Guatemala (City), Goats, Gross

The first night in Guatemala was in Guatemala City. Four of us arrived in the morning and spent the day there before the rest of the group arrived. This was our first "Guatemalan" who greeted us in the shower. Actually, there were three of them and they kept fighting.. haha
This is inside the Guatemala Cathedral in the main square of Guatemala City. It was definitely interesting to note many differences between North American Catholicism and Central American Catholicism. There is a lot more synchrotism present in Central America, particularly with different Mayan religious beliefs and practices.
Good times with pigeons in the main square of Guatemala City. We even drank goat milk straight out of the goat.. haha.. Yay for warm unpasteurized milk!
The man with the goat

Turtle, Tortoise, Ton

Here's a sneak preview of what's coming up. This is me and my 300 pound tortoise buddy. I was a bit freaked he would snap at me, but luckily he did not. Some of the tortoises were even bigger than this.. and some of the turtles we swam with were just as big. Crazy. So, here's my turtle friend who is about 100 years old.

Stay tuned for me once my pics are actually transferred to this computer!

Words, Woohoo, When

793 words left in the second essay. Gah. I am compromising quantity for quality right now and all I care about is my word count. When will the schoolwork be done? hahaha.. oh well, i'll live

Pictures coming soon, I promise! sorry for the delay!

Numbers, Night, Nothing

Home at last! After 24 hours of travel, I arrived home at about midnight last night! It was an adventure of a day and we almost missed our flight in Quito.. I guess my suitcase smelled funny, so they called me to go and be there when they opened it. They escorted me to the outdoor part where the suitcases go right before being in the plane.. So ten minutes before my flight was leaving, here I was below the planes.. haha.. They searched my bag and found nothing and then I had to run as fast as I could to get to the plane on time. Fun times!

I have one paper written and one more to write that I need to get done. I'm procrastinating right now.. and this post doesn't have any pics because my camera has been stupid and so the pics are getting organized presently on my other computer. After I write four pages, maybe I'll post some..

In the meantime, here are some numbers from my trip:
1 jellyfish
2 paintings i bought
3 flights yesterday
4 pills to get rid of mr parasite
5 weeks sick
6 countries travelled to and through
7 crew members on our sailboat in Galapagos
8 nights stargazing with the most amazing skies i've seen in my life
9 sharks
10 cities for night in Guatemala
11 sudoku puzzles that i gave up on because i screwed them up
12 flights in total
13 hours flying yesterday
15 women on our sailboat (only one guy! haha)
16 new stamps in my passport
26 pounds that mr. parasite stole from me (not really a bad thing)
41 days I was gone
100 bites I got on my legs
302 blue footed boobies we saw divebomb in the water for feeding on our last day
346 steps to climb up a volcano to see the sunset

Don't worry, the pictures are coming and they will be worth it!!

Back to the papers! Hoorah!

Wow, Wonderful, Whales, Water

Hola from Quito again! I just got back from a week in the Galapagos Islands and it was amazing! I miss it already as a matter of fact! Where to begin... we arrived in Galapagos and boarded our sailboat and were greeted by a huge shark in the water (just to encourage swimming for later). That day we stopped at an island for a two hour walk. It was cool,b ecause we were the only people on the island besides all the huge iguanas and all the hoardes of sea lions. Pretty cool. Then we went swimming off the boat which was so super fantastic.

The next days usually included one or two walks a day around different islands, looking at blue footed boobies (it´s a bird), iguanas, albatross, lizards, flamingoes, volcanoes (saw one blowing up one night which was pretty spectacular). Um.. i think we saw a bunch of other animals too but at the moment my mind isn´t remembering them. Every day we also went snorkelling and got to swim with giant turtles.. some of them were as big as me. And we swam with sea lions which was a bit scary and a couple sharks.

The first day I got there I threw up a bunch, but then felt better afterwards. After that things with the stomach seem to have gotten better. Right now i´m still pretty dizzy and such,b ut hopefully that´s just because i´m back on land after being on water for a week! The second day i asked if i could swim from the beach back to the boat instead of taking the little dinghies. It was so great to swim long distances again, except for the jellyfish that decided to land across my head, face and my neck, giving me a nasty sting. I kept swimming mind you because the salt water felt good on it. After dousing it in vinegar, it felt a little bit better but still hurt like nothing else. Now i have some nice marks on my neck to show for it! haha..

Stargazing at night was absolutely incredible. Being on a boat in the dark int he middle of the ocean with nothing around allows you to see quite a lot. It was so fun getting to know everyone on the boat as well. There were 15 women and one man. haha..w hat a ratio. It was great though and the crew was a lot of fun as well. I even got to drive the boat one night! Yay for not crashing!

I probably could go on,b ut I figure it will all go better with pictures. I think I have over 2000 from the last six weeks, so i will probably post them more gradually over time just to not overwhelm!! hehe.. I arrive home tomorrow a bit past 11pm and then i have friday and saturday to write three papers for my class i took in Guatemala. Then I´m off to a retreat course with my uni. And will be gone for a week. crazy times!! Anyway, glad to be back (kind of) and hope you are all well! Stay tuned for some great pics (at least i think they´re great!) BYE!