Mexico DF

Mexico City Zocolo
A one day whirlwind tour of Mexico City which is the last stop on my Central American tour. My connection back to Vancouver didn't work perfectly so I ended up having 20 hours to kill. I didn't have much idea of Mexico City when I got there, but was able to book a hostel from the airport. I left my big bag in a locker and headed through the subway system to my hostel located one block from the historic Zocolo. It turned out to be a great location as I was able to walk around to all the sights. A Mexican woman staying in the hostel pointed out to me all the places worth seeing in the downtown, so I headed out for the afternoon. The streets were packed with people and the street vendors were out in force.

Costa Rica

Hola amigos. Only one more day in Central America left so I better make the most of it. I will spend my last day in the capital of Costa Rica, San Jose and then leave very early Monday morning for Mexico City. It has been a nice week so far in Costa Rica. I spent most of the time visiting the Pacific Coast since I only had a few days. Costa Rica is definately more touristy than the rest of Central America and hence more expensive, but on the plus side there is a lot less garbage by the side of the road and the buses are nicer but still pretty cheap and easy to get around. One thing I noticed while in Nicaragua (and Honduras and Guatemala) is that almost everyone throws their garbage out the bus window. So the sides of the roads, ditches and so on are filled with junk. Of course they keep the touristy areas cleaner, but it is such a shame. As soon as I arrived in Costa Rica I noticed there was hardly any garbage and that everything seemed greener. Perhaps they fertilzed the side of the roads near the border because soon enough the bus was travelling through dry ranch country.

The city of San Jose is nice and cool compared to the steamy Pacific coast and it is a nice change. The beaches were really nice though and it was great to spend my last few days relaxing on the sand.

Nicaragua

I'm losing track of time, but I think it's been a week in Nicaragua and I have seen a lot so far. After leaving San Pedro Sula I spent one day in the capital of Honduras Tegucigalpa. It seemed a lot safer than Guatemala City, but since I really only saw the central section I can't be sure. The hostel I stayed in was run by a friendly American guy who was quite helpful. There was a water shortage here too, so the shower I had was more of getting slightly damp experience.

I stopped in Esteli in northern Nicaragua for one night. I had a hard time finding a hotel there for some reason, and when I did find one it was a lot more expensive than Guatemala or Honduras. On to Managua where I stayed with my cousin Michael and his family. They had a beautiful big house and it was nice to relax in a hammock by the pool for a few days and visit with the kids whom I haven't seen in over five years. While there I went on a school field trip with Nicolas sixth grade class to the Masaya volcano. They needed another adult on the trip, so I volunteered to go along. I thought I was finished with volcanoes, but this one was a lot easier to get up, since the bus drove right to the crater edge. The crater was a lot larger than I expected. Being with a group of 12 year olds was quite tiring as they seemed to be pumped up full of sugar the whole time, but I escaped unscathed.

I also visited the city of Leon and stayed with a local family. It was an interesting experience. It seems like everyone in that neighborhood had a rooster, and they were all out in full force before dawn, so no sleeping in there! Had a side trip to the Pacific coast and the beach there was a lot nicer than the one I went to in Guatemala. Now I'm in Granada near Lake Nicaragua and will visit Laguna Apoyo, Isla Ometepe, and San Juan del Sur before moving on to Costa Rica.
Adios

Adios Guatemala

Now I've finally made it out of Guatemala after 2 and a half months. My day trip to Semuc Champey was a really good time. It was probably the scenic highlight of the whole country. It was a bit hard to get to as we had to drive over some pretty rough roads, but it was a spectacular place. There were 10 of us on the tour including the driver and guide. When we got to the first stop on the trip, the guide said we had a choice of seeing the standard cave by foot, or going to another cave where we would have to swim through the cave, and also we could go floating down the river on an inner tube after. The choice was unanimous for the partly underwater cave, but we really had no idea what we were in for. We were told to leave everything behind but sandals and a bathing suit. Our lights were a candle for everyone and we were on our way. The water was quite cold but soon we got used to it. As we got into the cave the water got deeper and deeper until we had to swim. The trick is to hold the candle above the water if you still want to see. We were told bats lived in the cave but they didn't bother us. There were some ladders to climb and descend and also some tight openings to squeeze through, but everyone lived so we all had a great time.

