Adventures Month of July

Johnny, Seno Cony, Myself and Roberto posing proudly after painting the Semillas de Ayuda logo and installing a pump on a water tank in the beautiful Escaputzy. One of my favorite places to work in La Cumbre. Always shown the height of hospitality and its is such a wonderful place when the sun shines. Baltic cold and miserable when the sun isnt out mind you.....

In all honesty I spent most of my time in July planning for the house so had little time to do much work with the foundation. I did however have a few adventures during this time which I will tell you about below...


Laguna Magdelana

After work one day in escaputzy I asked about goin to the lake from there. 15 minutes they said.....

About an hour later and nearly killing myself and Johnny on the bike twenty times we arrived. Funny cos I dont remember seeing many helicopters in Escaputzy. This is Guatemala though and expecially in la cumbre time doesnt mean a whole lot. Europeans have the watches guatemalans have the time............

Laguna Magdelena. Not as impressive as when the sun is out on my profile pic on FB but impresive none the less.


Todo Santos

Went to Todo Santos one day. Went to a little private museum played a bit on the Mirimba had a look at the few artifacts the guy had. Was good way to kill an hour or so.


Nebaj

Got the idea to walk to Nebaj in Qeqchi one weekend. There are tour companies charging 100 euro or so to walk from Nebaj to Todo Santos and taking 4 or 5 days. We decided to take an adventure in the other direction, one because it was easier to start from my house and two because we would be goin down rather than up 100m over the 32km journey. Bit easier on the oul legs. We started out at about 8 in the morning, got a feed in the local comedor and then got a pick up ride for about 2 hours just past Escaputzy. Lovely walk too but seen as ive been living and working in this area for 8 months there wouldnt have been much new to see so the quicker option was preferred.

I havent gone this grey just yet. Honestly I havent forgot to put my dye in... the dust from the dirt track in the back of the pick up was fairly tough.

 The first real town we hit after tasking a few ¨short cuts¨ was Polop. All along the way kids came out of nowhere to wave at us and talk to us. It was like we were aliens the amount of interest they showd us. From here we asked a lot of people how far Nebaj was walking. We were told different times ranging from 3 hours to 1 full day so we just put the head down and started walking.

The nearest paved road from Polop is about 3 hours drive in all directions. Still, political parties have slogans painted on rocks. In Ireland the politicians go to the bother of making up policies that people want and then when they get into power do what is most profitable. In Guatemala it is pure advertising. Painted houses, t shirts free water tanks, they dont even bother going to the effort of telling lies. Then again would the former head of the secret police, personally responsible for the Genocide of 80,000 indigenous people, actually be the president of a country with a 70 percent indeigenous majority if real topics were actually discussed?

Anyway...... we walked for about 5 hours in some of the most awesome terrain I have seen in Guatemala so far, until we came upon a few boys loading rocks into a truck. They offered us a lift if we helped them. We actually helped them for an hour and got a lift for an hour and a half off them. Realistically we made less progress than just walking as the truck went at a snails pace. However, my legs were about to pack in and it was starting to rain so was a good option all in all not to mention the bit of craic and conversation with the boys we helped.
Along the way I was day dreaming thinking how good life must be for the people. Simple, self sustainable surrounded by such beauty and with such warm hearted people. We had a chat with one of the guys on the journey in the back of the truck and the reality is very different. In reality unless a person is given land by his father then there is no other option to afford land than to through Mexico into the States. 1 in 10 young men are estimated to take this option in Guatemala with as much as 1 in 3 estimated in Los Cuchumontanas. The reality is that they head to the states to work in chinese restaurants or as gardeners or in construction for double the hours and have the wages of people with papers all to save up enough money to buy some land back at home. If they manage to get through Mexico safely, which many dont, on arrival in a country with a foreign language and alien way of life they also have a bill of 4,000 dollars to a Coyote who has brought them there. I have talked to a few people about this since and the most startling thing is that they dont go through the desert on trecks but straight through the border paying the border police on the way. Now im not an expert on border police in the states but it seems hard to believe that such a nation couldnt stop this if they really wanted. Or is the economy actually propped up by this new form of slave labour??
The most disturbing thing for me is that when these people return they are so full of praise about everything form the US and yet so ignorant of the fact that the reason they dont have the opportunity to make a decent living in their own country is partly because of the capitalist corporations from the very country they admire so much. Of course credit has to go to the Spanish conquistadors historically and the more recently the 18 Guatemalan families that now control the country.

After we got to the bridge construction site the rocks were destined for we then picked up another truck that brought us to the town of Nebaj. Nothing special in itself other than it is a real Guatemalan town with very little outside influence and it also has great yellow cheese. Somewhat of a rarity in Guatemala. All in all it took us a day for the trip and we headed back along a paved road to Huehue the next day on micro bus. Enough adventure for one weekend.

Xela (Volcan Santa Maria)

Myself and Denise met up in Xela to climb Santa Maria volcanoe a few weeks back. We also met up with a few people we had met in Monte Rico the week before for Denises birthday. We planned on climbing Santa Maria but when we got to teh base the guide told us that due to the taxi braking down by the time we got to teh top the clouds would stop us seeing anything and convinced us to go to a look out to see Santa Guita erupting. As in turnd out he was lying through his teeth but I was happy either ways all i wanted to see was Santa guito anyway. Something cool about an active volcanoe has to be said......