Mayan Ruins of Tikal

I´m starting to get accustomed to waking up early. I woke up at 2:30 am and joined the 3am sunrise tour to see Tikal. However, this is really a misnomer since it is always cloudy and we never saw the sunrise. But I enjoyed getting to the park early enough to hear the wildlife wake up today.

The Mayans settled into Tikal in 700 BC, but somehow the city died out around 900 AD. In 1881, archaelogists began the long haul to restore this city by removing the many vines, trees, and earth that had grown over the city. The grandness of the city impressed me, however, I still think Machu Picchu is cooler.

There are definitely more stairs here than any other ruins I remember; the Mayans sure do like their stairs. I climbed up a million stairs to get to the top of some of these temples. Although, in general, I'm surprised at the lack of liability with many of the touristy things I have done here that seem somewhat dangerous especially Volcano Pacaya and so I was glad to hear that the Park closed down some of the stairs to a couple of temples after a couple of tourists fell down them and died.

After visiting Tikal, I don't think I will make the trek to see El Mirador. A couple of Germans almost convinced me to join them tomorrow for a 5 day trek into the jungle to see a recently discovered Mayan city that is even older than Tikal. Archaelogists are there now uncovering the city from the vines and trees. Very few tourists have made the trek because of the arduous and grueling hike. I have seen enough ruins for this week and plus I'm not a fan of over sized ants and leeches and so I will move on to Belize. However, I am missing the El Retiro hotel's laid back days and party nights.

Lost in Paradise

On Friday, I took the 4am bus to Guate and made it in time with 5 minutes to spare to switch to another bus to Coban. I spent a total of 10 hrs getting there. I thought about taking another bus the 2 more hours to Lanquin but decided against it. I pretty much just chilled and woke up at 4am the next day and joined a few Israelis to take the 5am bus to El Retiro hotel in Lanquin.

The El Retiro hotel is known for it´s super chill and beautiful grounds right next to a river and it fills up by mid day and so it´s essential to get there early. I had the choice of staying in a hammock for $3, a dorm for $5 and my own room for $7 and so I splurged and took my own hut. In the evenings, there are family style dinners where everyone shows up to participate. It all reminded me of the movie The Beach. I met people who showed up for a week and decided to stay for over a year. People get lost in this beautiful paradise. I almost did as well after meeting so many cool people and loving the beauty of the land, but my better sense made sure I left after a couple of days.

Since I had arrived so early, I took the 9am tour to Semuc Champey and the Las Marias Caves. In the caves, we only wore our bathing suits and swam through the cave while holding a candle for light. We walked under waterfalls and climbed throughout the cave. We then took inner tubes and glided down the river.

After the caves, we visited Semuc Champey, the limestone paradise. We swam around and I fell one too many times on the slippery parts. I have many bruises to show for it. Our guide then took us down a rope ladder with a waterfall gushing over us and into a cave right under Semuc where the river gorges out. Semuc Champey is a Mayan word for Under the Rock. This is where the river flows.


The next day, I just chilled and then went at sunset to see the Grutin Caves. In the caves, we saw bats hanging and we waited until dark to watch them all fly out in search of food. Interestingly, my guide caught a great photo of me with a bat flying right in front. Bats have sonar radar so they know where objects are and can avoid them.


The spider in the photo is blind and uses its tentacles to feel out where to go. It´s paralyzed because it doesn´t know where it is. This is the same spider, albeit the completely harmless one, that is mentioned in the Harry Potter books.

Finally Leaving Xela

My second and third days of teaching classes went much better. We immediately started the class with games to keep their attention and the kids correctly answered which foods are good and which are bad. They greatly impressed me! Sadly, just as I am finally teaching classes, I must leave. I really wanted to teach the puberty class and maybe I will return here after China. I still have much work to do on my Spanish.

I did take my eighth and final Spanish exam. After learning the subjunctive, I have now forgotten the present tense. I have so many different tenses swimming around in my head that I end up using English more than I did before. It will be good to take a holiday from the classes to give myself a chance to let it all sink in.

