Bottling apple cider

The red thing is a corker for champagne bottles. Unfortunately I missed that one in action!

The Cathedral de Santiago at night

Casa Encantada

Antigua has some really fabulous hotels. This is where we stayed the last weekend. Some of the rooms are accessed by walking across candlelit stone pathways in a pond! We were sad we missed the delicious-sounding breakfast in the morning.

Cooking class in Antigua

I never posted pictures from our last day/night in Antigua. We stayed there the night before we left Guatemala because it is safer and more fun than Guatemala City, where the airport is.

Holland was interested in taking a Guatemalan cooking class, so we took on at El Frijol Feliz (the Happy Bean)

So happy Holland is home!

Last Day

Here is the view from my desk, where Ana Maria and I sit every afternoon and study. The intersection down below is quite busy, so I have a good view of all the action below.

Holland and I are all packed up and ready to take a shuttle into Antigua in the morning. Although we've already spent a weekend in Antigua, we are planning to spend tomorrow night there before flying out of Guatemala City in the morning. It's supposedly about a 45 minute taxi drive. We are not staying in Guatemala City because it's not particularly safe for tourists and also because we want to take a cooking class in Antigua.

Although Holland kind of dragged me here, I've actually had a really wonderful month and am very sad to leave. I like our host family a lot. I am amazed at how much progress my Spanish has made over the month. Although I took it for two years in high school, it was pretty much non-existent when I got here. Now I can hold a comprehensible (although somewhat labored) conversation. I wish I had more time to learn more....and to get a little more relaxation in! I've wondered many times during residency how much time it would take for me to start feeling like a human being again and now I know: about a month. I've begun to feel like a normal person again for the first time since med school. I can think about non-medical things that I want to do and what I want to do with my life. I can talk without saying negative things! And for that, I am terrifically grateful.

Hair

Most of the various Mayan groups have some sort of cloth head/hair piece that is worn by the women of that particular town. Here is one of the more popular ones around Xela, which involves cloth woven into braids.

Iglesia, San Francisco el Alto

Here are photos from an old church that we visited while in San Francisco. Note the girl in the bottom right hand corner of the first paragraph, carrying a basket of mango slices on her head.

We were able to climb some precariously old and steep stairs to the top of the church. Here is the view from above, with some of the students lounging about.

Photos from the market, San Francisco el Alto

Today, I went with a group from the school to the nearby town of San Francisco el Alto. There is a big market there every Friday. Unfortunately, Holland had to work in the clinic so he couldn't go. Here are some scenes from the market:

Baby Chickens!

Something you definitely can't do in the US - raw chickens on a table at the market.

We passed an entire section that had table after table of these antique sewing machines. I loved them! Perhaps they're popular here because they don't require electricity?

Hand-woven cloth used to make the traditional indigenous clothing:

Ladies buying vegetables and such.

La cena

Every Thursday night, the school has a dinner (cooked by a group of student volunteers) to socialize and to celebrate the accomplishments of their students who are leaving to go back home. There is a sizable group of us who started together and who are now leaving this weekend. Your teacher gives you a little diploma and then you are encouraged to give a little speech in Spanish. Here is Holland (and his beard!) giving his:

Here is a picture of me and my teacher, Ana Maria. She and I are the same age and I like her a lot. I'm making a truly hideous face but it's the only picture of us that I have!

Other students...

Around Xela

This picture is taken from the inside of a beautiful old building next to the park (parquet). Note the clouds - it has been intermittently rainy this week, which everyone keeps telling me is practically unheard of in February here. Xela basically has two seasons - the rainy season, which I think runs from like April or so until October, then the non-rainy season. The temperature doesn't vary much, although it does warm up slightly beginning around now.

This is from the top of one of the streets in Xela. Those elbows belong to Holland, who is taking a picture with his camera. Note the volcano in the background.

This is inside Cafe La Luna, a little cafe with delicious hot chocolate. We go there to study sometimes...when it's open. The owner tends to close up shop when she feels like it during the day.

This is inside Cafe Baviera, another studying haunt. They have delicious crepes. The thing that always amazes me is that they keep all these lovely fresh flowers in the fountain.

This is a mall we went to today. The whole thing is one big spiral. In the background is the really old church in the park.

Jugo de naranja

This is one of my favorite day-to-day things in Guatemala - drink bags! Often, if you buy a coke from a street vendor it someone in a small tienda (store), they will pour it into a plastic bag and hand it to you with a straw. This is because the cans and bottles can be turned back in for a deposit.

This is also how juices from street vendors are distributed. Generally you will see a lady on the street with a little table, a huge juicer, and a big bag of oranges. She makes juice and when you want some, she measures it out in a tall cup then pours it into a plastic bag. She then sticks a straw in it and hands it to you to hold on tight. I took a sip of Holland's and it was delicious. Here's hoping all that acidity killed any amoebas!

First Sunday

There is a large market in Xela in the first Sunday of every month. The best part is the delicious street food! Here are some pictures. In the background you can see some of the beautiful buildings of Xela's Parque Central.

We also went to a natural hot spring yesterday that was amazing(ly warm!) and beautiful! I didn't have my phone on me so I don't have pictures to upload here. If I can manage to get some photos off Holland's camera I'll post them later!

Chicabal townspeople

These are some people from the small neighboring town that we saw along the way. They are mostly potato farmers. During the hike, we saw a group of small boys wielding machetes, which was pretty creepy. I figured out what those machetes were for on the way back, when I saw them carrying these big bundles of firewood back up the steep climb. People in many of the villages here use the firewood for their cooking stoves. The boys are carrying the wood in typical Guatemalan fashion, in a bundle strapped to their backs with another strap over their forehead to help with the weight (remember that the head helps to carry heavy things). If you look closely at picture #1, you can see that the boy's machete is stuck in the bundle of wood. The second picture is a man with two sheep following behind. There were also some people walking cows. The third picture is the group of boys from behind, walking into the mist.

Chicabal hike

So I thought I got a picture of the climb up but apparently I only have pictures of the extremely steep stairs on part of the descent down to the lake. We did NOT have to take the stairs back up, thank goodness. Notice on the entrance sign (first picture) that gringos ("Internacionales") pay more to enter than people in Guatemala. This is standard at almost all tourist attractions in Guatemala, including the convents and churches we saw in Antigua. The last picture is another view of the Santa Maria volcano, which can also be seen easily from Xela.

Chicabal

This weekend, Holland and I decided to stay in Xela. This morning we went with a group from the school to hike part of a mountain to see Chicabal, a volcanic crater lagoon that is very sacred to the Mayan culture and is an important part of their creation myths. The hike was VERY hard (pics of the steep ascent and descent later). We were lucky - Chicabal is in a cloud forest and is usually covered in clouds but today we got a clear view from above. We got the best of both worlds though because we got to see clouds moving in before we left. There were groups of Mayans there singing and clapping but you are not allowed to take pictures of them. Swimming is also not allowed due to Chicabal being a sacred site.

Gallo!

Guatemala's native beer, brewed here is Xela!

La Democracia Mercado

In Xela