Last Saturday we went on a 40 kilometer hike from Xela to San Marcos. It took 2 and a half days. We carried our big packs with us and it was extremely challenging for all of us. The first night we slept at a campsite in tents. The next night we slept in an empty house that the trekking company supplied for us. The third morning we woke up at five o´clock to hike up to an overlook to watch the sunrise over Lake Atitlan. It was one of the most beautiful things we have ever seen. We hiked down and arrive in San Pedro around 11 AM. From San Pedro we took a boat over to San Marcos. All of us were exhausted by the time we got there but were so surprised by San Marcos. San Marcos is a little hippie town with barely any cars. It was filled with tourists and lots and lots of yoga. All of us spent our days choosing our own activities for the day. We did yoga, laughing yoga, stained glass art, jewlery making, modern dance, meditation and at night some of us used the sauna at our hotel. Our hotel was called La Paz which means peace in spanish. The name explains our entire stay in San Marcos. We also spent days lounging on the beach and swimming in Lake Atilla. It was absolutely gorgeous every day that we were there. Our week in San Marcos went by way too fast and we were all sad to leave. We left this Saturday morning at 5 AM and took a bus to Antigua. Once we arrived we traveled to an active volcano and roasted marshmellows over the lava! It was incredible. We are staying in Antigua for one night and we leave for Nicaragua tomorrow morning at 5 Am. Our time in Guatemala has gone by so fast and we can´t wait to see what Nicaragua has in store for us.
Here is some trivia
Hotel Acculax in San Marcos is made mostly of stained glass. Some students used the same method with paper mache.
There are over 300 volcanos in Central America, but only 3 are active. One of them is the one we went to today called Pacaya. Once the airport in Guatemala City was closed for 3 days because the volcano erupted and there was ash everywhere.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
To Brian, from the Family:
Happy 19th Birthday Brian. Here's wishing you a great year and many happy adventures to follow!
Love, Dad, Pam, Carlie, and McKenzie
Friday, March 19, 2010
Chi Chi maybe the Chi Chiest
HOla from Xela! Today was our last day at Casa Xelaju. Tomorrow we are headed to San Marcos for a week of yoga and meditation. Before we get ahead of ourselves, we must talk about the past week in Xela We enjoyed a nice day of shopping in Chichistenango. As you can see in the picture below, we took a chicken bus for transportation. We shopped for a while on Sunday and dont worry bloggers, I am sure you will recieve gifts from Chi Chi. The market was large and overwhelming but after a bit of bargaining everyone ended up with some great items.After returning from our weekend, we had a long week packed with school and activities. Half of the group volunteered at the afterschool program on Monday and we had hot chocolate making on Tuesday. After school on Wednesday, we watched a movie about the history of the Mayan people. La Hija de Puma was an interesting film that showed much of the culture of the Mayan people. Following the movie, we had a relaxing yoga class that should have helped us prepare for the next week. I know everyone will agree that Thursday was fun and filling. We had a potluck where we all made a dish with our host family and brought it to Heather and Adam´s apartment. We enjoyed an assortment of foods from pasta, salsa, fruit salad to the traditional tortillas with eggs and queso. Fortunately we topped it off with ice cream and pie! We are stuffed and ready for a week in San Marcos!
Trivia:
Xela is said to have been a city 300 years before the Spanish found it
Xela was the site of the defeat of Tecun Uman
Xela is home to the foremost Railroad Museum in all of Guatemala
Xela is home to Xelaju MC the most succesful soccer team in Guatemala outside of the capital.
Trivia:
Xela is said to have been a city 300 years before the Spanish found it
Xela was the site of the defeat of Tecun Uman
Xela is home to the foremost Railroad Museum in all of Guatemala
Xela is home to Xelaju MC the most succesful soccer team in Guatemala outside of the capital.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Mas fotos...
A few more photos for all you wonderful blog followers....
The cloud forest was so beautiful... the little house is where we stayed.
The Chicken Bus ride back from chichi....so many people on the bus!!
The Dude Shack in the cloud forest...Brian, Griffin, and Adam
The group at Tikal on top of one of the temples! From L to R: Lexi, Griffin, Hannah, Brian, Brooke,Emily, Lauren W, Kelly, Adam, Lauren F.
The cloud forest was so beautiful... the little house is where we stayed.
The Chicken Bus ride back from chichi....so many people on the bus!!
The Dude Shack in the cloud forest...Brian, Griffin, and Adam
The group at Tikal on top of one of the temples! From L to R: Lexi, Griffin, Hannah, Brian, Brooke,Emily, Lauren W, Kelly, Adam, Lauren F.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Xela maybe the Xelajuest!
Hey everyone!
Hope you liked the pictures, there are more to come.
Uploading is easy this week because we are staying in the second largest city in Guatemala, Xela. There is a gorgeous central park and tons of things to do everyday. Everyone is living in a homestay again, some farther then others, but all the families are great.
