Volcan Acatenango

So i'll just go through how my weekend went from start to finish:
7:00- Wake up, have breakfast at my homestay, check my bag that everything is packed.
8:00- Billy comes over and we head out to meet the other people were going with, Jacob, Evan, Lizzy an Lily
8:30- Everyone meets up and we head behind the market to try to find a bus to La Soledad (Solitude), the pueblo near the trailhead. Are first offer came from a guy with a pick up truck who offered to take us there for 300Q (~$35) but we had heard that there was a bus that went to San MIguel, a pueblo near Soledad. The truck driver said it was another 30 km but he didnt seem very trust worthy. We then found the Chicken Bus that was going to San Miguel and decided to take it, luckily it was not very crowded. The bus driver said that La Soledad was only another 3km past San Miguel.
9:20- We get to San Miguel, the bus costed 3Q (35 cents) and we asked around and the locals said if we walked down to the bridge there are usually pick up trucks going to La Soledad that you can hitch rides from. Some of the locals told us it was 6km, and some told us it was 13km, we didnt really know what to believe.
10:00- After getting to the bridge we tried to flag down maybe 10 or 15 trucks but none of them stopped. We were starting to get anxious and so Billy went down the road to try to find a number of a taxi. Right as he went down the road he stopped to talk to a truck driver and the driver offered to take us to La Soledad for 10Q each. We hopped into the back of his pick up truck, trying not to squash the vegetables he was taking to the pueblo and set off. 13km was probably around the most accurate estimate we got for the distance, and it was about a 20 or 30 minute ride on a gravel road in the back of the pick up
10:45- The truck driver stops and shows us where the trail head is for Acatenango, we pay him and thank him and he drives off.
11- We have started heading up the trail and we start to see the beginning of why they say Acatenango is so hard, the trail started on a sort of ravine between corn fields where we were walking through volcanic ash. Making every 2 steps we took slide half a step back. After maybe 30 minutes we saw a sign for turning of this path to go to the summit. We went there a walked through some more cornfields before passing a little straw hut on our right. This was when we started to go into the forest. After about 30 minutes more we came to the first of 5 "Descansos" (a rest stop kinda place). It was better than what we expected to be on the volcano, with a little wood shelter and some benches.
12- We kept on walking up and up through the forest. It was constant switch backs and I would say the slope never was less than around a 30 degree angle.
1:30- We stopped for lunch at one of the Descansos and kept on heading up. We met 2 people coming down who said it was around 2 or 3 hours more. I think it was around then that we started heading up into the clouds. We started to only be able to see about 30 ft. around us and thats when things started to get worse. It started getting a little windy and a few drops of rain fell. We got a little higher and no more rain fell, it started HAILING. Little bee bee size balls of hail started falling for around 20 minutes. After that it was windy with a few on and off drizzles.
4- With the conditions still not being that great we finally came out of the tree line. This, however, did not mean we were very close to the top. We still had about an hour or an hour and a half of steep hiking up switch backs up the ridge, in the clouds, with strong winds. It was pretty intense but we finally got to what we later found out to be the first false peak. We didnt really know at the time because we could only see around 5 or 10 feet around us. The false peak was all volcanic rock and gravel so we decided to just stop and set up camp because we didnt want to walk in circles on the rock because there was no real path.
5:30- Freezing, in the clouds, and in the rain we ran around trying to set up the tent and get our packs under the tarp. Before the weather me, billy, and jacob, had been planning on sleeping on or under a tarp we brang but it was a unanimous decision that we all should just pile into the tent that lily, lizzy, and evan brought. It was a 2 person tent that ended up having 6 people in it all night. It took us about 20 minutes to set up the tent and then we all piled in and shared are body warmth.
All Night- I think the most anyone slept during the night was 1 or 2 hours and it was a small smelly oddly warm tent. It was warm because of the people but if you sat up in the tent you would just get wafts of horrible smelling wet or damp clothes, sweaty bodies, and the general dirtiness that comes from a day of hard hiking.
5am- Me, BIlly, and Jacob ended up getting up around 5 to try to see the sunrise. It was clear around summit but there were still lots of clouds which made it not that great of a sunrise. It was really cool though because we were above a huge layer of clouds and were able to see the points of other volcanoes and mountains, like Agua. I have some pictures that I will post at the end.
6-Billy and Jacob decided to go to the real summit, about 150 meters higher, and about a 1 hours hike up the steep gravely sides. The rest of us decided to stay and rest a little bit more, we decided the view was not gona be that much better and we could kind of see that Fuego, the volcano behind the actual Summit (a very active volcano) was not really erupting. The went there and back in about 1.5 hours and we broke camp, ate breakfast, and readied ourselves for the descent.
8-We started going down which was very cool because it was clear so we could really see what we had done the day before. We were impressed by what we had accomplished. Going down went very quickly, we were able to jog/run down the switch backs kind of like a slalom. So parts that took us 1.5 hours before took us 30 minutes. The descent was very beautiful because it was so clear and we stopped in many places to see the view. It ended up taking us around 2.5 hours for us to get down the volcano, as opposed to the 6 hours it had taken to go up.
10:30- Earlier in the morning at the top of the volcano Jacob had talked to the guatemalans who were up there as well and they had said that there was a bus back to antigua at 11. So we walked down the road at the bottom of the trailheads and asked some locals about the bus. They said we just had to wait on the road we were on and a bus would come heading to Chimaltenango and if we got of at Parredos, there were buses every 5 minutes to Antigua.
11:15- The bus came a little late but we got on and it was very crowded, like the stereo typical chicken buses. I had to stand right near the driver because I couldnt even get down the aisle. The guy on the bus ripped us off and made us pay 7Q instead of 3Q which is what I had seen the locals pay. But even so, thats still less than a dollar. The chicken buses are ridiculous because they pick so many people up and theres a guy at the door that will just kind of shove the person on, and as soon as his feet are off the ground he jumps on and shouts "dale" and off the bus goes again. Then there were people who had big bags of vegetables or firewood and the guy at the door would jump off and take it and climb/throw the bag on the top of the bus. To do this he has to climb the back of the bus, and one time, the guy was on the back of the bus and he just shouted "dale" and the bus went and then when the bus slowed for a speed bump he just jumped off and ran back up to the door and got on. The bus didnt even have to stop. It is a surprisingly efficient method of travel. We got back to Antigua around 12:15 and I went back took a nice long shower and have been relaxing the rest of the day.

