San Pedro, Guatemala, 23/1-2007
Route: Guatemala City - Tecpan - San Pedro
We started at 4.30 in the morning and it was freezing. Naturally I had chosen to leave my old motorbike (warm) gear at Ivo`s place and the new one is not very warm I can garantee you. Ivo went by car and I on Scotty. It was dark most of the tour and we had a nice view of the sunrise. Just before our roads divided we had breakfast. Ivo`s car have no heating system, so I guess he was almost as cold as I was, so warm breakfast with hot chocolate were nice.
San Pedro is located by a big lake called Lake de Atitlan and are surrounded by high mountains with volcanos. The road is a really small one, which passes several villages where there are no road signs telling you where to go. In some villages you encounter cross roads and it is not obvious which directions to take, so I had to stop in every little village and ask for directions.
The road down to the lake is extremely steep. It have several hair pin bends, and even dough the road is narrow the Chicken busses also travels this road. In the sharpest bends the busses and cars honk their horn just to let cars in the opposite direction know that they will need the whole road.
San Pedro is a little town that have in the later years become famous for its nature and its spanish schools. It is actually quite a lot turists here, but the atmosphere is very friendly and it is no begging for money, so you do not feel as a walking dollar bill.
Ivo had given me some names to his friends a brother and sister which I could contact. One of the names to a woman where I could ask if I could stay. I found here house but she was not at home, so I decided to look for another friend of Ivo that was running a spanish school, San Pedro Spanish School. At that moment I knew little about the spanish schools in the town and I did not know that this school was one of the most well reputated schools in the village. Well I meet Ivo´s friend, Ramon, which runs the school, and even though they were full, he decided to take me as a pupil, and I could start the same day.
In the mean time, Ramon´s sister, had heard that I had been looking for her and that I had gone to the school and she called and asked me to come over. Since it was a couple hours untill my class started, I had plenty of time to go over to her. Elena was a very nice woman with three daughters. The youngest one was at home with her mother, so finally someone understood my spanish.
Elena was going to go to Antigua this week, so we decided that I should stay at her place next week and that Ramon would help to find me a family where I could stay. I then went back to the school and the my spanish class began.
The teaching is one to one, which means that it is one teacher and one pupil. It is very intense, since you can not lean back an let some other answer the questions, but it is very effective. I got Ramon as teacher, and I have to admit that he knows how to help you learn the language. When I was finished with the class, the youngest daughter of my family came and showed me the way to their house.
I got a family which live five minutes walk from the school. The advantage with staying at a family is that then you are forced to speak the language after class too. The mother in my family is called Cecilia, the houseband .... and the two daughters Ruth and Maria Elena. It is a very nice place to stay and I am very happy that they could give me shelter on such a short notice. In the house it also stays a girl from the Netherlands.
We started at 4.30 in the morning and it was freezing. Naturally I had chosen to leave my old motorbike (warm) gear at Ivo`s place and the new one is not very warm I can garantee you. Ivo went by car and I on Scotty. It was dark most of the tour and we had a nice view of the sunrise. Just before our roads divided we had breakfast. Ivo`s car have no heating system, so I guess he was almost as cold as I was, so warm breakfast with hot chocolate were nice.
San Pedro is located by a big lake called Lake de Atitlan and are surrounded by high mountains with volcanos. The road is a really small one, which passes several villages where there are no road signs telling you where to go. In some villages you encounter cross roads and it is not obvious which directions to take, so I had to stop in every little village and ask for directions.
The road down to the lake is extremely steep. It have several hair pin bends, and even dough the road is narrow the Chicken busses also travels this road. In the sharpest bends the busses and cars honk their horn just to let cars in the opposite direction know that they will need the whole road.
San Pedro is a little town that have in the later years become famous for its nature and its spanish schools. It is actually quite a lot turists here, but the atmosphere is very friendly and it is no begging for money, so you do not feel as a walking dollar bill.
Ivo had given me some names to his friends a brother and sister which I could contact. One of the names to a woman where I could ask if I could stay. I found here house but she was not at home, so I decided to look for another friend of Ivo that was running a spanish school, San Pedro Spanish School. At that moment I knew little about the spanish schools in the town and I did not know that this school was one of the most well reputated schools in the village. Well I meet Ivo´s friend, Ramon, which runs the school, and even though they were full, he decided to take me as a pupil, and I could start the same day.
In the mean time, Ramon´s sister, had heard that I had been looking for her and that I had gone to the school and she called and asked me to come over. Since it was a couple hours untill my class started, I had plenty of time to go over to her. Elena was a very nice woman with three daughters. The youngest one was at home with her mother, so finally someone understood my spanish.
Elena was going to go to Antigua this week, so we decided that I should stay at her place next week and that Ramon would help to find me a family where I could stay. I then went back to the school and the my spanish class began.
The teaching is one to one, which means that it is one teacher and one pupil. It is very intense, since you can not lean back an let some other answer the questions, but it is very effective. I got Ramon as teacher, and I have to admit that he knows how to help you learn the language. When I was finished with the class, the youngest daughter of my family came and showed me the way to their house.
I got a family which live five minutes walk from the school. The advantage with staying at a family is that then you are forced to speak the language after class too. The mother in my family is called Cecilia, the houseband .... and the two daughters Ruth and Maria Elena. It is a very nice place to stay and I am very happy that they could give me shelter on such a short notice. In the house it also stays a girl from the Netherlands.
posted by Øyvind Thiem at 1:59 PM
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