Daily life in Xela goes a little something like this:
school starts at 8:00 at Casa Xela Ju. The school is great, during the summer they have over 50 students so they know what they´re doing. Each student has their own teacher and the day usually starts off with grammer in individual classrooms, or in the sun on the roof. Around 9:30 is cafe time, always hot and great. Then, at 10:30 is a break where we can eat bread and make sure our heads don´t explode from spanish. After the break, a lot of the teachers like to take the students to different areas in the city. We´ve gone to the incredibly big and beautiful cemetary, where the tombstones are colorful and above ground. Also, we´ve taken trips to the market, the various bread shops and parks where we have had to use spanish to converse with different vendors. The teachers don´t speak english so everyday is constant spanish anyone, tough but very helpful with the learning process. School gets out at one, which is when we all return home for lunch. After lunch, our group has tons tons of different activities - a salsa class, celebration for lauren w´s birthday, a yoga class, volenteering with local kids through the school, and yesterday we went to the Fuentes Georginas, or natural hot springs. They were incredible, hot and beautiful and a very nice afternoon after a long, exciting week.
Today we leave for a night in chi chi but i´ll let the next blogger tell you about that!
We love and miss you all
Hope you liked the pictures, there are more to come.
Uploading is easy this week because we are staying in the second largest city in Guatemala, Xela. There is a gorgeous central park and tons of things to do everyday. Everyone is living in a homestay again, some farther then others, but all the families are great.
Daily life in Xela goes a little something like this:
school starts at 8:00 at Casa Xela Ju. The school is great, during the summer they have over 50 students so they know what they´re doing. Each student has their own teacher and the day usually starts off with grammer in individual classrooms, or in the sun on the roof. Around 9:30 is cafe time, always hot and great. Then, at 10:30 is a break where we can eat bread and make sure our heads don´t explode from spanish. After the break, a lot of the teachers like to take the students to different areas in the city. We´ve gone to the incredibly big and beautiful cemetary, where the tombstones are colorful and above ground. Also, we´ve taken trips to the market, the various bread shops and parks where we have had to use spanish to converse with different vendors. The teachers don´t speak english so everyday is constant spanish anyone, tough but very helpful with the learning process. School gets out at one, which is when we all return home for lunch. After lunch, our group has tons tons of different activities - a salsa class, celebration for lauren w´s birthday, a yoga class, volenteering with local kids through the school, and yesterday we went to the Fuentes Georginas, or natural hot springs. They were incredible, hot and beautiful and a very nice afternoon after a long, exciting week.
Today we leave for a night in chi chi but i´ll let the next blogger tell you about that!
We love and miss you all
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Photos!
Ariel view from samuc champay, where we went last weekend for the day
Hiking to the Cloud Forest (from left to right griffin, brian, kelly, emily, lauren f)
Climbing to the top of one of the temples at Tikal!
Sitting inside one of the Mayan ruins at Tikal (lexi, lauren f, emily, and brooke)
Our whole group in a cave at barrio ixobel! ( top left to right: brian, heather, kelly, brooke, emily, griffin, lauren w, adam. on the bottom our guide, lauren f, ours guides daughter, lexi, and hannah)
Our group on a hill in barrio. (on top from left to right kelly, lauren w, brooke, griffin, hannah, heather, brian, lexi, adam, emily, lauren f)
Outside the school in barrio (hannah, lexi, lauren f, lauren w, and kelly)
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Cloudy, Maybe the Cloudiest.
Dear mothers, lovers, fathers, brothers, sisters, friends, neighbors and beloved pets,
Greetings from Coban! We are staying in a Hostal tonight and taking a lengthy bus ride to Xela tomorrow morning, but, lets not get too ahead of ourselves here. You must know about last week first!
We left San Andres for Coban last Sunday. We stayed in the same Hostal we are staying in now, it is very clean and the people are nice and it has been a great place to recoup.
Monday morning we packed our bags and left for the Cloud Forrest. Our journey began with renting boots and taking a fifteen minute bus ride to another station. We arrived to discover a crammed cattle truck , little did we know it was just the beginning of the crazy adventures we were about to have.
We hugged one another all too tightly and squished together all too closely for the entire two our cattle truck ride. In the end though we conquered our naseau and claustrophobia and began our hike into the Cloud Forrest. It took about an hour to get to the village, Chicacnab, where we were greeted with dinner and accomodations. Our group all bunked in the same house which was one room split into two different sections dubbed the ¨dude shack¨and ¨the GIRLS ROOM.¨
We volunteered for three days in the cloud forrest. The first two days we created an assembly line where we took bags of sand and rocks from the top of a huge hill to the bottom. The sand and rocks will be used to make cement for the floor of a church.
The third day we spent clearing mud and rocks to make level ground where a kitchen will be built next to the house we were staying in. Both work jobs were difficult but we bonded and handled them with the endurance and strength of a carpe group (yeah yeah!!!)
The weather in the cloud forrest was warm most days and cold in the evenings and nights. We woke up to what looked like a thick layer of fog. We were livin in the clouds yo! Pretty tight if you ask me.