Last night, the family cooked us a splendid meal of special tamales since 5 of us are leaving this week. Barbara cooked cheesecakes and I made chocolate chip cookies. I will dearly miss this family and all the teachers here. They have really been the best part of my entire stay in Guatemala. After dinner, the students and I then hit a bar to finish out the night. We had a fun night out and will head for pizza tonight as a last remembrance.

Tomorrow, I will take a 4 am bus to Guatemala City and then change buses to go to Coban. All in all, I should expect about a 10 hour bus ride tomorrow. Since I´m headed into Zone 1 of Guate, I expect to have my mugger alert on red. Even though the second bus station in Guate is only 2 blocks away, I plan to take a taxi. The bus station manager even warned me that it is dangerous to walk around in that area. I figure that if the locals think it is dangerous, then it really must be dangerous and I will be alone. Wish me luck!

Teaching My First Class

Today, I taught my first health education course with Julia on nutrition and hygiene to kindergartners in Spanish. I have much work to do to improve both my Spanish as well as the quality of the class. The kids got bored easily and I had a hard time keeping their attention. Julia and I will revamp the course for tomorrow.

We started by holding out cards with different foods and explaining why they were good, but I think I gave them too much information. We then passed out the cards and asked the kids to identify which were good and which were bad foods. After that, we read a story about a girl who is so dirty she becomes sick. We taught on the importance of hygiene and how best to stay healthy. Ingrid taped some of the class for us, but I´ve decided against posting the first version because I have much to improve. Sadly, I only have 3 days of teaching to do since I plan to finally leave Xela this week. I could easily just never leave this city, but alas, I need to see the rest of Guatemala before I leave. Either Friday or Saturday, I will then go solo around the country. My brother, Jeff, and his Guatemalan friends really want me to buy a machete for when I go solo, but I think I might hurt myself if I do. I wish I had brought pepper spray and I will have to pick up some when I pass through the States for a week at the end of July. My tentative schedule is to head to Antigua, to Coban to see Semuc Champey, Tikal, possibly pass through Belize, then to Livingston and Rio Dulce and to Copan Ruins if I have time and out of Guate and onto LA for a couple days and to SF for a couple of days before heading to China.

Thankfully, my care package from Don finally arrived. He sent chewable multi vitamins so that I won´t die of choking as well as much needed chocolate chip cookies and chocolate chips so that I can make my own cookies. I probably didn´t need more sweets, but I definitely have a sweet tooth. I went to the Mennonite run Bake shop for the last time today. I have gained 10 lbs here from eating all the crazy sweets and I look forward to having to scavenge for food on the road so that I can shed some of these pounds.

Lake Chikobal and July 4th

Last night, the other students and I barbecued for July 4th because we could not forget our National pride in Guatemala. Really, we just wanted some traditional food for the night and a reason to celebrate. We barbecued hotdogs, Alex baked apple pies and we made smores. Of course, no July 4th is complete without it´s Guatemalan influence and so we drank Horchata as well. In a rather funny moment, Carolyn and I took pictures eating the smores although she looks like a lizard.

The next day, we checked out another Volcano and Lake although I lost couple cats since I don´think they are morning people. However, to Carolyn´s defense, she actually was sick. I set a 5:30 am start time and Billy, Jess and Melanie still made it out with me. Lake Chikobal is located in the crater of a volcano. It´s obviously inactive and a great place to just chill. We met up with a medicine man who guided us up the volcano while explaining the plant life. The medicine man gave us all a kernel of corn and we each made a wish and threw it into the Lake. According to him, the Mayan history is that man originally came from corn, then from monkeys and then to humans. By throwing a kernel of corn into the Lake, we reestablished our roots.

At the lake, he performed a short Mayan song and dance and blessed our watches in the water. At one point, he hit us all with a bunch of leaves in order to increase our energy within our bodies since we had just hiked a ton. The leaves actually hurt me when he whipped them all across my body. Later, we asked him to take photos of us at the Lake and he spent several minutes getting just the right angle to include a pair of forgotten shoes in the picture. At the end of the hike, we maneuvered through the corn field just following our guide until we eventually made it out. Tonight, we are all just chilling at home. The hike wiped us out.

