This one here is part five and I am now in Guatemala living in a town called San Pedro on a lake called Atitlan. I got here a week and a half or two weeks ago. I have to take the boat across the lake to the other town to get money and do the email. The town I live in don't got no cars where I live my life, which is right there on the lake side.

After Belize I gone to Tikal the Mayan ruins and sawn the tallest pyramid in Latin America that was the rebel base in star wars. It just

poketh out of the canopy the top of it and the rest just overgrown with four foot wide oak trees man. Back in the day there weren't no trees there, but now there's trees every which way going right out of the pyramids. Nature in very resilient. I went to the meditation chamber in the temple next to the two central temples and sat down and got me these thunderous bolts of energy that made me very emotional and I could sit there for hours and not seem like hours, powerful place. This German dude in my tour group said pyramids expand energy from top to bottom. They did the sacrificing there, only there they sacrificed the winner of the ball game, not the loser.

I stayed for a night in the Guatemalan border town of Flores so I could go to Tikal the next day. The part of the town where I was in wasn't anything special because it was right on the dirty highway, but the historic part of the city was very interesting because it completely inhabited a small island with buildings. I walked down the causeway to the island with an Israeli kid who was staying at the same hotel I was and we walked around the island checking out the markets and the plazas and streets. It was very beautiful and touristy but too expensive for my tastes.

We got a bus from our hotel at about six the next morning for the 45 minute or drive to the ancient Mayan ruins of Tikal. The drive was beautiful because we were in a jungle and the fog was still really even after we entered the park. We were with a group of about ten tourists and had a good guide give us a tour of the place for the day.

That night I went to Guatemala city and then straight to San Pedro. This one town called Solola I was walking around in before I got there was in the middle of this yearly independence celebration or something and there were thousands of dressed up schools kids marching around. I was struck with all the Guatemalan clothes being worn by all the locals. I'm sure you all know what I am speaking

of, very colorful garb from head to toe on every man, woman and child; or most anyway. They were the best dressers of anywhere. It kind of reminded me of Tibet, and there faces also do, and china. I tell you it's just plain silliness to say the china people didn't colonize this here place back yonder sometime after you looked at some of these Mayans.

When I got at san Pedro I saw this American dude who said for fifty bucks he would instruct me about the craft of speaking the Spanish language for 4 hours a day for five days. He was a good teacher. When I originally got here I was like, 'I will got to school for a long time', but after after, I was more like, 'fuck school, I know enough, all I need to know now are the darn words', so I study the words from now on, and maybe school in a couple months. There are a lot of interesting characters here as usual. My teacher is very cynical about this country, in between drillings he would go off on these weird theories and stories, which lots of ex-pats do (an ex-pat is someone who has lived in another country for a long time), the type of people who come to third world countries for long periods of time come here because they don't really fit in back home. like they don't like to work, or at least that competitive stressy work we are used to back home. But they are still ingrained with the mores of the first world, so they get pissed off at the laziness and silliness of the locals, and sometimes get cynical and talk trash to all there ex-pat buddies about the country they live in. My Spanish teacher told me that during the civil war here the government killed off all the smart people which added to the inbreeding that naturally happens to village people. These locals are pretty primitive, but they seem smart enough to me. The women smile at you

and say hi, which is more than can be said of some other third world countries I have seen in Morroco and Asia where they are really shy. Here its the women who bother you to buy banana bread, not the men. Actually they aren't women, they are little bitty girlies. They're cute, they ask me my name and I say 'perrrrrrrro loco'. My teacher is moving back to the states in a couple days and a took his house from him. So now I have a house with two bedrooms, a big 'ol flat ceiling, a nice front yard with a half dozen different kinds of trees and green grass, and cable and a stove and toasters and blenders and furniture, and all that for only 66 bucks a month for the whole house. I heard this cool Colorado kid is coming back pretty soon and is bringing his TV, so I will let him and his TV move in so i can watch my MTV 2, which is better that American MTV because its all videos and no stupid game shows (I never got a TV). Ever since I got here I have been sick. I smoked dope the other week and almost died

