SINUHEs Blog

...language. The shorter and common name in the street would be “Xela” (say “shela”). With 160’000 inhabitants it’s the second biggest city in the country. Its altitude is on 2330m above sea level, the reason for cold nights around 13 degrees centigrades. The heavy stroms finally ended and we got blue sky in the mornings. As normal for the rainy season we get some free water every evening or night. Really nice climate!

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Something special that I like a lot about the city: The indigenous people in and around Xela really take part on the economic life. In the overview that gives the region a healthier social-strucure, a lower crime-rate and less homeless people.

Again, I was very lucky with my hostfamily. The hostmother is a really active person, she’d take me on every mountain here. We’re 9 people all together, 5 dogs and approx. 10 cats that the hostmother got from the streets.

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I’m doing some voluntary work here in a veterinarians place, specialised in castrating dogs and cats from the streets. I’m really not the right person to assist the doctor during operations but they got 6 dogs in the surgery and they give me enough work for the day. Cleaning their areas, bath them, give them food, playing with them and walk them one after the other. They also provide cutting the hair of little dogs and I can help doing that.

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The first weekend I went with the hostmother to “Abaj Takalik” to see the Mayan ruins there. As usual when you take the chickenbus for a ride, it was very funny and once again totally planless. The bus took one hour more until the next city and than there was no bus to take us to the next place. So we just took some bus and this one was passing by where we should have gone out. But we found somewhere in the countryside the right minivan that brought us to the next village and from there we took a ride on a pickup to the ruins. Same story for the way back but with lots of rain. So what seems impossible on the first glance is working out if one just keeps asking.

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The following day, the whole family and each one of us students went to Champerico “a la playa” to relax. Again an other story with the chickenbus but it’s enough to say here that we arrived there after 4hours instead of 2h and that we first thought we would have to sleep on the beach because everybody told us that there would be no bus back after 5pm. But we had a lovely day on the black beach and lots of fun in the big waves.

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A week later I took Friday off from work to meet my friends from the school in Antigua in the middle of the two cities during the weekend. I first went on my own to Chichicastenango, known for its Sunday-market but as I’ve seen enough markets, I didn’t need that and visited the small town on a Friday. Interesting: The Spanish built the church on the top of the stairs of a Mayan temple 500 years ago but the Mayans are still doing their rituals there inside and in front of the church.

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From there I went to Lake Atitlan considered as the most beautiful lake in the world. And from all I’ve seen so far in this world I totally have to agree with this. I didn’t see that on the first day though, ‘cause it was raining all day and night. In Panajachel I was waiting for my friends coming from Antigua. We were around 20 and of course everybody had to fix in the small boat the hotel sent us. I just have to add here the comment that the reeling was just about 10cm above the level of the water. But we crossed the lake, made it and found ourselfes in a wonderful hotel resort direcly on shore with a nice park, swimmingpool and a shower with hot water from a boiler! The first I’ve seen in Latinamerica so far!

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Saturday I went with 3 german girls with the boat to an other village and from there back to Panajachel to stay there for an other night. We went to ask in the best hotel in town (just for fun) to ask for the price for a room. It was clear we couldn’t afford that so we were already searching for the next one in the streets when the receptionist stopped us and told us that they would have a special room for the four of us in an other house for a quarter of the price and that we could still use everything from the hotel. When he showed us the room, the nice pool with the slide the sauna and the great park with the hammocks we couldn’t say “no”. 5minutes later we were already having fun in the pool.

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I just felt in love with Lago Atitlan. This is exactely the place where I could imagine having my house, my hotel and enjoy life. I never felt something like that for another place in the world although I love it everywhere but there was just something magical, mystical I cannot describe. It’s a pity that a lot of people already had the same idea and the prices to buy land there are horribly high today.

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So much about half the time I spent in Xela. The rest will be on the next update soon. Yesterday I arrived in Mexico. Nice, nice! Now it’ll take just 3 more weeks until my brother and Swiss-friend will arrive here in Mexico! Bueno, hasta muy pronto en email, facebook o en persona. Saludos, Alain