update

apologies for the long delay.

some highlights & lowlights from days past:

- standing at the entrance to a cave at dusk as thousands of bats brush against me as they rush out to dine. fortunately guano easily washes away. walking home in the dark, i came across a local passed out on the roadside. he did not respond to questions regarding his condition, though he groaned a bit. minutes later i encountered one guatemalan beating another in the street. townsfolk stood around and watched silently, mesmerised. no one felt like intervening. apparently sunday is drinking day.

- bathing in the stepped tourquoise pools of semuc champey was awfully nice. pick your favorite picture

- i took a 5 day spanish course in antigua. this is a one-on-one sort of thing. $75 for 4 hours a day. i didn´t learn anything i didn´t already know grammar-wise, but my vocabulary has improved. i am far better with spanish now than most travelers.

- i climbed a volcano, along with a thousand other people. saw lava flow. go ahead and look at other people´s pictures.

- i found my way from antigua to giant lake atitlan. it´s sort of like the lake tahoe of guatemala, only some of the surrounding mountains happen to be volcanos, and it´s a hell of a lot warmer, of course. oh and then there are the bandits, as there are everywhere.

yes, a major problem with guatemala is that everyone is always telling you that everything is too dangerous to do alone due to bandits. everywhere you go and stay, there is a guy out front with a shotgun ready to lay waste to banditos. so you get stuck doing these silly, crowded, expensive tours for no good reason. i am starting to think it is a scam. the guy who ran my guesthouse told me i could hike around the moutains surrounding the lake alone, i should just be prepared for a guy to jump out brandishing a machete and demanding everything i had. i was assured i wouldn´t be killed if i gave him what i had. fine, i thought. so i ventured out with just a bit of cash and nothing else. i walked a portion of the lake (about 3-4 hours) and only ran into friendly people with machetes (everyone male, friend and foe, seems to have machetes--women carry all the heavy stuff on their heads and backs). i ran into a few tourists too, but always in groups of 3 or more. it was nice to finally do something on my own again. i caught a boat home. passenger boats connect the various lakeside villages. the captian was a daredevil and we nearly capsized. judging by the looks on the faces of the locals, this was not a normal occurance...