Guat Part 2

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Spent another two weeks at Finca La Florida near Columba, Guatemala. It is a cooperative farming community that produces organic coffee. We helped them re-build their fish ponds which were collapsed and leaky. So we dug them deeper and lined them with plastic to seal in the water. We also helped re-dig a trench to divert water away from the main building and the swimming pool (which was full of mud from the torrential downpours). We stayed in the main building which has had bunk beds fitted for visitors. We ate with various local families on a rotating basis (a few days at each family) so everyone got an equal chance to have the income from the program and better quality food for their kids. We went on tours of the farm to learn about the coffee and cacao harvests, the roasting process, honey cultivation, etc. Learned about the school, education in the area, attended the local church, and I was even was invited to a wedding! The wedding was quite the experience... I was asked to join the parade procession as it collected people from our community and went to the next. I was given a good seat to view the ceremony in a small one-room home lined with benches and chairs with people crammed in every which way with the yard full of people as well. The ceremony was sweet with amazing music, but the room was unbelievably hot with all those bodies, so I was relieved when we moved outside and they offered lunch and a cold beverage.
Checking online just now I came across a youtube video that explains the situation and hardship the people there experienced and how the community was developed.

After two weeks at La Florida, we went to Lago Atitlan for a couple days. We stayed at La Iguana Perdida (The Lost Iguana) in Santa Cruz. Super chill place run mostly by travellers with an awesome view of the volcanoes across the lake. Unfortunately this is when Tropical Storm Agatha hit in 2010 so in order to be able to get away from the lake and back to Guat city for our flight home, we had to boat back across, and get a ride out of Panajachel before it flooded (it is at the merging of two rivers so they say the city floods alot and remains unpassable for a few days). The road back to the main highway had mudslides everywhere, and half of the highway itself was closed due to mud and debris falling and blocking the side of the road next to the cliff, and several times we had to wait for blockages across the whole road to be cleared. Much of Guatemala city was flooded when we got there. We stayed in a guest house down town for almost two weeks waiting for the airport to open again. Throughout Guatemala, over 150 people died in the landslides/flooding, many more missing, and thousands were displaced. A massive sink hole 5 blocks away swallowed an entire building one morning. The Pacaya volcano in Guatemala city erupted just before the storm hit, so the city was covered in ash, and the ash kept falling. This ash acted as ashvault on the airport runways, so they couldn't open. After almost two weeks the airline let us switch to the San Salvador Airport, so we hired a car and went. Crossing the border at night was uneventful, but the armed men who stopped the car (soldiers, thankfully - checking for passports and probably drugs/smuggling) 20 min past the border were unnerving. 48 hours in San Salvador waiting for a flight, then a 48 hour layover in mexico city, then home.

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