Guatemala City to Xela - Week 1

Well, four days in and all those niggling doubts about leaving the house and becoming unemployed have been left well behind!

Guatemala City was fantastic. We stayed at a lovely hostel with a great host Ana who drove us round in her car and gave us loads of good travel advice from how much to pay for a taxi (which admittedly, we usually paid well over but we´re getting used to getting ripped off now!!), to a travel plan round Guatemala, to booking us into Spanish school!

It happened to be Guatemala´s Independence Day on Friday so we spent all day in the city watching processions, listening to live music and eating delicious food from the street stalls. It was absolutely packed full of people (all locals - we spotted one other gringo) and we had a great day.

Then yesterday we got the bus to Xela which is a four hour, terrifying journey away! James said that he wouldn´t even have driven the Clio that fast around the corners of the cliffs - that´s how scary ; ) !! The scenery was spectacular though - mountains and volcanoes all around and just the odd shack or farm along the way.

So now we´re in Xela which is a lovely little town - we feel at home already! We were picked up from the bus station by the couple that run the Spanish school who speak no English so we had a very confusing tour round the school and explanation of what we can expect for the next 4 weeks. Basically we´re just hoping for the best!! We then went off to our Guatemalan family who also, understandably, speak no English at all. It´s quite hard work at the moment(dictionary and phrase book are our constant companions!!) but we should have this Spanish malarkey down in a couple of weeks...

The family are lovely - there are tons of them there at the moment because all the cousins and auties have come for the weekend for the Independence Day festival. Nine of us piled into the car last night (James and cousins in the boot) and went off to the fun fair which was fab. Going on the dodgems with Grandma at a Guatemalan fun fair with no Spanish to speak is an experience we won´t forget!!!


And today we are getting our bearings of the town and relaxing before school starts tomorrow. As it´s Sunday, very little is open except the churches (Auntie Mimi gave us a tour) so we have time to catch our breath and listen to a bit more Spanish tuition on the mp3 player in an attempt to not look completely crap at school tomorrow!!