After we got out of the cave, we relaxed in our inner tubes and floated down the river. The water was cool, but refreshing. In the afternoon we saw what we came to see. Semuc Champey is a beautiful spot where the majority of this river flows underground through a tunnel in the limestone. On the top of the bridge some of the water flows into these pools that form a series of steps down to the bottom. You can't go through the tunnel, but you can swim through the pools above. You have to see it to believe it, but I don't think the pictures do it justice.

After that I returned to Coban, then headed north to El Peten province to get to the ruins of Tikal. Tikal was once the largest Mayan city, but was abandoned around 800AD, but nobody knows exactly why. The city was rediscovered in the 1800's and gradually they are uncovering the pyrimads and buildings that were buried under the jungle for over 1000 years. It was quite a site to see, and I spend most of a whole day there with a guide. I stayed close by in the island city of Flores, and ended up staying there longer than I thought because I got really sick. I had to go to the hospital, and it was quite an ordeal, but I'm alive so I don't really want to tell that story.

Then when I felt a bit better I headed southeast to the Rio Dulce, and then by boat to Livingston and Puerto Barrios. The whole area around there was very moist, humid, and hot, in fact it rained most of the time. Some of the sites along the river were pretty cool and there were tons of birds. I sped through Peurto Barrios and then made a run for the Honduran border. Now I've finally made it out of Guatemala and on my way south. Right now I'm in San Pedro Sula.

Coban Alta Verapaz

Coban is a small city in the centre of the country. It´s not as high as Xela, but it feels colder because of the moist climate. It is about 1500m above sea level and frequently misty and damp although today is nice. Before I came here I spent a couple days in Antigua. It was similar to Xela in that it had a lot of colonial building, cobblestone streets, but it was definately more tourist oriented. The setting was spectacular being surrounded by 3 volcanoes, unfortunately there were no live demonstrations of lava to see! One of the days I did an afternoon trip to the Pacaya volcano. The bus turned out to be an old chicken bus that seemed to be a lot less powerful than the normal ones I've been on. Maybe it was all the gringos. Luckilly it was only about an hour and a half to the 1800m elevation on the volcano, so I only had to suffer for a while. The seats on these buses are always too close together to those with long legs. From the point where we got off the bus, it was about 2 hours to the summit. It was pretty steep most of the way, and we stopped every 15 minutes or so. The path started out paved, then turned to dirt with steps, and then the vegetation disappeared. The winds picked up near the top, and the final few hundred metres of the cone were really steep, and loose. At the top we reached the edge of the crater, but we couldn´t peer into the crater because of the thick smoke. Sometimes the wind would blow the sulfur smoke back at us, but mostly the smoke was headed in the opposite direction. It was hard to stand because of the extremely strong winds. There wasn´t actually a lot to see in the crater, but at least I can say I´ve been on an active volcano. The way down was hard on my knees because we didn´t stop too long for breaks as it was getting dark. Made it back in one piece though.

More photos here.

Habitat House

The last day on the job for all of us as the house is more or less complete. Here are the four paid workers posing in front of the house. The three on the right are brothers, the youngest on the right is only 16 and he works full time. It does not seem like he wants to go back to school ever. The last day was pretty fun although it was still a lot of work trying to get everything finished on time. The whole house took only four weeks to finish, but the owners will have to do the finishing touches like painting, wiring, and getting the water hooked up.

More photos of the house here: Habitat for Humanity house in Olintepeque

Monday I leave Xela for other parts of Guatemala. I will try to see Antigua, Coban, Semuc Champey, Tikal, and then head southeast to the Atlantic coast and then to Honduras after that.

Habitat

This week I started working with Habitat for Humanity. On Tuesday I was finally able to get more information about what I would be doing, as the woman that answered my emails before wasn't very helpful. The day started with a motorbike ride to the town of Olintepeque which is about 10km from the centre of Xela. The driver dropped my off at the house that was under construction. They put me to work right away. When I arrived the house had most of the walls up and they were then making the sloped section of the wall that meets the roof. The house is entirely made of concrete blocks and has a metal roof. We finished the roof on Thursday and it is a simple metal structure made of typical corrugated sheets. I would imagine that the house will get quite cold at night as usually there is no heat in Guatemalan houses. The house itself is quite simple 2 bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen and living room but even after working on it for 3 days I am really getting to like it, and am looking forward to seeing it finish. There are 4 paid workers and the owner of the house was also working. I am the only volunteer at this time, although there was apparently a group from North Carolina that was working on it a couple weeks ago. Mostly I have been working as an unskilled labourer passing up concrete blocks, sheets of metal, concrete up to the workers on the roof who actually know what they are doing. It helps that I am tall and can reach quite high. It has been a bit of a problem knowing the names for various tools and so on in Spanish but usually it works out. Probably the hardest job was cutting the concrete blocks so that they would meet up flush with the sloped roof line. The only tool for the job was machetes. So it took quite a while to hack away at the concrete block using a dull blade. Often the block would crumble or break the wrong way so I would have to start again. The house is full of and surrounded by dust and dirt so I think that contributed to the cold that I have now, but I have a couple days off to recover. I will try to take a picture of it next week. The owner of the house and his wife are very nice, they made lunch for me the other day and I can see that they are getting quite excited to see that the house is almost finished.

