Xela, Guatemala

After three weeks in Xela (aka Quetzaltanango), I'm getting ready to leave this weekend. I was supposed to get a ride from someone I met at the hostel, but he told me yesterday over the phone that he had a change of plans. So now it's back to the buses.

(Change of plans: Border run to Mexico tomorrow to renew my visa then one more week in Xela before setting off to Todo Santos, Coban, Semuc-Champe, Rio Dulce, Livingston, Tecal, etc with Lisi from Austria.)

Xela has been a really good place to stay for the past three weeks. It was so nice to be settled and not moving around all the time. I really like this city for its size and weather, for the people who make it their home, and for its proximity to so many beautiful places. It is somewhere I could see myself coming back to and staying awhile.

I've also had some interesting weekend excursions from here. The first weekend I was in town, Sara, a friend from the hostel and I went to the small beach community of Tilapa with around 11 other volunteers to do an organized clean up. We left at 5:00 in the morning (gross) and got to the beach around 9:00. It was already incredibly hot. The van dropped us of in the very small downtown area and we walked over a series of bridges to get to the beach. The first bridge crossed a marshy area that was totally covered in garbage. It turns out that this town does not have any kind of a system for dealing with their trash so people don´t really have a choice besides throwing it wherever or making big piles on the beach or in their yards.

Once we got to the beach, we were given two garbage bags each and told to start picking up. When the bags were full, we were told to dump out the trash into a big pile on the beach. It felt really unproductive and we were dripping with sweat. It just sucked. Fortunately, before we decided to quit and go home, we saw that other people were having a break and decided to join them. Most of the rest of the morning and afternoon were spent lying in hammocks, drinking beer, and eating greasy food cooked in the comedors on the beach. We had a meeting with some members of the community in the afternoon to talk about the garbage situation and allow them to discuss some options and brainstorm possible solutions.

We did some more cleaning up in the evening when it was cooler, then went to bed early because it was dark and there wasn't much else to do. We slept on the porch of a guesthouse because the rooms were stuffy and had no mattresses on the beds. (Yes, they'd warned us in advance that the accommodations would be rustic.) Luckily, Sara and I had been able to borrow sleeping bags, so it wasn't too uncomfortable and there weren't any mosquitoes, which was nice. The next day, we got up bright and early to do some more trash pickup and then had another greasy meal. After breakfast, we were taken on a mangrove tour in a small launcha. Mangroves are crazy looking plants, I'll post pictures someday. (I know I've been saying that for ages about a variety of subjects, but it's true. Just you wait.) The tour went on and on and I'm not sure if we got lost or they were just trying to be very thorough. After 2-3 hours, they brought us back to the beach where one of the comedors had a big lunch of seafood medley soup--fish with heads, shrimp with peels, half a crab... And then it was into the ocean for one last splash and back on the bus to Xela.

Last weekend was great as well. I climbed Tajumulco, the tallest point in Central America. It was an overnight trip organized by Quetzaltrekkers, a volunteer-run hiking organization that funds a school called Escuela de la Calle for kids who are homeless or can't afford to attend regular schools, as well as a home for orphans or kids who can't live with their families due to abuse, etc. I met with the group (~24 hikers and 4 guides) on Friday to borrow equipment and clothes and get everything organized. I had to borrow a lot of stuff because I only own one long sleeve shirt, one hoodie, and one pair of jeans.

Saturday morning, we all met at 4:45am to set off on our trek. We all piled into a pickup truck which took us to the chicken bus/camioneta station. In case I haven't already mentioned it, I love the whole chickenbus system. They are recycled old school buses from the US and Canada and you can get anywhere in the country on them for really cheap. Maybe you have to ride three to a seat with more people standing in the aisles, but you'll get to where you're going.

The second of two buses let us off near the bottom of the mountain. And by that I mean that you can't see the top from the departure point. Scary. I soon found myself in last place on the hike. This was my first time hiking with a pack and I didn't realize how different it would be from just walking on my own. For most of the ~6 hour hike, I was probably 10-15 minutes behind everyone else. Luckily, one of the guides, Lizzy had to stay at the end of the line, so I had company the whole way up. We took a lot of breaks and it was hard but not terrible and no one quit. We reached base camp around 4 or 5 in the afternoon and set up the tents. Everyone went around looking for firewood while the guides started preparing dinner--soup to start then pasta with homemade sauce. We had a big campfire and everyone went to bed early (~8:30) in preparation for the next morning.

In the morning, we were woken up at 3:30 to hike the final hour to the summit. Once again, I was really slow, due to the altitude more than anything I think. At one point, three of us were wandering up the mountain alone, as the end guide had stayed behind with someone who had altitude sickness and had to take it really slow. I was worried that we'd miss the sunrise from the top, but we had some great views along the way. We finally made it and it was like being on the top of the world. The guides said this was the best sunrise they had seen. We could see a mountain in Mexico, the mountains around Lago de Atitlan, and the shadow of Tajumulco. I've posted some photos here:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=3e3jtwau.c6dgw1e6&Uy=wcuo59&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=1

Last weekend was the first I've spent in Xela and I picked a good one. Saturday was the final championship cup soccer game and Xela was playing San Marcos, the capital of a neighboring department (which is like a state). This was the second soccer game I've watched in my life, the first being game one of the championship. It was really fun as the bars were full of people because the game was pay-per-view and no one wanted to stay home. They won 4-1 and everyone partied in the bars and in the streets in the rain. The game got over at ~6:30 and people were out until 3:00am when the team showed up--it was an away game--and was awarded a huge gold cup.