Lake Atitlan

Well here I am in another beautiful volcano surrounded local. We arrived in Panajachel on Friday morning and were quickly put to work sorting out the huge shipment of medical supplies that had been sent from Canada. It took us two 5 hour days of sorting and rearranging to get everything in some sort of order. We are heading back this afternoon to go through the 7 boxes of medicine and arrange all of that. We have become the local clinic as well, assessing peoples sprained ankles, sore stomachs, and other minor ailments. Sharon (the Austrailian woman coordinating much of the distribution of the containers) has been joking that she should just hire as her in house medics.

Everyone we have met here so far has been wonderful. Jill (the founder of Poco a Poco from Vancouver Island) connected us with some great people who are all working very hard to help the people of this region get their lives back to normal after the horrific mudslides of Hurricane Stan. It is incredible to see the aftermath of the slides. The river that runs right through the town swelled from about 3 meters wide to about 400 meters wide taking out everything in its path. Houses and business simply fell into the water. Mudslides took out homes built along the hills, along with entire crops of vegetables which people depend on for food and income. It is incredible to see how people who had so little to begin with now have even less. We have met lots of people as they have been coming to Sharon´s house to get free clothing that came along in the shipment. Yesterday a mother with 5 of her 12 children arrived looking for clothes. They were all smiling and laughing, wearing there almost rags (which were impeccably clean) and broken shoes which they walk miles in every day. A new pair of shoes cost Q16 or about $2.60 canadian. Tim gave them a couple of yo-yos that we found in one of the boxes and they were all busily and happily trying to figure them out. So incredible. We have given out a couple of wheelchairs to people who have had strokes, a pair of crutches to a young man who lost his right arm and leg in an electrical accident, and a little walker shipped down especially for a little girl with a congenital birth defect. It is so hard to adjust to being able to see the hardship and loss that so many of these people are dealing with on a daily basis. Things are much worse off on the other side of the lake where half of one town was completely wiped out. It is literally a grave yard with bodies still trapped in the mud. People have lost their families and friends, and what little they had to begin with.

I have definately found I place where I can contribute something for the time that I have here. I found a little suite with a kitchen to rent for the month, and actually got to unpack everything. I´m off to find some coffee and some basic supplies to stock up and then we head over to Sharon´s to finish our sorting. Hope you are all well, and take a minute out of the day to remember how incredibly blessed we all are to live where we do with what we have.

Love to you all . . .
Catherine

Back in Antigua

Here we are back in this wonderful city, enjoying the cool mountain air and the cheap internet. We had an interesting 5 hour minivan ride from Copan to Antigua yesterday - we were ?lucky? enough to be in the front with the driver so had a first hand view of the scenery, and also the incredible traffic once we were in Guatemala City. Pretty neat drive all in all. We settled into our hotel at about 6pm, had yummy chicken curry at the Irish Pub next door to our hotel, and then went to the Monoloco bar to watch the last game of the world series. Today we are busy catching up on computer stuff, laundry, and hopefully getting in touch with the people in the Lake Atitlan area so they can put us to work.

As you can see, we managed to get some pictures uploaded - so enjoy! Us in the hurricane above, and proof that Amy actually went diving below, along a shot of the aftermath of Wilma . . . And me and my new friend . . .



Love to you all - Amy and Brigitte - glad to hear you got home safely!!!

Back On Dry Land

Well we somehow managed to make it! The storm finally let up for Saturday morning and so we rented a truck and went for a day trip around the island. I got to go to the iguana farm - many pictures don´t worry, and we had a great lunch at a place called The View, way up on top of a hill overlooking the beautiful coast line. Then to the beautiful white sand beach for a couple of hours. Sunday we dove twice - also wonderful, and on Sunday night we all went out for a special dinner at the Argentinian Grill for very yummy steaks. Monday flew by as we packed up and took the ferry back over to the mainland and spent our last night in La Ceiba.