Saved from Another Mugging

I went to my last guarderia and once again fell in love with the kids there. The children crawled all over me and we played some sort of circle game. In a not so private moment, I caught one using the bathroom. He enjoyed showing everyone that he made it on the toilet. A 5 year old child broke my heart when I learned that he wants to study, but his mom will not let him probably because she can not afford to have him go to school. Very sad...


Since the children did not create stool samples for us that day, I had to return today to pick them up. I had planned to go alone, but decided to bring Marie, an American medical student with me and I am so happy that I did. We labeled the samples, put them in a bag and then headed back the 25 minute walk to the clinic. However, along the way, 2 rather large guys, who most likely were not from Guatemala, approached us. I saw them coming and so I backed off, but they caught Marie and stood directly in front of her. I stood aways back. They told us in perfect English not to run because they had a gun. They also said that they wanted all of our money. Marie lied and said that she only had 2 Quetzales on her even though she had a ton of money for her trip to the Lake today. I didn´t see an easy way around them and so I tried to reason with them. I told them that we don´t have any money because we are volunteers at the clinic down the road. We don´t get paid for our work. We are carrying stool samples to check for parasites so that we can give the kids at the school their medicine. Marie backed me and held up our bag of stool and she also conveniently translated everything into easier words by pointing to the bag and telling them that this is the poo from the kids. I told them that we don´t have any time because we needed to get the poo to clinic quickly. I said, "It´s all for the children." A car passed us on the dirt road and the two guys just looked at each other and decided to just let us go. Maybe they thought we were either crazy or they really did care about the kids too. In the end, the poo saved us. I doubt they had a gun, but they did look rather large and intimidating enough to scare me.

By the way, I found out that one of Helga´s friends was returned today. The parents paid the requested amount and freed the girl. At least one is safe.

Return to the Lake

I realize that if I want people to call me, all I have to do is not blog for awhile. I have just been lazy and so do not worry. If I don´t blog for 2 weeks straight, then there might be reason to call and send in the man hunt.

Last weekend, Sarah, Carolyn and I headed back to Lake Aititlan. We had some difficulty getting on the right bus and I had to initiate a fight between drivers to ensure that Sarah´s backpack made it onto the right bus. We got on and off 3 buses before we were sure we were on the right one, however, one of the bus drivers refused to let us have her backpack to move to the other bus. The driver of the new bus finally convinced him, through some slang I couldn´t follow, to return the backpack. After that, we changed 2 minibuses and even took a tuk tuk before finally arriving in San Pedro, oddly a whole 30 min before the direct bus normally makes it there.

We encountered the people of San Pedro celebrating San Pedro day when we arrived. I´m still not sure what San Pedro day is about, but most likely to celebrate a Saint. Men dressed in costumes danced and recreated the Spanish war.

We dined on some of the best Italian food I have found in Guatemala and we wanted to try the street food, but the line was way too long. Unfortunately, I became sick with another bacterial bug and really could not truly enjoy my evening.

The next day, we took the boat across to San Marcos and enjoyed a lazy Sunday with a cerveza, the sun and a grassy lawn on which to relax. Just what I needed after a hectic week. I am in serious need of a pedicure as well as bug spray since I am being eaten alive by bugs that bite. I have a horrible allergic reaction to bug bites and am relying on anti-histamines to keep down the swelling. I know, my feet look so lovely with the bites and old nail polish.

Buena Vista Social Club

I have been delinquent on my blogging and have much to catch up on. In school, I passed another 3 exams and am now learning the subjunctive mode. I´m not sure why Spanish does not just have a past, present and future tense. I have learned 12 tenses plus the gerund and past participle with 2 more tenses to go. I´m still not ready for prime time, but I am improving my Spanish and can get by on my own around town.