of an asthma attack. I was walking in circles at two in the morning asking Jesus of Nazareth our savior from the evil dark forces for the sparing of my life, and luckily for me the great one was kind enough to grant me a third chance. But that's all right cause there's boomers (mushrooms) here. I heard every week Mayan women from the south come by the house bringing big 'ol bags of it. Plus the Beer and Margaritas and stuff are cheap. Two bucks for a liter at the bar were all us ex-pats and travelers hang out, we see a movie every night at seven and a half. Everyone here are cocaine heads, its all right, only thirteen bucks for a gram, which would cost a hundred bucks back home. So most of us stay here because of that drug (not me). Its a cool feeling having a numb face and being all awake, and if you do a lot you get all motor mouthy. But you can get grumpy coming down. Plus it kills your appetite, I couldn't even force the food down. This one guy went down four belt notches here. All these ex-pats are broke though, this one French dealer was all freaked out because he didn't have the doe to pay the gangsters from the city back so I gave him 90 bucks to save his teeth from getting knocked out, then this other kid borrowed a hundred and twenty bucks from me and also sold me his digital camera for a hundred bucks. Then this other skinny ass junky borrowed three bucks from me last night. Then today this Belizean dude wanted a bite of my fruit salad, but started eating all of it. I quickly got a reputation for loaning money out to losers, and one day one of the bartenders at Geno's came buy my house to stop it because I would never be paid back and all the travelers here are dirt bags. I had never loaned money out before and not been paid back, so I felt like I just needed to cross that bridge and learn from experience. It's weird just hanging out with the same people in the same bar all the time. I teach them Pente the board game, but now I play it too much. I am the only one studying Spanish, they either already know it or don't bother learning it. So I will hang at my house and memorize it all real good there and be fluent when I leave which may be as long as six months. I don't know, there is this place across the lake where they all dress in white robes and talk to the Pleiadians and live in pyramid shaped huts, this one guy charges like ten thousand bucks to take men into the jungle and strip down to their underwear and bang on drums and cry together. I haven't been there yet, I just heard, I will though, I like the Plaiedians. I'm all hung over now from the cheap beer, I think I must have Vodka orange juice from now on. Anyway, section six will be in a month or so because like I said before there ain´t no email, or cars or international banks were I live, so party on and wish me luck getting my dinero back from the white stuff lovers. peace out.

well, I ain't going to any new places this part of my life so the stuff to report on must therefore be the weird ass scene that I have become part of. Firstly though I am proud to say that I am done with my house. It took many a long time to fix it up, two weeks, cause my Spanish teacher and his buddy stayed there two weeks longer than they said they would because he never got his money from his mom in the mail. They are the biggest slobs ever and left the house in a shambles. And then when he got the money and wanted to get his passport (which was lost a couple years ago) they didn't think he was American cause he is half Korean, and he didn't have any records back home so he was thinking of sneaking back across the boarder, but then his mom found some ID. After I finally cleaned the place up I made a bitching gym on my roof, complete with the sit up inclined padded bench, the back up bench, the bench press bench, the curl bench, and the inclined military press padded seat, a 150 pound barbell, a 100 pound barbell, and three sets of dumbbells; all out of cement. Its pretty dope, and in my spare bedroom I done gone went and made a massage room and put up a sign and flyers. I only charge like ten bucks for an hour and a half massage but I don't know if I will get any business because people come here for the cheap drugs. They probably think I am a coke head trying to get laid or something. But I give free massages to the workers of the bar restaurant I hang out at in place of a tip. Today I will by me a new bike with V brakes, 21 speeds and double racks for 115 bucks. It weighs like 50 pounds, but you get used to that. Then I want to buy a boat, they paddle them standing up here. When I get into my routine, I tell you, I will be living like a king. I will send pictures on the net soon and all of yall will see what a dank ass place this is. But the funny thing is, nobody seems to appreciate the beauty of this place, because they are too busy appreciating the drugs. I don't understand cocaine, the couple of times I have done it, I sit around trying to figure out if I am high or not. But some of these people NEED the shit. There is this one kid from Canada who has been here for years who looks like a holocaust victim, he says he don't got no money so he eats a little bowl of rice a day and spends the rest of the day walking ten feet in the bar and then standing there for 5 minutes, and then walking to the chair and sitting down for a half hour and then walking off to the next place where there are people to do the same thing over again. You see, people come here because they don't like to work, and here you don't have to work and you still fit in. One time that Canadian kid wanted to freebase (make coke into nuggets and smoke it up) with me, and borrow the money for it. So I did it cause I had never done it. We got high, it was cool, but after 5 minutes we came down and then he's like, 'lets get more, please'. So he talked me into getting more two more times and the second time he was begging me and has this pathetic puppy dog desperate look in his eye. I had compassion (or pity or stupidity) and gave him five bucks and was like, 'I'm leaving but enjoy, you owe me'. Then a couple days later he was following me all the way home begging me for more money like he was about to die and I was the only person in the world who could help him. Now every time I see him I'm all, "Where's my money man, you said you would pay be back the next day", and he's all, "I'm broke man, I just eat rice, but I'll pay you back". There's an American girl here who leaned on a wall then gave way and fell 60 feet off a building through four roofs and landed in a basement next to a bed where all these people were doing crack, and one of them worked in the embassy and took the initiative to call her rich uncle and tell him she fell cause she was on crack. Their house is even bigger than mine, three bedrooms, and a huge ass living room, and they pay the same as me, 66 bucks a month. The bar I hang out at is cool, its right on the shoreline of the lake. English people work there, but there is one Mayan girl who works there and they just found out she is a snitch, which explains a lot, because the cops barge in and searched the local coke dealer, but lucky for him he had it stashed in his dreads at the time or he would have been fucked. Another time I was smoking a joint with some Americans on the porch and 20 minutes later the cops came and went right to the porch and searched everyone there. But that Mayan girl doesn't work there at night anymore.

