La Laguna

We had a wonderful couple days at the lake (la laguna). We left early Thursday morning and took one chicken bus, two micro buses and a tuk-tuk to get to our bungalow! It was an adventure, but well worth it. We stayed at Chi-ya hotel near San Pedro, a drug town on the lake:) The hotel was incredible, our bungalow had such an amazing view of the lake and we had lake access right from our room! For those of you who have not traveled in Central America, you really need to. It was only $10 a night to stay here, once you see the picture you will understand how ridiculous that is. Thursday we just walked around San Pedro. We were recommended this restaurant from some students, so we were trying to find it. Finally we were on the beach and we asked a local, he said he knew where it was and he would lead us there. So we start following him down this narrow dirt path, not very confident in Juan's knowledge. After a 10 minute walk on this path we finally arrived at the restaurant, and it was great! Check out the picture of the menu in the album, remember I said this was a drug town. We then went and bought some meat from off the street. The kind that is just hanging there with all kinds of bugs on it. Randi and I were the ones who acutally did it b/c everyone else was too disgusted, but we did it and no one got sick! That afternoon and night we just hung out in our bungalow, grilled our meat and played cards!
Friday morning we got up and took a boat across that lake to Panahachel. This is a pretty tourist town with amazing shipping. It's the place I bought all our Christmas presents for those of you who received them. Tony left us at this point as he had to be back in Xela Saturday morning to proctor the SAT. We did a little shopping and were back to the hotel by early evening. We then made a little pasta and played cards for a long time, it was wonderful. We headed back to Xela Saturday morning, it only took 3 chicken buses this time! Although one of those 3 was the most packed I have ever been. By the time we got on there were 3 people in each seat, and no room for our bags. So we had to stand, hold on to all of our stuff and a bar to keep from falling, it was difficult. After about a half an hour two wonderfully nice Guatemalan men offered their seats to us and they stood, muy amable! We made it back safely with all our stuff.
It was a relaxing couple days that were needed before that last month of school. We have three full weeks left and then finals week. We are excited to be this far in the year and cannot believe how fast it has gone. We still have alot of things to take care of in the next few weeks, both here for next year and in the states to prepare for summer, so it will be a crazy but fast month.