Christmas in Guatemala

I went in to school on Christmas eve for the last day of class, prepared for another 4 hours of Spanish to try and learn as much as possible, but after an hour and half, It was time to call it a day, and let my wonderful teacher Irma go home to her family.  :)  Troy and Cory had taken their classes in the morning, while I was studying in the afternoon.

Troy and his teacher studying hard.

Spent an hour or so wandering around, taking pictures of some of the ruined churches that are on literally on every corner.   

We all arrived back at the hostel around the same time, and then Troy, Cory, Ryan, Ryan's girlfriend Donna and myself went out for dinner  (sadly, Neal has come down with something, and was not feeling well enough to come out, so we let him sleep)

We found a beautiful restaurant around the corner that we hadn't been to, and had a great Christmas eve meal.  They even had a Christmas special of Turkey and mashed potatoes that Cory, Troy and Ryan had.  We had a wonderful night.

We got back to the Hostel at about 9:30 and we all fell asleep almost at once, only to be awakened at midnight, by an incredible spectacle.

Here, to celebrate Christmas, everyone in town starts setting off fireworks and firecrackers at the stroke of midnight.  The entire sky outside our hostel, and the street below suddenly lit up.  We quickly went outside and climbed onto the pitched roof, and watched a spectacle like I have never seen before for the next 45 minutes.  It was in short… amazing.

The fireworks were everywhere, and we could see them going off in the distance in a town on the horizon.  The air in the city was thick with smoke, there were so many going off.  Everywhere you looked, there were starbursts, and firecrackers, crackling continuously for over an hour...

We awoke this morning, and gathered upstairs.  Troy had decorated one of the trees (not a spruce) with a couple strands of garland, and we had placed some presents underneath.  They weren't much for presents… we have no room on the bikes to carry anything new, but everyone got a bar of soap and some tooth paste, Cory gave out cans of OFF bug spray.  :)  We all got Machete's to carry on the bikes, since everyone down here seems to have a big machete.  

But we made do with what we could find, and had a great time laughing and opening the gifts.  

All the boys with their new Machete's

After breakfast, we walked over to the market and bought two huge bags of firecrackers,  brought them back  and set them all off in front of the hostel.  It took about 20 minutes we had so many, but it only cost us about $12.00.

This has been unlike any Christmas I have ever had, and it has been very memorable.  We were all able to speak with our Parents on Skype, which made it special.  

I know that Cory feels the same way, we both miss everyone back home, both friends and family.

Feliz Navidad.