Hangin' with the singles for Semana Santa

Easter weekend, also known as Semana Santa here means a 4 day weekend for everyone here. Most people work a half day on Wed and then get the rest of the week off. Good Friday is actually the day when everything is closed down. With most of the country being Catholic, Good Friday is their big holiday. So Friday a group of singles from my church and I traveled about 30-45 mins away and stayed at this hotel/"resort" area. The place has an actual hotel with a few rooms, but also has cabins that you can rent out, which is what we did. It was absolutely gorgeous there and we had a blast!

Here is the gang:


The place had a small lake with a boat and a kayak that you could you take out for a bit. Here are the girls in the boat; the guys are in the next photo! All the girls wanted to sit in the boat so they wouldn't fall in...as you can tell, the guys weren't really concerned about that! LOL







A couple of photos of me and the bridges they had over the lake:







Before dinner, (hamburgers that the guys grilled for us) I pulled out the cards and ended up teaching the guys how to play poker and everyone blackjack. None of them knew how to play, which really surprised me. They all enjoyed blackjack more though, mainly b/c I think it was easier to pick up! We used pebbles to bet with, which was fun.



After dinner, we went for a walk around the area. We even sat for awhile and people told ghost stories. They wanted me to tell one, but I just couldn't think of one, plus I don't know that my Spanish is quite up to ghost story-telling level yet! LOL




Saturday we got up, ate breakfast together and a bunch of us ended up spending most of the day swimming in their Olympic size pool (4 - 25 meter lanes, for those who know swimming) Most of them couldn't swim very well, which isn't too surprising since a) we are not near the ocean and b)pools are only for the rich here. But everyone eventually got in and paddled around if nothing else! =)
While we had to be out of the cabin around 3pm, we ended up sticking around until 6 or so, just swimming and chatting. It was so much fun! A few of us even ended the trip with a stop at an ice cream place in town! I am so glad that we were able to do this, I enjoyed it so much!

We are officially into fall, but it is STILL hot and sticky here. But I am LOVING all the flowers that are still everywhere. Here is a tiny one I found in the grass near our cabin.



Easter Sunday was a normal day here. Everything was open as normal. We ended up having service at 6pm to give everyone time to come back into town (most people head out of the city to visit relatives in the country side). But unlike the packed Easter services in the US, ours was pretty light. There was some easter candy/chocolate being sold in the stores, but that pretty much seemed to be the extent of Easter here. Def no colored eggs or easter egg hunts to be found!