One word of warning: If you have asthma, whatever you do, don't smoke coke. Cause last week when my two best buddies here were leaving, they wanted to go out with a bang of sorts and sniff coke all night before there bus leaves at five in the morning; they wanted to leave in the morning cause people get stuck here and they figured they wouldn't be able to leave unless they just blazed at night without telling anyone, my other buddy did that too, but he left owing me 120 bucks, but i could probably get his email, but anyway, they left me with some extra coke and so I sprinkled it on my bowl all day and smoked it. But you see, coke is a serious ass producer of mucus, so the next day my nose was constantly dripping snot and I had a rock in my face for two days, and it went to my lungs and I was fighting for my life for two or three days. I had to do two different kinds of asthma inhalers and two different kinds of asthma pills. But I pulled through, and now I have decided to quit weed too, cause I have been sick since i have been here and am ready to be healthy.

So I am rolling the rest of the weed I have left into a joint that is like ten inches long and two inches in diameter. I am using two packets of extra sized rolling papers just to make this one joint. I will smoke it up on the Halloween party on Tuesday, and never ever smoker never ever ever again, ever ever. And be healthy god dammit.

The rich girl also said that the Mayans told her that giants live in the volcano behind us and aliens live in the volcano next door, and she saw a ship fly out of the top of it once. So I want to camp out up there and find the hole or something. Anyway, I am leaving on February 20 and going off yonder, and the next email I do will be about all the cool kayaking I am doing and mountain biking accompanied with pictures man, I am excited.

One sad thing that happened here the other week was a bus from my town crashed head on into another bus from the next town and 23 people died from this town and 19 people from the other town. I was tripping on the day they had the memorial service, with all the people and women wailing up on the hill near me, and right then in the middle of the wailing there was an earthquake. The first earthquake I had ever felt. Then these rocks get broken off the bottom of the lake and float to the top, can you believe that? Floating rocks! A heard they cost ten bucks a piece back home but there are every were here after earthquakes, people use them to wash with.

I also want to teach tie massage at the new age place across the lake in return for some Spanish classes, but learning my Spanish in the most important, but you can quote me on this, I will talk Spanish real good when I leave here in February. Party on.

I am no longer a stoner, but now a sober. It has been like three weeks or a month since I smoked weed. And I am sure it will be evident in my writing style, because I am no longer cracking up (laughing) inside anymore, but being serious and old man like. The lungs are under control, but I still have to overdose on the inhalers which make me shake all the time. It is because these houses like the one I live in are from concrete and the toxic cement is always falling off and getting into the air, or maybe weird plants, which there are, because I am always sneezing (I found out later it was from the Coffee field next door). But nevertheless, I am still managing to learn my Spanish, which is the number one priority, the number two priority is to learn to dive from the 30 foot cliffs here, but I haven't had the time for that yet. The weirdest thing about being here is that time is going by very very very very slowly. One week feels like one month and a month is a lifetime ago, people come and go, and my mind goes here and there and that sort of thing. It's really weird, but cool, because that means I can stay young longer, and there is more bang for the buck.

