San Pedro, Guate

helloooo everybody

after leaving lanquin me and some new buds went onwards to antigua. the new crew is (well was now) made up of 2 new zealanders, and dutch, an austrian, and a minnesotan. Antigua was actually very nice and a bit of a relief. if you dropped me into any of the vast majority of central american cities, i couldn´t for the life of me tell you which it was. they all look exactly the same-low buildings, sprawling, dirty, dusty, smoky, lots of stray dogs, garbage everywhere. Antigua on the other hand is colonial, kept very clean, and felt more...i dunno. modern? safe? homely? the ultimate highlight of my stay there, and maybe of the trip though i cant say for sure yet, was getting to hike Volcan Pacaya and see lavaaaaa. for ten dollaaaaars. and those ten included the transportation 2 hours each way and a guide up. awwwright. But really it was incredible. i was 3 feet away from a literal flowing river of lava. you would put a stick in and it would instantly erupt into flame. Not kidding! i have videos! we also roasted marshmallows on some of the lesser lava that you could get closer to without feeling like you were frying your skin. the heat was was absolutely unreal. you could only stand next to the lave for a few seconds before it felt like your shoes were melting and your skin was being singed. how cool is that?! very very very. on another note i met a couple very londony girls who, instead of saying they were drunk, said they were proper trolleyed. also cool.

I am now in San Pedro on Lago de Atitlan, which is a nice little town with lots of delicious NON guatemalan food restaurants. but mostly people come here for the lake, which is big, very calm and surrounded by volcanoes (dormant) and other large hill-mountains. one is called indians nose because it looks exactly like the nose of a face looking upwards. i climbed it the other day and met a couple guys from brown. aside from being nice talking to guys my ageish from home, the half sister of one of them went to garfield! so weird. other than that, i have a cold which sucks, my own room which rocks, and got my first professional massage today which super rocks.

okay well its time for dinner and i gotta pee, so i guess that means its time to wrap things up. best wishes to you all.

gus