Monterrico

After the accident/adventure, the nice people that helped us took us to the beach and we ended up having a fun relaxing weekend on the beach. There were some other teachers there as well so we were able to hang out all together, swim in each other's pools, and enjoy each other's company. It was a fun time. We went dancing at places right on the beach both nights we were there, and did a lot of relaxing. I laid in a hammock more than I ever have, and slept under a mosquito net for the first time ever! It was quite the experience! I am not a high class traveler but this place we stayed was definitely below what I would call my vacation standards. It had no air conditioning, just one fan, and the room was really small. It worked, as somewhere to sleep, but not really my idea vacation. We were very hot at night. Anyway, here are a few pictures to recap our weekend! This first one is where we caught the ferry to take us out to the beach where we were. They were these rackety old ferry boats that held less than 8 people each, yet there were some that you could supposedly put your car on!!!! I'm not sure I would have trusted them! Here is the ferry area, and a boat with a few motorcycles on it!

Janet and I on the ferry boat, still a little scratchy and glassy!

The guide wanted a picture with Janet after we took our picture. He really wanted her to get back there right next to him but she politely declined! He doesn't look too thrilled to just get a background photo! ha ha.

All of the sand there is black sand, so we had heard about how hot it was and that you couldn't even walk on the sand. One guy even bet me that I wouldn't be able to walk from the hotel to the water without my shoes. It was definitely really hot and it even burned when it slid into your shoes for a brief moment. We saw people with burns on their feet! I took this picture after the sun was pretty much down and it was cloudy out, to try to convince my friend that I was able to walk on the sand!!!!

We spent a lot of time just hanging out, eating and drinking on the beach! This was at the restaurant where our friends were staying.

the beach!

my foot in the black sand! wow, i just realized you can even see a faint glimpse of a flip flop tan on there! ha!

Friends, Cara and Brian out playing in the water. The waves are really strong there, you can see and the undertow is really strong as well, so it will pull you out there really far really fast. And it gets deep very very fast, so you can't really go out and swim in the ocean. You can only play in the waves close to the sand.

Just a view looking back from the beach to the places.

The national beer of Guatemala is called Gallo and their "mascot" is a hen, so Brian told us that a Guatemalan had told him that when you want to order Gallo, you can just do this sign and then put up how many fingers of how many you want. We thought this guy was just pulling his chain to make him look stupid, but then we asked the waitress and she said he was right! So we always let Brian order our drinks for us when we wanted a Gallo!!!

I spent a lot of time sleeping in the hammock over the weekend! You can't really see that this is me, but someone snuck a picture of me in the hammock while I was sleeping. I found it later!

Beautiful sunset our last night there while walking on the beach!

It was just so pretty!!!!

And one last view!!!!!