Back to School

We are already coming to the end of our Spanish classes in Panajachel, Guatemala. We can´t believe how much we´ve learned in a week, but still have sooo much to do and need a lot more time to study and figure it out...we say over and over again that learning a language is hard, we feel like we´re back at work!! Our classes are for four hours every day and then we have homework each night that takes at least that long. Whew! But we couldn´t have picked a better place to study. Waking up to Lake Atitlan out our ¨front door¨each morning and studying Spanish in a beautiful Guatemalan garden every afternoon...it doesn´t get much better...so maybe not quite like work. Our plan is to be here at least through the weekend and then begin our exploration of some other areas of Guat next week!

Backing up a couple weeks, here are a few pictures to re-cap after our time inland in Mex as we worked our way down to Guatemala...

This was the beach view beyond our camp in La Ticla and a pretty photographed spot as we´ve now seen the same picture in a couple surf guides. The waves at Ticla were HUGE while we were there, double overhead at times! Blake took the challenge and hit the surf a few times and King Neptune wasn´t very nice to him.
We were so lucky to see our first sea turtles in Ticla!!! We COULD NOT believe it, but they were coming up on the beach during the day just down from the town. We kept our distance, but learned within the next few days that the people of Mexico don´t really follow this rule...

The National Geographic movies are right. It IS quite a struggle for each turtle to make their way back to the ocean. It is HARD to be a mother!!! This is the path of one...From Ticla, we said a very sad goodbye and parted ways with our caravanning friends, Tiffany and Danny. They were headed back up to the states and we went the other way to work our way back down the Pacific Coast. We drove on to a small town called Maruata for a night. This is an aerial view of town from the top of one of the cliffs that surround the bay. Look closely to pick out our van!

The beach at Maruata...

We met a pretty fun group just after we pulled into town that insisted that we sit down with them for dinner which turned into the rest of the night. They had hired a live musician for the night, so we were serenaded with traditional Mexican music all night. He was even taking requests...Matt and Norah, bet you can´t guess what we asked for!! Don´t get too excited tho, we still don´t know the words.

We took a walk that night to look for more turtles and ran into a group of Marines that patrol the beach for the same reason. However, they actually harvest the eggs just after the turtle is finished and then pretty much carry her back to the sea. This tortuga was probably 3 times the size of the one we´d seen in Ticla and laid about 100 eggs!

Blake helped carry her back! So much for keeping our distance.

We made one more stop along the way at Barra de Nexpa and both got in the water for some surf here!!