At 4am this morning we dragged ourselves out of bed and to the bus station heading to San Pedro Sula. There Tim and I said goodbye to Amy and Brigitte and sent them off to the airport for their noon flight home. Hopefully they both had a safe flight and got lots of sleep ;) Tim and I had a 2 hour wait until our bus left to Copan - a small town close to the Guatemalan border where we will spend the night. There are some apparently quite impressive Mayan ruins here which we will go enjoy tomorrow morning before heading back to Antigua.

Its nice to be back on the road, and enjoying the cooler climate of the highlands. We found a cute little hotel with a wonderful tropical garden courtyard and a couple of cats and it looks like it will be a quite evening reading and enjoying the surroundings . . .

Goodbye Wilma!

While the rest of Mexico and Florida are waiting for the storm to hit, we are enjoying our first day of sun! I can't imagine, however, the destruction that this storm is going to wreak on its next targets. We ended up right on the edge of everything and still docks, houses, and boats have been washed away. We had no electricity for about 24 hours, but no one was hurt and it has been amazing watching everyone in the community working together to put thing back in order.

I will write more about all of this in the next couple of days - internet prices have risen substantially now that there are only a couple of places with access!!

Take care . . .

We're OK

Just wanted to let everyone know how we're doing here. Hurricane Wilma is in the area, but we are watching the progress carefully and are being well looked after by people here who are both very knowledgable about the area and have had lots of experience with storms in the past. We have no plans to leave the island at this point. The place we are staying is on high ground, far past any potential storm surge area. The actual hurricane has tracked much farther to the east than they had originally predicted, so we are going to end up on the very edge of the storm, nowhere near the eye of it. It is going to be a windy and rainy couple of days, but we have lots of good information and are in good shape to stick it out.

We had a great day of diving today, Amy had her first couple of dives and I did a refresher course with her. Saw many beautiful fishes and corals.

Please don't worry - we're totally ok. I'll email you all in the evening and touch base with you then.

Catherine

The Long Awaited Update

Well, many busy days have passed and I am glad to now have a chance to catch up on our adventures thus far and those to come . . .

We have picked up an extra member of our group - "Pete from Seattle" has become our honorary Canadian and welcome travel partner. He has rounded out our group of four nicely and we have all been having a great time together. I think Tim is probably quite happy having another male traveling companion - allowing him to avoid some of the inevitable conversation topics that have been arising between Amy, Brigitte, and me. Pete has been in Honduras for about 3 weeks before running across us in a pub in Antigua and has decided to spend his last couple of weeks along the same path as ours. And on Friday morning, after our day in Tikal we all got on a bus and started on our long journey to our Caribbean paradise.

Friday all in all was a pretty good day. A relatively painless 4 hour bus ride took us from Flores to Rio Dulce in Southeastern Guatemala. From there we hopped on a boat to head down river to the ocean. Our relative comfort ended quickly when they crammed 16 of us (along with 16 backpacks) onto a boat with four benches that seemed mildly crowded with 3 people per bench. Fortunately the incredible scenery allowed us to forgive the lack of space as we sped through the jungle on a massive river leading us out to Livingston. We consulted *the book* carefully and decided on a riverside hotel called Casa Rosada or Pink House. The boat dropped us off right at the pier of the hotel and we happily nestled into our little thatch huts, enjoyed a wonderful seafood dinner (Amy had pasta) and a couple of cervecas on the pier. We met a South African couple traveling with their 8 month old daughter who we plotted with to catch a boat to Puerto Barrios the next day.

