Volcán Pacaya

Amigos! I hope everything is well with you all! This past week was great! I had my last FULL week of Spanish and I have three more days this week until I’m done. It’s a bitter-sweet moment…I’m going to miss Spanish and learning more of it, but I will enjoy having some free time in the mornings. This week in class was much more conversational although we did work on subjunctive! Thursday, my teacher and I had a little celebration with Cortney, another SAU student and her teacher at her teacher’s home. Her teacher, María Elsa, is actually a home stay mother as well of a few SAU students. We went over to her house and had a little “last week of Spanish” party. We made chocolate covered strawberries, chocolate covered bananas, popcorn with a little left over chocolate on some of it and also had ice cream with sparkling strawberry juice. It was fun! We played a little bananagrams and talked in Spanish. It was a blast! Friday, Delia and I worked on subjunctive some more and then played scrabble in Spanish with a few random students from La Unión.

Saturday, we had a little adventure on our own as some of us (apart from the University) decided to go through a travel agency and climb a volcano…Volcano Pacaya. This is the volcano that erupted a year and a half ago, in May 2010. It was an exciting experience to say the least! The climb up took about an hour and a half and then we were able to explore a little on our own for an hour towards the top. We weren’t allowed to go to the very top and see the crater, but we got pretty close! We saw lots and LOTS of volcanic rocks and got to go in some steam holes and such, so it was worth it. When we got to the top, a girl who hiked up with us, but was from a different group fell and she broke or cut her leg really deep, cut her head and hurt her hand, so we took a different way down the volcano. A more direct route, but it also happened to be a bit scarier and much steeper! I was stepping in volcanic rocks up to my mid-calf every step down the volcano at what was probably a 60 degree decline. It was crazy, but after I got the hang of it, it was kind of fun and not scary! All of the guys took turns carrying the injured girl down the volcano until we got to the ambulance. From there, we walked down the windy road to our bus at the bottom of the volcano. Then, we hopped in the bus and headed back to Antigua and we got home around 1:40 and ate lunch a little before 2.
[During the climb up the volcano..we could see other volcanoes in the distance, the ones that surround Antigua. This picture doesn't show them all as the others are off to the left]

[Me on the volcano!][the volcano...part of it anyway][The decline one our way down the volcano...this picture doesn't quite do it justice.]
Once we all had taken showers and cleaned the ash and dust off of ourselves, Aleia and I went to the market to do a little shopping and bartering before coming home a little bit before dinner. It was a great day! I’m definitely sore today, but I expected to be.

Today, we went to church and then out to lunch with the whole SAU gang. I’m excited to see what the remaining weeks have in store for me here! A little over a month left and there’s so much more I want to do. Hopefully, having mornings off starting Monday will allow me to have enough time to accomplish all of the things I want to do!