Not many people get this excited about sloth butt

For once, we had a full day of activity that didn't even need to begin at 4am.

We started at a leisurely 10am. Our very patient guide, Julio, allowed us to practice our Spanish even though it was probably very painful for him to listen to and he actually spoke English quite well. We drove to a coffee plantation, where we learned a little about the coffee growth/harvesting process. Then we took a ride up Volcán Mombacho, one of 8-10 (depending who you talk to, I guess) active volcanoes in Nicaragua. Its name means inclined mountain or something similar, so it was a steep and bumpy ride up to the visitors' centre. From here, we had the option of doing the easy hike for free, a medium hike for a fee, or a hard hike for more. We, of course, opted to do both the hard AND the easy hike because we like a challenge. And learning. We're big fans.

So Julio took us around the easier trail and gave us a bunch of interesting information while we took photos. Then the Puma trail began, with a different guide. There were no pumas, but there were a lot of stairs. The Nicaraguan Grouse Grind, if you will. There is no lava at this volcano and it hasn't really erupted in 20,000 years or something, but we saw a little steam and some really great views of the area. We heard some birds and some howler monkeys, but, disappointingly, saw no white-faced monkeys (although they kept taunting us with their discarded bits of food so we KNEW they'd been by recently... and by knew, I mean that we put our faith in the tour guide when she said that's what was going on).

But we did get to see a two-toed sloth. Or at least part of it. It was doing about what you'd expect: sleeping in a tree. Still, it made me happy... even though we really only got pictures of its sloth butt.

We may or may not have ridden back down the mountain in the back of a pickup truck (two different trucks, actually). Then we did our canopy tour (ziplining) over a different coffee plantation. SO AWESOME. To Teryn's surprise, I even tried it upside down. And I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was entirely safe and neither of us died.

And to top it all off, we ended the canopy tour with MORE MONKEYS (the white-faced ones we missed out on during the volcano hike) - one of them even had a baby. The guys running the joint probably thought we were ridiculous because we were so excited. We stood and looked at them and said ¨Yay monkeys!¨ for what was probably an obscenely long time before we headed back to our hostel, tired but satisfied.

And then our hostel didn't have running water. Good times.

We're doing another day trip from here tomorrow. We had planned to head to a beach town but we need a little extra time to let our sunburns recover before we try that.

I have learned this lesson before

Even if it's overcast, WEAR MORE SUNSCREEN.

I am in so much pain. My shins are dying. Seriously. I don't think I've ever burned my shins before, and I do not recommend it to anyone.

The day started off fine - immediately after stepping out of the hostel door, a passing taxi driver yelled ¨I love you¨ at us. Yes, in English. In the 15 minutes we were outside, we had no less than 3 catcalls or professions of love. This country is pretty good for my self-esteem.

We took a shuttle out to La Laguna de Apoyo, which is a volcanic crater lake nearby. We borrowed kayaks and Teryn decided she was going to paddle across the whole giant laguna. I got about halfway but I do not have a lot of upper body strength and I was slowing her down, so Teryn sped off and I turned around. Last I saw her, she was paddling off with her lifejacket undone, heading for the other side. I probably got back around noon, and we were supposed to have these kayaks back by 12:30.

12:30 rolls around. No sign of Teryn. Literally. I cannot see her anywhere, and I have full view of at least the closer half of the lake. Worry begins.

12:45. Mild panic sets in. I'm imagining all the horrible things that could have happened: she capsized and hit her head, and she wasn't wearing her lifejacket and drowned. She got to the other side and got attacked and kidnapped. She's lost somewhere on the other side of the lake.

1:00. I'm wondering how I'm going to contact her family and tell them I'm coming home without my travel buddy. I'm going to feel guilty for the rest of my life.

1:05. Finally I see her paddling across the lake from the side (not from directly ahead, as she should have been if she hadn't gotten lost). Anger sets in.

1:10. I give Teryn the cold shoulder. She refuses to let me be mad at her because she got lost. Eventually I let it go.

So when we left at 3:30 I noticed Teryn was getting a little red. Okay, a lot red. Her legs are kind of hilariously burned. Or it was hilarious, until mine set in two hours later and MY SHINS ARE ON FIRE. We did not get any catcalls this evening, but we did get a few stares.

We're just going to be applying aloe all night. That's literally our plan for the evening. Because we are gringas who know how to party.

