First Days in Guatemala

I left Copan Ruinas in Honduras for Antigua, Guatemala yesterday. The bus ride was the worse one so far (oddly worse than chicken buses), even though we took a direct shuttle. I think it was so bad because the seats didn't have head rests and the road was really curvy. It was interesting how suddenly the landscape changed when we left Honduras. It went from looking really jungly (but dry after 5-6 months without rain) to a sparse thirsty landscape. Both countries are quite mountainous, so I´m not sure what the difference is.

The highlight was seeing Guatemala City from the safety of the bus window. That city is insane! It's the biggest city in Central America (~10-12 million people) and has a ton of sky scrapers downtown. When we first got into town, we could have been in America--huge malls, McDonald's, Blockbusters, movie theatres, car dealership, even a Taco Bell! Until you looked across the street and saw huge poor neighborhoods of concrete or metal houses with tin roofs. The view of the city from the mountains is incredible; it goes on farther than the eye can see. Up close, it was so polluted and smoggy; the buses were the worse, emitting huge plumes of black smoke every block.

I am now in Antigua and will probably be here until Sunday or so before heading to Lake Atitlan for several days. I´m trying to decide if I want to study for another week somewhere or do some volunteer work, leaning towards the latter if I feel like I can make myself study on my own for about an hour every day. I´m carrying around a two grammar books and a workbook, which is ridiculous if I´m not going to use them.