Spring Break Guatemala!

The week leading up to Easter, we were fortunate to have Beth's brother and sister, Tim and Robin, come spend the week with us. Here's a picture recap of our fun time together.

The trip was supposed to kick off with a hike up Pacaya Volcano, however, there had been too much seismic activity and the park was closed for fear of a large eruption. So, instead, we just spent the afternoon lounging at the spa in Amatitlan.

The next day we headed down to our favorite beach spot in El Salvador, Roca Sunzal. We all enjoyed the heat, the food and drinks, trying to surf, boogie-boarding, the pool, playing pool, tossing the Frisbee, sun bathing, and plenty of relaxing.











The next leg of our trip took us to Antigua, where we had fun sight-seeing and shopping, as well as enjoying an exciting sunset view of an erupting Fuego Volcano, followed by a fabulous dinner at Casa de Santo Domingo, courtesy of Steve and Jackie (THANK YOU!).



After Antigua, we drove over to the lakeside city Panajachel. From there, we took a boat over to the small village of San Marcos. We planned to stay two nights here, but do to parts of the hotel having no electricity (hence the candle light Trivial Pursuit photo), we bailed a day early and spent our second night on the lake back in Panajachel. There we enjoyed the active night life, shopping, and zip lining, as well as a comfortable stay at our hotel, Posada Los Encuentros.






After getting back from the lake, we spent our last night evening together eating at Frida's, a Mexican food restaurant.

Thank you, Tim and Robin, for coming to visit! We had a great time!

Recent Video Fun

Beth's brother and sister, Tim and Robin, recently spent a week with us here in Guatemala. We had a blast together, and we'll be blogging more in depth about the trip soon, but for now, here are a few videos of fun things that went on while they were here.

While enjoying snacks and drinks before dinner on a rooftop bar in Antigua, we witnessed the volcano, Fuego, erupt into the darkening sky. This volcano blows off smoke frequently--multiple times an hour--but we have never seen lava spewing up into the air and down its side.



We spent an afternoon in Panajachel enjoying the ziplines. Here are a few videos of us on the lines.

Josh Ritchey: International Man of Festivity!

For James' Golden Birthday in which he turned his age on the same date (28 on March 28th), as a surprise to him, one of his best friends from college in Oklahoma City flew in for a week in March! The surprise was really fun, but the week was even better!

Josh flew in on St. Patty's Day, so we went out to a downtown gringo-laden bar, Rattle 'n' Hum. We found out later the Guatemalans call the place Pan con Frijol (bread and beans) instead because they have a hard time pronouncing Rattle 'n' Hum, and the name has no real translation, anyway. HA!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Then the boys spent a few days at our favorite beach destination, Roca Sunzal, where James surfed on a surfboard for the first time! Congrats, James!

El Salvador

Once back from their relaxing weekday beachdays, we had a fun party at our house with three exciting competitions: a Mojito Making contest, a Guac Off, and we played a bar trivia game that Josh also heads up back in Tulsa where he's attending law school (and running trivia bar games!). It was a blast!

Party Pics

For the mojitos and guacamole entries, each one was judged on taste, creativity of name, and style of presentation. For example, I entered my "Holy Guacamole, that's hot!" but it didn't win. James and Josh entered "Guac and Roll" which was just guacamole on a bun, but they got points for creativity! There were mojitos ranging from mango mojitos to margaritos.

Our trophies, presented to the winners at the end of the night

For the team trivia game, we were on small teams, and there were 4-5 categories in which we had to answer as a team. For example, one category was Dead or Alive, and Josh put up a pictures of someone famous, and as a team, we had to name the celebrity (1 point) and say whether or not that person was dead or alive (1 point). It was harder than you'd think! It was honestly difficult to recall whether or not the actor was from Spartacus or Ben Hur, and then their current Living Status....?

We used a projector for the trivia

After such a celebratory night, it was hard to imagine having any more fun to top the evening, but we managed to! We spent the next day in Antigua bumming around, and then our friend Jean Ah met up with us to go hike Pacaya.

At Cafe Sky, a rooftop bar in Antigua

Listening to a Peruvian Flute Band at Sol Latino

It was a pretty intense climb, but once we got to the smoking volcano, it was worth it to watch the lava spilling down the side! Scary! One guy gunning for a Darwin Award was trying to roast a marshmellow on the end of a stick while standing on recently hardened lava, and we could see it glowing bright red below him! We tried to warn him, but he wouldn't listen. Luckily, nothing happened while we were around to see it.

Note the flowing red lava behind us

The climb is steep
Volcano Pacaya smoking away

For Josh's final evening in the city, we went to Jean Ah's for an impromptu Sushi Making (and sushi rolling) lesson and sunset dinner on her deck. It was VERY fun, and we didn't know how easy it could be to make sushi! Well, we call it sushi, but Jean Ah taught us that it's called kimbap in Korean.

Mama Jean Ah cooking up the ingredients for kimbap!

James was trying his luck at making a monster roll that was hard to even eat it was so big!

All in all, it was a successful and entertaining week that went way to fast! Thanks again to Josh Ritchey for visiting and helping to make James' birthday so special!

... And Feliz Cumpleaños to James, of course!

Rafa's Paw: Mystery Solved

When Beth's brother and sister were visiting, we had to postpone our trip to the spa because James noticed that Rafa's paw suddenly looked extremely swollen. When we made an emergency trip to the vet's office, no bee stinger was found in his paw, so we thought we would never know what happened to him. For the rest of the day, James referred to Rafa as his "Hellboy Kitty."

Since we didn't take pictures of Rafa, here's a picture of Hellboy so you can imagine Rafa's gigantic paw.

...Until James found this dead little "friend" on our patio yesterday....Mystery Solved!

If Tim and Robin would have known at the time there was a scorpion lurking nearby, we doubt they would've slept as well, or agreed to be in the apartment, for that matter! Interestingly enough, we abandoned a second night at the eco-lodge on the lake, in favor of staying in a different city and different hotel. Why? After spending one night in our rooms at the lodge, we had breakfast with a nice Irish girl who had stayed in the same room Tim and Robin had just spent the night in. The previous night when she stayed there, she had put on her pants, only to get stung by the scorpion that had crawled inside of them! She had a numbing and swelling reaction (probably like Rafa) for several hours, but it wasn't life-threatening. That, combined with the 2-3 inch spider that was on my pillow before bed in a room with no electricity, was enough to convince us that moving hotels to the nice one in Panajachel would be a wise move!

As you can see, Rafa is doing great now and still very relaxed outside.