Day 10: Antigua, Guatemala

Yesterday was spent in a van. From 6:45 am to around 6 pm. The ride from San Cristobal de las Casa, Mexico to Antigua, Guatemala is both strikingly beautiful and utterly nauseating. The views that we saw from the bus were awe-striking, looking down from mountains to see lush green forests, mountainscapes, volcanoes, enourmous lakes, and indigeous guatemalans in colorful garments washing vegetables at the top of an enormous waterfall, these were things that I wish I had captured with my camera. Unfortunately, the windy roads, constantly changing altitudes, and cramped conditions of the van we rode in made this utterlty impossible. All I could do for most of the trip was focus on my breathing so I didn't throw up. And, I'm proud to say, I was successful. The trip was vomit free!

Actually, we rode three different vans, and they were quite international. The first and second van had an Italian couple, a Danish couple, and California couple, and two Dutch girls. The third van had a woman from Argentina, a woman from El Salvador, two Australian girls, a French couple, and some more Americans. It was fun talking with and relating to all these people from all these different places. Most of the people in the vans were extremely nice, and we exchanged contact info in hopes of staying in touch. It was nice to get a chance to work on my Italian a bit, too. It's been a long time, and I'm way more rusty than I even thought. I really need to put a lot more work in on my French too if I ever want to be able to hold a decent conversation. I find myself often mixing up languages, especially, peculiarly enough, throwing in Hebrew words when I speak Spanish. That really isn't useful for anyone.

I have to say though, my Spanish has improved dramatically in the last 10 days, and I can really communicate quite effectively 90% of the time, and the other 10% always gets worked out somehow.

Anyways, we are in Antigua now. In many ways, it's almost identical to San Cristobal. Similar size, similar architecture and painting on buildings, comparable amount of tourists. It seems to be a little poorer, and maybe a bit smaller though, and we also saw more people walking around at night who had peed their pants (2).

This afternoon we are going to spend 7 hours climbing up and down an active volcano so that we can look inside and see the lava. Pretty sweet, eh? If I make it back I'll make sure you see some pictures.