.........Antigua, Guatemala, is a beautiful and fascinating city, a perfectely preserved example of Spanish Colonial Architecture.  I spent hours and days just wandering the streets.......on July 9th, I enrolled in a spanish language school for four weeks of intensive , emersion type of espanol lessons......moved in with an assigned family of locals, I lived , ate all my meals with the family, quite an experience......the school was tough......been a long time since this ol' gringo sat in a classroom and had to go home and do HOMEWORK ! ! I somehow survived the four weeks, and was a little unhappy with the outcome....I was under the impression that I would just come outta there speaking spanish all over the place, not! What that really does for you is simply provide you with the skills and tools to go out in the public and LEARN SPANISH ON YOUR OWN.......it's been (6) months now and I'm gaining a little everyday but still have a looooong way to go....actually you are learning more every day than you think.......looking back, I'm surprised at what I can do now compared to when I started. But I AIN'T THERE yet. Their program is good but I think too much time was spent on proper grammar and not enough on just conversational spanish.....My english had become so sloppy over the years that I had to first go back and learn some basic english....like the first week I had to ask my instructor what a preposition was, I'd forgotten ! ! We had one-on-one instruction and my instructor was a little (21) yr old Guat girl, Marleny.......

     On Sat. July 23, I moved from the family quarters into an apt., mostly to save money, and prepare my own meals...

     On Aug. 20 flew back to Key West for my physicals, clean up some personal business, and dispose of more property (toyota pickup). I also had meetings with the publisher of my book that actually came out while I was in Mexico....while in KW I also celebrated my birthday. Drank lotz of beers at Schooner Wharf bar with a lot of old friends. Flem back to Guatemala on Sept 10.

     By this time I was getting a little bored with Antigua and the weather was not agreeing with me. I have been at sea level in South Fl. too long. Just coulden't take the altitude and cold of Antigua.  Took a weekend trip down to Rio Dulce (the original destination from Fla.)  Being back on the water and meeting some old friends that I met on the way down was just too much, I had to get back on the water.

      Took a volunteer job as part-time libriarian at the American Legion library......believe that?.......kept me busy for a while but couldn't get my mind off Rio Dulce.  When hurricane Rita hit Guatemala it created extensive flooding and caused massive mud slides. Entire villages , with residents, were buried, most still buried. The Govt. just simply designated the site of the village as a "cemetery".  Volunteers were desperately needed so I jumped in and loaded up in the back of an old truck with a lot of other gringos,, mostly tourist here on vacation and young back-packers.  What an experience that was.  Fortunately I worked on sites that weren't full of buried bodies, but it was so pitiful to see the conditions these people were forced to live in, homes with 4 and 5 feet of mud inside. I only lasted a couple days, that shovel got awfully heavy after 5 or 6 hours.  It was an experience I'll never forget. 

     On Sun. Oct 23, left for a little trip over into Honduras, visited the Mayan ruins at Copan, and spent a day and night in the village of Copan.  Very interesting little town up in the mountains.  Took the bus on over to La Ceiba, Hon. then up in the mountains to the "jungle river lodge", a beautiful, very rustic lodge on the banks of a really wild river in the heart of the rainforest. Stayed there for 3 days and had a blast, did the canopy tour one day and white water rafting the next, and a day sitting on a rock in the middle of the river reading a book.  Would like to go back there. 

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