Hey! Ok, ok, i know that its been entirely too long since ive been on here, but after 2 1/2 weeks, im back!
Lets see... On the 21st we left for Columba, which is the guerilla capital of Guatemala! I thought that was pretty neat. we didnt see any though. We stayed at this massive finca (means farm) run by this man named Antonio. There he grew coffee, bred race horses, has a worm farm, and has tons of greenhouses and land full of plants etc that he sells to the states. We had a tour and the place is HUGE! its like the old feudal system in that he has dozens of workers that live in houses right on his property that hes in charge of. anyway, for us (and site 2) it was a spiritual retreat. it was awesome to have all of us girls, plus all site 2 girls (so 30 in total) sleeping in the same room again! we were like that at Camp Adullam at the beginning, and its super fun. for most people. i like it. but yeah, Blayne Greiner, one of our first semester speakers, and his wife Betty, were there for the week also. So we had a couple short sessions with him. Other than that our sites meant separately each morn and then we would all go off on our own to learn more about ourselves. it was cool, but i have to admit, i had pretty high and idealistic expectations for the week. I did learn some things about me, but nothing spectacularly huge. i loved it though. lots of free time and praying time and just relaxing by the pool time. oh! haha, they had tiendas (like mini corner stores) all over the place and none of them around there had chocolate, but i guess the got the hint that we all were in dire need because they soon informed us that they had ordered a bunch for us. we bought them out in 4 hours. so they had to get much more. it was funny :)

We hiked up to this awesome waterfall in the rainforest after a 2 hour ride crammed with 11 others in the back of a pick up. there were 5 trucks in total and the roads were nuts and windey and we kept stalling, but it was awesome. the waterfall was SWEET and super fun :)

2 weeks back we had Spanish again, except it was in the afternoons from 2-6, which definitely isnt my fave time to have school. but it went well. next week we are back to the regular 8-12 morning classes, so that means i can hang out in antigua all afternoon again :)

there is this place in Antigua called The Cross On The Hill which over looks the whole city and we went there with Blayne last week. it was foggy so the view was not the best, but we got some sweet pics of the group and had worship.

And then last week we left for our Travel Week! We started off by driving for 9 hours up to Ixabel (Ish-a-bell) where we stayed at this finca that has rescued monkeys and macaws! super neat. and we slept in hammocks! yes! so awesome! Excep its actually pretty hard to sleep in those things when you are insanely tall. oh, and they had a bar that played music until (no joke) 5 in the morning! and we had to be up at 7. So i would randomly wake up to Jack Johnson and (get this Grad 2004:) Black Knight! You know, that East Indian music that Nina always plays and is on our grad CD. you have NO idea how excited I was to hear it, but it was after 2 am, so my joy was slightly stifled, and couldnt be shared with the group until the next morning. haha!

The next day we hiked through some fields and forest to reach this cave! We wandered around in there a bit. We waded through some water and had to use candles and flashlights to see things. Not much to see except bat poo, but it was very Indiana Jones at the same time. I jumped onto a rock and posed like Gollum from LOTRs. Oh! speaking of pictures, im pretty sure that the Outtatown website is updated with Guate stuff. http://www.outtatown.com/04site1/ so you can check it out if you want :)

The day we drove to Yaxha (Yuck-Shaw) which is in the jungle and we slept in tree houses! It was right on this lake, but we didnt swim because there are crocodiles in there! Travel week we had Gareth Goossen, another speaker from semester one, come with us. he did worship under the stars that night. i love being outside! it was amazing. some people heard the howler monkeys in the middle of the night. i didnt and was a bit disappointed, but the next morning we woke early and trekked into the jungle, stopped a bit at some ancient Mayan ruins, and then went off the beaten trail to find howler monkeys! all you do is follow their cries! And they were right above us! We also saw spider monkeys! Seriously, some of the things I saw during Travel Week have BLOWN my mind!!! We took lots of pictures and even swung on some vines! ahh, the life of Tarzan. muy bien. that day we drove to Tikal and saw the huge Mayan ruins! Its ginormous all the things in there! Me, Karis, Katie, Dee, Geoff, and Xena stuck together and climbed more stairs than ive ever seen in my life. and took many pictures. and loved it! One of the Temples, Temple IV, was where part of Star Wars was filmed! I think in Return of the Jedi, but i forget. but now i have to watch those again and be like "I was there!" haha!