I've probably been blacklisted by the Nicaraguan border authorities

Oh my god we had a day yesterday. Every resource we had (the internet, lonely planet, our cab driver) told us the bus left at 5 or 5:30am. Okay. That sucks because it's early but we can deal with it. We got up at 4 am, Oscar was there to pick us up about 4:40 (which is what passes for the agreed upon 4:30) in his little ¨taxi¨ (I use the term loosely because it was just a gutted out Corolla painted yellow - no taxi sign, no interior on the doors). So we get to the bus station, wait because they don't start selling tickets until 5am, find out the bus leaves at 8:00 (or ¨8 or 9, more or less¨ as one guy said) or 11:30. My friends, that is a long time to wait in a San Salvador bus station. In desperation, we cabbed to another bus station only to find that THAT bus had left and we would have to wait until tomorrow. So we cabbed back. In a real taxi with tiger print interior. With a driver who ran every red light we had.

I'm just happy we got out of San Salvador alive.

So we bought our tickets for the 8am bus and we sat in the bus station for hours. Literally hours. 5:30-almost 10am, when our bus FINALLY arrived. That's right, we bought a ticket for the 8am bus and we left the station - after idling for about half an hour - around 10:20. The brochure also claimed that we would reach Managua at 6 or 6:30. LIES. Want to know when we really got there? 10pm.

In order to get to Nicaragua, we had to pass through Honduras. This means we went through 2 borders: El Salvador-Honduras and Honduras-Nicaragua. Now, my Lonely Planet says that there is an agreement between those 3 countries and Guatemala to allow tourists to pay one ¨tourist card¨ fee for all 4 countries, and receive only one passport stamp... but that border guards will often ¨forget¨ about this new law and charge people anyway. So when our bus asked us for $13 to enter Nicaragua (which is $11 more than the land migration fee we were supposed to pay), I started to get a little rage. I tried to explain this to our bus attendant in pretty mediocre Spanish, and she told me there was no such agreement and she would take me to the immigration people so they could explain it to me. Well, the explanation was ¨$12¨(the guy was pretty snippy, actually). He said my book was bad and there was no agreement (folks, FYI, this book was published October 2010). He told me this after he dug my passport out of the pile to identify me. Awkward.

And I'm still not exactly sure what that extra dollar was for, except that our bus probably kept it.

I talked a bit to a guy on the bus who was born in Nicaragua and is living in the States; he said he always has to pay the extra tourists fees for every country. Not only that, he had to pay about $200 for the girl he was travelling with to leave Guatemala... I'm not sure why. This place is ridiculous.

On the bus we ran into one of the girls we'd met in Xela (from our sister Spanish school), who was on the way to Granada with her mother. We split a very expensive taxi to Granada (another hour away) and finally arrived at our hostel, which has a pool and free internet. These are good things. Especially since even at 11pm I was sweating in the heat. I am constantly glistening. It's not very pretty.

We went out this morning for a massive breakfast and we plan on taking a well-earned relaxing day.

We accomplished a heck of a lot less today

For the first time this trip, we got picked up on time. It was 5:33 am when our ride picked us up from our hostel to take us to the bus station. He drove like a bat out of hell to get there... god knows why, because we just sat there in the bus for, like, an hour. Finally we left and our bus proceeded to stop for the most random things. I'm not even sure WHAT we were stopped for most of the time, but at least a couple times it was so the driver's assistant could buy the driver food. And once so the assistant could buy some watermelon.

Now, this trip would have been bad enough if it had been as advertised: 9 hours from Santa Elena, Guatemala, to San Salvador, El Salvador, arriving around 3 pm. As 3 pm approached and we had yet to reach the Guatemalan border, it became abundantly clear that we were not adhering to this schedule.

At least the ride was reasonably safe (at least by Guatemalan standards... I think we only had one or two near-miss collisions) and we didn't have any trouble at the border.

Unfortunately, we arrived in San Salvador around 6pm, when night was beginning to fall. I don't know if you know anything about this city but it scares the crap out of me. For serious. We caught a cab to our lovely hotel (twice the price of any place we've stayed in but TOTALLY AWESOME. You know what I said about the trifecta? This place tops it because it also has air con and shampoo. And a TV. We couldn't ask for anything else to have while we hide indoors from the very sketchy San Salvador night).

