[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWNqtAszYdM[/youtube]
All is well. We just got the fast internet installed after a killer day talking to 15 internet techs, 5 phone techs, an actually guy coming out to and fixing the phone lines. Anyway after 6 hours of yelling on the phone and at each other (I am sure Kate will mention this in her blog) we got it working. It is still not that fast but man does it beat dial up. Well enjoy the vid.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xdxu84iK3Ns[/youtube]
Well here it is, our first attempt at a video. This video was taken at a festival in a small town outside of Xela, Guatemala about a week and a half ago.
I am trying to get more of the videos on our YouTube account, so be sure to check back often.
Mexico things are going well. We are currently having a few friends visit for a week and it is nice to have the company. I have been working hard to get the computer systems up and running in the compound but things go much slower in Mexico than the US. Much needed high speed Internet takes up to 10 days to install once the order has been placed. So by next week we should have it. Also to add a little more adventure to our stay, the compound’s water supply has been failing all weekend and we have had to go most of the weekend without water. Not that it is hard or anything, when I lived in Kenya it was much worse, but when it comes unexpected and you are unprepared, and you need to go to the bathroom, and there is not water to flush the toilets, then things get a little uncomfortable.
We love it here, though, and are enjoying every second. We will try to get more of our videos up on YouTube as soon as we get a fast internet connection (I will try and post one more tomorrow), so be sure to check back. Also we will get a commenting engine installed this week so if you’re struggling to find a place to leave a comment don’t fret, it is on its way.
P.S. our YouTube site is http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=kateandneildotcom
Neil and I have spent a lovely week in Xela, Guatemala. It`s in the North West-ish corner of the country. It’s a good 6 hour bumpy, dangerous (due to driving customs) trip. Thus, not as many touristas make it up here. Therefore, we like it a lot more than the more touristy parts. No nappy-dreaded drunkards giving us whities a bad rap.
It´s a really pretty city that looks pretty European in the central part. We have been taking classes at the Kie-Baalam Spanish school. We each have had our own private tutors for a week. It`s been a lot of studying, 5 hours a day, but it`s been really good to get back into the grammar etc. Neil has already picked up present and preterit tenses.
Si no fuese blanco, seria latino!
Last night I nearly had a nasty accident in the bed, lucky I was lucid enough to make a dash for the restroom before tragedy occurred. I am not one to brag about much, but my so called iron tummy is something else. While I traveled India with a university group I think I was the only one never to experience gastro-intestinal issues.
As a kid growing up in Kenya I would eat/drink just about anything that came my way, be it from the floor, a sketchy food stall, or my friend’s mother’s cooking…and never had problems. Yet, here I am in Guatemala and just after the week mark I have been hammered with a mean old bug. I skipped my Spanish class this morning (we were going to a big market) because I was too scared to go far from a restroom. Anyway I am feeling well enough to go across the street to an internet cafe…Kate just came back from class…so I better finish up.
Anyway Xela (Quetzaltenago) is great; I would recommend anyone traveling to visit. Kate and I are moving on to San Cristobal tomorrow some time, and while sad, are excited to move out of a hotel and into a long term apartment.
P.S. We have some great video footage of traditional Guatemalan costume dance, we will post it soon.
We have made our way through Guatemala to a less tourist town called Quetzaltenango. Turns out, it is Kate and my favorite Guatemala spot thus far. This morning we started Spanish classes at some school I can not remember the name of. It is going to be a blast. I sat through my 5 hour lesson without much complaint (first time I have sat for 5 hour without complaint). Don’t be fooled by the photo, it is not from Quetzaltenango, but from Antigua. Anyway so Quetzaltenango is great. We have had superb affordable food, slept on a good bed, and enjoyed the smaller tourist population immensely. Yesterday we went to a LDS church that is about 5 minutes walk from our hotel and enjoyed the service and meeting all the members. Afterward we needed money to pay for the hotel and all the ATMs in walking distance were ether locked up or broken so we had to take a little taxi-van to a giant shopping mall about 6km from where we are staying. It was a strange experience; a mix of American shopping mall and Guatemalan market. Noisy, fast-foody, and clean. Oh there was a Nuskin shop in the mall, crazy. We made it home with loads of cash, paid our hotel, and then went to a dinner at Blue Angle’s Cinema Restaurant, or something like that, and watched 7 Years in Tibet while eating a spinach salad and smoothie. It was a nice day. Quetzaltenango is a fun little town. We are going to be here for a week and will keep you up to date on all its happenings.