Saturday morning found us enjoying a relaxed breakfast and then getting into another boat - this time a privately hired, and therefore spaciously comfortable - and zipping down the Atlantic shoreline of Guatemala to the port city of Puerto Barrios. We parted ways with the South Africans and hired a minivan to take us to the border. Now, we knew that we were going to have a long day of traveling ahead of us, but I think if everyone would have known how the day was going to end up I very well may have had no travel companions at all. The minivan ride across the Honduran border was uneventful and took about an hour. Once we arrived in the town of Corinta and got our passports stamped, we were herded rather quickly on what appeared to be a big yellow school bus. When I asked the minivan driver how long it would take us to get to San Pedro Sula he said two hours. Either he has never actually been there before, or he usually takes the trip by plane, because after three and a half hours we were bouncing our way into the city of Omoa, still an hour away from San Pedro. With our backsides sufficiently numbed, we loaded onto a minibus that took us into the downtown of the second biggest city in Honduras. With a boat, a minivan, a school bus and a minibus under our belts and 6.5 hours gone, we set out into the hectic city - and thankfully for all of us were only a couple of blocks from the next bus station. We found our next bus superficially less school bus looking, but basically the same idea, but with slightly softer seats, we were on what seemed to be the "luxury" bus. The luxury bus with 4 very grumpy, hot and tired Canadians, and one honorary Canadian in no better shape. Everyone's eyes got very big and there was much sighing and under-the-breath grumbling when I burst the bubble and told everyone it was a 3 hour bus ride instead of the one hour bus ride they were mistakenly thinking we were on. Four hours later we piled off the bus, even hotter, tireder, grumpier, and hungrier than we had previously been and took a taxi to the hotel Pete had highly recommended we all stay at. Everyone's eyes lit up when the Pizza Hut sign was noted next door, and our poolside dinner of pepperoni and cheese pizza allowed us all to happily unwind and finally be able to joke about our day. The consensus was that a pub night was in order, but I, after having spoken to arranged coordinated and argued with every bus, boat, minivan, minibus, and taxi driver along the way, decided if I talked to one more person I would probably not be able to maintain my sanity, went to bed.

Next time I travel in a group I refuse to be the only one who speaks the language . . . ;)

Sunday morning and we were off on the ferry to the island. A long day of searching around and we have landed ourselves a wonderful two storey wood cabin at a beach front resort complete with swimming pool for $150US a night. Between the 5 of us, not too bad at all. Last night we all sat on our screened porch and played cards (Pete went to bed the asshole and Brigitte is reigning President).

This morning we set up diving for Tim, Brigitte, and Pete this afternoon, while Amy and I are waiting to do a intro and refresher course tomorrow morning.

That is, unless we get hit by soon to be Hurricane Wilma . . .

From Highlands to Jungle . . .

Well after the shock of the luggage crisis wore off I was able to look around and finally appreciate where I was. The small city of Antigua just west of the capital was a beautiful and easy-going place for us to spend our first couple of days. Colonial architecture and beautiful plants growing everywhere accented by the large volcano looking over the town. Very beautiful.

The back pack fiasco gave us an extra day there, which everyone was ok with. It also managed to allow us to avoid a rather untimely transportation strike in Honduras that may have left us high and dry who-knows-where. Instead of heading straight to the coast, we ended up flying up to Flores which is in the North Central part of the country and going to the Mayan ruins at Tikal. Between that and our nice hotel with pool (its in the high 20s and 80%+ humidity) we have had a great couple of days.

In about an hour we hop on a bus and head to the town of Rio Dulce and then a boat to Livingston which puts us just North of the Honduran frontier. Then we are off to the island of Roatan, and a much anticipated week of sun, diving, and perhaps some Marguaritas!

Hope everyone is doing well - I promise another post soon . . .

Houston we have a problem . . .

I distinctly remember wondering how on earth I had managed to end up packing so much stuff into my nice new backpack. My first aid kit must take up a third of the space. Not to mention the mask and snorkel and various medical books. And of course my towel.

I promise never to complain about having too much stuff again. Because when it comes right down to it, too much is better than nothing at all. Which is exactly what I have at the moment.
Apparently getting all of us here safely, with all of our belongings was too tall an order for the people at Continental. Four people and five bags became four people and four bags, and I have had the distinct pleasure of trying to express plainly enough to the baggage department of the Guatemala City Airport the importance of my backpack arriving here before I have to leave for Honduras tomorrow.

About half a dozen phone calls later, and enough stress to last me several months, a very friendly and helpful Quebec native who works here in Antigua made one phone call and my backpack miraculously appeared. So now we wait, only a little longer, and I will finally be able to put on clean clothes which are actually my own.

I have learned through this experience that a sign of a true friend is one who will lend you a pair of their underwear . . .

Soon . . .