Hello again, just wanted to update the travel journal a little bit. Right now we are actually in Xela, Guatemala. We arrived yesterday, which was quite an adventure, but we are safe and are having a wonderful time. I will probably only have time to update a couple days, but hopefully more soon.

Day 8
We all went to breakfast on our way to Playa Manzanillo and I had warm yogurt while whitney had soggy corn flakes with warm milk. Not our best breakfast. Though, Anna thought it was really good, so i am slightly suspicious on the dairy products in Sweden as well. We spent most of the day at Manzanillo, swimming, snorkeling, and getting sunburned. Matt, Whit, Anna, and I went for a walk to Playa Carrizalillo(the beach just around the point) barefoot. Anna turned back because it was too hot on her feet and then we decided to just take a taxi about 2 minutes after she left. The beach was in a small cove and was nice and secluded. We ended up back at Manzanillo after taking a shortcut through thick vegetation. On the way we encountered large biting flies that can actually draw blood. That afternoon there were amazing thunderstorms and it rained unbelieveably hard(hopefully whitney will put a picture up of it.) Everyone was pretty tired after dinner, so we just sat around, played cards, and went to bed early.

Day 9
Took our clothes to have them washed for the first time on the trip and on the way back i stubbed my toe pretty bad and was bleeding all over the place. I did the same thing on the opposite foot when i was in Mazatlan last year. We went down to the beach which had become quite small after the swell had moved in. There was not much swimming since the rip was so strong. Whit and I decided we had had enough sun for the day after about two hours so we went to the store and bought some tortillas and cheese to make quesadillas. That ended up being a bad idea since we both ended up sick. She felt worse than me so she went to bed early while i decided I would go out to the bars for an hour or so with Matt and Angela. Matt bought me my final drink in Puerto and then I went to bed since i had to get up early for the bus to Oaxaca.

Day 10
We woke up around 8.30 to pack. Whit still is not feeling too well. We say our good byes to the three we had been traveling with for the past 10 days, which was a little harder than I thought it would be. When we stopped at the ATM a local store owner asked us why we were leaving paradise. It was hard to find a good answer, but i knew my reluctance to leave was only my fear of being uncomfortable and unknowing of who i would meet and and the adventure that lay ahead. I knew it was time though that we moved on from Puerto so that we could do what we wanted to do on the trip. So we took a shuttle bus to Oaxaca. Whitney felt like vomitting for most of the ride until the dramamine kicked in and she fell asleep. The road was bad and very windy. The driver drove uncomfortably fast. We arrived safe in Oaxaca and walked about 30 minutes to our hostel, the Mezkalito. We just so happened to arrive on there grand opening party and 80 pesos a night was hard to pass up for a new hostel. Whit and I just crashed though from the long day. How we slept through the music that reverberated through the room is a mystery.

Day 11
Whitney woke me up about 9.45, she had been since 8.30 when she opened her eyes and saw Stefan, a large guy from Mexico city, sleeping without any covers butt naked two beds over. But breakfast at the hostel was good, all you could eat pancakes. We walked around the zocalo all day, which was cluttered with graffiti and road blocks from the recent teacher strikes and the major rally/protest that occured a day before we arrived. We ended up in a little restaurant watching the World Cup game with an Alaskan couple in the their mid-forties. They ended up picking up our meal tab so we were very greatful. We took it easy for the rest of the day, taking a trip up to the bus station to buy our tickets to San Cristobal, but that was about it. We just sat out in the courtyard until we were tired and went to sleep.

Well that is all I have for now, and if you read this before you look to the picture section, whitney is uploading a bunch of pictures as I type. Hope you all are doing wonderful and I will try to post more soon