A Volcano, a lake and the best hotel ever

It is hard to believe that it was barely a week ago that we got on the plane to Guatemala. It seems we have been here forever and done so much. As you can see, I bought the necklace from Florie, but like all good crushes it was kind of a let down. I felt used, just another tourist and not special anymore. Alas, there will be more cute mayan girls in my future.

On Friday, we took a trip upto Volcan Pacaya, which is an active volcano. It was truly amazing and exhirlarating. We were able to get pretty close to the lava and watched it flow for about an hour. We had some great guides who spoke good "tourist spanish". We were explaining how we felt about the volcano and he put it well-- "we are close to earth and when we see the heartbeat of the earth it makes our heartbeat faster too."

Saturday found us on a 2.5 hour bus ride to Lago Atitlan. As we searched for a boat to take us to the town on San Marcos, we were directed to the Titanic. An ominous name, but the captain assured us that there was no ice on the lake and therefore, no problem. After some shuffling and getting taken for too much money, we arrived in the jungle paradise of San Marcos de La Laguna. It is an amazing place covered in flowers, with tons of birds and perfect rocks to dive off of into a lake that is exactly the right temperature. We spent 3 days there just soaking it in. Unfortunately, it is also kind of expensive, by Guatemalan standards anyway, about $21 a night for a room overlooking the lake with a private bath. We stayed in the coolest hotel ever-- there were rocks in the room and stained glass everywhere.

Now we are in San Pedro and might start Spanish school here. We miss you all, so if you read this write to us!