Guatemala and Honduras Photos

Guatemala and Honduras

Where to begin! Guatemala was in my opinion the best vacation of my life. I took a tour with Mundo Guatemala, which for anyone who has contemplated a trip you should all check into this company I was extremely well taken care of and everything was absolutely wonderful. But on with the details, I arrived on Saturday and immediately transferred to Antigua, the original colonial capital of Guatemala and the headquarters when Central America was its own unit during Spanish rule. I arrived late afternoon so I just went to my beautiful hotel and prepared to leave bright and early for Chichicastenango.

Chichicastenango is the world famous Indigenous market in Guatemala. It is the largest market in all of Central America, and while it was spectacular I had suspected many bargains and a huge variety but I found that later in the week was when I actually found more authentic items and better deals, but that does not take away from the fact that it was still extremely interesting to see this market and explore and buy a few souvenirs. After spending the day at the market I took a shuttle to Panahachel, the largest town that surrounds the world famous Lake Atitlan, which is currently being voting on as one of the finalists for the top 7 natural wonders of the world that gives you some idea as to how impressive this place was. I stayed there over night and the next day took a lake tour and visited the surrounding villages, each with their own flair and characteristics. The lake is surrounded by three volcanoes and tons of high mountain tops it is just absolutely breathtaking. I visited San Pedro, San Antonio Palpao and Santiago Atitlan around the lake. Santiago is known for its artist and their paintings, and since going to Paris and studying art I kind of have a fascination for local painting so of course I definitely bought myself one here. San Antonio is like looking at a Latin American version of the Italy or Greece Cliffside with all the houses with a stunning cathedral right in the middle of the town. San Pedro is a very hippie new age oriented place, really different as you tend to not see new age/hippie go hand in hand with traditional Latin culture. I absolutely loved the boat tour it was great.
The next day I was back in Antigua and had the day off from my tour so I actually went with Elizabeth Bell, the owner of Antigua Tours, on one of her tours of the city and in the afternoon a tour of the architectural and art history of the surrounding small indigenous villages. Both of the tours were fantastic and worth every penny I got to learn so much about the city, its history, its people past and present and just really see the city through the eyes of a local expert which was incredible. At the end of the second tour I got to visit a very cool fair trade style co-op run by 12 indigenous families with all their textiles, these were some of the best artist in the country and I got to learn the different techniques and how the styles give you insight into the class structure and community dynamics within these communities just based on this workmanship, really interesting and I bought a beautiful door hanger with the national bird the Quetzal really pretty.
Over night I took the bus to Flores to go see Tikal, the largest Mayan ruins, the following day. It was one of the most mysterious and fascinating places I’ve ever seen. I think after visiting Stonehenge in England I have a connection with ruins and I definitely had the same feeling here. It was like I could close my eyes and just see the Mayans running around or holding rituals, really bizarre but absolutely incredible; I even got to climb some of the ruins. I came back on the overnight bus again to Antigua. The next day was another free day in Antigua so I relaxed and did my work so I wouldn’t have to do it the rest of the time when I was enjoying myself. Antigua is an incredible city; I honestly think I could stay there for much more than a few days. It is similar to Grenada in Nicaragua but nowhere near the same level of poverty, it has definitely prospered the only problem now is its becoming too touristy, that’s the opinion I kept hearing from the locals but despite all that I loved the city and would have really liked to explore more.
Bright and early the next day I was off to Honduras to visit Copan. Copan are the most well preserved ruins in the entire Mesoamerica region, you can still see some of the colors on the hieroglyphics. Copan is nowhere near as large as Tikal but its known for its incredible preservation, and that is no joke it’s incredible how well preserved all the designs still are, and like I said you can even still make out some of the colors on the statues. I stayed in Copan over night and the location in Honduras in extremely rustic but very peaceful. The hotel was incredible so when I wasn’t at the ruins I got to enjoy the beautiful scenery from the hotel into the country and the mountains. Let’s just say me and the hammock had a good time that evening relaxing.
Well that’s the short and sweet version of my stories from Guatemala I hope you enjoy the photographs of this incredible country, I know I sure enjoyed visited this incredibly beautiful country with its extremely friendly colorful people.


Enjoy!

Spanish Accents

Ok so I'm not quiet sure why but everyone here seems to think I'm from a completely different place when they hear me speak Spanish. I've had people tell me my Puerto Rican accent is so obvious, which I think is hillarious since I haven't even lived there. I'm also had people think I'm Cuban, or South American, and the most hilarious one was today in a cab when the guy thought I was from Russia or Ukraine can someone please explain that to me!!! I don't really get it, but it's been interesting to see how complete strangers take you just by the way you speak. Well that's my rant of the week. I leave for Guatemala on Saturday and I can't wait, there will tons of photos when I get back.

Hope you are all enjoying them and that everyone is doing well.

