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  Lodging options:
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Living with a Mayan Family:
  • Cost: $115 week per person
  • Private room
  • 3 meals a day included (six days only)
  • 20 hours of classes (4 hours a day M-F)

 If you want to learn to speak Spanish, this is the best option. Classes at school with the student residing in the home of a Mayan family. The family provides the student three meals a day for 6 days. (Although it is not a hard and fast rule, Casa Rosario suggests that students who know no Spanish take a week of classes before they start living with a family.) The families are all chosen for their willingness to interact with the student and to provide a comfortable private room for the student. All rooms have electricity so a laptop computer can be used. Most Mayan families do not eat a lot of meat so it is very easy for them when requested to accommodate special diets such as vegetarian. Wonderful fresh fruits are available all year round. 

Living with a Mayan family is a wonderful experience. The rewards go beyond learning Spanish, and include learning a little about the Mayan culture and how they live. Undoubtedly the student will hear the family speak in the Tz'utuhil language, but they will also speak a lot of Spanish and help the student speak Spanish during ordinary daily interactions. The Spanish is used with the Mayan family will  reinforced what is being taught in Casa Rosario.  It quickens the learning process. One quickly overcomes the fear of speaking or making mistakes. The friendship between the family and the student usually long outlasts the time spent learning Spanish at Casa Rosario. 

Make sure you get a family you feel comfortable with. This will increase your learning potential as you will interact well together. Consider requesting a family with children. They can be very helpful in learning how to speak Spanish.

 
Living at Casa Rosario:
  • Cost: $80 a week per person
  • Shared Room
  • Kitchen access
  • 20 hours of classes (4 hours a day M-F)

 Classes, shared room (when there is space a private room or view room is also available), and kitchen access.  This is $15 a week more than the classes alone, a really good deal even by Guatemalan standards. Very few other Spanish language schools in Guatemala offer the option of living at the school.

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. Although the fourth level of Casa Rosario [pictured here and at the top] remains unfinished, a young couple convinced Samuel and Vicente to let them sleep here in the open among the Bouganvillea in their sleeping bags. The view of the lake from here is spectacular.
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Casa Rosario has two sites with rooms available to students. There are five rooms on the ground floor of Casa Rosario. Casa Rosario Dos, a five minute walk from Casa Rosario has as many more rooms and its own kitchen. The rooms are painted bright colors and each have two beds with comfortable mattresses. 
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  Living in a local hotel:
  • Cost: $60 a week per person for classes
  • 20 hours of classes (4 hours a day M-F)

Advantages / disadvantages:

  • Hotel cost ($5 to $15 day)
  • Private room / private bath
  • No meals

If for some reason you wish to stay in a local hotel, we recommend Hotel Tepepul Kaan. Why? It is just a short distance from both the tourist section and the center of town, but unlike most of the other hotels is in a quiet area away from the tourists. It is new and clean. Unlike any of the other hotels in San Pedro, 25% of what you pay goes to help the poorest children to complete their high school education. These children would drop out of school and work in the fields with their families if it were not for this support. Tepepul Kaan is no more expensive than most of the other hotels—50 quetzales per night per person (about $6.50 U.S.).
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