Regardless, we won't be here long - our cabbie (Oscar) is coming to get us at 4:30 tomorrow morning and we will head to the bus station and pray it is open and has seats for us for the bus to Managua. 12 hours... at least in advertising.

What did you do before noon today?

I'll tell you what I did:
- got up at 4:00 to leave by 4:30
- saw a crocodile, a giant tarantula, several spider monkeys, a bunch of howler monkeys, and assorted lizards and birds
- climbed about 5 ancient Mayan temples
- took over 150 photos
- witnessed/heard a howler monkey face-off (have you ever heard a howler monkey? They sound disturbingly like jaguars or other giant nasty things. It's kinda scary)

Teryn and I spent the day at Tikal, a giant Mayan city in the rainforest (not jungle, as our guide specifically pointed out). It was good times.One of the temples in the mist early in the morning.



Once the fog cleared
















MONKEY!!!

The hostel trifecta: TP, towels, soap

Sorry about all the posts in one day - I was waiting to have access to the photos so they were more substantial posts and so we're pretty behind.

We're currently in Flores, which is a town in the northern region of Guatemala. It's nice and warm here, and we have both gotten sunburnt, which is kind of a nice change from all the cold weather we've had... at least in some ways. Tomorrow we're taking a tour of Tikal, a very large Mayan city in the jungle. I am looking forward to it, except for the leaving at 4:30am part.

Our first hostel here was actually a hotel - technically one of the most upperclass places we've stayed. You know how we can tell? Not only did we have a private bathroom, the bathroom came with toilet paper. And soap. And we got towels. It was the most exciting thing ever. Until, of course, we got home from meeting some people for dinner and found our room to be flooded. That was less than awesome. On the upside, we got a room with a view for the night (I'll post a photo when I can, at least on the photoblog, but this computer isn't reading the camera right now). We switched rooms and are paying 2/3 the price but we can tell we're in a less classy establishment because we have to bring our own supplies to the bathroom.

Tomorrow: Tikal. Next day: bus adventure to El Salvador. Following day: More bus adventure! Stayed tuned... I hope to be contacting you with good news from Nicaragua in a few days.

I hope this kid knows what he´s doing

There was a lot of confusion over what the hell was happening with our tour this morning. Our ticket said it started at 7. Our hostel, despite being officially affiliated with this tour company, seemed to have no idea what was going on. Eventually, it turned out that we had breakfast at 7, got picked up at 8, and headed for Lanquín. We arrived in Semuc Champey first, relatively without incident. Semuc Champey is a series of natural pools and it is AMAZING. We did the Guatemalan equivalent of the Grouse Grind to get up to a viewpoint over it, and it was lovely from there (see photo). Then we hiked down the hill and ate a pretty spectacular sandwich they gave us, then we went swimming.

We were guided by a kid who looked like he was maybe 15, who didn't speak much English but seemed to get a kick out of us and led us safely down all the slippery rocks between pools. Out of the 6 of us on the tour, only three swam down all the pools, which surprised me a little (but two of the people were older and apparently one couldn't swim, so I guess that's an acceptable excuse). Did you know Teryn is afraid of swimming with fish? That's what I learned yesterday. Also, she learned that I am afraid of swimming with vegetation (which probably makes less sense), and we both learned that I am a little more afraid of heights than I realized. I totally chickened out of jumping off a cliff, but that's okay. I don't regret that. About halfway down the pools (I couldn't even tell you how many there were) I began to wonder how the hell we were going to get back up and if this kid wasn't luring us to our deaths. But overall it was SO NICE. Seriously. All the BS it took to get here was worth it for that swim.

From there, we took a sketchy ride down to Lanquín. It had started to rain, and the dirt roads were not in the best condition. They actually stopped, let some air out of the tires, and made everyone move to the back of the shuttle. I thought we were going to die. Multiple times. But our driver made it out okay and we got to the caves at Lanquín fine. The caves were cool, though most of the photos didn't really turn out due to bad lighting. There are a bunch of rock formations they say look like particular things. This photo is for the physio kids.


At the end of the day, it was raining but we were happy. I eventually stopped looking at what we were doing on the drive home because it was foggy, the roads were winding, and we were speeding. For a while we tailgated a cop, and then we passed him. And honked as we did it.