The other day at the clinic, I helped Brad, a second year American medical student, recruit patients for a research study of his. He is evaluating what are the symptoms for which women aged 18 to 35 present and for which symptoms do they actually come to the clinic. He is also looking at the prevalence of various ailments. After a morning of trying to recruit women without success, I helped him out. He is a tall white guy, which can be intimidating for the short Mayan women. After he gave his spiel, I said in Spanish that the survey is very easy and that it would only take 5 minutes; 5 women lined up after that. During one of the interviews, a woman explained to us how her breasts hurt from a rash. However, I didn´t expect her to then take out her breast and show it to me and Brad. I think she thought Brad was a doctor and could help her. The other interviews went smoothly without any undressing.

At another guarderia, the kids just melted my heart. They each came up to us one at a time to say Buenos Dias while bowing their heads. Then they would move to the next person and repeat their greeting. Completely adorable! I noticed that a couple of the kids were too poor to even own shoes, but their demeanor seemed no different than any of the others. We played some sort of dead game where the kids pretended that they were dead and then chased the rest around until they caught a couple of them. I´ve attached a short video of them running around. I would take them all home in my carry-on if I could.

The other night, I went with my family and a few students to the Buena Vista Social Club concert. One of the original members of the group still keeps the band alive and keeps them touring. At the concert, I met up with my co-workers along with every person I have ever met in Xela. The entire Gringo world showed up for the concert. I´ve attached a short video of their concert. I even was able to jump the stage and get a picture although it didn´t turn out so great.

The Club started in the 40's in Havana, Cuba where members met to play. But not until the 90´s did the Club receive critical acclaim after a hit recording as well as a documentary. More to catch up on later.

The Hokey Pokey

The best part of not having a plan is that I can create it on the fly. I had thought about staying in Guatemala for a month so that I could spend a month volunteering in Nicaragua before heading to the Olympics, but alas, I really like living in Xela. This city is walkable, I love my family here, I´m learning Spanish, and there are tons of opportunities to volunteer. I´m not exactly sure how much longer I will stay, but definitely another couple weeks. I´m down to 7 lives, and so that may determine my length of stay as well.

At work, I´m visiting the daycare centers, guarderias, in the area with the doctors to weigh the children and help them get checked out. Children aged 2 months to 7 years stay in these centers while the parents work until the children are old enough to attend school. We weighed the children in this hanging machine that people use to weigh meat. The children, for the most part, had fun hanging in it while we weighed them. Then, I sent them over to Christina to figure out their height. After that, each one saw the 3 local med students who evaluated them for various ailments. One girl weighed significantly under the standard weight for her height. She is severely malnourished and is lacking a lot of amino acids. She will be given special attention to ensure that her weight gets up to normal. And after the doctors found over half the children with lice, I will need to put my hair up for tomorrow´s day care center.

While the doctors checked the kids, I played with the rest. We colored together although their attention spans only last so long. After awhile, I had to make up games to keep them entertained. We played a game of on the river and on the earth where the kids had to jump back and forth on an imaginary line depending on what words I yelled out. Then I attempted the hokey pokey. The kids thoroughly enjoyed the game although, I couldn´t figure out how to say in Spanish, "you shake it all about" so I resorted to just the physical demonstration while humming the words. The hokey pokey works universally. Then, I listened to them recant songs in Spanish on how to brush their teeth and wash their hands. They are so precious. I took a photo with them although, in the picture, one child was quite upset to have to join everyone, but the others loved the photo op.

By the way, I read in the newspaper how all the kids from the recent kidnappings reported earlier have been returned either free of charge or the family had to pay much less than the requested amounts. However, Helga´s friends remain missing with no new information.

Longest Day of the Year

After nearly dying last week, I haven´t felt motivated to blog, but that doesn´t mean that I haven´t been busy.

Saturday was summer solstice and it was definitely the longest day of the year for me. I really wanted to volunteer to go on a reforestation hike on Volcano Tajumlco, the tallest volcano in Central America, but none of the other cool cats wanted to join me and so I signed up by myself with Quetzaltrekkers, www.quetzaltrekkers.com. I joined a larger group of 9 adults and 4 guides for the 2 day hike as well as 2 other guides and 15 8 year old street kids they support. I had the choice of just the one day hike or to do the overnight and go to the top of the volcano. I figured that I might as well go to the top.

