On Friday evening there was a graduation party at the school, so we did not have an activity planned that morning. So I slept in because I still was not feeling that well, I even ended classes a bit early because my stomach was upset. We were supposed to dress up as Shania Twain and perform Man I feel like a woman which obviously fell through as were unprepared and I stayed home sick from the party.

 On Saturday we had a day off of activities and school so Betsy and I decided to meet up and walk up one of the mountain sides surrounding the city to get a nice view, so these are a few pictures of that. On the way back down my knee killed. Afterwards, we rested for a few minutes before heading to the balcon which is a restaurant in the city center with a great balcony and view. The picture to the right is a picture from the balcony at the bar/restaurant. After that we went to the municipal theatre to see if we could get a listing of the performances, however because it was Saturday it had been rented out to a national telethon. We watched a Micheal Jackson lip sync and dance before we realized that everything including the audience was being filmed live, there were only about 20 people in the audience so we definitely appeared on the local TV channels.

This is a picture of the city centre in Xela or Quetzaltenango. The central park is really beautiful.




This is a picture of the one of the passages in stemming from the city centre that is beautiful and filled with pubs and bars lit with candles at night time.

On Sunday we went tree planting with the school. Betsy, Laura, Elsa, Emily (another girl studying at the language school) drove all the way up the mountain in the back of this pick-up truck, as you can see we were having a blast and very excited to be in the back of a truck haha.

 These are pictures from the drive up the mountain, they are a bit blurry because we were moving and the road was pretty bumpy. It was about a half hour drive up straight up the mountain.

We finally arrived in a national park near the top of the mountain where there had been a forest fire. Thus we were planting trees that were replacing the ones that burnt and died during the fire. The park was pretty forested to begin with unlike other parts of Guatemala that are completely deforested, so the extent to which this was the most useful reforestation project may be limited. It was fun and interesting nonetheless.

We finally arrived in a national park near the top of the mountain where there had been a forest fire. Thus we were planting trees that were replacing the ones that burnt and died during the fire. The park was pretty forested to begin with unlike other parts of Guatemala that are completely deforested, so the extent to which this was the most useful reforestation project may be limited. It was fun and interesting nonetheless.

On Monday, we did not have an activity planned so Elsa, Betsy and I wanted to go to some natural volcanic steam baths that are halfway up a mountain in a small surrounding community, but the school said it wasn't safe because there were robbers along the mountain hike to get there and a few weeks ago some students got robbed with guys with machetes. Anyway, they said we could go to some other volcanic saunas nearby.

On the way there we got stuck in the middle of a political parade for about a half hour. The elections are in September and there is propaganda everywhere, its really Intense! This is a picture of the parade that also included girls dancing, little boys dressed up as mascots and tons of marching people.

 We finally arrived at Las Cumbres  where we had our private thermal sauna that was so warm but nicer than artificial ones that I have been to before. We stayed in there for an hour with repeated cold showers in between,.

 My favorite outing yet was on Tuesday when we went to the Fuentes Georginas, which are hot springs on top of a mountain near Xela. They were simply breathtaking, and so was the drive up the mountain. The natural hot spring was boiling hot, no one there was able to swim or bathe in it. We simply sat on the edge and poured the hot water over our bodies which was nearly unbearable.

 This is a picture of the hot springs that was completely destroyed during a landslide a year or two ago.

 This is in the parking lot of the hot springs, as you can see they are very high up on the mountain, and a really beautiful location.

This is the steam coming off the water that shows how hot it is, the temperature outside was cool but probably around 20 degrees.

 There was a second, smaller pool of hot spring water that we could swim in but it was too cool to stay in for very long, and the hot one was too hot to stay around for any length of time either.  Later in the day when the water level rises the two pools mix and the water temperature neutralizes. But we weren't there at the right time of day so naturally we decided to drink beer, and this picture is a result of dehydration, early morning, altitude and beer.

Locals come to the springs because they believe that the springs have medicinal and healing purposes for the high sulfur content and other minerals. I have been told repeatedly that I need to come to heal my knee.

The next day we went to make homemade chocolate. We started with a history of chocolate in Guatemala, which the cocoa seeds were originally used as money and not consumed or produced to make chocolate, but sometimes were used to make alcohol. They showed us the fruit from which cocoa is derived, the seeds are taken out and left to ferment for a few days before being dried in the sun for several days afterwards. After that they are roasted, we started to make our chocolate at this point in the process when the beans or "seeds" had already been roasted. We peeled the beans and then put them through this blender which essentially shredded them, after they were crushed the first time you had to repeatedly put them through the blender several times until it becomes very fine. After that you add sugar and put the two through the machine together also several times to ensure that the sugar is evenly distributed amongst the cocoa. After heating the mixture shomewhat into a pasty like substance you pat it down into an even shape like a rectangle. After adding a little design to your chocolate you  have to let it sit for about 3 hours until you can consume it. I haven't eaten mine yet, to be quite honest it looks kind of nasty and is stuck to the plastic bag we put it in haha! Nonetheless its only cocoa and sugar and is much more natural than chocolate you buy in the store and it was really interesting to make it yourself!

This is just another picture of the largest pool, the guy isn't in the water he is on a rock! There is a small restaurant/bar in the background.

The last few days at Spanish school have been interesting because we haven't really been doing all that much, one day Elsa, Laura and I went to the bank that is in the mall on the other side of the city with our teachers because I still had not successfully been able to withdraw money here! We spent the whole day there, and the following day we went to the movies with our teachers to watch harry potter in Spanish, so I guess that kind of counts as a Spanish lesson!

Most of the group went out for Italian food last night which was absolutely amazing and really authentic and I got tortellini which was AMAZING, we had some wine and then Elsa, Betsy, Rachel and I went to some salsa club for free lessons and more drinks. I danced some but we had an early night because we had eaten too much pasta, which wasn't mixing well with drinks and dancing!