Our first week of one-on-one Spanish was, to some degree, a success. Hablo un poco mas espanol que quando la semana comienzo. Well, you get the idea. My teacher, Gladys, really liked to chat (we´re talking 5 hours a day) about everything under the sun, from her 2 year old son discovering the anatomical difference between hombres and mujeres, to the upcoming political election next month and the use of the propaganda being slipped under her door as wonderful paper airplane material. (The other major forms of propaganda, trucks with huge posters of the candidates driving around blasting ranchero music with altered political lyrics, and everything from walls to rocks painted with different party´s symbols is also very entertaining.)
I did my best to follow along and get the gist of what she was saying. I could definitely use another, oh... say 51 weeks of Spanish before I´m actually fluent though. I´m hoping to take some more classes next week, but we shall see. I´m being entinced from my initial priority of learning Spanish by all the amazing travel adventures possible from here!My homestay was fun. While not quite the immersion experience I had hoped for, (another student staying with my same family in the tenth week of his classes proclaimed Day One that he was ¨over speaking Spanish¨,) it did give me a glimpse into Guatemalan food, culture, and family life. I ate three meals a day with varying members of the family, trying my best to communicate with my limited Spanish. They were all very patient listeners (even if seemingly-forced into it by their mother) and helped me out whenever they could. And for that, I am eternally thankful. Emily, on the other hand, ended up staying in the student housing after all, which proved to be a wonderful way to meet other student/travellers. Together we had the best of both worlds.
The one drawback of the homestay, however, was the issue of nighttime activities. Antigua, unlike most of the other cities I´ve travelled too, is not very safe. Stories of robberies and violence, as well as warnings about walking alone at night (note the suspicious red pool on the sidewalk this morning), made it inconvenient to really explore the nightlife here fully. Luckily for Emily though, she had a group of willing students at her house to get a taste of the night life here. For a week at least, I could live vicariously through her.
Our afternoons here have been busy for both of us. Activities included hiking an active volcano (we´re talking lava flowing inches away from you and melting the soles of your shoes),
biking around the cobblestone streets of the pueblos surrounding Antigua, playing soccer against the teachers at our language school, learning to salsa, and for Emily, working on her thesis. Fun, fun, fun... except for that last one. We also had an opportunity to witness Volcan de Agua erupting, apparently a rare treat. It was pretty amazing. Unfortunately, my photos of a blur of red in a sea of black don´t do it much justice. 
We´ve also enjoyed exploring Antigua and the surrounding areas with some of our fellow travellers. Antigua is very much a tourist destination town with gringos galore. But if that means having access to tourist-friendly food preparation, movies in English, and Internet around every other corner, I´m fine with that. It also makes for some easy weekend adventures, compliments of the dozens of welcoming travel agencies with competing cheap travel options.This weekend we took advantage of one of those options with a trip to Semuc Champey. It´s a tiny area east of Antigua where there are colorful pools of water spilling into each other and dark caves to explore. The trip was made all the more exciting because we really had only a very vague idea of what was going on the entire weekend.
Hiking down steep paths of mud in flip flops, riding in the back of pick-up trucks winding down gravel paths to who knows where, ordering some definitely sketchy meals... It was pretty much like, ¨here, hold this rope and climb down this waterfall¨ and then, ¨take this candle, swim through this cave and then do a little jump down this dark hole of rushing water¨ only in Spanish, so you never really knew if you were translating this information correctly. Talk about motivation to be an attentive listener! Kind of scary, but definitely exhilerating in an I-could-probably-die-at-any-moment kind of way. And we didn´t even have to sign a single waiver. (Toto, I don´t think we´re in Kansas any more.) Luckily, we made it through the experience with no up-close encounters with the bats, and only some minor bruises, scrapes, and bites. Emily did manage to literally step in a big pile of BS though, and I have the early symptoms of tetnus and malaria in the back of my mind...Tomorrow we set off for Copan, Honduras by shuttle bus, lured by the prospect of Mayan ruins and the beauty and fantastic scuba diving opportunities of the Bay Islands. Emily´s a bit under the weather today (she thinks it was lunch at the rest stop yesterday) but is determined to be fine by tomorrow after a full day´s rest. I´m trying to decide if I should take the plunge and get scuba certified. We shall see...
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