Xela, Guatemala

Hi all, well after a week or so of John’s computer crashing its back in action and we’re here to give you and update on the last few weeks. We have decided that since we are now stationed in Xela for the next few months we will only be updating the blog with a weekly summary rather than a daily play by play. We will be sure to highlight any major events or exciting adventures that occur while we are here.
After leaving San Pedro we headed towards the town of Quetzaltenango, or the original Xelaju, Xela (pronounced SHEALAHU or SHEALA). Our traveling companions were able to contact a nice young man living with his family in the city, once again through couch surfing. We had originally planned on making our own contact in Xela but when we arrived all together at Fernando’s house, he and his family insisted they had plenty of room for all of us and a safe place for us to park the truck. It was a very generous offer and we accepted.




The house was split into to two, two level houses connected via the shared garage. One side was occupied by Fernando, and his parents and the other side by his grandparents and Aunt Freda who was visiting from Canada. During this week we did some exploring of Xela and a few of the surrounding towns. Fernando took us for a hike up a nearby inactive volcano called Chicoban, where at the top the crater of the volcano is now a lake around which Mayan locals still perform ceremonies and sacrifices. While there we learned that aside from Spanish, some of the Mayans living here still speak the languages Citchkee and Mam. On this day we were unable to see much of the lake due to the thick fog that collects around the top of the volcano.



The climate in Xela is notably different than anywhere we have been thus far, because of the altitude; it is chilly at night and rains almost every afternoon for a few hours. Sometimes it comes down so quickly, and in great quantities there are flash floods. Sometimes the water flows under the doors into the homes w/out notice. All of the houses we have seen here in town are constructed of brick and concrete w/ tile or concrete floors. Another day trip we took was to a nearby natural hot spring called Fuentes Georgians.



Fernando’s Aunt Freda took us; we spent the day first visiting a small to see the idol San Sebastian. This was quite odd, when we arrived in the town where the idol was being “housed” we walked down a series of small alleyways until reaching a small room where at least 50 to 100 people were waiting in line to make offerings and pray to the mannequin representing the alleged prophet. What was odd about the whole thing was the offerings themselves, the typical items to bring to the idol are small bottles of the local distilled alcohol and cigarettes! The people actually pour the liquor on the idol and light the cigarettes and putt them in his “mouth”. It was a rather eerie scene with overtones of religion gone bad and a hint of witch craft. Needless to say we didn’t spend much time hanging around and headed to the hot springs. It was a very nice setting up in the mountains and the pools were very hot. Since arriving in Xela we have been browsing through the local classifieds looking for help wanted adds, and were able to find a couple of places looking for workers. While staying with Fernando, we went and checked in w/ a bakery that is need of a baker in the mornings. John interviewed for the job and even though the day manager speaks no English and John’s Spanish is slim to none he received a call back two day’s later that he got the job! It doesn’t start until the end of the month so we still had some time to look for temporary jobs. We spent the rest of the week at Fernando’s place, looking for places to live during the day and going out a few nights for coffee. This would be the last place we would stay together w/ our caravan companions, Aviv and Itai. They decided to head back north and towards the Honduran boarder on Friday and we all said goodbye. They are wonderful people and great traveling companions, we hope we will be able to visit them some day in Israel and that they can come and see us in the States, thanks for everything you two, safe travels, you are in our thoughts and prayers!! After staying Fernando’s house for a week we thought it would be good to move on and not over stay our welcome. We did some more couch surfing and a nice fellow named Edy invited us to come and stay w/ him on the other side of town.


During this week we were able to find a good place to park the truck for the month and pay a flat rate. It’s a gated lot, which has an attendant there 24 hours a day and we even get a key to the gate in case we need to get into the truck on a day they are closed or in the evening.


Edy is also a Spanish teacher during the day and offered to give Kindra and John private lessons. So while we stayed at his house we also did some Spanish study in evenings. During this week we were still looking for a place to share or a room to rent so we could have our own place. Our acquaintance from San Pedro, Josh got a hold of us and invited us over for dinner one night, while there he offered a room in his house that would be available if we were interested. The room is actually two rooms connected to each other with one of the walls being all windows facing out into an open air, courtyard.



We were interested and Josh said we could move in a week. We spent the rest of the week at Edy’s place studying Spanish, doing yoga and making a few trips into town for groceries and produce. We moved most of the stuff that we needed out the truck, piece by piece and are now pretty much all moved in to the house. We have 2 roommates, Josh and Claudia…well 4 actually because Josh has a dog, named hippy and Claudia has a cat named Prince. We are one big happy familia, John, Kindra, Josh, Claudia, Hippy, Prince, and Wallito!



John found a temporary position at a nearby coffee shop waiting tables and doing dishes and Kindra the same at a different Café, both just a 5 min walk away from the house. Also to supplement our income at our jobs Kindra has been working hard to sell our caramels around town. She has done a great job of making some nice containers to put the candy in so we can leave them at a few different businesses. Kindra has also been brushing up on her Thai Massage and hopes to start advertising and doing sessions out of the Café where she is serving called En Finito. En Finito is a sweet little café restaurant that is run by two Dj’s. John is working in the evening at a little coffee shop/bar called El Cuartito. They have live music most nights of the week and the crowd is quite eclectic with a mix of locals and visiting tourist/out of town visitors. We are both getting along well and really like it here in Xela. We will post again soon with more pictures of our work places and the surrounding areas here in Xela. Love you all and miss ya,
Peace,
Kindra and John