Everybody's Workin' for the.....ummmm, Everyday

A friend from Ireland once told me that their observation of Americans was that they'd rather spend an afternoon on a speedboat, unlike the rest of the world, who would prefer to spend a month in a canoe.  I think there's some truth to that.  Whether the rest of the world is better at working than Americans is a different discussion better left to economists and politicians and other uninteresting people, but I think it's a fair generalization to say that most of the world is a step or two ahead of us when it comes to relaxing.  Gearing up to work hard and to accomplish things comes pretty naturally.  Gearing down to enjoy free time (and there is less of it here than one might imagine) is much more difficult.

That was pretty obvious today as we did a "weekendy" "touristy" thing here in Antigua Guatemala.  We traveled to Mount Pacaya, an active volcano just about an hour's drive away, to spend the day climbing around and enjoying an amazing apsect of God's creation.  And the nice thing was that we went slow enough to enjoy it.  All around the city there are travel agencies (I use that term loosely) that generally offer the same thing: a turnkey, quick, and relatively expensive trip to Pacaya.  It's obviously market-driven; that's what people often want.  Instead, we arranged a trip with some people we met here (who have triplets our twins' age incidentally) and took a van whose driver said "just come back when you can" and arranged for a guide up the volcano who was at first assuming we wanted "to be back by noon" but who instead wound up enjoying the day with us.

Here are some pictures from the day.  They don't do it justice, but they give a pretty good idea of our time today.

A view of Mount Fuego ("Fire") and another one that has a really long name but is really pretty in a volcanoey sort of way.

Some is clouds and some is steam.  Here at the top of Pacaya, the occasional warm vents were quite refreshing.

Sam and Zaac crawling through a volcanic tube.

Our kids and the triplets we met walking across a moonscape.



Kevin and Ben crawling up from the depths of the Pacaya crater, or at least pretending that's what they were doing.  Go Braves, by the way.

The boys with Don Augusto, our  very patient guide who was surprised that we made it to the top and actually hung around a while.