They're really on their own schedule here

Our last morning in Xela I was up at 6:20am to get ready for our shuttle to Antigua, which was supposed to leave at 7am. Teryn was out the door at 7 or just before, so we waited. And waited... and waited. And called the tour company because the shuttle still wasn't there. And waited. And finally, at 7:45, the shuttle showed up. With only 2 other people in it. Now, you can't be that late when picking up only 2 people unless you leave late or you get really lost. After meeting our driver... well, it could have been either.

Teryn slept through most of the 3 hour trip, which was probably a blessing. We made some interesting driving choices (every time you get in a vehicle in Guatemala, you take your life in your hands). The kinda creepy driver asked me if I wanted a seat in the front, which I declined. When we arrived in Antigua, I'm pretty sure he got lost. Several times.

But whatever... we had 3 hours of scheduled free time in Antigua, so we ate some lunch and bought some stuff at the market (my bargaining skills are getting better but still lag behind what they probably should be). We went back to the tour office for our 2pm departure and waited. And waited some more. And finally, around 2:45, the shuttle showed up with a bunch of people in it. Unfortunately, that wasn't everybody, so we spent another what seemed like forever (45min to an hour) picking people up until the shuttle was absolutely full. 14 of us in this ancient shuttle van. Also, the fog when we got up north was pretty awful, which didn't help the speed of our arrival... so instead of arriving in Cobán at 6:30 like we were promised, it was actually closer to about 8:30. Then we waited in the rain for 20 minutes or so for our driver to get our bags off the roof (god knows where he went or what he was doing).

I had so much rage by this point that I developed an attitude problem. To make matters worse, the company we had booked through in Xela had sold us a trip to Cobán and a tour of Semuc Champey and Lanquín from there for the next day, rather than telling us we could go directly to Lanquín and book a tour from there. Adding that to all the problems we had with waiting for things, I was about ready to punch Adrenalina Tours in the face. I believe I threatened to.

But we arrived safe with all our luggage, and some days that's the best we can ask for.

Chicken bus... or pig bus?

On the last day of school we went on a field trip (instead of having an exam, which I feel is a pretty awesome trade). We headed to what is apparently regarded as the country's largest and most authentic market at San Francisco El Alto. It was massive. There was an entire plaza dedicated to animals (some of which were absolutely adorable and some of which just made me sad). We didn't buy anything from the market, other than some food, but it was an adventure. On the bus on the way back, someone brought a pig. We were sitting near the back of the bus and at one point this poor pig rolls from the back right under Teryn's feet. The pig is (understandably) distressed and freaking out in its little bag, poking at Teryn. Poor Teryn looked pretty distressed herself.

The other interesting story is that Teryn's teacher's bag got slashed at the market, but she didn't lose anything. We've been really lucky so far that nothing has happened to us. Fingers crossed our luck continues.

So we finished class, got a graduation ceremony and little certificate. Yup. One week of Spanish school and I got a mini-degree. My Spanish isn't as good as I had hoped (turns out you can't be fluent in a week, heh) but I'm definitely learning a ton and it's something I'd consider returning to in the future.

Puppies and small children... everyone knows these are my favourite things

Yup. And yet look at how much I appear to be enjoying them. Our last few days in Xela were pretty good. Teryn's host family had a relative with new puppies and brought them by a couple times. Now, normally I am not at all a dog person but these little guys were cute. They were also being absolutely manhandled by the 6- and 9-year-old girls and looked like they were going to be absolutely traumatized. The kids put one on my shoulder, and as soon as it realized it wasn't getting bounced around like crazy anymore, it fell asleep. Eventually they woke that poor thing up and took it away from me, and handed me another, which promptly fell asleep in my lap. CUTE!

Everyone who knows me knows that kids are not my favourite thing. But okay, Teryn's little 18-month-old who did little more than hang around and makenoises/scream (good naturedly, if you can imagine such a thing) was pretty darn cute. I'm also enjoying her in that picture. Now that we've left Xela, about once an hour (or more, on shuttle bus rides), Teryn gets all nostalgic and says she misses ¨her¨ small children.


Around that time, we also had an awkward run in with a group of 10- and 11-year-old schoolboys, who swarmed us in the park and asked us a bunch of questions we barely understood. ¨Hey gringas! Are you really tall?¨ Er... yes. Yes we are. They asked us about Canada and said a few other things, and I was feeling extremely awkward because there were about 12 of them (and you know how I feel about kids) but Teryn kept trying to have a conversation with them about their school (fact of the day: they go to school only in the afternoon). Eventually, beating each other up became more interesting than talking to us, and they left us alone (and they didn't even pickpocket our stuff. Yes, we checked).

