Leaving Antigua we were pleased to see a mini van with only 4 other passengers taking us on the short journey to Lake Atitlan where our destination was a small village on the side of the lake called San Pedro.

The journey was pleasant enough until we reached "the long and windy road" that led us on a one hour bumpy ride down the side of a mountain to reach our final destination. Along with the usual potholes we were also treated with fast speeds around hairpin corners with nothing to hold us to the road except for a few pebbles. I looked at Lex who gave me a worried smile, turned up the music on my ipod and closed my eyes waiting for the trip to end. Despite the fear of plumeting to the bottom of the mountain, the view of the mammoth lake was incredible and seeing all the small villages scattered over the steep mountain sides distracted us from the mad man driving skills.

Finally we reached the bottom, got out of the van (which had picked up at least 20 locals half way down the mountain so it was more like we cascaded out of the van) and was surprised to hear a short plump Guatemalan lady calling out "Kate? Kate?". Still in a daze I turned to her and said "Im Kate" and followed her away from the Tuk Tuk taxi drivers offering rides.

She was the owner of a travel agent who helped out the school we were eventually going to attend and popped us on the phone to Antonio who was the schools administrator. After quick pleasantries he gave us directions to the school where we would meet him and also our host mother (we decided to get ourselves out of our comfort zone and stay with a local family to better immerse ourselves into the language and culture).

Our Mama's name was Alejandra (pronounced Ale-han-dra). She was another short round woman with a welcoming smile and huge personality. Typical to the rest of the women in Guatelmalan highlands, she was dressed in amazingly colourful skirt and blouse and walked us up the steep road that led to the family's house and shop. Sweaty and happy to be settled, Alejandra intoduced us to her daughter Petrona who was 17 and just finished high school and her husband Pedro who worked as a taxi driver by day and a nurse by night. We were stoked to be told that their house was across the street so we had the living room of this house to ourselves which had a tv and comfy couches, our own bathroom and also the privacy. We were told that every day she would cook us breakfast lunch and dinner except on Sundays because they had church most of the day (they go to church alot!). As we hadn't yet attended a single Spanish class these first day converstions were interesting and we all ended up laughing and consulting the dictionary on every word she spoke.

The next day marked our first day of class. Not knowing what to expect we turned up like gittery kindergarteners nervous of the unknown. The school itself was amazing!! Set in an abundant, expanding green garden with hummingbirds and all, where small huts were scattered around the grounds and with views of the lake!! This is where we're supposed to study? Not Bad!! Athough the hummingbirds and resident dog (Daisy) frequently distracted me (to the dismay of my teacher), it was the perfect place to fill our brains with hundreds of spanish verbs, nouns and adjectives. My maestro´s (teacher) name was Lorenzo and Lexi's Ruben. We were pleased with our teachers as they both spoke English and were easy to chat to.

The first week flew by and Lex and I were enjoying the Spanish so far (however I did have a little break dwn on the third day claiming that i would never learn this F#$%&ing language!!) and were so eager we decided to stay 3 weeks in total instead of 2. One day in my second week I was chatting to Lorenzo about food and confidently told him that "No me gusta queso con preservitivo", thinking i'd just told him that i dont like cheese with preservitives. He buckled up laughing and after looking at my confused expression told me that i had just informed him that "I dont like cheese with condoms". We both laughed a little longer until I told him that this is also true.

Throughout our first week we noticed that we'd brought the rain with us from Antigua until we realised that a few days in this was no ordinary rain. It bucketed down and we were told that there were floods all over Central America. As mentioned the town was built on the side of the mountain and all the roads were constantly gushing water (like river rapids) down to the lake that filled up like a bath. Astonishing because the lake is HUGE in size. Every day Pedro (our host father) would tell us all the patients he was attending to that were hurt from the constant floods and landslides. The news was full of updates on the three storms over our heads! Quite a few people were unfortunately killed in the national disaster. For us though, except for a crazy amount of rain and a few roads cut off from landslides, we were never in any real danger. It was an interesting start to our Spanish learning experience!

With only one day off a week from school e had to make the most of our time and so on our first day off we took the small rocky ferry across to the other side of the lake to a more popular town called Panajachel, where we enjoyed the colourful markets and the short escape from San Pedro.

Our 2nd week past and our conversations with Mama were alot better, especially with Lex..... was her golden child as he studied a little more than I did. So they sat there chatting away at breakfast and I would be a couple of words behind them before it was time to gather our books and head to school. Every morning without fail Mama would wish us a good day and farewell us with "Adios chicos bonitos!!" Goodbye beautiful children". We were very lucky to have such a cool family.

On our last 2 days we spent the first going canopy ziplining with Melissa and Andy (2 other students from the school). This was about a 45 minute drive standing up on the back of a truck to the entrance of the adreneline activity. We were handed our harness, helmuts and gloves and followed the guide on a 15 minute walk up the moutain. Here we reached our first zipline. After a few gasps at the height and clicked onto the cable and flew across the valley to the other side of the mountain. The fast journay was awesome, reaching the other side with huge smiles. We hiked up the mountain for 10 minutes and reached a small abseiling wall. Again the views up top were outstanding of the lake and surrounding volcanoes. One with smoke coming out the top and all!! We walked back down and found the main zipline. This baby was 200m long to get to the other side with a drop of 400m, quite a lot bigger than the last one. This time we could ride it with no hands so we were pretty nervous. Lex was pumped as usual for anything adreneline associated, myself on the other hand was a little apprehensive. The ride was amazing though and again the views were awesome!! The thrill of being up so high and going that speed and all the while checking out the mountains of Guatemala was insane!! We were also lucky that the weather had improved and the rain had subsided, we even had the pleasure of sunshine that day!!

The next day (our last in San Pedro) we hired out a kayak and checked out the lake. We followed the shores and checked out all the damage from the floods; houses, bars, shops and trees all underwater. Seeing how the amount of rain filled the lake was crazy.

Our last day of school we said our goodbyes and thanks to Ruben and Lorenzo and the following morning with backpacks ready said our farewells to Mama and our family. We told her to come to Australia and she said only if it was for our wedding.....Mmmmmm. Told her she would be waiting a while.

Our 3 weeks here we a great experience living with a real Guatemalan family and learning a new language. Although we have learnt so much in such a short time we are by no means fluent, but poco y poco (little by little) we hope to learn more on the rest of our travels.