Xela and Juan Sizay

After two weeks of eating myself fat in Mexico we made it to Xela, Guatemala. It feels like a little hilltown but is in actual fact the country´s second largest city. Xela is in the northwest of the country and is best known to most travellers as a place for really cheap Spanish lessons. To my chagrin one week of being here hasn´t been sufficient for me to form sentences yet. I really hoped to be completely fluent by week three.

The school is great. Chris ended up with the local drunk as his teacher the first week which has been great fun for him. He owns a bar and has bloody mary´s for breakfast every morning while trying to teach Chris to conjugate verbs. My teacher is an older pyschologist who can´t find work outside of teaching Spanish. The students are a mixed bag of travellers and missionaries. Chris refers to the group of seven or eight American students who are on their way to an orphanage mission in Honduras as Jean Paul´s Army. At least one of them is definitely not looking forward to going to church every week for the next two and a half years. He told me this yesterday over a few shots of tequilla. Needless to say I like him best.

This weekend was independence weekend (hence the tequilla). I spent most of it frequenting various bars and going to the Santa Georgina hostprings outside town. It´s cool in Xela and there´s no hot water or central heating here, so soaking in scalding water was definitely called for after all those 30 second cold showers I´ve been taking.



Week two begins tomorrow. Jean Paul´s Army will be leaving after this week.