I think they´re trying to tell me something

When you don´t access the internet in several days, you realize that you´ve had almost too many adventures to put into a little blog post.

Let me catch you up a little:

We left Panajachel and had a chicken bus adventure to Chichicastenango. I mean adventure. Our guidebook and the internet lead us to believe there was a direct bus. Lies. Terrible, terrible lies. We were told there was no direct bus, and going completely on faith, we were directed through a series of not one but THREE different buses, two of which we basically got onto while they were driving away. It was sort of terrifying. Teryn seemed to be enjoying herself, but I was having mini heart attacks with every turn. These chicken buses are American school buses, but on speed. Like, literally. They go WAY faster than those buses were ever meant to go. The drivers are CRAZY. They pass everyone. Even on blind corners. Even long strings of trucks. Oncoming traffic? No problem! We´ll just barge our way through.

Heart attacks.

So we got to Chichi and were almost immediately accosted by a tour guide who insisted on showing us around (for a fee, of course). This was completely unplanned but actually worked well; we learned more that day than we had any other. It´s actually really interesting because the Mayan culture is so strong there. They´ve actually integrated the Mayan and Catholic beliefs together in the same church... they hold mass in Spanish and Quiche, the local language. Neato. Can you think of another example of the Catholic church being so accepting? We can´t.

Chichi also had the other memorable event of seeing children ¨toboggan¨ down a hill on an empty oil bottle with a rope attached. They were having a GREAT time. We missed getting a picture, but Teryn loved it so much she giggled for hours.

Every Sunday there´s a giant market in Chichi. It was like most of the other markets we´ve been to, but bigger and with more food... busy, loud, full of high-pressure salespeople. Teryn actually got some mad bargaining skills by the end of the day. Me... well, I´m still working on it.

So we found our way out of the market and onto yet another crazy chicken bus (picture attached... we were actually sitting 6 people across in the back for a while... and somehow, the old guy next to me fell asleep. Until I slammed my shoulder into his head. I couldn´t help it - those buses are bumpy). Finally, we found ourselves in Quetzaltenango, where we had our Spanish school booked. I had a very broken Spanish-English conversation with a woman who sent some guy to come pick us up at the bus station. Not going to lie, I was a little sketched out by the whole process.

So we got into the school, filled out a form, and were sent off with our respective homestay families almost immediately. I got some severe separation anxiety as Teryn and I split up, but our families are only a block or so apart.

So now we´re getting to the subject of this post, more or less. My family doesn´t like to talk to me. They´re nice enough, but I suspect they think I´m a little bit dumb. I mean, my Spanish isn´t great but I actually understand quite a bit, but my family talks really fast and mostly to each other. I mostly eat meals with them and then go somewhere else.

Last night Teryn and I went out for some salsa dancing (Teryn danced, I tried to avoid being asked to dance by hiding. Partially successful, but not entirely. You want to feel self-conscious about your dance skills? Go dancing in Latin America. With Teryn). So we left the club around 11:30 and I found out I had been locked out of my house. With an interior deadbolt. That´s right, now it´s close to midnight in a large-ish Guatemalan city and I have nowhere to go. So I slept with Teryn. In a single bed.

I am very very tired today.

To add insult to injury, today they made me move rooms so they could give the new American student my room. WTF, host family. You´re killing me.

Teryn´s pretty happy with her family, I think. She´s been doing such fun things as explaining Canadian health care to a guy who doesn´t speak English, with her very minimal Spanish. She has two adorable little girls there who are teaching her Spanish vocabulary with flashcards. She´s having a good time.

School is good, if a little overwhelming. Teryn´s learning a crapload of verbs (she´s estimating 90 or so. Which she has to use in sentences for homework every night. hehehe), and I fulfilled my dream of learning how to use the past tense (ever tried to communicate using ONLY present tense? it´s hard!). I can´t believe tomorrow is already our last day. This week has been fast. You could easily spend weeks here (and, indeed, people do), just learning.

Here are some other joys of Guatemalan life, from our perspective:

- Chocobananos. These are chocolate dipped frozen bananas, sometimes with nuts. Most of the places here sell them for Q1, which is about 13 cents. These are the best things ever.

