I decided to leave Xela and Guatemala altogether sooner than I had planned. The school was ok, but I didn't feel I was getting out of it everything I could. The family I stayed with was fine, but they were a young, modern family. Speaking with classmates with more traditional families, I realized I was missing out. That and the cold. Xela drops close to freezing at night and houses in Guatemala are unheated. They're wide open too for that matter. In theory the electric shower heads (yes, *electric* showers) should be able to at least warm the water, but I only got it to work two mornings out of seven. The upcoming elections in Guatemala were also a consideration. Trying to leave a week or two from now will be much more difficult. A heavy military presence will be active to try and control the expected civil unrest. This wouldn't have been too dangerous, at least not in Xela anyway, but transportation is expected to grind to a halt around the elections and I've got to be movin' on.
Sunday morning I hopped a 6:30 bus to Los Encuentros, spent the morning around Panajachel and Lake Atlitlan then left for Antigua in the afternoon. Stayed there the night then caught a 4am bus crossing over into Honduras to Copan. Checked out the ruins there, but there wasn't much for me there, not after Tikal and Teotihuacan. Two more busses got me to La Cieba on the Caribbean coast last night. This morning I got on a ferry to Utila where I'm going to stay for at least the next five days doing a dive certification.
Utila is quite a change of pace from the last few weeks - and a welcome one. Far more Caribbean than Spanish, life here moves at slow, friendly pace. There's one road in town (and only one town), and English is spoken everywhere (sorta: "Way you coom to git off da boat from mon?"). Nice. Think I'm going to enjoy it here.
Posted by dhuska at October 21, 2003 02:05 PM