Quetzaltrekkers had bought 4000 trees for us to plant on the volcano to combat the deforestation of the land. However, this is Guatemala, and plans change. I woke up at 3:30am, and we had intended to arrive 3 hours before we actually did, but the place to plant the trees ended up being on the other side of the volcano. We arrived around 11am. The locals, including the mayor, showed up to greet us and we listened to about 20 min of speeches by 5 different guys. Then off we went to plant, however, the locals decided to plant 3960 on their own and so we only had 40 left to plant. I planted mine with care. Then the locals treated us to lunch and beer and we finally left around 1pm.

Since none of the guides had ever been up this side of the volcano, a local guy joined us and off we went. We started our hike much lower than usual, but the guy assured us that we would only take 3 hours to get to base camp. The original plan was to have the 15 kids and 2 guides split off at some point, but that never happened since we had no idea where we were. Nevertheless, the kids impressed me greatly with their ability to hike the volcano while carrying backpacks the size of them. Several times during the 4.5 hour hike, I wanted to weigh them down with my 5 L of water since I was the slowest hiker on the trip. The kids often ran ahead of the guides and at one point we split up into two groups. At a fork in the road, several kids went up one road and several kids went up the other. The fog was so great, we couldn´t see very far in front of us. All the adults split up too and eventually met up farther up the road. Surprisingly, we didn´t lose any kids. They all seemed to be good at keeping track of each other.

The hike itself tortured me immensely. I´m not a great hiker to begin with, especially at that altitude, and even very experienced hikers on the trip mentioned that the hike hurt them; all our equipment and water weighed us down tremendously. I never complained though and just tried to think like the little red engine again. At one point, I had to get down on all fours and crawl up the volcano because it was so steep. Then, the rain came. I put on my poncho, but the wind kept blowing the rain onto the side of my pants. I became drenched in no time. Then the wind came. The wind blew so hard the sound reminded me of crashing waves in the ocean. After 4.5 hours, Lizzy a guide, and I spotted an abandoned cow barn. All the others had passed it up in search of base camp. Lizzy, thankfully, ran ahead to convince the group to camp there for the night. We all were tired, hungry, wet and ready for a break and so the sell job wasn´t difficult. We covered the floors with tarp and the open side walls with tarp as well as put tarp on the inside beams in case it rained during the night. We had created our own base camp. A few people slept in 2 man tents and the rest us slept on the floor since the 6 man tents were too tall to put up in the barns. The guides eventually made pasta and I hit the hay, literally, around 9pm.

I slept in every piece of clothing I had borrowed for the trek and yet I still nearly froze. My nose really wanted a face mask We woke up at 5am the next day to see the sunrise. Breakfast took longer than usual and we hiked again around 8am. Unfortunately, due to the late start, we still never made it to base camp, but the hike today of rolling hills made me feel so alive unlike yesterday´s hike when I didn´t have much time or energy to enjoy the scenery. Oh well.... I really just wanted to plant trees, well one tree, and go for a nice hike. I accomplished both in the end and survived yet another day in Guatemala.

My First Heimlich... on me

I almost died today. After taking a multi vitamin, Gladis and I started laughing as usual. Then, the vitamin clogged my airway. I couldn´t breathe. Gladis tried the Heimlich a couple of times, but she pushed on my stomach and not higher up. Gladis turned pale and I knew I was in trouble. She then went in search of help, and the only thought that went through my mind at that point was that I was about to die in Guatemala from a multi vitamin. Of all things to die from, I was about to die of a multi vitamin. I still could not breathe. My life did not flash before me as I would have expected. Then, Maile, another student, came to my rescue and she saved me with the Heimlich. I threw up in the sink. The vitamin had expanded into a mesh of stuff. My throat hurt afterwards and I ate a banana and some honey to soothe it.

I purposely created a will, had it witnessed by two co-workers (Thanks Ling and Dave!) and notarized before leaving knowing that I could die on this trip, but dying from a multi vitamin was not a possibility, but I guess anything is possible. I am doing fine now after a nice hot shower.

