New country, new tude

We have arrived in a brand new country, hooray!  It was nearly impossible to leave Mexico behind (Oh San Cristobal, how do I love thee?) but it was time for new places and faces.  We arrived in Xela yesterday after a fairly nerveracking border crossing (border lady to Christine: I am sorry, you can´t come in.  Well, ok) and checked into our new homestay with the lovely-happy-motherly Gladys.  Time for a whole new outlook on our journey!  Goodbye bar job, mezcal, and hangovers, hello going to bed early and spending 5 hours a day learning Spanish.  After our first lesson we travelled with our little group into the nearby mountain town of Zunil to visit a church and experience some local customs, including the worshipping of San Simon, a mannequin dressed up like a cowboy that the local Mayans light candles before and appease with offerings of food and alcohol.  Yes, that´s right.

This past weekend, several students from Utatlan (our school) decided to go camping on a beach on the pacific coast. The beach was almost completely deserted, with no restaurants, hotels, or even houses in sight. It was a beautiful black sand beach that was completely infested with mosquitos and red ants that made your feet feel as if they were on fire. We slept outside in hammocks and awoke with the feeling that we were in a petting zoo. dogs, roosters, chickens, and ducks surrounded us all night. We soon learned that roosters don´t just crow (crow? cacadoodles? yells?) when the sun comes up, but continues its ruckus from sunrise until about noon. Our friend John tried to strangle one, but it got away.