March 2010
5 posts
Lago Atitlan, Antigua, Semuc Champey, and Lanquin
An action packed couple of weeks have occured since my last post. We last spoke when I was hanging out in Antigua before heading off to Lake Atitlan again to meet a group of friends. Covered in bug bites and happy to get back on the road I left the comforts of Antigua. Lake Atitlan was even more beautiful than I had remembered from my first trip there and I was excited to have the opportunity to...
“Every morning I awaken torn between the desire to save the world, and the...”
Monterrico, Guatemala
On the Pacific Coast of Guatemala, close to El Salvador border lies a fishing village by the name of Monterrico. Here you can soak up the sun aside turtle hatcheries and sip tropical beverages and watch the sun go down after a long day of frolicking in the ocean.
Well that’s what the guide book said. Yes its on the Pacific Coast and yes its close to the border. A fishing village would...
Additional Updates
I did not bring a brush to Guatemala and have only been able to run the teeth of a comb through these dirty locks on 4 occasions
I would send a picture of this but I also didnt bring my camera cord. Large facebook upload to happen upon my return.
My return: I have a flight departing Guatemala City on Tuesday March 9th. I will not be on that plane. Instead I will spend another month here in...
MAN OH MAN! Where to begin. Since departing from Xela I have been having a love/hate relationship with Guatemala.
First stop: Santa Anita, a small coffee cooperative (not so cooperative since they all more or less hate each other) in the Western Highlands of Guatemala. There I participated in the daily routine of:
7 AM: Breakfast of boiled bananas which if you havent had the chance to enjoy I...
February 2010
4 posts
Moving On
Tomorrow I will say goodbye to my home for the last month, Xela. Goodbye to the women in my hostel who may or may not hate my guts, and goodbye to a city that I have exhausted in every possible way. (In a good way!)
Tomorrow I will be traveling West to a small coffee and banana farm called Santa Anita La Union (www.santaanitafinca.com) There I will be doing volunteer work and I have plans to stay...
San Marcos de Laguna
Moving day was last Friday. The next morning at 7:30AM a group of us met in the center of town to catch a mini bus to the bus depot, Minerva. There we would find a fleet of school buses, hoping one of them was heading toward our destination. A 45 minute trip dropped us off at Los Encuentros. Here we would board another bus to Panajachel, the main town on Guatemala’s Lake Atitlan. Upon...
Casa de Elena - Casa Hostel
Wow! I have really been lacking on updating for all of you and I apologize. I have lots to talk about like: my weekend trip to Lake Atitlan, life as a student, the food, and moving out of my host family and into a hostel.
Lets start with the move.
I very much enjoyed living with a host family and the guaranteed (sometimes) 3 meals a day. My host mother was very sweet. A great apartment with a...
El Fin de Semana
The end of the week, into the weekend was action packed! The school arranges a full schedule of trips, allowing the students to get out and see more of Guatemala. Thursday´s trip sounded fun but I unfortunately decided to take a few extra hours of sleep after a night of heavy consumption. An unproductive morning led me to my daily Spanish lesson at 2PM. My teacher, Rosario is great she was a...
January 2010
6 posts
Reaping the Benefits of the Guatemalan Landscape
A school organized function brought us, via public transportation, to Las Fuentes Georginas (see picture below). About an hour long trip from Xela, we took an American school bus to a town called Zunil where we deboarded and piled into the back of a pickup truck. Grabbing on for dear life to what I assumed was the roll bar, we climbed through the beautiful landscape of the Guatemalan countryside...
Portrait of an Ex-pat.
“You look like you speak English!” said a terrifyingly tall and goofy old man wearing women´s sunglasses. “I do sir” and yes I´d love to continue this heavily one-sided conversation about your life experiences for the rest of our journey into Xela. and how convenient that you are sitting next to the bathroom, away from any and all air flow.
The man in the situation is...
Breakfast for Dinner
I wandered the city on Sunday waiting for my school to open at 2 PM. After paying the 80 quetzales (about $10.50) for my two night stay at Dos Balcones Hotel I dodged a lunch request from Dean and headed over to the school. I had waited for this time to give me more clarity on how life in Xela may look like for the next few weeks.
Lucky for me a group of 20 high school students from the Bronx...
La Caminata
The hike was to a point over looking a lake. It was a 90 degree up hill climb to the point and quite dusty but it was beautiful. The “1,000 steps” that were referenced were actually only 570 but were from the lookout point to the lake and did not include the two plus hours it took to walk to these alleged steps. It was great to be in “la naturaleza” and we passed by many...
¡Bienvenidas a Guatemala!
¨¡Bienvenidas!¨said Victor as I took his outstretched hand. It was my first personal contact since leaving Los Angeles and I was happy to see him. He instructed me to wait on the curb while he went and got the car. A gracious man, with no legs, in a wheelchair, selling pens, offered to keep an eye on me while Victor was off getting, what I assumed would be, some sort of official hotel vehicle....
December 2009
2 posts
“Everyone is the age of their heart.”
– A Guatemalan Proverb
The adventure begins with 60,000 Continental frequent flyer miles in exchange for a round trip flight to Guatemala City.
I will be departing on January 21 from LAX and returning March 9th. For 6+ weeks I will be taking classes at a language school (http://www.hermandad.com/) in Quetzaltenango. There I will live with a host family, take classes in the morning and spend my...
August 2009
1 post
