Tomorrow...

we will be in Guatemala, a country already has so much importance to us, a country that helped form this relationship we share with each other. In two days we will be in one of our favorite places in the world, Lake Atitlan. A place of such beauty which can be hard to sum up in a short blog post.  I will follow up these thoughts with a fuller post later, but for now, I think it is safe to say the nervousness we have about another long day of travel is covered by the excitement that is filling us so much so that it is coming out of our pores.  We have no expectations that Guatemala is going to be our promise land, and we know our life there will continue to present challenges just as there have been many here in Bolivia.  But one thing is certain, we have become stronger in the first three months of our journey abroad, together and separately, than we were prior to it.  We can face these challenges with that knowledge.

I leave you with a quote from the band Mates of State, which is my theme for this transition from Bolivia to Guatemala.

"Everything's gonna get lighter, even if it never gets better."

Peace and love,
Daniel

Edit: Sorry for the typos if you read the early post. Being in such a hurry yesterday I didn't have time to give it a proper proofread.  And with a short update: the bus from Cochabamba to La Paz was somewhat annoying as always but it did the job in getting us to point A to point B. The main annoyance was all the hoops we had to jump through and fees to pay to leave Bolivia, so much so that I have no desire to return in the near or further than near future. We had some Bolivianos and USD's, knowing the fees were coming, and it worked out in such a way that I think we ended up using up most of our extra solid USD bills with less than a dollar worth of Bolivianos left, which I felt couldn't of worked out better.  The plane ride with Avianca to Bogata was a little tight but compared to AA, Avianca wins hands down. So much better its hardly worth a comparison.  So now Rachel and I, a little worse for wear and maybe a little smelly, are chilling in the Bogata airport waiting for our flight to El Salvador with a really short layover, and if all goes well we will be in Guatemala mid-afternoon. Pray that there are no delays leaving Colombia and our 39 minute layover in San Salvador is long enough for us to make it on our final plane to Guate. Gracias!

Update: Jan. 20th:  We made it to Guatemala! We arrived yesterday around 4pm here completely exhausted and, to be blunt, filthy and gross from all the travel. But after some dinner, a shower, and, most importantly, over 10 hours of sleep, we feel ready and excited to get to the lake!  We are being picked up in 2 hours by Mayan Families to take us to Panajachel. From there we will begin getting situated and start looking for an apartment. Hopefully the search does not take more than a couple days and we can start unpacking everything and adjust to our new life here. Thank you so much for your prayers and support.