Guatemala, a rocky but good experience


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Published: May 26th 2008
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The ride everymorining.
Arrival to Guatemala was fairly smooth; I was to meet up with a woman named Carla Rumsey who wanted to come help as her daughter was working the volunteer project, which had brought me to Guatemala. This went well, but we ended up getting over charged by our supposed cheap transport from the airport. This was frustrating, but nothing to dwell on. Spent a night in Antigua and then off to the project.

The project itself was with the Engineers Without Borders group from UW, which I had at one point been el presidente, yeehaa. We would be building a school in a place called Chuckomuk, which is a whole new community being constructed for the people that lost there homes in the mud slides that hit Panabaj during the hurricanes of El Nino in 2005. When we arrived we got good and dirty quick, which seemed to be a trend that followed the rest of the time. This would be how I spent the majority of my first two weeks in Guatemala, working construction all day, and hanging out with the kids on the project at night. The setup was with two houses in nearby Santiago Atitilan, one for
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The project from a birds eye view.
the boys and one for the girls, just like camp or something.

Other than nights listening to guitar, drinking on the docks, and general and being tired the only really exciting thing I did with the group in our free time was a trip to Antigua for New Years Eve. This was amplified by the fact that the group had conceived the idea of an "Amazing Race" to Antigua to make things a little more interesting. This consisted of teams, tasks of random things to do along the way, and general disorganization. My group was the first in Antigua, most likely the second fastest, and we had one kick ass poem to go along with some pictures of tasks conquered. In the end nothing organized came of the race, we all made it, exchanged stories, and my bottle of champagne for the prize was drank later after I shouted the poem to everyone. The whole night was interesting as we found a pretty nice place to eat with some killer music, went to the "private" party that our hostel was had planned, went to the main square to see the band, fireworks and general randomness of the party that
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View of project with the volcano.
Pepsi paid for, and as I returned to the hostel last with my dancing partner. I found out that we had one group member kicked out of the party for excessive firework use, and the usual punches thrown at some point. This is the gist of it anyways, big party, no big stories. The ride back to Santiago the next day took us five buses, one going in the wrong direction, a long wait for the boat across Lago Atitilan, and was basically raton sexo. Otherwise I enjoyed my days hanging out with the group, worked hard, was sick, and headed out on the 11th as the rest of the group went back to the states.

I decided the next stop after the project would be Queltaltenango or as the locals call it “Xela”. This was another crazy chicken bus experience, which resulted in me losing my nice sunglasses, but life is more than nice sunglasses. I lucked out in Xela as the place I picked out was with a family who happened to be really nice, and happened to have a guiding agency. I managed to hike three volcanoes while in Xela, and was treated like family, which
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Josh slack lining it with the locals.
was truly a blessing. The first was Vulcon Tajumulco and was mainly interesting since it is the highest point in Central America. The trek was three days and two nights with just the guide, a French couple, and your random mountain going people. We had a chill camp that happened to be next to a group of Christians fasting for eight days on the mountain. This was especially powerful seeing how people with strong faith, can do brave things and show others open faith with real understanding. Unfortunately this is not the way things normally are, but back to the treks. Seeing the sunrise when you are above everything is also an amazing thing, when it’s with good people, brilliant. Afterwards we rushed off the mountain triumphantly and barely caught a bus to bring us back to the city, and the noise of life. The second expedition was Vulcan Santa Maria, a half-day trip, starting before dark to see the surroundings and the ever-active Vulcan Santagiuto erupt twice. Cruised off of the easy day hike and got talked into the all out experience. For the final experience, we (David, Alex, Yo) went to the active Vulcan Santiaguito, which as I
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Dick firing up the mixer aka "Delila".
was told is ¨the most active volcano in Central America¨ and the most brutal trek I did in Guatemala. We went with big packs through steep, overgrown, and super rocky areas that where a good test for all of us. Overall we prevailed by arriving in good time, to get our front row seat on the old crater looking straight at the active one. David had done this trek over 20 times and knew the volcano pretty well, so when the timing was right we ran on top of the active crater, took a couple pictures, and ran off as it was smoking a little too much for our comfort. I must say the feeling of watching an active volcano is a bit eerie, especially when the evening goes through phases of cloud cover that gives an feeling of camping in the sky, amazing views of the flat out to the sea; and then at night zang. Watching lava roll, crash, smoke, and glow on the crater at night is remarkable, with each eruption there was always a good spray, but a hole also had opened on the side that let escape huge amounts of lava rolling down the mountain
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The happy community checking out there school.
whish eventually smoked so much you couldn’t see anything when there was no wind. David had never seen so much lava in twenty plus visits. We woke up with a good inch of ash on the tents in the morning, which would fall like snow after an eruption, and enjoyed the morning volcano breakfast, followed by the kick ass hike out afterwards. So after some rather manly hiking we arrived exhausted and a full on photographic odyssey of moon like surroundings that pictures cannot do justice for. I also had a rather interesting experience when I decided to go see the local futbol (soccer) match. I went with an American girl and David my guide from the Santiaguito trek. What was cool is that David and his friends are basically the die hard crazy section, so we did lots of singing, yelling, arm/flag waving, fireworks shooting, drinking and overall had a great time. Xela won the match and afterwards I got talked into drinking Aguardiente (cheap nasty Guatemalan booze) with the guys as we bullshitted, sang drunkenly to random music and had a Mexican yelling contest. So otherwise I did a little bouldering/hiking, went to the most amazing natural hot
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The hot pools.
springs, checked out Eduardo’s tree project, ate lots of homemade tortillas, and hung out with the family as five of there six kids lived in the house, and two of them (including David) where my guides as well. So some good random Spanish practice in daily surroundings and I was happily on my way to Flores a week and a half later.

