We have finished our first week of Spanish school in Xela and are starting our second week today. Most of the time so far has been spent in class in the mornings and hanging out in the afternoons. Last week we had a couple group activites through the school, one of which was making choclate. A group of about thirteen students from the spanish school went to a local womans house and learned the process of making all natural chocolate which included the ingredients of only sugar and cacao, which is the been where coco comes from. Another activity we did was walked to a local school to volunteer with the kids. There we helped them with their math, reading, and writing. On Friday the 24th it was Jan´s 18th birthday and we celebrated in style by getting him a Ninga Turtle pinata as well a tres leche pastel. The group had been wanting to take Salsa lessons, so in honor of his brithday we have a private lesson which consisted of 10 students including Benji and Allison and 4 teachers. We all had a great time and everyone was actually dancing or attempting to dance. This weekend was pretty eventful as well. On Saturday morning we went to some local hot springs. There were three main pools you could go in from luke warm to insanely hot. Some of the group members went into the hottest spring and when they came out you could see on their skin how hot is was because there was a distinct line seperating their skin that had been in the water and the skin that had not. To say the least it was very relaxing and all of our skin and hair was as smooth as silk. For the rest of the day we all went our seperate ways and chilled out. On Sunday we had to be up and at school by 7 am for our hike to Lago Chicabal. The hike was about an hour and a half up where we reached a great place to view the lake. For me the hike was extremely hard because of the altitude which was about 9000 feet. Once we were at the top we had to walk down a set of 1,000 stairs to get to the shore of the lake which is considered to be very sacred. There we relaxed and walked around the lake. As we were walking clouds and mist from everywhere rolled in and it was like we were walking through the clouds. It was beautiful. The end of the hike was easier because it was all downhill. We were all pretty exhausted. So far Xela has been a lot of fun and I am excited to see what else we will do in the coming weeks.
Adios
Ana