As you can see from the photo above, yesterday started with some excitement, and thanks to my guardian angel, no disaster!
I went downstairs to start breakfast and Keith showered and joined me. As Nubia, the cleaning lady who comes in once a week, started for upstairs with sheets it occurred to me that I wanted to make sure that our sheets were also washed as we had been at the Art House nearly one week. I followed her up and asked her, she responded that certainly she would put the sheets in the washing machine and came into the room with me. We were taking the sheets off the beds and I remarked that there must be a fire nearby, it smelled like smoke in our room. Nubia opened the window and peered out over the neighborhood, no fire outside. I returned to my bed to get the sheets and looked up over the divider which separates the bedroom from the bathroom. Steamy smoke was visible. I grabbed the towel that Keith had draped over the room divider to dry after he showered. It had just started to burn because it was directly in contact with a hot lightbulb, easy bake oven style!
Once the towel was in the sink, the problem was solved. Nubia cut up the towel for rags and I retained a piece today we will search for a matching towel to replace what was destroyed.
The cleaning lady and I couldn’t believe our luck! I hate to imagine the possibilities if I hadn’t followed my instinct to go into the room when I did. The roof is paneled with varnished wood strips and was only twelve inches above the top of the dividing wall! Whew!!

After all the excitement Carla, Keith & I headed out for the day. We took a bus to the metro back to the tram that took us to the top of Santa Domingo where we had spent time on Saturday. This time we took one more tram from there to a large National Park at the end of the tram line. We had no idea the scope of the park we were headed to or we would have started out much earlier in the day! Parque Arvi was huge with a lake, butterfly sanctuary, various trails, camping areas, horseback riding, you could spend many days exploring there. We only had a couple of hours to take a hike.

On the tram ride up Keith befriended a handsome young Guatemalan, Roberto. He waited for us to have lunch and then walked with us through the beautiful wooded area. We sat on wooden benches for lunch out in the wild, our meat, beans, and rice cooked over a wood stove. It was a filling meal with a fried plantain for dessert.

When we arrived home we met our new 'flat mates', Becca and Charlie. Guess where they have been living? St. George, Utah!
It's incredible that we that we traveled nearly three months without talking with other Americans & now, presto, a house filled with people from our own backyard!