I started taking salsa dance classes this week. So far I've had a couple of sessions and another one today. It has been pretty fun so far but still a bit of a challenge for me.

Back in Xela

Hey it´s been a while since I wrote anything here. The rest of my time at the lake was really nice. There are quite a few towns along the shore of the lake and they all have their own unique character. After San Pedro I went to San Marcos which is a lot smaller and has more of a spiritual vibe. A lot of people go there for the meditation centres, yoga, and all that stuff. It was a bit more slow paced so it was nice to sit in the hammock, read, and do some swimming. The lake was a perfect temperature for swimming and it was very clear off the rocks in San Marcos. I was there with David and Martha as we had to say goodbye to Harold. We then left David behind and headed to even smaller Santa Cruz. We stayed at a really cool place called La Iguana Perdida. Aside from no hot water it was a really relaxing place to spend a couple days. We even got a soccer game going with some of the people at the hostel and the locals who just seemed to appear from the hills. They were speaking the local Mayan language so of course I couldn´t figure out what they were saying. Around Santa Cruz we went on a nice hike for a couple hours to see the beautiful views of the lake, and also could see a lot of evidence of damage from Hurricane Stan. Next Martha and I headed to Panajachel the most touristy town on the lake. At least there were some good restaurants there although the street vendors would always try to sell us stuff when we were eating which got annoying sometimes.

After saying goodbye to Martha I headed back to Xela and then southwest to the Pacific Coast town of Champerico with a friend from Xela. It was about a 3 hour bus ride from Xela and gradually got warmer and warmer as the bus descended to sea level. Again there was more evidence of Stan´s damage with a few road washouts that still haven´t been fixed. I suspect it could take years to fix some of the roads and bridges. The beach town was a bit dusty and grungy and I didn´t see many foreign tourists, but the water was nice and it was good to have some hot weather for a change. Had some good seafood and did a bit of swimming in the big surf.

Back in Xela, the living is easy and I´m taking it easy this week. I am looking forward to starting a volunteer position with Habitat for Humanity on Tuesday morning. Also I´m going to be taking some dance classes next week. I will be learning salsa and merengue.
Adios!

Lago Atitlan

I´m here at Lago Atitlan for a few days, in San Pedro la Laguna. It is very beautiful here and since it is lower down, the weather is nice and warm but not too hot. Last two nights I met up with some friends from the Spanish School in Xela and we had a really fun time horseback riding yesterday. We rented horses for four hours and rode uphill from the lake to a coffee finca. The views were spectucular and it was interesting hearing about how coffee is made and the different types of coffee trees. Our guide Pedro explained that in some years the pickers and the owners of the land don´t make a lot of money, but this coming year is expected to be good. A lot of owners are abandoning their farms because it is more lucrative to have a business dealing with tourists than growing coffee. The people who make money in coffee are the packers, exporters, and of course the big coffee chains. The horses were pretty lively and we were trotting and sometimes galloping at full speed up the hill. We were laughing our asses off all the way, but after about 4 hours I was pretty happy to get off that horse.

One strange thing happened last week at the school. One of the teachers explained to me that there was this woman that wanted to meet me because she had heard thirdhand that I was from the same town. I thought that she was from Coquitlam or Vancouver, but it turns out she was from Cranbrook. She had gone to Juan Sisay school a few weeks earlier and it turns out that I worked with her dad at Tembec in Cranbrook. Her name is Laura Mercer. I guess it is a pretty small world after all!

Well I´m finished at Juan Sisay for now, but I plan to head back to Xela in 5 days, and then visit the Pacific Coast next week. After that I´ll find a volunteer position somewhere around Xela.

I guess there´s an election going on in Canada now. I was able to vote here from Guatemala without too much trouble. So, if I can vote from here I expect everyone reading this to be able to vote. No excuses!

I could say more, but i have to catch a ferry to the other side of the lake!
Hasta luego!
Matthew