Since the last time I wrote I bought a local two man kayak for 110 bucks that I talked about before that you can paddle standing up. I paddled it seven miles to the other side of the lake and back one day. They are really slow because they are flat on the bottom, but they're cool. This lake is so deep and windy the waves are like 2 and three feet high in the middle, but as soon as the sun goes down the wind stops and it is like paddling on glass. I have canoed to the other side of the lake (the near other side, only 3 kilometers away) to the hippy place twice to do the cliff jumping. One time after the bar closed, this kid wanted to kayak to these ruins like 4 or 5 km's along the shore near the next town for arrowhead hunting. I took advantage of his enthusiasm and slept for an hour in the boat as he paddled, because the bottom is flat. Then we went to the top of this little mini volcano the hard way, climbing up this 30 foot high sheer cliff and machetying through five foot high grass. At one point while I was doing this, he's all, "watch out, the cliffs right there". I was right next to the cliff and didn´t even know it because of all this grass. We bushwhacked through this man high grass until we made it to the top. He was barefoot which I thought was impressive. From the top there was a beautiful view. All of these little hills here are toped with rocks to stand on. There were no pyramids or anything, just foundations. We were bummed and walking back, and then we looked down right on the trail and noticed that all of the rocks were actually pottery shards. Then he found an arrow head, and then I found one, and in forty minutes we had like 20 each on our way walking back on the trail. When we were canoeing back we noticed these amazing cliffs coming out of the lake.

