San Pedro la Laguna is a tranquillo little town that sits right on a beautiful lake. Lago Atitlan was formed by a caldera and is now surrounded by a ring of volcanoes. The town rests at the base of the San Pedro volcano and it provides one helluva view from my bungalow window. The clouds floating around the volcano summit often make it look surreal.. like something out of Lord of the Rings. The Atitlan area is populated by indeginous Tz’utujil Mayan people who still live and work like they have for hundreds of years; most make a living by working the land. It’s hard work but everyone is happy all the time.. none of the BS nonsense we have back home. I’m slightly envious of the simple but pure life that people have here.. where the only thing that really matters is family. I like it.

I have a few more days of Spanish class and it’s been going well. Learning Spanish isn’t inherently hard since the language actually makes sense but there’s also many things that are vastly different than in English. Things like verb conjugations (damn those irregular verbs!) and often different sentence structures have my head spinning by noon. After 3-4 hours I usually feel like this:

But… I am making progress. One week of Spanish class certainly isn’t going to be enough for me to feel comfortable so I am going to need to take some more classes on my way South. I am definitely going to take a few weeks of school when I’m hanging out in Colombia but I’d like to get in another week somewhere before then. I am thinking of another class in Nicaragua.. I’ll have to see how my trip timing works out. I need to be in Panama by early December in order to make my boat to Colombia.. We’ll just have to see.

Another cool thing about Corazon Maya is that a few times a week they put on activities for all the students. This particular night we were preparing a comida tipicia (typical meal) and on tonights menu were Tamales made from scratch. 🙂

These Tamales in particular were made with mashed potatoes, chicken, salsa, and a few veggies thrown in. Roll’em up and cook’em for about 30 minutes in a large pot of water.

Of course they were super good. It was also a very authentic experience to have dinner and spend the night hanging out with the family that runs the school. It’s things like this that make the trip worth while.

In another day or 2, I’ll be heading to Antigua. There’s a few things I want to check out there before leaving Guatemala. It’s an old city that was founded a few hundred years ago, so I’m sure it’s full of interesting things to see. I didn’t end up hiking Volcan San Pedro, so I’ll have to check out another Volcano somewhere further South.