let the parties begin!

after traveling a road less traveled for the majority of my trip, i have now entered the part where other travelers are common and drinking is frequent. i spent two nights in antigua, and in two days and nights i managed to make friends with people from norway, france, slovenia and poland, go salsa dancing, climb an active volcano, and throw our own party at the hostel. i guess this is where it starts to feel like i am traveling in europe again! great time though. antigua is a beautiful city. the skyline is punctuated by volcanoes, the buildings are colorfully painted and lots of people speak english. i can see how it is so easy for so many americans to expat there.

so now i am at lake atitlan, two hours outside of antigua. the lake is huge and has three volcanoes surrounding it. many of the villages here are only accessible by boat. i also see why people come here and never leave, but this wouldnt be my cup of tea. actually, antigua wouldnt be either. i still would choose el salvador, haha! had a crazy night last night with the crew from antigua. drank some local liquor that i cant remember the name of now, and then went out afterward and had a great night. all of the bars close at the same time so suddenly there were a bunch of backpackers out in the streets, and in typical sara fashion i organized everyone for an adventure that was supposed to end with us all going to the lake and going swimming. i dont know how i manage to become some kind of leader of crazy adventures when i have had a few drinks and people around me, but i think this shouldnt surprise me anymore. anyway, i find some local guy to guide us to the lake and keep tellling people in the streets "vamos a la playa!!"...and they followed. So this so-called guide leads us in to the forest at the end of the main road, where it is obviously dark, to a spot that apparently has a good view of the lake. since this adventure happened spontaneously, no one had flashlights. so we all had to resort to holding hands in order to climb over rocks and through nature. haha....awesome. but it wasnt a place where we could go swim, so we started heading back in the other direction, lost some people, and ended up giving up on the swimming adventure. that was probably a good idea. but we ended up being able to drink in our room, so i think i finally went to bed after 4. in the meantime we played music, the digiradoo (no idea how to spell that), had a spanish and a french lesson, ate sandwiches and then passed out.

all in all, i think you can say that i am having a great trip. only 6 days left...still have some big trips to take before its over. tonight we are heading to another town for a cross dressing party and bbq, then its to the giant maya market and onward to Tikal, the mother of all maya ruins. and finally, back to where it all began for a couple of days in the sun and at the beach before boarding that damn airplane. oh what i would give to have two weeks more!

and by the way, seeing flowing lava in person is definitely one of the coolest things i have ever done. to top that off, i roasted some marshmallows in the lava. so cool!!