Fútbol is like a drug in this country, as it is in most of the world besides North America. I am talking here of what us North Americans know as soccer and not of the abomination that is known as “American football”. When my alarm rang at 6:30am last Sunday morning, I struggled at first to remember why I was getting up so early, especially on a Sunday. Then I remembered: The Game. Quetzaltenango’s city team, Xelaju M.C., was playing against Municipal, from the capital city. The two teams were battling to see who would finish first at the end of [View Full Entry]

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Before I go on about Chichicastenango, I realized I forgot to explain why the local buses are called Chicken Buses. Basically anyone is allowed to bring aboard pretty much any kind of cargo which sometimes includes live chickens. You pretty much never know what to expect when you get on. I also forgot to show you a picture, this one isn´t that great, I have to take a better one, but you get the idea... Most of them are more colorful and have a woman´s name painted across the side, usually a daughter´s or wife´s. The same is for most of [View Full Entry]

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So Thursday morning I changed my mind about going to Chichicastenango for the market and decided to take the bus to Quetzaltenango to do some exploring. It is the biggest city in the western part of Guatemala, very close to the Mexico border. It is also referred to as Xela, that is what the indigenious people call it. I was quite unsure of my decision to go here cause I really had no idea what I was going to do there, but as usual I ended up having a great time. The city centre is absolutely amazing, all of the buildings [View Full Entry]

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It has been steadily cloudy for almost a week now… Here in the Highlands that means that it’s been cold. Although people keep telling me that it’s the beginning of summer here, they are also telling me that the real cold is about to start. Being from Canada, that seems more than a little contradictory to me until they explain that the distinction between ‘summer’ and ‘winter’ is made by one type of weather: rain. So, although some months of ‘summer’ are much, much colder that ‘winter’, it is generally sunny and dry during th [View Full Entry]

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Hola! Right now I am at what is said to be the most beautiful lake in the world, lago de atitlan. It is a huge body of water surrounded by volcanoes and many small villages that you can take boats to and visit or stay for the night. When I first arrived here I went to the village Santa Cruz La Laguna. It is a very tiny village, and most of the people don´t actually speak spanish, they speak in their mayan village language, I forget the name of it. Anyways, while there I stayed at this place on the water [View Full Entry]

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OK! First off I want to apologize for taking so long to write a new update. Problems with the blog site prevented me from doing a big update days ago. I left Ryan on the 21st in San Pedro at Lago de Atitlan first thing in the morning. It wasn't the best goodbye because he had picked up some kind of stomache bug the night before so as I was leaving he was quite sick. Made sure everything was OK then headed off to the dock around 8am. Landed in Panajachel and shopped around for a ride to Guatemala city. Found [View Full Entry]

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OK, first of all I want to let eveyone know that I´ve added a few pictures to the blog entry about our jungle trip. If you were curious about some of the stuff I talked about in there visit it now for additional pictures! I left Antigua on the 16th. Ryan, I, and a girl named Sarah travelled to Lago de Atitlan which is a huge lake a couple hours northwest of Antigua. There are several towns on the lake, and we´re staying in San Pedro. It´s very cool being on a lake, the lake is huge, windy and we had [View Full Entry]

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And so began my last week of classes, remembering the country’s 36 years of Civil war and reflecting on its lasting and still very present impacts and repercussions…. On Tuesday, it was on to another adventure with an interesting fieldtrip to Zunil, which is about 20 minutes from here on bus and is located in a very scenic little valley. First, we visited yet another church dating from colonial times, whose alter is still the original, built about 450 years ago. It was the village’s patron saint’s ‘fiesta’ (Santa Catarina) and so lively music was playi [View Full Entry]

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So I arrived in Lanquin after two long bus rides (one bumpy as hell) and made it to this place called El Retiro. It´s a lodge with bungalows and dormitories for travellers just outside of Lanquin on the side of a crystal clear river. The reason I came here was to visit Semuc Champey which is a series of natural pools and waterfalls that you can swim in. There are also tons of hiking trails around the area with lots of different flowers and wildlife I have never seen before (there was this one spot that had so many bright orange [View Full Entry]

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Yesterday Ryan and I arrived in Antigua, Jord headed east to Belize to sit on the beach. I updated my blog yesterday about the jungle trip, but the webserver had problems publishing it so hence its not there until now (hopefully). This computer has problems with the USB so I can´t get any more photos up of Antigua or the jungle trip, but as soon as I can I´ll let everyone know. We left Flores at 10:30 Sunday night, which was rough because it was only hours after getting back from the jungle. I threw all my muddy gear in the [View Full Entry]

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