I am still unable to rotate photos, the computer will not coooperate with me. If you open the photo, you should be able to rotate it yourself though. This is me on a zip line in the eco-park. 
A view of the mountains and clouds outside the eco-park.
A suspension bridge we crossed in the eco-park.
After a ride in the back of a pickup during a rainstorm. Buenas tardes todos. This week we received our site assignments, which is where we will be residing for the next two years. I will be living in the department of Quiche, in the northern part of Guatemala. The department is mountainous and my site is at about 2350 meters. I was pleased with this site and will be visiting the town with my counterpart next Tuesday. On November 2nd, after swearing in, I will move there permanently. I am ready to begin working in my project, thus far it has been only training, which has been enjoyable and useful; but I am ready for a change...I think.
Last week I visited a volunteer in Julapa, the eastern part of the country and had a great time. It is supposedly drier in that area, but as we are in the midst of the rainy season, it was very wet there also. There was even a mudslide that blocked the road out of town one morning. The area was beautiful and there was an abundance of fruit--oranges, banana, misporas (new fruit to me)--everywhere you looked. I purchased a bag of 10 oranges from a family for 2 Quetzales and the oranges were literally chopped off the tree minutes before I purchased them. Pretty tasty. The area that I visited was pretty remote and we had to use transportation what transportation was available, which meant riding in the back of pickups at times. This is fine, except that it doesn't provide much relief from the rain, see above. We also had the chance to visit an ecological park where we were able to zip line between huge trees. I was a bit wary of having my first zipline experience in Guatemala, but I lived to talk about it, so all's well that ends well.
