12/13 – Guatemala

Thursday, January 19th, 2006

Day 164/165 – Guatemala, here we are!! Let me start with when we came within a few miles of the Guatemalan boarder. As we drove over the last hill in Mexico the landscape suddenly changed, creating a new level of green and a crazy vertical dimension for our eyes to take in. Curving our way down to the last village, we could see over the border to a vast volcano-like mountain range, lush with dense tropical plant life that was sweet our eyes and welcomed us to Central America.


The clouds are covering the mountains, but this on the way to the boarder from Mexico

This afternoon’s drive to Quetzaltenango was tranquil, the best reward we could receive after the border crossing. We climbed and crawled (at times in 1st gear, poor Henry) up the retired volcanos, along all the villages which had abundant crops. We moved through the clouds to explore this new environment. We started to get a taste of the culture in this region of Guatemala, where men and women carry loads of wood or dried stalks on their upper backs, and women also carry baskets of goods balanced on their heads, up the mountain highway, back to their abodes. There were so many new plants surrounding us, and water in the form of falls, rivers, and dew. A climate of clouds, forests, continuous grass, and cold air embraced us on our drive.

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Guatemala…..

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joining the clouds

We reached the city right after night and decided to spoil ourselves by staying at a nice hotel, at a great price. Quetzaltenango, (aka Xela – the Mayan name) is a colonial town from the Spanish Conquest. It has a historic center around the Parque Centro America. Our hotel, Kiktem-Ja 13 Ave 7-18 bwt 7 & 8 Calle – 761.4303, is one block off the park, with a stone courtyard where Henry was able to rest. Off the courtyard are the rooms.

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The rooms are held to their original charm, with all wood floors, ceilings, and furniture. We also have a fireplace to help keep the room warm. Trust me, Xela at this time of year is cold! The temperature gets close to freezing in the middle of the night, but during the day it will warm up. When the sun comes out we can even take off our hats and jackets.


warming up after a cold evening.

We spent our first day searching for a Spanish School. We decided to go with INEPAS, a non-profit group that has two programs. A Spanish School program that caters to all levels of learning, and a Social Service program that helps the surrounding area, which students can get involved in. We decided to stay in the hotel for the rest of the weekend while we explored the city and enjoyed our historic surroundings.

Posted in 09 - Guatemala | 1 Comment »