Well, I got sick for the first time yesterday, but I think it was a one day thing. As far as I can tell, its not Hepatitis or cholera. I accidentally drank some untreated water. It's sort of a funny story. I was boiling some water for tea, when there was some yelling outside. Mac came out of his room and said it must be a drunk wandering home up the rode. He wanted to go outside and throw rocks at him. After living for 2.5 years here, he had very little respect for the drunks. They take what little money they have and they use it to buy sugar cane moonshine, cusha, and while there family sits at home with not enough to eat. Mac has an impressive photo album of pictures he has taken of drunks passed out in the gutter, in front of the Mormon churn and vomitting over themselves, which would make an impressive coffee table book or calendar. But so since there is no tv and Voice of America wasn't coming in on the radio that night there wasn't much else to do so I joined Mac on the porch and we hucked chunks of dirt at the drunk who was just about out of site up the road. I wasn't actually trying to hit him, I admit, and when he realized someone was throwing things at him he stopped at started yelling at us but didnt' come back. When we went back inside I found that most of my tea water had boiled off so without thinking I went to the bathroom tap and put a little water in my cup to add to the hot water I already had. After I had taken a sip I realized what I did I knew I was in trouble. But as I said it seems to have been a one shot deal.

The sleeveless vacation in San Pedro went well. The goal of the sleeveless vacation was to get to San Pedro at Lago de Atitlan and back for under 200Q(about$25). Last Friday morning, we walked from Macs town to another town 12 miles away and over a mountain. It was a beautiful hike and I got to see many of the places where Mac worked in his time here. We hiked to Totonicapan, where we caught a bus to a place called Cuatro Caminos, where we hitched a ride to Kilometre 148, where we hitched another ride in the back of a truck, till we caught a bus the rest of the way to san pedro.

San Pedro is on Lake Atitlan, a very pretty body of water next to 3 volcanoes. In the 60s, a bunch of hippies moved to its shores because they believed the lake was an energy vortex, and it was/is really easy to buy drugs there. At one point we were sitting in a pizza restaurant and Mac said that we were the only people there not dealing. San Pedro is apparently quite a travellers hangout, and we were offered drugs 3 times within 10 minutes of getting off the bus. We may have been the only people there withotu dreadlocks. The hotel mac wanted to stay at was full, so we had to go to another one, which cost a wopping 3.25 per night, vs. 1.75 per night at the other place. We had planned on doing the whole weekend for under 25 dollars, so that was a real blow to our budget. That night we went to some solar hottubs run by some dropout from canada who lives in a teepee. it was very romantic, 4 guys in a hot tub under a starlit sky.

The next day we wanted to go kayaking on the lake, but it was very windy, and after some deliberation, the man who rents canoes showed very good judgement and decided it was unsafe to let us go out on the water. I dont think it was our safety he was concerned about so much as he didn't want to lose 2 kayaks. On the plus side, not doing the kayaks got our budget back on track and allowed us the luxury of eating two dinners saturday night.

tomorrow mac and I go to Guatamala city where he has to fill out some paperwork and we are go to lunch at tgi fridays, where mac says they have a wonderful lunch buffet.

Today we are taking macs dog to the vet so it can be cleared to go back to the USA, and I think I am going to indulge it the Mcdonalds special offer of 2 burgers for 5Q, or about 50 cents. Last week when I was in Xela, we had Dominoes pizza. When we got our check, it was more than it should have been. When we asked why, they explained it was some sort of anniversary, so they were offering a special deal where the pizza actually cost more than its usual price to celebrate. Go figure. That is all for now. Jim