That night we drove into a city in Peten that has this Christian camp called Hearts in Action in it. We stayed there that night, all very grateful for no bugs and hot showers! Ben even leant me, Katie, Pan, Karis, and Dee his laptop so we could watch the last 2 episodes of Alias again (Katie brought that disc along). Ahhh, good ole Alias!

Next day we drove to the Rio Dulce where we met up with site 2 (they did all what we did, just in the opposite order). we hopped into 3 covered speed boats and took off down the very junglish, amazingly beautiful river on our way to Amatique Bay, a 5 star resort in Puerto Barrios. We boated into the resort and it felt like I was on the Bachelorette or something! Ive never seen a more exotic and amazing resort on TV or brochures!!! all the students stayed in this MANSION with a huge kitchen and personal pool out back and a living room, dining room, and bedrooms. we had to put some people on the floor and then rotate for the next night. The main pool is HUGE! It had 2 nearly full sized waterslides (with no lifeguards, so we had 17 of us go down all together many times and do other crazy things:) ), a pirate ship in the middle of the pool, a swim up bar and tunnels and caves and all these neato things! And it was deserted! Every now and then we would see someone, but we pretty much owned the place for those 2 days! awesome! They even let us give them our CDs and threw us a dance party on the last night! super super super vacationy! And we were right on the Caribbean too, so played some beach volleyball and waded around in the surf. OH! And Tabitha was baptized by Blayne while she was there! She had been planning it for a while, after discussing it with her family and church and all. so that was great for all of us to see and awesome for her to do.

Then on Wednesday, me, Katie, Dee, Geoff, Karis, Tabitha, Xena, and Julia boated to Livingston, this town right on the Caribbean Coast for our free weekend. Blayne had booked us into this 5 star hotel and got us this amazing deal where it would only cost each of us $85 USD for the 4 nights. so we got there and they had no record of our reservation, no understanding of any special deal, and worst of all, no room for us. crap. so we sat and thinked and this one guy told us all about his friend"s hostel-type place. 3 of us went to check it out and it seemed affordable and legit, so we headed there. but on the way we stopped at this little hotel called La Posada El Delfin and loved it and they are charging us $75 for all 4 nights per person, and no, its not 5 star and we dont have a huge pool, but we are the only ones there, we all get to share one big room, they give us breakfast and bottled water. we are loving it so far! It POURED for the first time ive been in Guatemala yesterday! It was super cool. Today we went to the Playa Blanca (white sandy beach) and these waterfalls called the Seven Alters to go cliff jumping. that was cool! except the weather was cool and cloudy, so not the best for the beach, but it was still cool. and tomorrow we are going to Belize! hurrah!!! We will be swimming and snorkelling out there, so that is freaking amazing and exciting! wohoo!!! And the tour today and tomorrow is with our hotel, so we get our own boat and it is private, so that just makes it even more awesome :) hopefully and prayfully the weather tomorrow will be sunny and clear for good snorkelling. anyways, i have written tons and tons and should get going. i will try to keep on top of things better! we head back to Joco on Sunday and then next week is Spanish followed by another free weekend (maybe i will go back to the Montericco beach again) and then SPanish the following week and Semana Santa (Holy Week, the 4 days before easter), and then Easter in Antigua, which is a don"t-you-dare-miss-this-excitement sort of thing. and then a week of independent service. and then we have 9 days of debrief. and then we are back to Winnipeg. man. it is going so fast. but it is oh so good. i should take off though. love you muchly! miss you and pray for you guys lots too.
Janal