La Playa

So I went to bed pretty early Friday night because we had to leave early for the beach on Saturday. It takes a little more than two hours to get there and we were in the back of a pick up truck the whole way! The driver was nice though and laid out a sheet and gave us foam pads to sit on. It was actually decently comfortable until about the last half hour of the trip.

There was me and three other students that went, along with the teacher leading the trip and her daughter. It's the Pacific Ocean so everyone was saying that it would be super cold water, but it was so perfect! It was around 95 degrees and the water wasn't cold at all. The sand is black/gray because it's volcanic sand so that was kind of cool to see. We spent the whole morning laying in the sun and playing in the water.  There were some pretty rough waves and I saw one guy get stuck and the lifeguard had to go out and get him. A few of the waves knocked me over they were so strong! When we first got there we ordered lunch so that they could have it ready for us when it was time to eat. There was also a pool near the restaurant so we swam in there for a little while too. I ordered fried shrimp and it came with a little bowl of soup which had a non-fried shrimp in it as a sort of garnish and the shrimp still had eyes! They also fried the shrimp with the heads still on them so that was different haha. My friend ordered two meals because she couldn't decide what she wanted and one of the things she got was ceviche. I tried some of it, but I don't think I'll be eating it again any time soon. She couldn't eat all of the food so she fed a stray cat some of the ceviche and she loved it. The cat had a kitten and another family that was at the restaurant for lunch, took the kitten home with them! They just put him in a box and poked some wholes in it. The poor mother cat lost her kitten :(

The ride back to the school was a little bit more painful then the ride there because I got sunburned pretty bad. I don't know what I was thinking- I should've definitely put more sunscreen on after I got out of the water. I'm burnt all over and it's so painful. It was so weird on the way back because one minute it was warm and sunny and then the next second it was down pouring and the streets were flooding. Good thing we had a cover over the back of the truck! But the tarp leaked so I still got pretty wet. I didn't feel too good after we got back, so I ended up taking a nap and then going to bed at 8:30. I don't know if I got too much sun or if it was the shrimp I ate, but I got sick in the middle of the night. Not fun :( I've been feeling better today, but I'm still pretty wiped out.

This morning Tim and I went to the market in Parque Central that's only there the first Sunday of every month. They sell more touristy stuff and lots of jewlery, scarves, etc. I wasn't super impressed with it because it was pretty small and I've seen nicer stuff in other markets in Guatemala so I didn't end up buying anything. For lunch, my host family had a bunch of their extended family over to eat so I played a bunch of games with the kids before it was time to eat. As soon as we were done eating most of the family got up and left, which was kind of weird. You would think they'd want to hang out for a little while but apparently not.

Well, my third week here starts tomorrow! Five more weeks in Guatemala left! I'm starting to miss my own bed and my own shower, etc.