That pretty much sums up my trip to Acatenango, which to say the least was a real adventure. I'm not sure when i'll post next but here are some pictures.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=104809&id=516009306&l=525bb938ad
and the descent-http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=104827&id=516009306&l=0a9194382a

Less than 3 weeks left at Camino Seguro

Time has been flying by working at Camino Seguro. It's crazy to think that I'll be leaving the project in 2 1/2 weeks. I'm going to miss the kids a lot. It's been amazing getting to know the kids, its been a very interesting experience as well, with all the different characters. I'll give you guys a little overview of some of the kids in my classes. In the morning it's 7th graders and there are a couple of different groups, they're the girls from Inca JV school who always are making jokes with themselves and never seem to split up, then they're the three lovers from Penatt school who are always touching each other, whether it's fighting or hugging, then there are Oscar and Hector who always steal the toothpaste at lunch, and Julio who is the lady's man in the class. Then in the afternoon the kids are in 4th grade. There is the class trouble maker Carlos, then there is Miguel, Fransisco, and Eduar who always are together talking or fighting. Then there's Jonson who always shows off his breakdancing skills (they are pretty impressive, he can walk down a staircase while doing a handstand) and always says "Que onda voz" (Whats up dude). Then the girls in the afternoon- There's Katy, the daughter of the cook at Camino Seguro who is always everywhere at once, and whenever I pick up the guitar she wants me to sing Hallelujah. Then there is Kimberly who will always hang on my arm. Then there is Karen who is the one of the nicest and smartest girls in the class. Those are some of the kids that I have gotten to know during my time at Camino Seguro. Outside of the project I didnt do much this weekend. I am planning on hiking volcano Acatenango this weekend and spending the night there. I think it is the 3rd tallest volcano in Guatemala, and it looks over the crater of Fuego, one of the most active volcanoes in Guatemala. So if were lucky we'll get to see a huge fireworks display of lava at night, and then wake up for the sunrise on top of a volcano. The weekend after I am going to Semuc Champey with some other volunteers. This is supposed to be a beautiful series of pools with beautiful swimming and caves to explore. I am also starting to figure out what my plans after the project will be. I think I will first head north to Flores, and see the Mayan ruins at Tikal, then I will head south to Lago Izabel, with Rio Dulce and Livingston. Then I will head down to Utila, Honduras. I will spend the majority of the time in Utila I think, it is a bay island of the coast of Honduras. I think I will try to learn to scuba dive there, and I also am in contact with the Whale Shark Research Center in Utila and possibly might volunteer there for a week. This would be amazing, because this would give me the opportunity to swim and possibly scuba dive with whale sharks, the largest fish in the world. Whale sharks can get as large as 15 meters long. After Utila I will head back to Antigua and Guatemala City for my flight, and if I have time I might stop by Copan and see the Mayan ruins there. I am incredibly excited about this traveling and although I will miss the kids immensely, I think I am going to have a blast traveling. I don't know if anything else has really happened thats that interesting, work is going along well, I've been teaching some of the kids a little guitar at lunch but not much. I don't know if there will be enough time to organize any actual kind of lessons for me to give to the kids. I got to play guitar with the accountant at Camino Seguro today, Moises, which was a lot of fun. He new lots of American classics and we played together while I waited for the kids to finish showering in the bathrooms. I don't think there is anything else to say, so when I post next i'll probably have been up and back again from a Volcano and should have some good stories.

