Day 17 - The Mayan Sun

Today marks the first day of the second leg of our journey. The first two weeks were the Volcano Trail, and these last two will be the Mayan Sun. Peter, Martin, and Olga were only signed up for the first trip, and today we welcomed Brent, Antonia, and Sullim (or something like that). Brent is an American fresh out of high school, and the latter two are Aussies, and I don't know much about them yet. The Aussies are really taking over this trip, seeing as there are now 5 Aussies, 1 South African, 2 Scottish, 4 American, and a Finnish. They all talk funny.

The town of Antigua is really cool. Today was especially nice because we purposely didn't plan a thing the entire day. We woke up late, met a group for breakfast around 10:00am, dropped off some laundry, and then bummed around town all day. We dropped into a Jade museum (apparently the Mayans were really big into Jade, and Guatemala has a huge mine for the stuff), did a little shopping around town (I bought a nice Jack Bauer satchel, or manbag, if you will), and then did a little internet. I was still unable to post my writings, but in a couple days I will make a big push to do so.

I did, however, sit out in a courtyard outside of the internet place and catch up a little on my blogging. These courtyards are much like Grenada and are so peaceful. They have tables in an outdoor courtyard, with plants and shops all around. It is small, intimate, and very relaxing.

After bumming around all day, we all wanted to go to a local dinner and a movie place, except they were all booked. So we ended up at some random restaurant/bar above a shop. It was really good times, as the group relived every funny moment for the new people from the past two weeks. We have only been here 17 days and are already reminiscing. I am sure the new people were very bored by the end of the evening, but the rest of us were entertained. I am not sure if the stories on Peter will ever end on this trip, but they always provide a good laugh for all.

The dinner also brought embarrassing story hour, where we all had a good laugh at each other. Haley told of the time when we were just starting to date each other and I dropped off flowers for her at her house. I was supposed to get out of the house before she got home, but I ended up being caught in the house when she walked in the house. Her roommate had seen here coming and hid me in the closet. When Haley saw the flowers and who they were from, the started jumping for joy and saying very nice things about me. I knew at that moment I had her in the bag. Haley presented the story in a very funny way and we all had a good laugh.

I shared the story about the time I farted on accident in the testing center at BYU and couldn't stop laughing for ten minutes. That catapulted the conversation into fartland and we all had a couple more good laughs. I think this second leg of the journey is going to be very fun and perhaps a little trying as we are going to be spending some quality time in the jungle with some proper sized bugs.