January 2008 Archives

Quetzaltenango is the second largest city in Guatemala, and I've called it home for the past three weeks. With an estimated population of 300,000, it's popularly known as Xela, short for the pre-Columbian name of the city, Xelajú Noj, meaning Under the Ten Mountains. I've been studying Spanish and volunteer teaching art and English with El Nahual and have had nothing but positive experiences while here (save for that nasty stomach bug I'm just getting over.) I have a lot more pictures to post of my family, the city, and my school, but I'll have this post serve as a simple introduction for now.

This is the "buena vista" as my host mother introduced it, the view from the window that takes up the whole back wall of my room. In the center of the top-right portion of the window is Volcan Santa Maria, standing at 12,372 ft. Its 1902 explosion registered as the third largest of the 20th century.

While this rabbit may look sweet, he gave me and my bed fleas. After my first few days of sleeping here, I noticed that I would wake up with strange little bites. I didn´t think much of it until a few more days passed and I realized that this little guy liked to hang out under my bed when I wasn´t home. I finally made the connection that he had brought a scourge of fleas upon me. My family laughed about it and changed the sheets, giving me an even greater abundance of blankets (seven!) to keep me warm through the night. I didn´t have any problems after that, and I actually haven´t seen el conejo since then. I´m pretty sure he lives on the roof full-time now.  

Earth Lodge is located just a few miles outside of Antigua on a 40-acre avocado farm owned by an American and Canadian couple. The views of Antigua and the surrounding volcanoes, coupled with great home-cooked food and an incredibly relaxing atmosphere made it a great place to hang out for a couple of days. Volcan Fuego is pictured in eruption above.

Three dogs and five cats roam the property, although the cats remained much more elusive than the dogs. Pictured in order are Whitie, Chuleta, and Lola. Within an hour of arriving after a very stressful trip there due to not being able to find where the bus left from in Antigua, we ate a giant bowl of home-grown guacamole with tortilla chips, had a free yoga lesson, and steamed out what was left of our stress in their brick-and-mortar sauna.

Chichicastenango is a town in the highlands of Guatemala, famed for its bi-weekly markets. It had always been the site of a large traditional market on these days, but in the 1930s, an entrepreneur opened up the Hotel Maya Inn realizing the opportunity available for busing in tourists from elsewhere in Guatemala. Since then, it's become more of a tourist attraction than a traditional market, where you can buy wood carvings, embroideries, and other souvenirs, though locals still do much of their shopping for daily items in a different area of the market. Amy and I picked up a few masks and other things for ourselves and for friends and family. Haggling is a necessity, and you can usually end up getting the seller down to less than half of their original asking price.

Many of the locals are practitioners of syncretism, a blending of traditional Mayan beliefs with Catholicism, and on the Sunday morning soon after we arrived, we witnessed the Mayan procession start from the steps of the church of Santo Tomás, complete with fireworks and a cloud of incense. The church itself was built on top of a Mayan spiritual site around 1540. On our way out of town some hours later, we saw the procession still going, miles away from where it had started. The cemetery to the west of town is incredibly colorful, and while we were there, many people were paying their respects to the dead through prayer and sacrificial burnings. Other great pictures of the town can be found at Eve Anderson's website.

Volcan Pacaya has been in continuous eruption since 1965. Amy and I went as a day trip from Antigua, about 45 minutes away. It's possible to get within feet of actual lava, and while at the top amongst it all, it feels like you're standing directly in front of an open oven. Ronnie, our guide for the hike, is pictured below toasting marshmallows. At the trailhead, little boys try to sell you walking sticks for the way up, and that's what's being set on fire in the last picture.  

Antigua is perhaps the most beautiful city I've ever seen. It served as the capital of colonial Guatemala, which included all that is currently Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and several of Mexico's southern states for over 200 years. Most of the city was destroyed by an earthquake in 1773, and the capital was subsequently moved to Guatemala City, which has remained the capital of Guatemala ever since. While most of the city was restored in the following centuries, several of the city's colonial churches and convents still remains in ruins. Towering over the southern end of the city is Volcan de Agua, standing 12,336 ft. tall.  

The first two pictures below are looking south toward the volcano from different avenues, while the third is an early morning photograph from the roof of our hotel, just outside our room. The arch pictured on the left is a prominent symbol of Antigua, and was built to provide safe passage for nuns belonging to a local convent so that they could remain secluded from the common population.

These three pictures below were taken at the Convento de Las Capuchinas, a convent established by nuns from Madrid in 1736. In some of the rooms, there are mannequins of the nuns, the creepiest of which are those asleep on wooden boards surrounded by candles. The picture to the right is from a stairway leading up from a large circular chamber that provided much enjoyment for me and Amy for its acoustics. We yelled liked little kids for entirely too long just to hear the echoes.

La Merced is one of the most important churches in Antigua, and is the starting point for its famous Semana Santa procession. The photos that I've seen make the event look incredible, and I really hope to be able to see it in person at some point in my life. El Fuente de Pescados (Fountain of the Fish) is part of the monastery that adjoins La Merced.  

The Catedral de Santiago sits on the east side of Antigua's central park. The current church (where Amy and I watched the end of a wedding) is only a small portion of the original design, which lays in ruins just behind it.

Tikal is currently thought to be the largest Mayan site. The tallest building at the site, Temple IV, stands at 230 ft. tall. The site is so large that it's possible to spend several days wandering. Amy and I were there for the end of one day and the bulk of the next, and we got to check out most of it, with the mosquito bites to prove it. I got two just on my face.

The size of the structures is tremendously impressive, and several of the temples are scalable, though most are accessed by wooden staircases built to the side as the original stone staircases leading up some of them are so worn and steep that several people have actually fallen to their deaths. Below are the view from the tops of Temple V and Temple IV, respectively. Fans of Star Wars may recognize this view.

Tikal sits on the southern end of the Maya Biosphere Reserve, the second largest area of protected tropical forests in the Western Hemipshere (after the Amazon.) In addition to seeing the incredible ancient architecture, it's easy to spot some great wildlife as well. We saw and heard the vicious yells of many howler monkeys, plenty of beautiful birds, and even some pacas. At one point, we heard the sound of an animal crying, and looked up in the tree to see a baby spider monkey hanging from the end of a branch. After watching it for a little bit, we realized that its mother or father was hanging from the branch of the opposite tree, trying to teach it how to jump from one to the other. In the picture below on the left, you can see the hesitant baby spider monkey hanging on the left tree and its parent on the right. It tried jumping at one point but didn't make it to the next tree, just barely grabbing on to the branch it had just left with its tail. After hanging there for a bit, its parent came back over to illustrate proper jumping technique. A few minutes later, baby monkey finally worked up the courage and strength and successfully connected on the jump pictured below.

Hey, here's the first post on my 'blog. It feels kind of strange writing in one of these, as it's rather impersonal, but I figure it's a good way to show pictures of my travels to anyone interested in seeing them, now that I've got this great new digital camera (thanks again, Torres family.)

We arrived in Caye Caulker on the 2nd. It's a little island about a mile and a half long, about twelve miles off the coast of mainland Belize. Unfortunately, we've had to deal with some stormy weather, when it can be kind of rotten, but when it's nice out, it's gorgeous.

Here's the contrast:

The island is only about a minute's walk width-wise where we're at, so we're surrounded by ocean. After a couple of nights in not so nice rooms, we've got a cabin to ourselves.

My time on the internet is running out so it's going to be a short update for today. I'll have more later.