Adios
If you ever want to pay $45 to sleep on a concrete slab simulation of a bed in a discoteca… head to Antigua, Guatemala!!!
Somehow, even though Neil and I have relatively extensive travel experience between the two of us, we managed to make every travel mistake in the book thus far. With perhaps the exception of getting robbed blind (knock on our wooden mattress). We came to Antigua with the promise of a house of a friend to stay in. Upon arrival, of course, the house was 30 min away from the actual town, and impossible to get to.
We made the mistake of following the travelers we were with to “a nice hotel for 20 bucks a night.” By the time we figured out it was $50 a night we already felt so flustered and agreed, hoping for a good night´s sleep at the least. When we came back to our room after walking around the town it was as if there were a discoteca in the adjoining room. We figured out after a few min that it was a Guatemalan Aerobics studio from the loud routines being shouted out. When we came back to bed down for the night we discovered that our bed was made of plywood, or so it seemed from how hard it was.
This morning we woke up at the rise of the sun due to the large skylight directly above our bed. Sun´s up, time to get out of bed. That wasn´t too disappointing since we were both black and blue and sleepless from the titanium sleeping surface we had (I won´t give it the dignity of being called a bed). The PUMPING disco versions of Selena favorites started blasting again before 8am. At that point we both got up with bloodshot eyes and decided to take the first bus out of Antigua. It may be a nice colonial town but, at this rate we may as well be camping… at least it will be free!
Kate and I arrived in Antigua yesterday and have been working through all the hitches associated with first time travelers and backpackers…except we’re really experienced at it…strange, I know. So far we have made every mistake in the book except for counting our money in public (don’t think I didn’t have to tell Kate to put her money away once or twice). You can read more about it on Kate’s article . That’s fine and all. We are a little rusty; it’s been a few months. What I really wanted to talk about is how creepy Guatemalan baby adopters are. It must be because Guatemala City is dump, or there’s something in the water, but it seems Antigua attracts white baby adopters by the truck load. Kate and I sat in the park last night watching, not joke, a hundred couples walking around with baby backpack after baby backpack filled with Guatemalan babies. Watching creepy looking white people tote around these little children I was reminded of another international human attraction I would see in Thailand…prostitution. For some reason I just got the hebby-jebbies (if anyone has a spelling for that please let me know) seeing all these white people with foreign babies. It felt the same as seeing those fat ugly white men in Thailand escorting their tiny Thai escort to their hotel room.
I have no proof, except what my friend Tristan told me he found during his research here, that foreign adoption in Guatemala is human trafficking. Women are coursed into giving up their children for adoption, and then the adoption agencies cheat adopters out of money by telling them there is X, Y, and Z fees or bribes needed to get the baby our of the country. Good meaning Americans think they are rescuing a baby from poverty and what not, but really the baby was only born or put up for adoption to make a lot of money. It is a sad situation and what I have seen in Antigua does nothing but support what Tristan has told me.
Please, please be more careful about adopting little babies from Guatemala, they might have been farmed just for that purpose and you might be doing more harm than good.
After a few weather related delays we have made it into Guatemala City.
We arrived about an hour late and made it to the hostle without an problems. So now it is the morning we had a nice breakfast of cracker hard toast and “orange juice” that barely passed as bad tang but it was good anyway. So we are getting ready to shuttle up to Antigua except…of course…there is a teacher strike and they are blocking all the roads. So we might have to stay another night in Guat City. Anyway all is well, we are happy to be here and excited for the future.
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