Back To Work

So work has started back up and things are getting back in a rhythm. Things are getting back to how they were before Semana Santa. Not that much has happened thats interesting, though I have noticed an interesting trend. As the kids get more comfortable with me and start interacting with me more they start to talk to me more, this is good and bad. Now with the kids talking to me more I have to try to understand them more and so more and more I have to tell them to speak slower and repeat themselves. Its a funny cycle because the more they want to interact the harder the interactions become. A good example of this was today, during my morning class, some of the girls started talking to me and I could not understand them. I kept on having to ask them "What?" and to repeat themselves. They kept on asking me why I didnt speak very much and I told them it was because Spanish was hard for me. Then during lunch there was a film crew for a TV show there and I was talking to one of the people there in english about the project and my time there, and at one point one of the girls in my class turned around and said "wow, you actually can talk a lot!" The film crew was kind of interesting. It was a group of people from New Zealand with a famous New Zealand singer Anika Moa. They filmed me and asked me some questions about the project and my time here. I'm not sure exactly what kind of thing it was, they said it was for some New Zealand TV show. So that was kind of interesting. One development that I've had in the project that I'm not sure where it is going is that one of the volunteers who has been here I think over 2 years started asking me about possibly giving guitar lessons to some of the kids. She said that there were a few who had taken lessons before from one of the teachers at the project but now the teacher doesnt have time. So I might be giving guitar lessons at some point, although I don't know exactly how the logistics will work out and how long it might take to work them out. Other than that everything has been going great as normal. I had Salsa classes this evening and I might be going out later to try to practice some of the stuff I learned. I'll probably post in a couple days, or when some interesting things come up.

El Salvador and Semana Santa

So a lot has happened since my last post and i'll try to recap it all. Monday morning we got up around 8 to go to the surf shop where we would be taking a van to El Salvador. We decided to go and buy a camera we had been looking at before we left because mine broke and Billy lost his or it got stolen. We did something that we are now doing quite frequently now is saying that we are volunteers and lots of places have discounts. I got about a 60 or 70q discount on the camera. So we left Antigua and it was a much much smoother ride than any of the other times I have gone out of the city. It took about 2 hours to get to the border of El Salvador. There we just had to go to a window and get our passports stamped and that was about all the border security there was. It took another 1.5-2 hours to get to El Zonte, the beach we were staying at. The hotel we were staying at was really nice and beautiful. I have some pictures that i'll post at the end. We stayed in a little bungalo type room that was really nice. The beach right near the hotel was for more experienced surfers so we walked about 5 minutes down the beach to start our lessons. The lessons were alright, but once we learned the basics the teachers basically would say go out and practice it. There were 3 teachers, Ga, who was the most helpful one, and to others who would really only say "dale dale dale!" (go go go) when it was a wave they thought we should go on. We only really went on the white wash the first day and didnt get much bigger the second and third day. It was a little disappointing because the waves we went on werent big enough to be able to ride across so we would really only be riding them in straight towards the beach. It was pretty hard but I kind of got the hang of it after a while. While we werent surfing we would hang out on the beach throwing the frisbee or chill in the pool at the hotel. The food was amazing and all in all we had a great time. We came back on Wedensday afternoon and I was tired and sunburnt so I had a relaxing night. The same for thursday as well, I was still tired and sunburnt so I relaxed a lot of the day but I did do something really fun and interesting. I went with my friend Billy and there was a procession near our houses so we walked around and looked at the alfombras. Then we saw some friends we had met earlier in Antigua and they were helping create an Alfombra and invited us to join. It was outside one of their host families houses. For people who dont know exactly how an Alfombra is made I can now tell you. First a frame is laid out on the street in varying sizes, the one we helped with was maybe 6 feet wide and 20 or 30 feet long. Then sand or plain sawdust is put down as a base for the color to go over. After that using a sort of siv, they evenly spread whatever the base color is going to be, usually there is a main color in the middle and another one as a border. Then they have wooden or cardboard designs that they carefully place on the base color that are filled with many different colors. They have boards that go over the alfombras so that the workers can reach the designs. I have lots of photos of this to that I will post at the end as well. All of this takes the whole morning and into the afternoon, and the end product is a beautifully designed carpet. Then when the procession comes they people walk over the Alfombras and the remenants are swept up when the procession has passed. I went to sleep early on Thursday night because Alicia, my host mother, had invited me and the other volunteers at my house to go out at 5 in the morning and see the alfombras before one of the main processions. It was very interesting, there were tons of people out that early in the morning and there were some incredible Alfombras. There were ones that had little detailed models of churches on them, huge ones 40 or 50 feet long made completely of fruits and vegetables, and really detailed ones with butterflies and birds. Everything is going great, my week of vacation and Semana Santa are coming close to an end. I don't have any plans for this weekend so we'll see what comes up. Here are the photos of:
El Salvador - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=100574&id=516009306&l=d32e1548e9
Alfombras -http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=100584&id=516009306&l=06e347d22f

