Anniversary Weekstart

It wasn't really a weekend, it was more of a weekstart. We left our home here in Quiche on Monday morning for a few days at Lake Atitlan to celebrate our first anniversary. It's only about 60km from here but it's like you're on another planet. Lake Atitlan was formed by the implosion of a very large volcano a few years back (on a geologic time scale, that is). There are three volcanoes around the lake: Atitlan, San Pedro, and Toliman. The lake itself is over 1,000 feet deep and is at about 5,000 ft altitude - a bit lower than Quiche (6,700 ft).

We stayed at the Hotel Atitlan, which is absolutely spectacular. The landscaping on the grounds is so amazing that they actually charge admission for people to come in and gawk. Anyway, we spent Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday morning there and can't wait to go back when Matt's parents come in November.

The first picture is of us on the hotel grounds, looking across the lake at one of the volcanoes. That's about as much of the mountain as we ever got to see. Pray for better weather when Matt's dad comes down with his super-duper camera.

The second picture was taken on the nature preserve hike we took. Heidi is on a swinging bridge in front of a spectacular waterfall. I don't know how clear the pic will come out on here, but you can clearly see the scale of this thing with Heidi in the middle.

The third pic is of Heidi sharing "a moment" with one of the dozen or so monkeys there in the jungle. Lots of other cool critters, too, like Coatis, but monkeys have always been our favorite, so here you go.

The last one is of us at dinner one night. You can see that we just about had the place to ourselves, which is one argument for taking your vacations during the week instead of on weekends. We took around 100 pictures and shot a few movies, and maybe we'll share some more later - or maybe you'll just have to come visit and see for yourselves!!!!

Tomorrow it's back to reality with clinic at ASELSI in Chichicastenango.