Coral

Nicaragua

Well the group just got back from our visa trip to Nicaragua where we went to Granada and San Juan del Sur. Granada is their original colonial capital and has a large contrast between the original building and how they are kept up compared to the more recent buildings and how they are not very well kept. There is a lot more poverty in Nicaragua as well. From the minute you cross the border you have tons of people either begging for money, food, or trying to get you to buy their products. Even the animals are malnourished and is definately a sight that is difficult to forget. Even with all the poverty that was making us feel helpless because we knew if we helped one all of them would want our money or food or whatever we could give, it was very difficult not to help these people. We did though on our last day before we went to San Juan del Sur gave our leftovers from dinner the night before the homeless kids that are always in the main plaza. People really like and take pride in where they are from and don't mind talking to you about the issues, however politics is completely out of the question they steer away from this topic as quickly as possible, you can tell that there is still resentment from their history that keeps them for being too open so they censor their comments as if to not offend the government. We got to visit the beautiful craft town right outside the main area in Granada and were able to attempt at making pottery on a manual machine, well that was most definately interesting! We also got to see the beautiful viewpoint overseeing the huge volcano and Lake Nicaragua which is stunning. We also got to go to the market, where I as usual went crazy, markets are my weakness when I travel because I love getting unique gifts for family and friends. I got some beautiful things for ridiculously cheap so I was able to get a lot more for my buck in Nicaragua then in Costa Rica. I know this next week in the Guatemalan market it will be the same! When we went to San Juan del Sur we really just relaxed until we headed back to the bus the next day as we were all exhausted from a very long ride and day in Granada.

Nicaragua was difinately interesting and different I hope you enjoy the pictures of their nature and the beautiful colonial side of Granada.

Nicaragua Pictures

Ohh Political Science

So I'm not usually a fan of politic science class wise, most definately into politics but all the theory nonsense is just not practical for my life. SO LET ME TELL YOU what a DIFFERENCE a political science in Costa Rica is like. Can we say field trip (s)!!!!! I have officially been on four seperate field trips with my class to Congress, Tribunal Election Council, Foreign Affairs and tomorrow the Presidency. And yeah I'm getting a grade for this is that not amazing. I'm actually getting to visit and talk to people that are involved with the issues we discuss in class and they are all so willing to help and get connected with students. It's just been really interesting to get to meet people working in this field in another country it's really quite cool. I didn't think I had mentioned these before so I just thought I'd share. Political science isn't the only class I've had various field trips in my GST with Dr.Weston has also had several as well as class outside, even my Spanish class got to go on one yesterday.

Yeah basically I just absolutely love studying abroad, I mean I love being at Elon and that's a huge difference from most colleges but having these experiences abroad has by far been my favorite thing about Elon, and this one is most definately not an exception.

Hope you are enjoying the pictures and this week there will be many more from Nicaragua.

Hope everyone is doing well!

New way to see pictures

Well I finally figured out how to get my pictures in slideshow format onto the blog, so below are all the different pictures from the semester and where they were taken. It rotates but if you want to see then in full size all you have to do is click the screen. Hope you enjoy!

Monteverde Pictures

Manuel Antonio Pictures

Paragliding Photos

Poas and La Paz Photos

San Jose and Cartago Pictures

San Ramon

Ziplinning

Fantastic Weekend and Countdown for Nicaragua

Well this past weekend I got to go see Juanes in concert on Thursday night and it was AMAZING! It was my first concert which made it even better. The opening band was a local band and they were ok but the real show was definately Juanes, and in proper Costa Rica fashion it started raining of course the minute Juanes came on stage. But it actually made it even better, the atmosphere was just so much more personal and fun the whole group had a blast, and the Professor and his family went too so we all had a good time. Friday four of us headed to Caldera to the beach and on Saturday Jose took us all paragliding and everyone had a great time. Sunday the group had a trip and we went to Cartago to visit the ruins and the basilica, we also went to a traditional farmers market which was massive, and we went to a gorgeous viewpoint and the first church in Costa Rica both in the Orosi valley. This week is kind of nuts for all of us since we go on our visa trip to renew our visas this weekend to Nicaragua and next week I leave Saturday for Guatemala for my fall break and then it's already November!!! ahhh I'm so not excited about that I'm having a great time and really do not want to go home anytime soon. So because the rest of this month is kind of full we have tons of work due this week so we are all pretty  busy. 

Well I'm sure I'll have exciting stories after our visit to Nicaragua so stay tuned for that.

And as always check the picture link

www.picasaweb.google.com/luvlatindance

Extremely busy weekend

Ok well last week wasn't too exciting so I'm going to tell you guys about the insanely busy upcoming weekend. Well Vanessa as you think I'm just having entirely too much fun this is really going to make you mad. Well I'm going to a Juanes concert, the beach, paragliding, and Cartago yes that's all the same weekend. But don't be confused I am taking class, 5 of them actually so I'm busy all week long with class but the weekends are our stress relief of the week. I hope everyone is doing well and I will have a lot of pictures after this weekend.