Nosotros Estudiamos en Guatemala

Originally the plan was to spend a night in Guatemala City and find out about transport to Antigua the next day, but on arriving we saw a man holding a sign saying 'Shuttle bus to Antigua' so off we went straight away. The capital is apparently not particularly worth exploring and a tad dangerous so we didn't mind missing it out. Antigua is a lovely looking traditional central american town. Rows of colourful single storey houses by cobbled streets. Lots of cathedrals, and particular to Antigua lots of ruined cathedrals due to the proximity of an active volcano. Antigua suffers from more than its fair share of earthquakes. Recently, in February, the volcano blew again giving everyone a fright. This is a frightfully catholic country, although we are looking forward to the processions on Sunday. On arrival we moved into a cheap hotel, complete luxury compared to our African places. We could tell already travelling around central america is going to be much more easy than Africa. The transport is good, the lodges are in good condition almost luxurious and the tourist infratructure is sound. The transport and accomodation is suprisingly cheaper here as well. This is going to be a breeze... We spent our first day exploring the town and getting excited at the miriad of bars, restaurants and shops. Our only major stumbling block in central america is the language, all being spanish. Neither Jo or I have a word between us. So the following day we went looking for a spanish school. We eventually decided on a 5 day crash course in travellers spanish with accomodation supplied by a local family. On our first day of spanish lessons we checked out of our hotel. The 1 on 1 lessons were indeed intense and Jo had a major brain ache. We were a little nervous as well as we were to meet our host family that afternoon. We needn´t have worried as they are wonderful. Clemencia, the mum of the household, greeted us and made us feel most welcome, showing us our room for the next week and then preparing lunch for us. The past few days of spanish lessons has followed a similar pattern. We get up far too early, Clemencia make us a brekky where we practice our spanish with her and her two boys, Daniel and Erik. We head for our lessons for the next 4 hours, before returning home to lunch with the family again practicing our spanish. After lunch we head into town exploring the bars, shops, cathedrals and soaking up the latin atmosphere in the Parque Central before heading back for dinner and more spanish practice. One morning Rosi and Lesli, our teachers, requested we head off to the market for some practice. This we think now was a ploy for them to get some shopping in, although we did learn the names of the fruit and veg. Rosi and Lesli are fab, they're very friendly and we all get on well which make learning a lot more pleasurable. Our spanish is improving at an incredible rate. We can now hold a basic conversation and most importantly order a beer. It was quite embarrassing at the beginning of the week as the conversation with the family over dinner would consist mostly of sign language and any english they knew, but now we chat about familiy and religion and food. Its great staying with a family here as we have a window into their life here. Clemencia is incredibly patient with our broken spanish as we take 5 mins to construct a sentence in our heads, conjugating verbs and working out our els, ellas, tu, ustedes, nosotros etc We have a few more days lessons left and then we´re on our own in spanish world...