where to start...

we{ll needless to say i{ve been busy. Currently I{m in Guatemala City and just gone done dropping off a friend (Flo) traveling back to Costa Rica and I also went to the Guatemala City temple. It was beautiful... For the past few days we{ve been in San Pedro Laguna on the shore of Lago Atitlan. It was gorgeous... it felt definately foreign (you think) as we decended down the mountainside towards the lake it felt like I could see small costal town of Italy or Greece, thus not as elegant but it caught my breath. It was a very tranquilo place. There{s a lot of indiginous people there, they speak a dialect of Mayan and I couldn{t tell you what it{s called for the life of me. It sounds semi's similar to Navajo which I think is intriguing...

We got there in the early evening and then the next day we rode horses for 20 quetzals aka less than 3 bucks per person. It was excellent especially since Flo and Amanda haven{t rode for years. They were all giggles and it was hilarious. Then we got an hour and a half massage for about 20 bucks. The place was wonderful, our hotel cost us 60 queztals total for 3 days. Dirt cheap is wonderful. We also ate this woman{s restaurante that was dead but had delicious food for less than $3 every meal... we ate their 4 x and tried to entertain her baby while she graciously cooked for us. It was an excellent place and I even met someone that had worked in Page, random.

Other exciting news before we went to Lago Atitlan we went to Volcan Pacaya. Look it up. Basically we hiked up another Volcan (#3) and saw lava. I{m talking inches from us. The rubber from our shoes were melting and all. As soon as I can find a compute that enjoys uploading pictures I{ll post. I saw a lava flow... I{m talking a lava river. It was honestly mind baffeling.

Guatemala is pretty dang amazing, needless to say. more later

as i was saying...

so my limited time ran out at the internet cafe in la fortuna and now i'm in granada, nicaragua and have sucessfully froze the computers here at the hostel 2X so no pictures till i'm at a computer that is savy to uploading pictures like most computers do...

today we arrived in granada sticky and probably smelly to our hostel from isla ometepe this morning... the sun is definately warmer here in nicaragua and even more so here in granada. it is quite charming though... we arrived on a street that didn't fit the colonial description in our lonely planet but we soon made our way to the hostel amongst brightly colored buildings and the style semi similar to my 24 hrs in puerto rico...

annika, amanda, flo and i were delighted after a lil rest to hit the streets. we bought enough fruit to feed our whole hostel tonight but wanted to try new veggies and fruits and make amazing guacamole again... like in la fortuna. it's a change of pace from hiking volcan concepcion yesterday and swiming in laguna nicaragua but the hamacas still enchant me and make me feel far far away from home.

i'm lugging my father's old pentax around and finally had a good photo session around town today. i even have the fancy film that will probably cost me more to develop than my whole trip when i return but i want to capture the colors a bit better than regular 400 fuji. i snapped a whole roll of 36 in a few hours. i can't wait to see them later. film you may say is out but i'm a slight purist when it come to pictures. i feel digital is fake even thought i broke 2 years ago and bought one... yet film still lives on in my book.

tomorrow is open to suggestions... maybe a horse drawn cart around town maybe a trek to honduras... we're checking out the bearded monkey hostel to see if their discounted tours is anything to hold our breath over. so more pictures to come!

in case you didn´t know

i´m a lot of -less in my life (homeless, jobless... etc.) currently so i decided to join up with my friend Annika and (new friend) Amanda in Costa Rica. they´ve been down for 6 weeks volunteering and they picked me up yesterday and we´ll be heading to Guatemala in the next lil bit. We rode the bus to La Fortuna and had a great day swimming near a beautiful and powerful 150 ft waterfall & did some exploration.

We later hiked straight uphill for 2 hours or so to Laguna

re-cap

this may take a bit but i'll recap the past month...

the extended weekend trip to ohio was great. the sawyer family are a fun group and made me feel right at home. they also have quite possibly some of the cutest kids i know. anyone can fall in love with these kids. see examples below:

joss, two and has been speaking in full sentences before she was one. sometimes i forgot that i was talking to a lil' kid and had to be reminded that it was o.k. if i told her we could have a campfire tomorrow because she doesn't know what tomorrow really means.

i don't normally get baby hungry but these kids did it for me. i met amazing moms that were so happy and joyful in their roles as mothers, it was inspiring.

a lil marshmellow in your hair to enjoy later...

ohio was beautiful and green. clint's parents have an amazing yard that i hate to post about while my father is putting in his lawn in...again, as we speak...

pretty dreamy.

moving on...the cuz connection celebrated two graduations is month one in vegas and one in metropolitain blanding. i unfortunatly have no pics from vegas but here's a quick one from blanding.

and don't worry it was snowing (mind you this is end of may) over soldier's summit driving to blanding... this is so wrong!to continue the fun the cuzs rented a raft and was on the peak day of the daily i think it was in the high 40s pcf (i think that's how you say it... i'm not a river guide i'm just the smart one to have friends and family that are). it was a chilly day at times but still F-U-N!

we had an ending shot of the chaco power before we split our seperate ways... thanks reva for sending mine pronto! look i would have been an outcast amongst the group if i didn't have mine!

the adventure didn't end here for danielle and i... more posts to come!