Ziplines, Domo & Tigerduck

I lost my helmet while ziplining. Of course I did, right? Therefore I needed to wear the chin-strap, which is optional. But after my little guide had to go find my helmet in the forest (see pics on photobucket), I decided the chinstrap was for the best. Even if I look silly as all get out. Poor guide - and when I say little I mean in stature. The paths were definitely built for people of a shorter variety than me and Jeff.

Anyway, this morning Jeff and I visited the Nature Reserve here at Lake Atitlan and I was super excited to Zipline through it since I have never done that before. Why not wait until we're in a country that totally ignores all safety features, eh? So I was all excited until I realized that in order to zipline down you have to first climb up. Ugh. It worked out, though - was tons of fun and we got fun pictures out of it. Then we walked around and saw monkeys (just 2 - boring) and a butterfly area. Very pretty.

Also, I should explain the picture of Domo and Tigerduck. Tigerduck is Jeff's little friend - the love child of a tiger and a duck (see photos) and he is from a German children's book (copy this link: http://www.google.com.gt/search?hl=es&q=tigerente&btnG=Buscar+con+Google&lr=). Jeff carried him around the world on his last trip so this time I thought I should have a funny thing of my own to bring along. My sister, the creative one, made me a little Domo (aka Domo-kun - copy this link: http://images.google.com.gt/images?hl=es&q=domo-kun&lr=&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi).

He's just the cutest thing to come out of Japan! I love him, although I have no idea why. So we take pictures of Domo and Tigerduck along our trip as a joke and although I feel pretty silly getting them out sometimes, it's hysterical!

More photos up today. Hope everyone likes them and don't forget that I put some (like the 6:09 pm shots) in folders on Photobucket - so look to the left for those folders.

I stepped in Mangy Dog poo.

Wah. For a few hours yesterday I wondered exactly why I smelled so bad - but I finally figured it out. A bunch of it, too. Disgusting - but gone now. I'm documenting the mangy dogs as I go so feel free to check our Photobucket site for more (fabulous) mangy dog pics.

We are in Lake Atitlan and I love it. No pressure from school, tons of shopping, yummy food and tons to see. I think if it's not the most beautiful lake in the world I'm sure it makes the top 20. Super cute town too (Panajachal).

However, we took a boat ride today to another town that was NOT cute (Santa Cruz). Far from cute - it was in fact boring and stupid. I walked an hour at a 45 degree incline that I did not care for one bit. Not one bit. To what end? What did we find at the top? NOTHING. Well, some chickens and kids. Some ten year old called me "sexy". Inappropriate - and totally untrue at the time since I was miserable and sweaty and tired (see our picture here...)

We're becoming regulars and this yummy dive kind of restaurant down the street from us. Not sure of the name, but they have Happy Hour from 10 am to 11 pm and it's usually pretty empty in there. We like it a lot.

Pau - Mangy Dog pics are up. Woohoo!
Nario and Hucker - More plant life for you.
Lambert - Check out Pana Rock! Total rip off of Hard Rock - tell them! (also tell Coke to get down here, there's way too much pepsi.)
Adub - they played Ace of Base today at our restaurant! Now you know why we're regulars!

Who is the person following my friendly update named "What are you thinking..."?

All - hope you're doing well. Toodles.

The Exotic Pigeon

Jeff and I were able to visit the Zoo of Xela on Sunday and see all it's exotic wild life. The Zoo had a few awesome features, in my opinion. One, is that they had caged - and not caged since they are everywhere in the WORLD - pigeons. Fascinating. Two, the cages for each and every animal wouldn't stop a 3 year old (or anyone who can walk or crawl) from going directly up to each cage and sticking your fingers in. That's especially fun and exciting with the Jaguar and Coyote cages - and all of the predatory birds (see pics on photobucket: http://s423.photobucket.com/albums/pp320/dscheffy/ and don't forget to click on the pictures for mini descriptions of each). Hysterical - and totally dangerous.

Other than the Zoo we've been pretty mellow. We saw a movie (in English but with Spanish subtitles), spoke some espanol, ate lots of western food, and shopped at the local mall for a new camera. Yes, people, that's right - I lost yet another thing. And I wonder why I everyone said don't bring my engagement ring. Blah! We lost it in our host family's house and it's gone forever - and I am road rage like angry about it. Blind Rage, if you can imagine that of little ol'me.

We leave tomorrow for Lake Atitlan - self titled most beautiful lake in the world (and I believe it makes it onto the top 100 lists of others). It is supposed to be beautiful so who knows how long we'll stay there - but I'm excited for a change of pace and to get to sleep in. Talk to you from the lake!

The Mangy Dog game lives on!

When we were in India, Jeff and I got to play two fun games. One was "Man Peeing" and the other was "Mangy Dog!" I didn't know that I would get to play more Mangy Dog when we got here but they are EVERYWHERE. It's just like Punch-buggy where you get a point for every vw bug you see. Luckily the mangy dogs don't want anything to do with us, so that's nice.