For the last few weeks I have just been studying Spanish all day. I know all the conjugations, and have like a 2500 word vocabulary, and am about to memorize all the irregular verbs. I just can't speak very well cause I don't have to, but I am building a good base so I am sure I will be Mr. fluent by the time I get to Santiago Chile. There are different levels of fluency though, I am on level one, where I can get my point across whatever it may be, and I can understand whatever someone is telling be, but it is slow going. Then there is level two fluency where you can speak fast and correctly and understand most people, and you can even dream in Spanish. i think i will be there when i am in Chile, and then there is level three fluency, which is when you can understand anyone who speaks Spanish, which is a place that i know i will never be. hell, sometimes I can't even understand my English friends when we are all drunk and they are talking fast to each other, it is like they are speaking another language. I actually get off on learning Spanish, it is like playing checkers with yourself. I like it so much that i plan on going to Taiwan and learning Chinese after this Latin America thing. this place is cool to learn Spanish because for one, its cheap cheap cheap, and for two, I its pretty, for three, there's cool people, just ignore the wasteoids and they don't bother you that much. that one kid finally paid me back, not in money because when he gets it he buys coke, but in weed, which i sold. the dealer is only like 20 bucks away from paying me back, and he will. what you have to do if you want to be paid back from an unreliable person and be their buddy, but bug them every time you see them, and they will eventually pay you back. we had this cool Halloween party last month, were all these French DJs who brought all their huge speakers and mix tables and scratch boards and lasers from home entertained everyone all night on top of this hill in this town, i had to go home though because this foot long joint i made took like two hours to die and knocked me on my ass and all these people wanting to pee kept falling over me. there is another one on the beach next week, and then this space buffet (eat the weed buffet) on Christmas and then new years and some more in between. it is cool i am getting all my partying out of the way now so all i want to do in Santiago is work and make money. speaking of partying, I sure don't smoke weed any more and will never again, but you got's to do the coke on these all-nighters, it gives you energy to dance and it is only like a buck a line. I don't like to communicate with anyone when i am on it though, you get kind of paranoid on it, not the same kind of paranoid as with weed, on weed you are timid paranoid, you don't want to say the wrong thing and piss someone off, on coke you are pissed off paranoid, where its the other guy who is always saying the wrong thing and pissing you off, a am only not paranoid on it when i am drunk off my ass. and then the two drugs are made for each other. but to tell the truth, the strongest drug that made me bounce off the walls and get in peoples faces and chat up every one the most of them all is this drug my mom gives me called Dexedrine, this Canadian kid said they do it as his high school, and we took eight times the recommended dosage and it made coke feel like a cup of coffee. anyway, enough with the drug talk, that stuff is bad, it makes people violent, there is this young English dude who lives in the hotel next door and comes by my house and cooks all my meals for me in exchange for me allowing to cook for himself also, so save money, if you cook your own food here, oh my god, it is sooo cheap! a meal is like 25 cents, no joke, no wonder you get these people who come with a 1000 bucks and expect to party for six months, and they do it too. i don´t because i eat out a lot and a eat a lot. but anyway this kid was head butted my this crack head and got a black eye, so he picked up a brick and smashed his face open, and hid a my house for a day. but that guy was run out of town or something later on. as far as the socializing with the locals is going, i was hanging out with these 10 year old banana bread selling girls, they came buy every day and lifted weights with me and did my laundry and cooked for we and talked and stuff, but then they sold me an orange with a slice in it and so i want a free one, but she says she didn't do it, so I said get lost. i think it kind of hurt their feelings but the way you treat these third world kids is double faceted i think, because they are untamed and will go overboard if you let them. they are much more mature on one side, because they fend for themselves by working from a young age and taking care of their baby siblings when the parents are in the fields or what not, but on the other side the ones who hand out with the tourists tend to go overboard sometimes, and the only way to show them when they are out of order is to put your foot down. like there are these little kids who play outside my front yard flying kites and screaming and beating each other up and setting off grenades every two seconds that their parents buy them and they were always afraid to come in my yard, and one day they did, a gang of like ten of them from 3 to 9 or so. and i thought that was cute and let them because i have a nice yard, nicer than the gross alley they play in, but then my neighbor who is my landlord came by and said they aren't allowed in my yard because they are too loud for him and they will steal from me and i was like ok too bad. and the next day they woke me up by playing in my front yard, they ripped my bamboo fence apart and were playing sword fighting with them and i told them to give me my fence back and they all ran home and i chased after them to their houses and took it back and told their parents, who just blamed the other kids. but they don´t come in any more. the point of the story is that it is good to be friends with the kids and give them gifts and be Mr. nice guy, but when they turn into little devils you should make it clear to them what the correct way to act is. too many tourists just write them off and get grumpy and ignore them, with isn't good. this local dude is lifting at my gym now, but he doesn't know that good of Spanish, and I lift with my English friend, but not that much, I am in Spanish mode now. weight till you see the pictures, they will blow you away. no wonder the people here are so happy, they say Buenos noches in this sing song voice and are always laughing. people back home think these people are in survival mode, but i think they are in camping out vacation, saved from all the bullshit stress of the civilized world mode. I'm sure the city is different. but people from the city seem pretty laid back also. the last week I am here I think I will go to the new-ager place across the lake, there is this big rivalry between here and there, San