in a boat that’d been his father’s In the morning

we´ve jumped the border. alyssa and i made our way from san cristobol, mexico to panajachel, guatemala a few days ago. it´s a tiny town nestled in the mountains of the guatemalan highlands. the main feature, an enormous mountain lake surrounded by active volcanoes.

we´re gonna hang out here for a couple days and maybe wander up to antigua for some night life action. so far we´ve been eating brunch and reading literature all day, then going to bed around 9ish.

i used to be cool. i don´t know what happened.

all dust and stone and moribund

starting in mexico city, alyssa and i have made it a point to pop in just about every catholic church we´ve found. i´m not catholic but i´m still in awe of these things. it´s been cool seeing how different areas of central america design their churches. in mexico city the intricacy of the largest church was incredible, and even in the smaller town of oaxaca (where i took this pic) it´s pretty impressive.

ain't no mountain high, ain't no valley low

alyssa and i climbed a mountain today. one of the higher points in mexico, and we ascended it.

basically, we rule, and the mountain doesn't. go us!

regular readers of this blog may have noticed that it's been on a touch of a hiatus over the last few weeks. ok, admitted, last few months. some of you may be wondering, "what has kris been up to of late?" the answer: i'm getting ready!

as i mentioned back in october, my good friend alyssa and i were planning a january trip to mexico - well, we're doing it. in fact, we're hopping a plane to mexico city in no less than seven hours. neither of us knows what to expect - in fact we don't know where we're going to be sleeping in 3 days (we do have hostel arrangements for tonight and tomorrow). i've been talking about going back to south america since i came back from brazil in 2002 and now it's actually happening.

in the next few weeks and months there will be many stories to tell, much pontificating and self-reflection to be had, and maybe even a picture or two. but i'll save my cogitatin' and ruminatin' for a day when i'm in warmer climes. so to all of you suffering through ice storms, decimated orange crops and a president with a thirty-four percent approval rating:

"i'm out!"