Well, since I wrote you last we have pretty much been in the same place.  We´re at a lodge in the Highlandsin a town called Lanquin called El Retiro.  It takes 2 hours to travel the 61 kilometers (40 miles) to get here on a twisty and then bumpy road.  But it was worth it, it is so beautiful here.  Little thatch roofed cabañas up on stilts on a hill, overlooking a river and surrounded by other hills.  It has a great restaurant with amazing and cheap vegetarian food and an awesome staff.  Tons of cool travelers coming through every day.  Just a very chill atmosphere, and a party in the bar every night.  A place to go swimming and take tubes up the river and then float back to the lodge.  so, we were planning on staying here 2 nights and tonight will be our 5th. 

We´ve been doing some cool stuff around here.  Went to one cave with some really cool formations and swam in the underground lake then watched hundreds of bats fly out of the cave at dusk, pretty cool.  Took the tubes down the river and saw a lot of Mayan people bathing and collecting crabs from the shallow water.  Some of the little boys grabbed onto our tubes and rode down the river a little ways with us.  After letting go, they yelled to me "Adios me amor"!!  Pretty cute. 

Yesterday for Ben´s birthday we went to Semuc Champey, the thing that originally drew us here.  First we went to the Kan-Ba caves and it was so amazing.  There were some cool formations, but the best part was just the tour.  We went into the cave with a great guide just with candles, there were no lights in the caves, he just lit and left candles behind to light our way back to the entrance.  We had to swim with the candles up over our heads for a good part of the ways.  At one point I was a ways behind some of the group and a ways ahead of the rest of the group so that the only light was from my candle, it was so cool.  There were little cascades making the rocks all smooth.  It was so awesome. 

Then we went to Semuc.  it was so beautiful, all these connected pools, deep and so blue with vegetation growing all along the borders of the pools.  Little cascades connecting the pools.  We walked up and up to a huge waterfall.  I can´t even describe it, I´ll have to show the pictures.  So, it was a good birthday for Ben I think.  I got the cook here to bake him some little carrot cake muffins.  It was fun.  And other than that we´ve been swimming, sunning, eating good food, reading and sitting in hammocks, pretty much it´s the life.   Love, Anne 

3-26-06 Okay, so hello, we spent some very relaxing days in San Marcos, a very small  town on Lago de Atitlan.  We basically went swimming, ate delicious food and did fantastic yoga classes every morning.  Unfortunately, I sprained my wrist or something in one of the classes. I saw a chiropractor yesterday (the only doctor I could find in Antigua on a Saturday, even at the hospital) and he said it  wasn't broken, so that's good news. 

Anyway, we went to the next village over from San Marcos, Tzununa, and visited our friend Terry who we met and stayed with last year.  He is a Canadian and we didn't even know if he would be in the country, but after some hunting we found him and had a nice visit on his beautiful property. 

I don't know if any of you remem ber hearing about huge landslides in Guatemala  last October, but the lago de Atitlan area is  where they happened and  you could really see the damage in Tzununa as well as San Marcos.  Huge trenches just filled with rock, left  over from the rivers of rocks that flowed down the mountain side.  Things looked totally different on the path to Terry's  house and I guess the landslides even changed the course of a waterfall nearby.  Luckily Terry didn't  sustain any damage, but the water rose all around his house and many neighbors lost their homes.  When looking around the lake we could see white strips all over the cliffs and those were all the places the landslides hit, crazy. 

We also got to see our friend Hector who lives in San Marcos who we traveled with a bit last year.  We were lucky, he got home from a 2 month trip 2 days before we left, so we had a good time cooking and talking together.  He had 2 litters of puppies and a litter of kittens at his house, the last thing the community needs, but pretty cute. 

After San Marcos we went to an amazing hotel on the lake called La Casa del Mundo (the house of the world).  It is  this beautiful Spanish style building built on the cliff and overlooking the lake with indigenous art everywhere and terraces, hammocks, little sitting areas and a great place to swim.  It was a very relaxing few days, with delicious food from  their restaurant and a lot of reading and looking at the lake.  They have a wood fired hot  tub and we went in that one night. It was awesome to soak and look at the city lights across the lake and the night fishermen bringing in their nets.  We ran into some friends we met a few weeks ago, so that was fun. 

We left the lake yesterday and went back to Antigua.  We got to go to a great concert last night called Buena Vista Corozon.  It was the Buena Vista Social Club's second project and it was awesome.   They play Cuban jazz.  A Garifuna, or Caribbean band open for them. They were mostly  percussion and they amazing dancers.  Then a Guatemalan band  playing traditional music, guitar, wood flute and a ukulele type instrument.   Then Buena Vista Corozon, the music was amazing and they had  this awesome dancers.  And a girl on violin, who I was told is only 18.  The story is she was walking back from her Spanish class in Antigua where the band was living, with her violin case, they saw her and asked  her to play a rehearsal with them and she was so good they asked her to tour with them, wow. 

The music was great, but then we were up at 3:45 this morning to take the 6 hour shuttle to Copan, Honduras where we lived and volunteered for a month last year.  It's nice to be back.  Kind of a quiet day since it's Sunday, but I love this  town and look forward to visiting the ruins here again and seeing our home stay family  and Spanish teachers.  So, that's it I think.  We're nearing the end of the trip.  We'll spend a few days here and then head to the Bay Islands for about a week to get our scuba diving certificates, then have to make the long journey back up to Cancun to fly home.  Love you all,  Annie