Typical Guatemala

This is our street. You can actually see our house behind Phelan - it´s yellow and two stories.

Hanging in Itzapa Guatemala

It´s early in the morning. I´m in an internet store that also sells yarn, powder, sodas and cookies. Outside there are Mayan women and girls walking up the cobblestone streets carrying small baskets of dried corn on their way to getting it ground up for morning tortillas. Dogs are barking and roosters are crowing EVERYWHERE. Somewhere far off, I hear a band playing and the sounds of birds and tuk tuks fill in any other background noises. Occasionally a horse carrying firewood goes by accompanied by a man probably waring a cowboy hat and machete. I love the sound of the horseshoes on the cobblestones.
We arrived in Itzapa and moved into our beautiful house five blocks from Maya Pedal. Our hostess, Telma, makes us breakfast and lunch everyday which thus far has been really good and hearty stews accompanied by black beans and thick tortillas. We have two rooms in her house and our own bathroom. For three weeks and two meals a day it´s $300.
The best part for us as parents has been watching our kids become these amazing outgoing world travelers. Ryder met some kids in the plaza and they´ve been hanging out together everyday since. They play intricate games of tag and soccer as well as bike around the neighborhood together. Phelan has made friends with Telma´s grandson Robinso as well as the street kids at Maya Pedal.
But honestly, Casey is the rockstar in town. Everyone knows him. Latinos love kids but they love babies even more. When I go to the plaza without him, the women ask where he is. Everyone touches and kisses him and constantly tells me how beautiful he is. It´s cute but also somewhat annoying after awhile. One night Casey woke up from a nap starving. I walked him to the main plaza for a snack. There was a woman making french fries. I tried to buy some while he was crying in my arms but instead, all the women crowded around us staring, touching, singing and asking me questions. I honestly just wanted some french fries. Ryder says whenever he walks through town, there are girls following him, hiding and giggling. He tries to hide his hair in his hood but yeah, with those dimples and blue eyes, there is no hiding.
The people here are much friendlier than Baja but also far poorer. Which just goes to show that money does not bring happiness. They have been helping me with my Spanish soooo much. I´m taking classes in Antigue every other day and it´s really hard work. I´m constantly asking if I¨m saying the right thing or sometimes, they just laugh at me.

We´ve arrived in Guatemala

After spending a day with the Browning family in the land of plenty, we hopped aboard a plane and flew only 4.5 hours south from LA to Guatemala City. It was supposed to be a sleep on the plane flight but our seats had computers in front of them so the kids played computer games until we landed. Needless to say, three kids traveling in a foreign country is a lot, now add the fact that NONE of us got a minute of sleep all night and you´ve got the makings for at least one meltdown. Phelan was a mess. But, we had pre-planned to land, go to a nicer midrange hotel (nice for us) and sleep and watch cartoons in Spanish. It proved to be a good plan and we all slept about four hours. We woke up, hit the streets and went to this very good museo http://www.museoixchel.org/ to learn about the local fabrics and how they´re made. The women´s hair pieces remind us a lot of the Quechua women in Ecuador. I cannot wait to find some women to do my hair up! We will take a chicken bus in the morning to our tiny Mayan village where we will be living for the next month. What, you don´t know what a chicken bus is?

Canon De Guadalupe and Border Crossings

Our hot spring oasis. We drove on a dry lake bed in the middle of the desert for 30 miles to reach this oasis compliments of a hot spring coming out of the mountain. Each campsite had its own private rock made bath filled with warm water. We watched the sunrise on the reddish mountains surrounding us with hummingbirds visiting the ocotillo in bloom. It was magnificant to spend our last two nights in Mexico under the most beautiful full moon, sitting in warm waters reminiscing about our last two months in Baja. Phelan's favorite day was a day spent with Steve and the boys and about 30 army plastic guys in the sand in San Felipe. The built a fort against the waves and would dive away and retreat from the waves. I wasn't there but he remembers that very clearly. Ryder's favorite experience was playing with his friend David in San Felipe, riding bikes around the campground and attempting to play games speaking not a word of eachother's language. Steve's favorite was driving the epic Highway 5 for six hours and mine was a hike with the boys in the desert where we tried to figure out the different animal tracks in the sand. It was all good and all beautiful. We will miss Baja and will definately return, hopefully with friends and kids and many many bike tubes!

Heading North

We left our lovely little palm strewn village to the south and began our migration north, stopping to see whales. We drove the "worst highway in Baja" today and survived it, it was a mighty trip. Only one other car on the road, the rest were dune buggies or jacked up trucks, for a reason. We lowered our air pressure in our tires to 15 psi and took off slowly. It took us six hours to go 60 miles - yes, I'm serious. It was awesome and we have photos to tell the tale. Tomorrow we go to hot springs for three days before crossing the border and flying off to the land of Mayans!

Kinda Weekly Photos

Most of these pictures were taken today. The sink is our kitchen which is outside, kinda cool. The bird is an oriole, there are many around our kitchen. The desert is where we go hiking and there are some caves in this picture. The river is outside our little house about 100 feet away. The outhouse is a dream of ours to one day own but instead we have to go swimming in this swimming pool found at our campground.