Super Chivos!

Me rock climbing
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Interesting bus journey - bus kept on breaking down and was sat next to a coffee grower who I practiced my Spanish with.  Surprised myself - got into a discussion (alright, not really a discussion, more an odd sentence here and there) about the Iraq war.

Checked into Casa Argentina, got a room with a TV, quality!  Wandered round and found that Xelapan does quality cream cakes for next to nothing.  Bought some veg and fruit for dinner to counter act the cream cakes.

Went rock climbing with Quetzaltrekkers on Monday.  Early start, breakfast at 6 and climbing by 8.  Bit of a walk from where the pickup dropped us to the crag.  Really gritty volcanic rock.  Was climbing with 2 Koreans who hadn't climbed before and an American guy.  The easiest climb there was not exactly starter stuff so the Koreans never managed to finish a climb.  The other climbs were pretty damn tough and my fingers were hurting from the rock after a while.  All good though.

Me rock climbing, again
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School the next day.  This time it's for 5 hours a day, 8 till 1.  That came as a shock.  Moved in with a family too.  Have the worlds smallest room and the mum never leaves house and doesn't really have anything to say.  Spend most of my freetime in the park trying to do homework as working at the house just isn't great.  Food is ok, only problem is most of it is fried so I'm going to be gordo by the time I leave.  School is pretty good, they are a lot more thorough than San Pedro.

What I look like at 4220m.
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Met a Dutch couple and English guy and Australian girl who are also studying at the school.  Went to the free Gallo (Guate beer company.  Not great beer by the way) music festival with them on Saturday.  Entertaining festival, some of it was good and some were just absolute rubbish.  Spanish punk was quite entertaining!

Met a couple of English girls at the school and we climbed Tajumulco with Quetzaltrekkers.  Tajumulco is the highest point in Central America (4220m) and is an inactive volcano.  Had a really good group of people on the trip.  Climb up wasn't too bad, some people were feeling really sick just because of the altitude.  We camped at about 4000m and had dinner.  Tried to get a campfire going but the wood was just to wet.  It also started to chuck it down about 7pm so everyone went to bed.  No-one slept well as every tent seemed to get soaked.  The foot of my sleeping bag got soaked and I had cold feet.  Didn't sleep more than about 1 hour.  It was freezing cold the next morning and there was snow on the top of Tajumulco!  Really cool views from the top, you can see Mexico, the Pacific and Lago de Atitlan.  Well worth it!

What a lot of people look like at 4220m.
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Chilled out for the next couple of days in Xela.  No more Spanish lessons.  Wandered around some markets and went to the American-style shopping mall in Xela.  Really bizarre to see Guatemalteco's in traditional dress going up and down on Escalators!  Apparently when the place was first built everyone used the emergency stairs as they were too scared to use the escalotors and lifts!

Super Chivos, by the way, is the nickname of the local football team, Xelaju (think thats how its spelt, will check though), and it means Super Goats!