Pedroans (which is where i live) think the San Marcoans (across the lake where the cliffs are) are crazy loopy holier than thow's, and they think san Pedroans are all crack heads and drunken violent degenerates, i think both these places have a pretty wide spread reputation. I go to San Marcos to the massage exchange, this couple who does massage wants to exchange with me after i gave the guy a massage. i haven´t given a massage here more money yet and i ask way less that they do in San Marcos, and the masseurs in San Marcos are always booked and I heard this one lady wasn't even that good. it just goes to show how tourists go to certain places for certain things, and then go to other places for other things, and don´t like to mix their activities in one place so to speak. oh well, sorry for not having pictures, but i assure you, the next one will have nothing but pictures and no words and it will be the best explaining one yet, this place is groovy. until next month or whenever, wish me luck finding someone to show me how to use this here digital camera, no just kidding i know a guy, he is just in the city now. later. number 9 yea so I broke free from San Pedro. But a lot happened since the last time I rode one of these. like i went to Honduras with my friend Stasia and saw Copan the ancient Mayan ruins in northern Honduras. they were cool, big 'ol pyramids connected to one another next to a river. since their hay day the river meandered into the ruins and made some temples fall off, making the biggest archeological cliff in the world. the other interesting thing about Copan is the huge size of the open areas of grass that were perfectly flat, with these eight foot tall statutes of men with really long straight beards. i think those were the aliens who came down and started a school here, because the whole place was a series of flat plazas surrounded by steps for people to observe presentations and performances and things, all of different sizes, and they had one ball court. and the tunnels that went for the observation the games were the perfect size for those big statues. but don't worry, I won't think ye aint weird if ye don't believe me. the place we stayed was expensive but we had a TV, so subtitles in English though. the Hondurans were nice enough but the guy driving us back in the mini van to Antigua was a jerk, the border people forgot to stamp my passport and I needed to get it re-stamped to not have to go to the city and weight a week there, and it was only going to take like two minutes, but he didn't want to let me so i ran out and did it and so he was going to leave me there, and started driving with one lady half way out of the car and this other guy trying to explain to him it was only a couple of minutes and they all wanted to weight, so the guy got all mad and in his face and said i wasn't his brother so what did he care. then the people said they wanted to go the city but he said it was too dangerous, but they said they had friends there, and he said so what, he did too, but he eventually agreed to do his job and take them there. so i guess you got to watch out for the bus drivers in any country you are in except for Austin Texas, they are really nice there, anyway. after that i climbed this big 'ol volcano 3500 meters high the 7th highest in the country, volcano Atitlan, with these two dudes, taking my canoe out at 230 in the morning 5 kilometers to the next town Santiago, and set off climbing, I was frying in the alpenglow was most beautiful as the sun was rising, and as we got higher we could see all the areas of non forest, just six foot tall prickle grass that we machetied through, and figured that was their old farming ground, and after they exhausted the soil they moved somewhere else. we bush whacked all the way to the top, almost anyway, the last kilometer or mile or so was scree, but at the top the whole mountain was steaming all over and the earth was warm, you could spend the night here naked and stay warm. then we saw the volcano fuego blow steam a thousand feet into the air next door which is right next to Antigua, it was right next door, but a three hour bus ride, because these roads are so narrow and they stop so much to let people on and off. we slept there for an hour and then hiked down at two, but we didn't remember where the trial we blazed up was so we had to blaze another trail down, which took many hours, then it got dark and we got funneled into a canyon where all the huge ten foot tall grass was, and soon it was lined by cliffs, so we had to go down the bottom of it. but the grass was so high we had to either swim on top of it until we got to the flood stop ups of wood and dead grass and dirt that we had to spelunk down under the logs through holes barley big enough for us. then i realized i left my backpack at the last rest place, and had to spelunk 20 minutes back up to get it and down again, then we got to a cliff, but we couldn't see the bottom of it, I though about jumping and hoping it wasn't that far, but then my light and my buddy glen's light died at the exact same time so we were in pitch black, so we made a fire, and laid next to it all night, and it was supper cold because we only had our shorts and jackets on, but the fire made it alright, in the morning we hiked for an hour and found a trail and three hours after got back to town and boated back, me, glen from BC, and Gregor from Slovenia. so next time you climb a jungle mountain remember to stay on the ridges at all costs, and remember exactly where your trail up was, so you don't have to bush blaze twice, and be careful were you step because cliffs can appear out of nowhere in all that grass, and go in long pants because my legs were raw after that. after that it was party season, i missed this full moon party they had on the beach cause i was in Antigua, which sounded like fun cause every body was whacked out of their minds on all sorts of stuff. that is San Pedro for you, drug lovers. like 18 year old Curtis from Canada who i did the other trail blazing trip with who had counted the 130 hits of LSD he did, and said he made 20000 bucks selling ecstasy at a party, but gave it all away to charity the next day, and 18 year old john who's dad imported coke from brazil and bought a castle in Scotland and in London from it, or bud who i loaned 70 bucks to so he wouldn't get his ass kicked by the drug gangsters, which he paid me back, but then i gave him 50 more bucks to get me heroin, but he was got for two weeks and when he came back didn't remember me giving it to him or even where my house was. or my Vietnam vet friend who was flying over Costa Rica in a helicopter and had a flash back and jumped out and ran through the jungle for nine hours running away from the gooks. he was cool, got his 2700 bucks a month from the government and spent it on beers entertaining his friends. i hung out with the Deno's crowd, who liked drugs but also had there shit together. i have to