Guatemala continued...

So after the nice time on the nice time on the lake danny and I began to head back to San Pedro. On the way I asked if we could stop somewhere so danny could teach me how to ride the motorcycle...
I got on started it up allright and off i went riding a motorcycle all by myself! i should have practiced braking a little bit, but i got so excited that i went right onto the main road... i was doin g ok but i tried to turn around in pretty much a pile of dirt so obvisouly me and the bike fell over... i was really embaressed not because i fell over but because when danny tried to start it back up it was having difficulties... I began to REALLY regret going out of the parking lot. But he called the rental place and they told him he had forgotten to flick a certain switch before starting it.. So I didn{t break the mororcyle after all!!

The next day we caught another early morning bus to the second biggest city in Guatemala. Xela is the nick name of the city and its a good thing because i don{t know how to pronouce or spell the real name.. something like.. Quezatelango..not sure..

Danny wanted to re vist this city because he had spend three weeks studying spanish here in the beginging of his trip. It was pretty mellow as far as citys go and it had really big markets where i splurged on tons of pirated DVDs!!! another 2 nights there and I was off by myself to guatemala city to pick up my friend Luna from the airport. Luna was comming to visit me for a week partly for a little vacatrion in the sun for her and partly for my birthday!

I met her at the airport at 10 at night and we took the first shuttle directly to Antigua. The next afternoon we went to hike the volcano that Antigua lies at the base off.. I can{t remeber the name of it somelike payamama or something. Actually we did not hike the volcano at all, luna and I were still feeling tired from the night before so we decided to rent horses! it was such an enjoyable ride up although our horses rarley went faster than walking pace. At the top of the volcanop was like being on a different planet and there was a thick mist covering everyting . When we saw the lava for the first time it was unreal! you could go as close to the lñava as you wanted (which would never fly in the states) but it was so hot that you could only get about 8 feet away with out being burned by the air. It was particularly cool because since we took horse up wer where pretty much the only ones at the top of the volcano for quite a bit of time and when the group tours cames up it completely changes the atmoshere and mysteriousness of the place...

The next day Another early start to chatch the bus to San Pedro. I loved iot so much that I had to show luna. We stayed only one night but It was such a blast. We went dancing at the only club in town and mets lots of cool people! AGAIN another early wake up to catch the suttle BACK to antigua so that we could get a shuttle to the beach where we were going to stay for the rest of the week. once we got to antigua we dropped our stuff off at the travel agaency place where our ahuttle left from and we had on hour to roam free... we got some fruit, picked up some sunscreen.. and began to head back with about 15 minutes to find our way back.... UNFORTUNETLY we could not. We were walking around practically in circles for 30 minutes untill we c}found where we were looking for, which was of course right under our noses the whole time. FORTUNETLY the shuttle had waited 40 minutes for us and we were able to hop right on and go!

The next day, sunday april 19th 2009, was my 20th birthday. We woke up and decided that we were going to go find a nice place to eat breakfast. But first we need to take out money from the ATM. UNFORTUNETLY the ONLY machine in town does not except mastercards. so we go backl to our hotel and and scrouge up all the change we had. FORTUNETLY we had enough to0 by 2 ice creams and some veggies at bread that we were going to stir fry at our hostal. UNFORTUNETLY, our hostal does not have a kitchen. So we figure our where the closest ATM is outside of town, in a town called Iztapa about 1 hour and 30 minutes away. FORTUNETLY there is man we was going right thorugh there at the same time we were leaving so he gave us a ride free of charge! We found the machine very easily and went back monterrico. When we got back into town i went to the internet cafe and i had to spend a couple of hours doing homework and taking test online. By then it was dinner time and we found the nicest resturant in town and we indulged! we went to bed early that night, no birthday party for me, not birthday song, or cake, but all in all everything worked out and it was not a complete disaster!

fore the next two days we just relaxed on the beach and in out hostle and dined out. It was a nice end to Luna trip to Guatemala. The next night we went back to antigua were we bumped into danny at the hostal we were staying at! we were so happy to see eachother and we all out for a "this is our last night dinner" (although everyting is usually you last night when you travel to a new place everyday). Today is april 22nd. When i woke up this morning at the hostel Luna was gone. she had taken a shuttle to the airport at 4 in the morning. and day had left to go to a differnt town in the mountains. I got on a bus straight to puerto Barrios which is a small town on the carribean side of guatemala. I am here now and I will get up tomorrow morning and get on a boat to Punta Gorda, Belize to meet up with tasha! I hope belize is as nice as they say!!