What an incredible day! Thanks to Chase and his good relationship with his American house mates, we were invited to come along with them to visit some hot springs this afternoon. The place is called Fuentes Georginas and it is about an hour drive from Xela. The bus trip there was an experience in and of itself. First, there were gorgeous views of Mayan fields and local vegetable stands. Trucks loaded with one type of vegetable would pass by. Mind-boggling to think that all that work was done by hand. What steady feet the farmers must have to work on mountain slopes. The road we drove on was, of course, also up a mountain slope. It was a narrow, one lane mountain road (no guard rails) that led us directly through a cloud. The driver could hardly see 10 feet in front of the bus. All the sudden we would come to a sharp turn and just hope no one was coming the other way.

The hot springs were in a beautiful, natural setting. The mountain slopes surrounding the pools were completely green with jungle-like, large-leafed plants. It was misty with fog (once again, we were in the clouds) and steam was coming off the green water. Wow, was the water hot where it entered the first pool! We've heard it's even more spectacular in the morning when one can also see the more distant mountains. We do hope to go back again.

Today my teacher and I got into a theological discussion about faith. It was fun because suddenly I realized we were having a conversation without language being the focus. After a while, we decided this would be a topic to discuss more another day. The following grammar review seemed so dry after such an engaging (though slow) exchange of ideas.

The field trip today was to the Natural History Museum. I skipped out on most of it as I felt like having a more traditional lesson. From what I hear, one highlight was seeing a (taxidermy) Quetzal bird.