Our adventure continues - ups, downs, highs, lows (both literal and figurative) - but no day is the same. Highs included a fun chocolate-making class (see picture of us using a mortar and pestle to turn roasted cocoa beans into paste), climbing Pacaya Volcano & toasting marshmellows in steam vents at the top, having brunch and checking out all the great sculputures atop El Tenedor (the fork), and watching a lightening storm over the volcano from our perch at Cafe Sky, margartas & limonadas in hand. Lows included me losing one of our two wallets (one is always in the room thank goodness) for a second time and not getting it back this time so having to reorder credit card, etc., Zoe having 7 different teachers due to getting some lame ones and then some of the good ones having scheduling issues, and getting stuck far from the house in the rain with no umbrellas or tuk-tuks and then finally getting a tuk-tuk that broke down two blocks later.

The best part of the trip continues to be meeting so many different people and learning about all the ways our lives are the same as well as different. Zoe has found a number of kids to hang with - three teenagers at our school are in town for a week on their own (the parents arrive tomorrow) and she goes on activities with them (like to the serpenteria) and plays word games in Spanish; playing monkey in the middle with the 13 year old boy (Carlos) in our homestay and his 4 year old cousin (Luis); and meeting a Mayan girl in Parque Central who is trilingual (indigenous language, spanish, & english) and took a break from working (selling jewelry & cloth to us gringos) to play catch with us, practice spanish together and go get ice cream. The hacky-sack we picked up has proven great for practicing spanish - you have to say a word en Espanol each time you throw it - and meeting people.

Meanwhile, I've gotten to learn about politics, education, and religous practices here from our guides and from a very lively discussion with our family. Saturday was the last night for another student in the house, and we all brought wine to celebrate (first time there has been alcohol at a meal or in the house since i arrived) and 6 adults ended up finishing 6 bottles (the family patriarch easily accounted for more than 2 of them) so all of our Spanish/Spanglish/English seemed to improve as we talked about religion, politics, and of course sex. One of the funny things we've noted here is the role of churches in the community - they are the number one spot for setting off firecrackers (which seems to happen daily in celebration of one saint or another) and for novios (lovers) to hook up. A guide explained that many of the older churches we visit are like parks and have lots of hidden areas for couples to meet, and since most of the younger (teens/twenties) folks live with their parents, they make the perfect spot for 'private' romantic interludes.

Classes are done on Friday and then the traveling part of our adventure begins - first stop is Quito Ecuador on Saturday night!