easter in xela

Hi friends and family
I hope you all had an amazing easter... and the little fluffy bunny was kind to you all with lots of chocolate....

I spent Semana Santa (easter) in a little town called Xela.... (pronounced shayla).
I moved in with my homestay family of 8 (and one bathroom) which was fun....
Myra (mother) and the rest of the family couldnt speak a word of English and I couldn't speak a word of Spanish which was rather interesting.... especially when we were cooking together....
It bought back some memorable moments of when I moved into the English Family when I was 15...

Then 8am in the morning... off to intensive spanish speaking lessons... which were very intense.... in fact 5 hours of complete garble....
I felt like I was back at school again.....now I know why I disliked school so much.
I dont think it was a good idea coming from a mediatation retreat and a weeks silence into a family of 8 and spanish lessons. Anyway I can now manage to buy myself veges at the local market, greet people as they walk by and ask for the time in spanish.....

Now the salsa lessons that I took were fun.... as you all know me ... I really love dancing.... and yes... I managed to find a great pair of stilettos at the markets....

My homestay family and I spent the night before good friday visiting all the local churches viewing the Easter displays.... which was really exciting....
some of the displays were carpets of coloured sand...(photo attached) which were pretty spectacular.
Over the next 3 days we had a religious Mardi Gra..... of themed easter floats....in procession in the streets with thousands of people.....I must say it was pretty amazing.

I managed to get some pampering in true Guaetmala style... visiting the hot springs after school.... they were natural springs and soothing after a hard day... so we all jumped in like vegetables in a pot at a cannibals suprise dinner...

A group of us managed to take an interesting afternoon volcano hiking for 4 hours..in Antigua..... which was great exercise....
When we got to one of the craters... the guys managed to pull out sausages and marshmellows and the a cook off was on.......
yes the volcano was live.... and at sunset when we were near the bottom it gave us an amazing display of fire...and erupted......

After the hiking (which I dont think was on the flash packing agenda sheet)I booked in for a real pamering session in true Myan style... For a mere $54 I spent a whole day (yes from 9am to 4pm) being pampered at the Spa and Suna.... this included 1 1/2 hours massage, 1 hour facial, hair treatment and blow dry, myan sauna and manicure, relaxing tea.....what a bargin....

Yep the flash packer is back....

Well I am off to Hondourus onto the Bay Islands to go diving with the Whale Sharks..

I will keep you all posted of the next adventure.....

Kat on the ultimate journey