Blogs from Santiaguito Volcano, Western Highlands, Guatemala, Central America Caribbean

Ok, staying in big hotel on a world class water park. At least it´s supposed to be. We are just staying the night and heading out tomorrow morning for Oaxaca, the first stop. Well, now that it´s over I guess I can talk about our first big excitement--at least we got it out of the way on the first day so we can do an after action review to prevent a repeat occurrence. Anyways, approaching Acajutla in El Salvador which is on the Pacific Coast and about 15-20 minutes from the border with Guatemala there is a turn-off to the highway that goes to the border. It's a pretty well-marked turn with a big sign that says to the border crossing. Lucky for me I´m not traveling wtih small children making a nuisance in the back ... read more

Our last day in Guatemala was one filled with fun and laughter! Before lunch a small crew stayed back at Mami's house (Estuardo's mother) to complete assembly and painting of a couple teacher desks - which were eventually taken out to a jungle school. The majority of the group went back to The School of the Saints to paint. The interior ceilings were painted (a messy task) and Amy lead a group to paint a welcoming mural on an outside wall. After lunch, the painting at the school needed to be finished. This task went underway while a skeletal crew delivered the teacher's desks to the jungle school. Upon arrival back to The School of the Saints, we loaded all the paint supplies in the back of the truck and then headed back to our hotel. ... read more

(Steve's entry) When our friends invited us to visit “Guatemala’s Disneyland” we thought it was a euphemism but we were surprised and delighted to find that they weren’t kidding. IRTRA is a pair of theme parks not far from the northern Pacific coast of Guatemala. It is a fairly new operation that was the brainchild of a man who is currently running for vice-president of the country. His idea was to collect 1% of the salary of employees of all private companies. He wanted to invest in a series of destination facilities that would then be affordable to the average Guatemalan. This decidedly socialist idea works beautifully. Folks from all levels of the economic spectrum are able to treat their families to a world-class good time. One highlight of this visit was enjoying how well the ... read more

Monday and Tuesday the group has primarily been working at Mami’s house. The main project at the moment is to construct and paint school desks for a remote “jungle school” that we have been helping out over the years. They were recently able to build another classroom, and so we’re providing them with some of the supplies they’ll need for the additional children. We’ve gotten a lot accomplished already, but we also have some “fallen soldiers.” Of course, we dearly miss our friend Jen. (Know that you have been in our thoughts and prayers every day my dear!) Some of the others who have come down with a case of “The Guatemalas” are Shoppa, Matt, and Christine. But the good news is that Dr. Diane has them quickly on the mend! There is a lot of ... read more

Santiaguito, west of Xela, is one of the top ten most active volcanoes in the world. Penny and I both had interesting trips their last month. Here are some photos and a short commentary... Santiaguito, my second trip in my time here in Guatemala, is one of Guatemalas more active volcanoes. It erupts approximately every half an hour, spewing out ash and hot rocks. It was our goal to go camp at the lookout point to see the red hot rocks and lava rolling down the mountain at night. However, we were destined not to make it as a good few hours into the trip we reached a 20m deep gorge which had wiped out the track. We were just debating which would be the best way to bush-bash when a gush of water several metres ... read more