Our Last Night in Guatemala

¡Buenos Tardes!

Natasha, me, Karlee and Robin at the bottom of the Volcano

The past few days in Guatemala have been just as busy as ever. Friday morning started bright and early (well okay, maybe not bright--we met our tour guide for the climbing the San Pedro Volcano at 2:00 a.m.) After a 15 minute walk to the local park, we began the long trek up the mountain. And, sorry mom, for the second time in one week, we followed a stranger with a machete into dark woods. Our group--myself, Karlee, Robin and Natasha began to slowly make our way up the volcano. It was evident to us by 3:00 a.m. that this was going to be no simple task--our pace was slow, but we were determined. Around 5:30 a.m. we were just an hour away from the top--but unfortunately we had to turn around. A member of our group began to get altitude sickness, and in the dark, our guide insisted that if one of us went down the volcano, all of us had to. Though we were disappointed not to reach the top, it gives us all a fantastic excuse to return to Guatemala one day, and try it again.

Amanda, conquering Lake Atitlan!

After watching the sunrise in the park, we headed to our favorite cafe for some waffles, then went kayaking in Lake Atitlan. I´ll admit that we weren´t exactly the most skilled sailors on the water--but we had an amazing time.


After our morning fun, it was time for our last day of class. Parting with our teachers stung--over the last two weeks, we've spent 40 hours learning and growing with these wonderful people. We´ve frustratedly tried to conjugate verbs in our head, struggled to say what we wanted, and at times wanted to just give up and speak English--but through it all our teachers were there to help us, genuinely caring about us and wanting to help us get better. At any given time during class, you´d always be able to hear one of us just laughing with our instructors. And while saying goodbye to our teachers was bitter-sweet, saying goodbye to our host families this morning was even harder.

My teacher, Nicolas and I.

My host mom, Melida, and I up at 6:00 a.m. today to go on a little run through the smoother streets of San Pedro. As the sun and the clouds crawled over the mountains, we did a little jogging, a little talking and a lot of pantomiming the things we couldn´t say. After breakfast, it was time to finish packing and then say our tearful goodbyes. I think being a host family for a foreign student would be a wonderful experience, but I couldn´t imagine bearing such difficult goodbyes over and over again!

For now, we're spending the night in Guatemala City so we can be ready to catch our flight tomorrow morning. We´re sleeping in a cozy little hostel (my first hostel ever!) and the six students and I are sharing a room (yayyy, bunk beds!) En la mañana, it´s back to the United States!

Adios,

Melissa