nov-6-8

I made it out of Antigua and into the tiny village of El Hato, passing the market in Guatemala on my way. It is a nice market. There was this old crazy toothless Guatemalian man, who kept talking to me, and I did my best to converse, but every second thing I said was "no entiendo". It was Hilarious.

In any case upon my arrival in El Hato I was amazed how small the village was, there could not have been more than 250 people there. It was a very beautiful place, located on the side of a mountain. With corn and avacodo growing everywhere.

I found the earth lodge in no time and met the owners Brianna and Drew right away, they had started to build there five years ago and it was a beautiful place, with tree houses and a flat for camping. I then met 4 really great people who I became friends with immediately, Patrick and his brother Shaun and patrick´s wife Angela and Shaun´s girlfriend Anna. Shaun, Patrick and Angela are all originally from America and Pat and angela had just stopped working for red cross, and Shaun works as an adventure guide, and Anna works for a NPO (non profit organization and comes from Holland. We played frizbee, scrabble, bocce watched Bladerunner and hung out. unfortunately they had commitments so they left the next day.

I camped there in my jungle hammock, it was a sweet little setup. The only downside is that the isolation meant that there was only, one cornerstore, with overpriced veggies and that the earth lodge was the only place to eat, and was not exactly budget, so I rationed myself on carrots and granola bars, and just pigged out at the communal dinner, which was great. After my friends left I stayed another night and then decided I would go back to Antigua. Which led to my first bit of bad luck.

Early in the morning I said my goodbyes and left for Antigua where I went straight to the market for some food. I ate some delicious meat, and then spent the next hour or two looking for the Jungle Party where I planned to stay. Needless to say after what seemed like an eternity wandering Antigua witha stupid smile on my face, with very little clue of where I was I found the Hostel. It is a nice dorm only 45 Q a night, so as I was unpacking I went to reach for my back pocket and found that my pocket was slashed wide open and my wallet gone.

luckily all I had in it was cash 200Q and $70 Canadian which I had not been able to exchange in any bank. Sorry Angel and Lorna your gift got slashed, but I will be more careful in the future.- In fact as I was going to the bank to get small change, I found a Machete store, and purchased a fine machete for 125Q.

In any case I will try and upload some pics soon, its been a little difficult to do so so far but I will get around to it. Bieno Adios.