Actually I never leave Casa Argentina, where Quetzaltrekkers is based, unless I am going on a hike or shopping for hiking items.  To back up, I have not been writing because three weeks ago I decided to volunteer with Quetaltrekkers, a trekking organization that donates all of its profits to a school for street kids, a dormitory for street kids and a medical clinic.   The last three weekends I have been learning Volcan Tajamulco, the highest point in Central America.  I will be leading this hike again this weekend and soon will be leading a hike to the base of Santaigito, an active volcano near Xela.  Yesterday I went on the Santaigito hike with other guides to learn the way and the views were amazing.  We started by hiking through grasslands that could have been in Africa with the dry grass and acacia trees in the distance.  The whole time we had amazing views of the volcano and it was erupting with clouds of ash every twenty minutes or so.  After an hour or so we entered the jungle part, which was equally amazing with huge plants and coffee and pacaya plantations.   I was most amused to see so many plants I recognized from garden centers back home growing in the wild here.  Obviously they are native to somewhere, but it looked funny to see ground cover we intentionally plant just doing its natural ground cover thing here.  After another hour and a hike up a waterfall, we got to start using our machetes to cut through a reed and bamboo forest to find the campsite left from last year.  No one had been back here in half a year for fear of flooding caused by the volcano.   From the campsite we had an amazing view of the volcano and could hear it erupting all night.  It was not until around two  am that we could start to see the lava flows with the eruption, but when we did they were amazing.  One started as a tiny red dot at the top of the crater and then burst into all these red pieces that went racing down the side in less than thirty seconds.  There were a couple more, but the clouds kept coming in and out, obstructing our view.