Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Malacatan


Well although we are home in our winter wonderland...we thought we'd recap the last week so that we'd have a point of reference.
There apparently are lots of details I omitted from our mountain time...one being we got to experience Que-chi culture dress...8 metres of material later VL and I are all dressed up with traditional head dress, skirt, top etc. Although not my choice of fashion, there are certainly beautiful in the handiwork. We had a riot and Elizabeth from Bolivia joined us in the fun. How these beautiful women walk with all that material while balancing baskets of fruit, vegetables etc on their heads and children strapped to their back is beyond me...
Our week on the mountain ended with a tradtional shower of aromatic flower petals floating on us. What a wonderful good bye tradition!
Our trip down the mountain started with 40 minutes late departure and the realization that not all of us were going to fit in the rented van that was supposedly able to accommodate all of us with luggage. After conversing with our hired driver, a kind neighbour offered to take 3 stragglers down in his car so off went Andrew, Stacy and Benigno on a hair rising trip down the mountain while I held the middle front seat of our 15 passenger van between the driver and our tall visiting american! I managed to keep my cookies down, and we had an interesting trip heading into "sweatsville" with VL snapping pics like a madwoman in the back! haha
Malacatan is a happening place with over 800 000 people. It's close to the Mexican border and seems to have a variety of people.
It's lush with palm trees, humidity, banana trees, rubber trees, cocoa trees, water falls near by and of course the garbage finding it's way from the streets to the river. Right down the street from where we stayed is a huge market that more than doubles in size on the weekends. Anything you want, you can find in there from fresh tortillas, clothes, veggies, meat, live animals...it's a maze through dark, dirty gutters to open air.
We made the daily trek with Ken and were his pack horses...it was lots of fun just watching and experiencing doing biz in the markets...so much entertainment!

Although Malacatan is extremly hot, we experienced heavy rains every day. The roof top had an amazing view of Santa Maria Volcano (one of the largest in CA), but it was a few days before it was clear enough to see. When it did clear, it wasn't long before it was clouded over, so had to be quick with the camera! The clouds didn't offer much relief from the heat though and the rains were a welcome change!
Our diet is made up of mostly beans and veggies...and let me tell you, entering the Harrison quarters was seriously taking your life in hand between father and son, but anyway we survived!

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Guatemala!


So we´ve been out of internet service for the past week...currently we are roasting in Malacatan! But to back up a week....we arrived into Guatemala in true Central American style...late!
SnV were there waiting with big smiles...we were a little worried how they would fair, but they found a friend who spoke english and entertained them until we arrived. The airport in Guatemala is surprisingly nice!
Everything went well...we had a great night sleep in a hostel close to the airport and got a transfer to our bus heading into the highlands.
The 3 hour bus ride was pretty much a roller coaster ride all the way, but this country is so beautiful!!! We are constantly amazed at how green it is. I suppose that is one advantage to coming at the end of rainy season!
Archie and Pedro picked us up in Xela (shayla), a beautiful mountain town and took us to Pachaj (9000ft) to hang for a few days.
So far everything has been pretty uneventful in the sense that nothing crazy has happened. Great food, Great people, Great country!
The corn here makes Andrew look like a midget, so that tells you how lush everything is and how well things grow here. It reminds us a lot of Peru in the mountains with all the crop tiers, Qui-che culture and corn!
We are enjoying all the spicy options for topping on the food...turns bland into YUM!
Everyone here has a story, and it´s pretty cool to meet and hear them all.
In the highlands it´s primarily indian (Qui-che) culture and they are very industrious, wealthy people for this country. We are very surprised at how well these people do, we were certainly not expecting that.

We have even had hot showers!!! Heated by wood stove...well not exactly, but you´ll see what we mean when you see the pics.

We visited a man who has a cloth business. It was very interesting to see the looms and the beautiful silk cloth his business makes.
So we´ve spent a week here already and now we are up to more visiting etc here at malacatan which is a stark contrast with humidity and heat to the cool temps of the highlands. We feel like we should be moving on, but it has been insisted that we stay with the travelling band...
Currently we are bunked in with a man who has built what started out to possibly be hotel and is now used for annuales...I´m not sure there is a facility for this purpose quite like this one anywhere else. It is beautiful with huge rooms hotel style with ensuite bathrooms...there will be about 450 people here by the weekend...lots of room to accommodate everyone!
I think we´ll leave it here for now...this certainly isn´t like any other trip we´v had...and feel like our experiences aren´t really blog material!
Hope you are all well!
Buenas Tardes!

PS surprisingly our spanish is getting us by...óf course very basically, but we understand alot more than we thought we would and learning more every day!!!