The last night we were in the Cloud Forrest we danced after dinner to the wonderful music of the Marumba which was played by three men. Its funny actually, every group we have interacted with so far in Guatemala loves to make us dance. They like to watch us, don´t ask me why.
The second we returned to Coban our achy muscles were all of a sudden fully restored, perhaps it had something to do with the McDonalds we were dying to hit up, thats just a guess though ha ha.
We slept like babies last night and left this morning to go swim in the pools at Semuc Champey. It wasn´t very sunny but still so beautiful and a fun place to relax. The water was pretty and we saw a lot of tourists there from all over the world.
And that brings us to where we are now! Currently the group is scattered throughout Coban, checking email, grabbing a bite to eat or catchin some zzzzzs. Tomorrow we´ve got a seven hour bus ride and honestly we are pumped. We love bus rides, it has become one of our favorite past times.
Now here is a lil triv from Brian-
The Cloud Forrest has about 175 people, a total of 30 or so families.
The Chicacnab was established thirty years ago.
¨Oos¨ means ¨good¨in Mayan.
I think I can speak on the behalf of the group when I say that it was a pretty tough week. The nights in Chicacnab were very cold, the water tasted like it was hickory smoked,we were all dirtier than we had been in our ENTIRE lives and most people we interacted with didn´t speak English or Spanish. I also know though that we created so many fun memories and inside jokes. I think we are also a lot more appreciative of little things, like toilets, and by the way they are TOTALLY a luxury for all of you who might not realize it. We also understand the importance of water and hydration, even if it doesn´t taste like we want it too.
Thats all for now folks. We love you lots and miss you. Know that we are growing, giving, loving and experiencing some really incredible things.
Love, Brooke
Greetings from Coban! We are staying in a Hostal tonight and taking a lengthy bus ride to Xela tomorrow morning, but, lets not get too ahead of ourselves here. You must know about last week first!
We left San Andres for Coban last Sunday. We stayed in the same Hostal we are staying in now, it is very clean and the people are nice and it has been a great place to recoup.
Monday morning we packed our bags and left for the Cloud Forrest. Our journey began with renting boots and taking a fifteen minute bus ride to another station. We arrived to discover a crammed cattle truck , little did we know it was just the beginning of the crazy adventures we were about to have.
We hugged one another all too tightly and squished together all too closely for the entire two our cattle truck ride. In the end though we conquered our naseau and claustrophobia and began our hike into the Cloud Forrest. It took about an hour to get to the village, Chicacnab, where we were greeted with dinner and accomodations. Our group all bunked in the same house which was one room split into two different sections dubbed the ¨dude shack¨and ¨the GIRLS ROOM.¨
We volunteered for three days in the cloud forrest. The first two days we created an assembly line where we took bags of sand and rocks from the top of a huge hill to the bottom. The sand and rocks will be used to make cement for the floor of a church.
The third day we spent clearing mud and rocks to make level ground where a kitchen will be built next to the house we were staying in. Both work jobs were difficult but we bonded and handled them with the endurance and strength of a carpe group (yeah yeah!!!)
The weather in the cloud forrest was warm most days and cold in the evenings and nights. We woke up to what looked like a thick layer of fog. We were livin in the clouds yo! Pretty tight if you ask me.
The last night we were in the Cloud Forrest we danced after dinner to the wonderful music of the Marumba which was played by three men. Its funny actually, every group we have interacted with so far in Guatemala loves to make us dance. They like to watch us, don´t ask me why.
The second we returned to Coban our achy muscles were all of a sudden fully restored, perhaps it had something to do with the McDonalds we were dying to hit up, thats just a guess though ha ha.
We slept like babies last night and left this morning to go swim in the pools at Semuc Champey. It wasn´t very sunny but still so beautiful and a fun place to relax. The water was pretty and we saw a lot of tourists there from all over the world.
And that brings us to where we are now! Currently the group is scattered throughout Coban, checking email, grabbing a bite to eat or catchin some zzzzzs. Tomorrow we´ve got a seven hour bus ride and honestly we are pumped. We love bus rides, it has become one of our favorite past times.
Now here is a lil triv from Brian-
The Cloud Forrest has about 175 people, a total of 30 or so families.
The Chicacnab was established thirty years ago.
¨Oos¨ means ¨good¨in Mayan.
I think I can speak on the behalf of the group when I say that it was a pretty tough week. The nights in Chicacnab were very cold, the water tasted like it was hickory smoked,we were all dirtier than we had been in our ENTIRE lives and most people we interacted with didn´t speak English or Spanish. I also know though that we created so many fun memories and inside jokes. I think we are also a lot more appreciative of little things, like toilets, and by the way they are TOTALLY a luxury for all of you who might not realize it. We also understand the importance of water and hydration, even if it doesn´t taste like we want it too.
Thats all for now folks. We love you lots and miss you. Know that we are growing, giving, loving and experiencing some really incredible things.
Love, Brooke
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