say the best thing about that place was the movies every night. i didn't speak any Spanish, but i studied a lot, and am confident i will be fluent a month or so after i travel by my self. party season was cool enough, on the 23 the drug dealer and some friend of mine came over and we smoked crack and sniffed coke until six in the morning, and right when the sun was rising we went up on my roof to my gym and were working out, and nick, the rich local Mayan dude, who is my neighbor, came out and was laughing at us. then there was the French DJ party on the 24, and the Christmas space buffet, i was greedy and hogged all the gravy thinking it wasn't strong enough, but got all comatose and had to go to bed, which is too bad cause they played Austin powers two that night. then the new years thing until sunrise was cool, they had all these new drinks, and i had all of them and probably would have puked if i didn't have a big 'ol line. then after that i finally went to Spanish school for five days. my teacher was only 20 years old and didn't speak a word of English, and i don't even think her Spanish was too good because i had to show her all these conjugations and rules and stuff. but it was the first time I actually sat down and talked Spanish with someone, and found out that i am fluent, I just need practice accessing all the conjugational stuff and putting it right, and she was good at that, correcting me and stuff. she is a full blood mayan girl complete with the colorful outfit and all that like all the women here have, but when I started getting philosophical with here she had the same attitude as your stereotypical fundamentalist Christian. saying spirit channelers are all of the devil and witches and all that, and that Santiago the next town over is were all of them are. and she was preaching about Jesus and how they all go to church at five in the morning every Sunday. this country pretty much shuts down completely on Sundays because of church, there are 13 churches in San Pedro alone and my book says it only has six thousand people in it, it has Jehovah's witnesses, and the catholic church is the biggest. i thought that was strange cause the Indians back home are so anti establishment and pro "our way, the every thing is alive spirit way" time thing. that is one reason i am excited to learn Spanish. I will talk up the wazoo with them Incans, cause I will be by myself and double fluent in Spanish then I tell ya. there was this big 'ol annual rainbow gathering there that week but I was too busy to check it out, I saw all the dared-locked hippies all over though. after class, I climbed the highest mountain in central America with Glen and my friend Eric from Sweden. 13,800 feet high. that was a cake walk cause the bus took us way up there and the hike was through open fields and pine forests like back home, none of this jungle stuff. it was beautiful, we could see the second highest mountain in central America right across from us sticking out of this eternal and quiet thick cloud blanket. then we went home and the next day i sold my boat for 40 bucks and all the contents in my house for 30 bucks and blazed with my buddy mat from northern England and Glen from BC. and partied in Panajachel, the big tourist town across the lake for three days. where they got themselves some local girlfriends and made me take care of their fat sister who had no personality and kept giving me these faces like my Spanish was bad, but she taught me how do dance salsa, which seemed to me at the time like the simplest easiest kind of dancing around, you just step around and follow the steps of your partner, and that's it, but plus these girls kept correcting our Spanish which was great, like we were in school, if i can find people like that to hang out with i will be talking like a local in just a few months. after that they invited me to travel with them down to Monte Rico, the beach resort on the pacific coast. very beautiful this place is, wide dark sandy beaches stretching as far as you can see, and cabanas also, but only four tourist hotels on the whole stretch, quiet undeveloped and ready to blow, if they pick up the trash they keep throwing down. it is fun traveling with other people, i have never traveled with other people before, I have pretty much totally lost my ability to speak Spanish though, since speaking English with them so much. one thing i forgot to mention is that when we were in Panajachel we felt that big earthquake that happened off the coast of El Salvador that killed 350 people and made 3000 go missing, it was a 7.9, at like 10 in the morning i was sleeping and was woken up by my bed shaking violently, i thought my buddy was shaking it and looked up and we were all in our beds looking at each other like "wow", that lasted like a minute. we were about a hundred miles off the epicenter. yesterday we arrived in el Salvador. this place is different than Guatemala in that the people are more Spanish looking and less Mayan looking, and they all try to speak English to me. plus when i go to the bank they give me dollars, because a couple of weeks ago they decided to switch from Colonas to dollars, so every business I go to I have the option of paying in dollars and getting my change in Colonas, so they are always doing these mathematical calculations with these conversation charts figuring out the exchanges rate. i tell you what, it sure feels like i am not spending much money when i pay in dollars. like now i am in the second largest city in El Salvador, Santa Ana, and I give the hotel three dollars, and a get all these colonas change from it. so i am still with these two guys, it costs double to take by bike on the bus, but the last bus didn't charge me, so maybe not all of them will. it definitely is different worlds traveling with other people, always hanging out together and whatnot. after this we will go to a lake and then surfing in La Libertad, I guess the best surf spot in Central America. then Honduras. mat (who used to work at Deno's, the place i hung out in San Pedro) is going the same route and pace as me, so we may stick together a while, if it isn't too much for the bike. one cool thing about traveling with these guys is they really take their time in each country and place, and i usually zip through places, so it is teaching me to be patient, but then again, I wanted to take my time in south America and climb those mountains. i plan on flying to this island in panama from the city for 27 bucks and then sailing to Cartagena Columbia for 185 bucks and taking the bus to Bogotá, and then the bus to Ecuador. i haven't seen one other tourist here in this city which is weird, cause you seen many of them all over usually. I guess tourist don't really like El Salvador, maybe that is why the locals are so outgoing and eager to practice their English. anyway, that's about it. the next chapter will probably be when i am at last on the road by myself intermingling with the locals.