Yesterday we went to some hot springs and it was WAY hot in those pools. There were 3 pools - super hot, kind of hot, and decent hot. I could only stick my feet in the super hot, but jeff went all the way in. The kind of hot wasn't bad, but I prefered the only decent hot pool and stayed in that the rest of the time. The ride to the hot springs was about a half hour up a windy road that made me quite naseous, but had some amazing views. A ton of farmland with the biggest carrots I've ever seen!

Sadly, we opted not to wake up super early to try out the Tai Chi classes on Tuesday or today - they started at 6 am. No thank you. But gracias anyway. Today we have more Salsa classes and tomorrow we get to go to a Chocolate Factory.

We are currently putting more pictures online at a site called "Photobucket" (hahaha, bucket). Here's the link to all our good pics so far (all pictures have titles and descriptions and others are in well named albums to the left of the screen):
http://s423.photobucket.com/albums/pp320/dscheffy/

Jeff won´t let me buy a machete. WAH.

Can´t a girl buy a big scary knife when she wants? Perhaps it´s punishment for last night. We went out to dinner with Mateo, a fellow student, and while at the restaurant we enjoyed a lot of loud hispanic music. It was good music, but then I got the idea to request songs - there was a DJ, it´s not my fault - DJ´s call to me. But surprisingly there was no Jay Z, Luda or Timbaland, so we just said yes to musica americana. Oooops.

For the next half hour we listened, LOUDLY, to some Richard Marx, Poison, Seanad O´Conner, that Don´t Worry Be Happy song. UGH. Needless to say we cleared most of the place out. Oh well, we had a good time anyway.

Salsa lessons were great the other night! Per the teacher Jeff and I were doing a really good job although the turns are a bit tricky. I believe we get to go again this week so we can practice more. Very fun.

Then we went to a glass factory on Friday and although all the workers were gone, we got to watch a sweet video on how they make all the glass bowls, cups, etc. The other students said on Monday they went to a chocolate factory that also happened to be closed and they watched videos...I´m starting to wonder if this is a scam. Just kidding. Kind of. On Saturday, however, the volcano was open so no video that day. Just a LOT of uphill walking. Clearly I´m way out of shape, but at the crater of the volcano was a lake and we walked around that. Very beautiful (see picture above). There were some great views of other volcanos and the walk down was much more pleasant than the walk up.

We also found ducks in our family´s backyard - so a dog, a parrot, a fish and ducks. I still don´t want to touch any of them but the Parrot, Thomas, won´t be quiet unless you give him some tortilla so I have had to do that once or twice. I don´t get any closer than necessary - he likes to bite. Ew.

The food is pretty good and our family switches it up every day so that´s nice. The only food I didn´t like so far was some soup with nasty legumes in it. But I ate it - I´ll eat whatever they put in front of me and give it to jeff when they aren´t looking if need be. We have only eaten out twice with students, otherwise we prefer to eat at home (its free there). There´s also a GREAT bread place called Xelapan (xela is the town we´re in and pan is bread in espanol). Yummy cookies and breads. Down the street there is a billboard for Taco Bell and so help me I will find where they are hiding that Taco Bell. You can´t tease me with a billboard and not give me beans!!

Adios for now!

Xela

No, that is not the name of some character from a sci-fi book (although it doesn't sound bad...). That's the name of the town we are staying in right now about 4 hours outside of Guatemala City. We are staying with a family and taking Spanish classes during the day. The family has a dog, a parrot and a fish. I don't want to touch any of them, but the dog loves Jeff.

Jeff just showed me how to change my keyboard to an Enlgish one, so sorry to anyone I emailed before. This is muuuuch better.

No one in the familiy and none of the teachers will speak English to you, so it's immersion all the way. I know that's great for learning and all but it makes me slightly nervous. We'll see how I feel two weeks from now. Each afternoon they have an activity for us and tonight we're doing Salsa lessons. Tomorrow we're going to a glass blowing factory and Saturday on a hike of a mini volcano. They aren't mandatory, but they sound like a good time so we're in.

We've got hot water! Which makes me love the family we're staying with way more than the dirty hostel the first night. DIRTY. DIRTY!! And full of hippies - and we all know how I feel about that. :)

The towns are full of McD's, BooBoo Jangs/BK's, Pizza Huts, Dominos and Wendy's. But we eat every meal with our family so none of that. I am getting my fill of beans - oh yeah! We had some strange soup today that had a chunk of beef and some strange beans that are not the good beans I know and love - but I ate it and per usual make Jeff finish any meal I can't finish on my own.

We've taken pictures but can't transfer them yet - we will soon though, promise. Don't be shocked - I chopped all my hair off - but it's still me. We also adopted the tradition Rocko told us about where you take a picture every day at the same time no matter what you're doing. 6:09 pm my alarm goes off and we take a picture - either of each other or together. Yesterday we were having a beer (gallo cervesa) and resting from a long walk to the town square. Today we'll probably be dancing, so we'll get someone else to take a picture for us.

Hope everyone is doing well! Talk to you soon!

We made it and have already been to McD's

But that was strictly to use the internet ... and have a mcflurry.  We were delayed by 8 hours so we had a great nights sleep on ohare's floor and are up for another one in our fine hostel (dirty!!).

 

Off to our immersion school tomorrow - so wish us luck - with the spanish and the bus to get there.  Will write more later and post pics - but it's way past my bedtime.