Finally Better

A lot has happened since i posted last... ill try to remember everything that has happened. First, on monday I talked with Yaelle, the volunteer coordinator, and she told me I should go to the doctor. The hospital happened to be on the complete other side of town so I ended up having to walk a good 20 minutes to get there. What I found out there was that I had parasites so the doctor gave me a perscription for 3 different medications. I returned by way of the supermarket and got the medicine at the pharmacy there. I took the medicine but still wasnt feeling to great that night, I was thinking I probably wouldnt be able to go into work on Tuesday as well. I decided I would wake up and see how I felt in the morning. It was amazing, overnight I seemed to get almost completley better, I was able to eat breakfast and go to the project. It was definantly a more tiring day but I was able to do it and I missed working at the project, as almost a week had past since I last worked. I had enough energy that night to go to Salsa classes which were great as always, and I went to sleep early and exhausted. Wedensday was a little bit different then normal. Yaelle asked me and couple other volunteers to help with food bags in the morning, I didnt know exactly what this entailed but wanted to help. We went to the Guardaria where all the supplies were and we had to fill up bags with all the supplies. There were bags of rice, beans, noodles, chicken broth, sugar, salt, bottles of oil, even bottles of some sort of acne cream that someone donated. All of this was put in bags that during the next day would be picked up by the parents. Camino Seguro does this once a month for all the families. We ended up having to fill over 400 bags, it took us the whole morning. There was a barbeque at lunch which was very good and I was invited to a soccer game later that night with a group of the Social Workers from Camino Seguro. So that night around 7:30 I walked about 10 minutes outside of town to the soccer field. It was a lot of fun, it was a sort of mini tournament with 3 teams, one being from Camino Seguro, the one I was on, one was some bus drivers from the city and the other I think was a local team. It was a small pitch and we played 5v5, my team lost 6-5 but it was a lot of fun. I think I scored 2 of the goals. I got a ride back from Eric, one of the Social workers at Camino Seguro later that night. Thursday was very different from normal as well, it was family day at Camino Seguro. This meant that all of the parents of the kids came to the project and got to meet with the teachers and visit the program. It seemed like it went very well, all of the parents seemed interested. They would talk with the teachers and then there were some other activities, like a skit about communication from the Social Workers and meetings with counselers from the project. I was able to talk with the parents a little but mostly I entertained there kids while they were meeting with the teacher. That night I got to switch rooms in my homestay because one of the volunteers just moved into an apartment. So now my room is much bigger and I have a much bigger and softer bed. Today was the last normal day before the week long Semana Santa break. It was interesting because the project is just starting to try out a new way of doing attendance. They now have a thumb print scanner at the door so when all the kids come in in the morning or afternoon they just scan there thumb and they get put into the computer system. This way they also can be marked as late or absent. Today was more of a relaxing day because most of the kids have finished their exams that they had been studying for during the past 2 weeks. Im writing this during my lunch break so I need to go and be with the kids now. I dont know when I will post next because there is a possiblity I might be traveling to El Salvador for Semana Santa during our week off. We are figuring out tonight whether we are going tomorrow morning or on monday, I think were going to try to learn how to surf there. It should be a lot of fun. Then when we come back we will be in Antigua for one of the largest Easter celebrations in the continent!