My whole reasoning for Flores is the impressive Mayan ruins in the area, most well known of course being Tikal. I found a trip that also was a trek through some unexcavated ruins in El Zoltz and headed out with the Norwegian couple that I met on my way to Flores. It was your basic car ride to the guides with horses, load up and walk. We did not ride the horses, but they did carry everything if you wanted, I refused wanting the extra conditioning and wore my daypack. The first day was a hike and evening bat encounter, which if bats do not bother you is pretty spectacular. The best pictures were of a steady flow of bats exiting out by the bottom of the rock face, but when the caves up high starting emptying
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The city main plaza.
it was literally thousands of bats pouring out. And so this led into our first night camping out, which went brilliantly for me as they had a huge mattress for my tent at the camp we stayed at. This was also when I figured out that at night the endless number of glowing eyes I would see in my headlamp was rather large spiders that covered the ground in every direction. Best quote too from my Norwiegen friend, “ you better not show my girlfriend that” I thought girls liked the thought of walking through spider infested jungle. The second day started out by walking through El Zoltz, which is not what you may picture as the ruins are truly still just covered in Jungle and only some of the flat area around has been cleared to help walking. But it was cool to get the views that the Mayans at El Zoltz would get on top of their pyramids and fairly interesting. Walked to a good lookout over the bat caves and then had my howler monkey experience, walking through a powerfully loud group and having sticks thrown in my general direction by the monkeys, got out quick, bad
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The church in the main plaza.
monkeys. The rest of the day was a decent little hike to the next camp, which was a little less posh, but we had lots of spider monkeys to watch. Slept with no padding, but in a nice flat spot, I had a real nights sleep camping out and got up for the longest hike followed by the super impressive ruins of Tikal. This is a site on the same level as any large ruin, and cannot be explained simply by words. It may be the most impressive ruins I have seen to this date, either way the pictures give an idea. After returning to Flores I had a chill day to organize for the last leg of Guatemala. This was lazy, but highlighted by a nice kayak around the Lake Peten Itza around Flores. And as far as Flores goes, cool touristy town for a day, but not too long.

The last stop in Guatemala was the most beautiful, Semuc Champey a natural wonder more or less, which consists of a naturally formed limestone bridge over a river and crystal clear pools covering the top of the bridge with a nice jungly touch. The beauty of a place
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Highest point in central america at sunrise.
like Semuc Champey is another thing for pictures to do little justice, but the best explanation of the beauty. Found myself getting yelled out to not climb this rock, don’t climb down the end, which is funny because I was climbing up and had already climbed down. The best though was a little waterfall that I noticed some people climbing up and decided I too needed to climb the waterfall and see the spectacular cave below. Overall I swam a lot, climbed enough, and had some 100% natural chocolate the local farmers wife would sell as they grew cocoa plants (enough said). The tranquility of the place I stayed was amazing, it was like I had the place to my self at first, with nothing but good people showing up every night. I booked on for the Grutas (Caves) de Champey for the following morning, which is not a part of the park, but worth doing. The trip consisted of walking, swimming, stumbling through the exstensive cave and the river running through it. You do this just carrying candles, and overall was more intensive than I realized. We did climb a little waterfall (cheated though with a rope); the brave
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A view of Santiaguito from the top of Volcun Santa Maria.
dove into a deep hole, looked at some pretty interesting surroundings that included a stalactite bongo at the end (sounded great). Floated the river, jumped off of the bridge, laid in a hammock, found good company, played the didje and finished my last day in Semuc Champey strong.

The next day I took a shuttle to Antigua and was not in my best form. Was good and sick when I reached Antigua, and as I could not get to my next destination that day, stayed the night. In my sickly daze left my didgeridoo on the shuttle, didn’t realize it until the next day while I waited for the bus to Xela. Went to Xela to pick up the plane ticket to for my current destination (Columbia), and enjoyed the hospitality one more night. Left late the next day, still feeling sickly, but starting to line out, and got to Antigua, got my stuff, and an early flight the next day. When it was all said and done, the didje and the sunglasses where nice and I was angry at first when I lost them, but the experience is eye opening as I realized a little more how material
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The trek in, looks like David is moon walking.
things don’t matter so much and that no matter what I have been blessed. I have decided to try and read the Bible before I get back. Hopefully more good to come from these experiences as with honest prayer and honest people.



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The crew in the old crater.
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View from camp.
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Eruption anyone?
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View while hiking the active crater.
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Alex on top of the active crater.
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Fun in tents during ash storms.
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Yep we slept under this.
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View of the tent in front of the active crater.
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One last view on the way out.


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