Still in Xela

km8001(still)
Clayton here.
I thought I had quit school. Every morning is five hours of intense spanish grammar and vocab. I'm actually tired by lunchtime. We do get a half hour break for some much needed coffee and pan(bread). It's actually a lot of fun. I even feel like I'm starting to understand a little. The teachers are great and it's been fun getting to know the other students.
They have an activity every afternoon. Yesterday we spent an hour in a natural sauna. Despite asking questions we weren't exactly able to determine how they actually worked. Basically the rocks emanate heat from the volcano, and little concrete rooms have been built for about two or three people to sit in. I could only last five minutes inside, but they have a cold shower outside the rooms so you can get ready to go in again. It's good for your circulation and your joints, at least "that's what they say".
Saturday's activity was the big enchilada. Woke up at 3:30 and began our trek up Santa Maria by the light of the moon and a few flashlights. At our first break Piet marked the elevation at 2308m. The four hour hike was more like a climb, especially towards the end. The path was winding, narrow, muddy and slippery, the grade ever increasing as you neared the top, climbing over and under fallen trees, grasping the wet rocks above; I don't hesitate to say that it was the most challenging thing I've done. But once you emerge from the tree line you can see the top, and that's the only thing that keeps your legs moving. Exhausted, sweaty, dehydrated, even a little disoriented, you stand on top of the highest rock fulfilled. It's hard to describe that sense of satisfaction. The summit measured 3776m, meaning we had climbed over 1.5 km straight up. And this was not all; looking down the south slope you observe a smaller grey peak, constantly emitting steam from vents in the cone. About every half hour the pressure builds until it sends out a plume of mushrooming steam and ash, really quite a sight. Unfortunately I had just put my video camera away when the biggest eruption took place. Maybe some things are meant only for the naked eye.
Pieter here. We were exhausted when we got back in the afternoon, but I forced Clay to go to a soccer game with me. Deep down I know he wanted to anyway. The team here is called Xelaju and they play in Guatemala´s Primera Division. They played versus Coban, and beat them 2-1. Two Coban players got red cards. The atmosphere is much different from Europe. More fire, and less singing. The fireworks went everywhere, including the stands, the lights and even the middle of the field. The fans gave us the opportunity to expand our Spanish vocabulary.
Clay again. My first soccer, er, football game, was pretty fun, I admit. Well, I don't want to bore anymore so I'll wrap this up. The family I'm staying with is more than I could ask for. The food is truly to die for, though today my stomach disagreed. Tonight we are going to Bible study at a Church of Christ that reminded us of home.
Once again, thanks for paying interest and sending us your messages. Muchas Gracias

Quetzaltenango, Guatemala

km 8001
We arrived here yesterday evening after a 36 hour bus trip. Guatemala is different from anything I´ve ever seen. Mexico was different but it looked like what Mexico is supposed to look like. Guatemala is beyond what I expected.
After two days in Manzanillo we went to visit a friend whom we had met in Brandon. Her family was, once again, very friendly and hospitable. We had supper there, and went swimming in some natural hot springs. Some of her family was headed to the airport in Guadalajara at 3 am Wednesday morning and offered us a ride to the bus sation there. We took a bus to Mexico City where we had to change bus stations to catch another bus to Tapachula, Chiapas. Mexico City is not nearly as scary as everyone makes it out to be, then again, we were only on the subway. We bought a Mexican newspaper to see who won Canada´s election. That was a shock. I guess a lot can change in three weeks. We left for Tapachula at 7:30pm and arrived there at about 11:00 am. The busses are pretty nice in Mexico (twice as nice as a Greyhound bus), and we can usually get some sleep on the overnight ones. We exchanged some money and had lunch. Then we took a collectivo (van/taxi) to a town called Hidalgo where we thought the border was. However it was about 3km back (we had passed it in the van, just didn´t notice) so these guys drove us there on bicycle taxis and charged us $10 each. Rip-off. We crossed the border, a 1 km long bridge. It was about 3 km between the two immigration offices. It was hot, so we caught a ride for part of it. Once in Guatemala we took a bus to Retalhuleu. That bus was normal. The bus from there to Quetzaltenango was one of the infamous chicken busses. As soon as we got off the first bus, these guys asked us where we were going, took our bags out from underneath, and as the chicken bus (looks like a schoolbus) was already moving, they threw our bags on top and told us to run to the front and jump on. Never done that before. The bus was completely packed but we found two empty seats in the back. The ride itself wasn´t too bad. At one point there was a detour because of a 10 metre gap in the highway. We gained quite a bit of altitude, I think we are at about 2300m, which means it gets cool at night.
Quetzaltenango, which is better known by its Mayan name Xela (pronounced Shay-la) is beautiful. The plaza is surrounded by 19th century buildings, and the original facade of the colonial cathedral which was built in 1535. There are a lot of gringos here. We went to McDonald´s for Clay´s birthday. Tomorrow we are going to to climb the volcano, Santa Maria, from where we will be able to see another volcano, Santiaguito, which is considered one of the most active and dangerous volcanoes in the world. On Monday we will start a week of language class.
For those of you who are wondering, Clay is Butch, and I am Sundance. We hope to find Etta somewhere along the way.
Thanks for reading and thanks for all the comments.
Pieter

