More on Xela

I must start this post with a discussion of the most important instituition in Xela, XelaPan. Xela Pan is a chain bakery that sells super awesome baked goods at top rate prices. The preferred bakery of the spanish school set is the bake shop, a menonite owned place open only twice a week, but fyi the bake shop sucks and xelapan is super awesome.  we had many great things usualy involving bread or pastery stuffed with pudding, and the tres leches cake is quite good, but the all time best xelapan is pictured above. the bottem is kind of like a cookie but kind of like pie crust, the top is simple milk chocalye and the filling is real whip cream and a touch of pudding. it is intensly good.

The next thing we must discuss is bajo de la luna,

our favorite bar in xela, we went every week. It is  a wine and cheese bar with awesome ambiance, it it dark and kind of like being in a wine cellar, and while I am far from an expert we quite enjoyed the wine. The place is run by the two of the sons of the owners of  a cafe above the bar, la luna, which specializes in hot choclate made from the family factory. The brothers love to have a good time and introduced me to an great new drink. I am not sure of the name but it is beer with a twist of lime topped off with clamato served in a salted glass. The brothers also pointed us towards the best cevicheria in Xela, inbetween a park dedicated to the UN and a park with a japanese motiff. The ceviche came in a thich limey sauce and it was seriously good. Ceviche is seafood cured with lime juice and is not cooked with heat. It is super tasty.

I ate that pig, and it was awesome. The closest thing to a taco I have had, and way better than the common tres por diez tacos.

Molly and I are now also super fanaticos por los super chivos. We are super fans of the Xela Super Goats. We took in a couple games. Aparently futbol can end in a tie, lame. However the real super fanaticos are awesome and bring ample fire works. Based on the referring I think other teams must have a lot more money for the officials who probably actually needed their escort of riot police.

We took in some other sights in Xela and made some good friends at my spanish school. other activities included: building a stove in a village (or at least moving some bricks around before the guy from the village did in five minutes what we had done in an hour). Visiting the municiapal museum where you can see a six legged goat, picutres of several winners of Mrs. Indiginous Woman of the year, antique office equipment and a cell phone, and a picture of  the world record holder in doing a marathon while skipping. We also visited a hot spring, saw the movie valentines day, which i have to admit was fun, and collected some textitles at wonderful markets in nearby San Francisco and San Juan.

We really enjoyed out time in Xela and it is probably the nicest place to live of anywhere we have visited thus far, but we were definitly ready to kick it into high gear for the more travel intensive final third of the trip.