- Licuados. These are fruit drinks, made with real fruit and milk in a blender. We found a place that has them for Q5, the same price as a can of coke (about milkshake sized). Booster juice, eat your heart out.

We´re currently in the process of figuring out where we go from here - we need to get to Tikal and then down to Nicaragua. It´s going to be an adventure.

Fail Morning

They can´t all be good days, I suppose. Today we had planned to go zip trekking and check out a local nature reserve. I woke up feeling like someone stuffed my head full of cotton and mucus, then punched me in the stomach, and Teryn appears to be having fever-like symptoms and barely got out of bed this morning. Mmmm, chills, sweats, and full body aches. Good times.

To top it all off, my attempt at being productive has also been a failure, because I can't get this computer to recognize Teryn's camera or my USB key. I also can´t figure out how to get the "@" symbol to work on this crazy Spanish keyboard (that one was copy-pasted). I even googled it and nothing works, so I think the AltGr key on this keyboard is actually broken. Also, the apostrophe is in a different place and every time I go to type a contraction it comes out looking like this: I can{t type!

Other than that... things are okay. We're in Panajachel right now, on the shores of Lake Atitlán (side note: it's definitely an advantage to have Spanish keyboards for typing those accents). The lake itelf is quite lovely (and massive), and we watched the sunset behind the volcanoes over the lake in the evening last night while enjoying a nice meal and some cheap daiquiris. If only everyday was so pleasant.

Today we took a mini-boat tour of a couple little villages around the lake, which we sort of got conned into because the ferry we wanted to take didn't look like it was going anywhere (because here they leave only if there are enough people). I was actually worried they were going to drop us off in a town and not come back for us, but our little boatman stuck around and was there when he said he would be to boat us to the next place. Thank goodness, because we didn't have enough time or money to find another way back!

So the villages were okay - nothing too special, in my opinion. The boatride was nice. In one village Teryn decided she liked a handwoven scarf so much we had to go back after leaving the shop (bad way to bargain, fyi). She asked if they had one like the one on the loom and they cut her off a length. Nice, but kind of bizarre. She probably totally overpaid but it was still only about $7, which means much more to the people here than it does to us. Plus she got a fine-looking scarf out of it. Unfortunately, the "hot springs" we were promised were little more than warm puddles accessible only by reaching an arm out of the boat we drove by (for a few terrifying moments I thought our boat was going to drive straight into the cliff). Totally conned. Or possibly misunderstood... my Spanish is not that great and his English wasn't any better. At any rate, we survived.

We're taking it easy tonight and heading for the country's biggest market tomorrow. Wish us luck on the chicken bus.

Also, Teryn is upset that there are no comments, so do feel free to post.

Brownies never taught me to roast marshmallows on an active volcano

Teryn and I are safe in Antigua Guatemala tonight. We had no real problems with transit, killed a bunch of time in LAX with some new friends, and made it to Guatemala City absolutely exhausted.

Don't ask me how, but Teryn managed to sleep through most of our 4-5 hour flight from LA to Guatemala City... me, not so much. There was a woman behind us snoring like no one I've ever heard before (who I also diagnosed with some form of sleep disordered breathing), my seat didn't recline all the way, and the very petite woman beside me managed to have her elbows everywhere. Don't ask me how.

So we got into Guatemala City and promptly left, then spent the day walking around Antigua, which is a very cute little town with some pretty crazy cobblestone streets I have very nearly broken my ankles on multiple times.

It will come as a surprise to aboslutely no one that I am brutally sunburnt. Already. But so is Teryn, so at least I have that consolation. I also have a pretty wicked head cold and realized I do not know the Spanish word for "decongestant". Sign language: unsuccessful.

Today we took a shuttle up to Volcan Pacaya, which is an active volcano in the area. There was no lava (disppointing enough for one guy to actually quit the hike and hang out by the van for several hours) but it was a nice hike anyway. Well, by nice, I mean dirty but interesting. The volcano is spewing some smoke and there are some sweet vents pumping out hot air. "Natural sauna" is the way our guide put it. We also roasted some marshmallows on them - that's how hot some of them are. Unique experience? Hell yes.

So now I should go because Teryn is excited about salsa dancing (and watching over my shoulder as I write this). Bailamos!