Xela - Week 2

Last weekend we went to Laguna Chicabel, an extinct volcano with a green lake in its crater. As you can see it´s very beautiful, but whoa it was hard work getting to it. This altitude thing is very wierd - it has some strange effects on the body. Xela, the town we´re staying in, is at 2300mm above sea level!! It doesn´t feel like it to live is because its surrounded by much higher volcanos on all sides. The walk to the lagoon was about a +500m climb and with less oxygen it is a toughey!! The worst bit was the 615 steps back up from the lake over the lip of the crater.
The other strange things about being at altitude is that you get tired very quickly needing siestas and about 10 hours sleep a night, also after two beers you feel quite drunk!!

Marco, Jorge, Pat, Andrea, us and a greedy dog!

A typical Guatemalan village

We went to see a game of futbol on wednesday night, Xelaju against Zacapa, which was very funny. The standard of football was quite good but it was the atmosphere that made it. As the team came on the pitch the crowd went crazy, loads of fireworks went off, bands were playing, and it seems they do that every match!!

We played a five-a-side match against another spanish school on Thursday night which was exhasting mostly due to lack of fitness, but made worse by the altitude. Everyone on the pitch was better than Katie so she got a bit stroppy and won´t be playing again next week.

Yes, Katie will be sticking to the merengue - had a great night out last night being flung round the dancefloor by a few different guatemalans! (Unfortunately you can buy a litre bottle of rum in the clubs for seven quid which is a bit lethal..!).

A funny can of sardines!!