Last weekend away

Last weekend almost all the volunteers headed out to Iztapa, a beach town located pretty much in the middle of nowhere in southern Guatemala, for our last salida as a volunteer group. Erika had told us about a house she’d stayed in on the beach there and, because there were so many of us, it cost us only 100Q (about $12 ) a person to rent the place for the whole weekend! Sweet deal! Add on to that about $14 a person for food/drinks/gas for the whole weekend and you’ve got yourself a pretty amazing deal!

We got picked up around noon last Friday in 5 cars, driven by Karla, Karla’s boyfriend, Miguel, Miguel’s friend, Juan Pablo, Nadia, and Nanna’s boyfriend, Alejandro. We piled in to the cars and I found myself in our new friend Juan Pablo’s (JP for short) car with Michael, Molly, and Thayer – score! For the entire 2 hour drive, we got acquainted with our new friend and had a blast – making tacos in the back seat complete with meat and guacamole (DELICIOUS), singing to the most AWESOME iPod that’s ever been assembled, and just generally having a rocking good time ;-). We made it to the house and were amazed at how large and beautiful it was – 2 stories with a walk up roof, 5 bedrooms complete with space to sleep 18, 4 full bathrooms, a kitchen, 3 hammocks, a basketball court, a SWIMMING POOL, lounge chairs, a backyard that looked out onto the water, and only about 100 meters from the beach – who could ask for more?!??

After arriving, my “cooking group” took to the kitchen to make a *fantastic* pasta and meatball dinner – SO delicious (although it did take us a solid almost 3 hours to cook it…) We cooked/cleaned in shifts all weekend and had amazing omelette breakfasts with refried beans (I think it might be hard to kick the habit of eating beans for breakfast once I get back to the states…), and an amazing BBQ dinner with hamburgers and chicken – YUM! Other than that, we spent the entire weekend hanging out between the pool and the beach, drinking, reading, sunbathing, playing twister, and just enjoying being together (I know…sometimes life is hard!). – definitely a great last weekend away from NPH in Guatemala :).