Clayton here. Thought we should make that clear after it seemed that there might be some case of mistaken identity. All your comments are greatly appreciated, and looked forward to, by the way. We are now in Manzanillo, MX, a far nicer place than Puerto Vallarta, in my opinion. It's a little more spread out, not overcrowded, the beaches are more serene without crashing waves, and the whole place looks newer and cleaner. Not that Vallarta wasn't good. We spent most of the day on the beach, and I got burnt pretty good. Maybe I'll never learn. I guess we're kind of taking our time. We're planning on taking a week of Spanish classes in Guatemala, which start every Monday, so we have a few days to spend at leisure. It's been fun getting to know some of the locals, but otherwise there aren't any real adventures to speak of. Hope all is well at home.

Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
km 5529
We arrived here around 1:00 this afternoon after a 15 hour bus ride from Torreon, which was actually not bad at all. We´re officially on our own now. We spent our time in Torreon with Jorge who was our roommate in Brandon for four months. His family (parents, two aunts and an uncle) took very good care of us. Another former roommate, Monica, also lives in Torreon, so the four of us had an awesome time. Like Clay said before, the people here are incredibly friendly. Four families have told us ´Mi casa es su casa.' We´ve seen marriachis, and eaten real tacos and carne assada. For those of you who care about geography, Torreon is actually one of three cities which all border each other. The other two are Gomez Palacio and Ciudad Lerdo. Together they are known as Laguna, and have a population of about 1 million and a soccer team called Santos.


It´s exciting to be making our way farther South. We´re skipping alot of Mexico because we want to make it to southern Chile by the end of February before it starts getting cold, and we hope to make it up on the way back. Puerto Vallarta is beautiful. There are alot of tourists here though and hotels as far as the eye can see. But it´s still nice. We´ll probably only be here for a couple days. We spent the afternoon on the beach
I (Pieter) am computer illiterate so I´ve had problems posting pictures. The files were too big and I don´t know how to compress them. If you click on the picture (which I realize has very low resolution) it might take you to more pictures but if that doesn´t work go to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/11858693@N00/?saved=1 . That should do it I think. We might be in Guatemala next time we write something. Thanks for reading.

Better late than never

Ola. I don´t know much more spanish than that, but it is coming slowly. This is my first entry, almost three weeks after we left Brandon. We spent a week with Kris and Tasha in Duluth, a week with Piet´s family in Nebraska, the weekend with his grandma in Oklahoma and then we spent a day and a half on the bus! It finally felt like we had started our trip. Some 4000 km from Brandon, in Torreon, MX, and I am having a great time. All you need here is a smile and a "buenas dias", with a little nod of the head for good measure. The people are very friendly. One of the most exciting things we´ve done is explore an abandoned gold and silver mine near the town of Mapimí. A 300m long, somewhat decrepit bridge spans a gorge 100m deep. We walked across and then took a zipline back to the other side. We also walked through the main shaft of the mine. In places there are 900m holes covered only by 2x6 planks. All we had for light were these ancient looking, open flame kerosene lanterns(I hope the video turns out). Anyway, wish I could describe our adventures with a bit more flare, but this is the best I can do. I know you all wish you were here. No? 'Til next time, adios.

Oklahoma City

km 2748
We just want to write a short entry before we leave the US of A. We are in Oklahoma City right now. It's 1:51 am. At 2:50 we are getting on the bus for Neuvo Laredo, Mexico, so this is really the begining of our trip even though we have been on the road for two weeks. We have been to Duluth, Minnesota, York, Nebraska, and Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. Matthew Brazle, my (Pieter's) friend from Belgium, who is going to school here, picked us up at the bus station this afternoon and will be dropping us off again tonight. We will be in Nuevo Laredo at 6:40 pm and if there is a bus from there to Torreon we will take it. There will be more detailed updates once we get to Mexico.