Vacations and Out of Site

So I’ve been getting several emails from friends asking if they can come visit. The answer is yes, of course. Please come, bring everyone you know. Even if I didn’t particularly like you at home I’ll probably like you now, so come visit. You can even call it a volunteer trip and help us work on the Chisec Health Clinic, good resume material and you can practice Spanish or for the more daring, Q’qechi. Visitors can come any time but the school year runs from January through October so the best times to come are in November and December.
I’m officially allowed 48 vacation days during my two years of service. I’ll likely be taking the majority of these days traveling to US for Christmas and possibly a little holiday to Europe. Before leaving for Peace Corps, my friend Jesse (he is also a Peace Corps volunteer here in Guatemala) and I talked about how hard core we were going to be, traveling all over South America and not returning home for two years, truly embracing the culture abroad and living out of our backpacks. Jesse and I are now searching online for the cheapest flights to San Francisco so we can fly home together for the holidays. There is nothing shameful about wanting a little family time, and a hot shower…
Peace Corps policy limits travel to a maximum of 21 consecutive days, any travel taken out of country must be approved two weeks in advance and certain areas of Guatemala are off limits, like the town of Livingston and the entire north west corner of the Peten. If we go to other countries with Peace Corps presence we have to abide by the travel restrictions and policies of thats country, but we can also use all the Peace Corps facilities in those countries including complete access to medical care. Cori and Mark and I have been thinking about going to the Bay Islands in Honduras to go SCUBA diving, but we are all completely broke so it might be awhile before we can afford it.
We are officially Peace Corps volunteers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, but Peace Corps allows us two weekends a month out of site. We have to call and tell them where we are going, where we are staying and what time we’ll be back. Sometimes I feel like I’m back in high school. The amazing thing about being way out here in Alta Verapaz is that I can take weekend trips to several of the major ecotourism sites in the country. I’m only four hours south of the Tikal ruins, two hours from Laguna Lachua and half an hour from the Candelaria Cuevas and Lagunas Sepalau. So while I may not be able to go visit my friends over on the other side of the country very often, I’m not stuck in the middle of the jungle with nothing to do. This also means that if you decide to come visit there is plenty to do around here.