ChiChi Market

After the hike Saturday, Carolyn, Gracie and I went for ice cream and then met Dr. Simi. Dr. Simi is the mascot of a Guatemalan pharmacy in the shape of a white doctor. We couldn't help but stop for a photo op. I had met Dr. Simi before in Antigua where he showed off his pretty styling dance moves. I've attached a video to view the moves. I found it hysterical, but maybe no one else will.



Sunday, I had another early start. Carolyn, Gracie, Stan and I took a chicken bus to the Chichicastenango Market. Every Sunday and Thursday, ChiChi is host to the largest market in the country. Stalls are full of souvenirs along with beautiful hand woven and intricate blankets, pillows and murals. These are made with the most colorful yards of thread. Women and children approached us trying to sell their handicrafts. I wasn't in the mood to shop, but Stan wanted to buy some clothes. He has not been feeling well and so I haven't bothered to bring him along on my trips. Today, he excitedly tried on a pair of shoes. The shoes appeared to be the right size if Stan had feet. In the end, we decided against buying them.

Nearby, we saw the local cemetary with pastel colored headstones that looked like little dog houses from afar. Due to the gunpoint muggings, I didn't take a closer look. We ended the day with more ice cream.

By the way, I have a new website address, www.globetrotgirl.com. Thanks Don for the new name!

Volcano Trash Pickup

Last night, I bid my final farewells to Rachel. Alas, her husband came to Xela and swept her away. As our last dinner, we ventured out and tried more street food. Despite my hike the next day, I tried a pupusa, an El Salvadorian flattened hot pocket. It had pork skin inside and my stomach tolerated it well.

Today, I took a volunteer hike up a volcano to pick up trash. I had told everyone to meet at 4am at the house, but I don´t think everyone really believed me when I said that and so we lost a couple cats that morning. We needed to get to the top of the volcano early in order to see the active volcano, Santihuaguito, nearby erupt before the clouds covered the view. We arrived near the edge of the volcano at 5:30am and 2 dogs joined us. I think they thought I had rabies and so they kept their distance, but still hiked with us.

I love the idea of hiking up a volcano and how I feel after such a great workout, but I invariably have a hard time with the execution part. I am a really slow hiker up hills. The first hour was okay, the second hour sucked, the third hour was even worse, the fourth hour I thought I would die, and halfway through the fifth hour, I finally made it up. I kept telling myself, "I think I can, I think I can" and sure enough, I did. Thank God for children´s books.

At the top, before collapsing for a half hour nap, I watched Santihuaguito erupt. It boiled up and then a huge mist of volcanic stuff, very technical term, flew up into the air and then I profoundly fell asleep.

After my nap, I picked up trash. I felt like I was on an Easter egg hunt, but the goodies were not edible. At some point, I changed my strategy from picking up everything in sight to picking up plastic bottles, tin cans and batteries since the trash overwhelmed the volcano and I did not have the bandwidth to pick up everything. I had to upgrade my bags to the big Glad size ones, and in the end, we picked up about 50 bags worth.

The trek down proved just as difficult because the bags weighed a ton. We definitely cleaned up a lot, and made a dent in the trash scene. Do I feel like I made a difference? I feel like I received an incredible workout and made a small effort to protect the natural beauty of this country. However, I know that the volcano will be full of trash again shortly because I have not changed the mindset or culture of the people here.

It is readily accepted to throw trash out of the windows of buses or onto the streets as people walk by. Many people have enough on their mind trying to find enough food for the family let alone to have to worry about the environment and their impact on it. Because of this issue, at the clinic, we teach the kids about the importance of putting trash into a trash container and how trash impacts their community and environment. We start teaching them these concepts early in the hopes that the message might change their behavior and therefore future generations´ behavior.

Sadly, when I got back on the bus back to the city, I watched as the bus driver threw a tin can out of his bus and onto the street. I don´t expect to change or save the world on my trip, but hopefully I will inspire others back home to take the time to positively impact their community and environment in sustainable ways.