Volcanos and Queen's day!

After many attmepts I was able to pull myself away from San Pedro and head to Antigua, a larger city in Guatemala. The shuttle over here was comfortable and roomay as we weren't many people and each had out own seats! Once again someone thought I was Israeli, and I am starting to think it would just be easier to go along with it! Sababa! At home people sometimes tink I am greek or Italian but here its always Israeli.... and Israelis are all surprised I can speak Hebrew...so I tell then I grew up in the westbank...after they get over the shock I let them know I'm from Canada eh!

Happy Queen's day!! I met a girl from Holland on the shuttle who let me know it was Queens day...an excuse to wear orange and get drunk and be happy about the Queen of Holland.... we went to a party with lots of people wearing Orange, an abvious tradition for Queens day, but I did not see a single clog anywhere! (I was recognized by an Israeli who remembered me from my Hebrew reading performance at the seder!) I also learned my intuition was working as I was offered part of a friend's beer and for the first time in my life I half jokingly asked if there was anything else in it.... it turns out there was, and orange almost became only one of many colors I could have been seeing...This was the only time in as long as I could remember that I really wanted to smack someone...but since no harm was done and I am not wearing my skates (the only time I can really be violent) I let it slide....Antigua has a large market where I went crazy the other day! I got a new bag, a shirt, a sweater and sunglasses....Its about time I had a sweater with a hood! I have never travelled without a hoody and i figured i would get one here quick...well it took me 2 months! the fact that it hasn't been cold enough to need one may have influenced that!

There are lots of bootlegs around central america, in markets you can buy almost any movie, but they are all downloaded and burned to cd....nothing is official...I bought some Adidas sunglasses, but I am sure someone just added stickers and a tag to regular glasses, or I got the best deal on the planet! Aparently Scrubs sponsors the local pharmacy!!! I think you can use any image or product for your benefit around here!
The local McDonalds or (McDo (pronounced McDoe) for those in la belle province) has an eating area as sweet as the finest restaurant, this is only a part of the courtyard!

The main reason I came to Antigua, besides that I was sure I could see some playoff action (which I did) was to go to Pacaya volcano and check out the lifeblood of the planet! It was really neat.... First when you get out of the bus after a 1.5 hour ride there are tons of kids trying to sell you sticks for 5 Quetzales...less then a dollar.... these are to poke at the lava with... I somehw got an awesome stick that I thought would make a perfect walking companion for the duration of my travels....
Then we headed up the mountain, about half way.... Here the lava is not pouring out of the crater of the volcano but rather out of the ground on the side.... First we came to dry or hardened lava, which was brittle and easily breakable and often in really pretty patterns....

The lava was really flowng out of the ground and was unbearably hot! It felt kind of nice after walking up in a cool drizzle.... The ground we were walking on probably only got laid that morning or the day before.... Part of what we were walking on had cracks and you could see red hot lava just a few inches below you! It was pretty freaky.... and aparently no one gets hurt even though there is not a guardrail in site! Pretty cool.... So this is one way that lkand is made, lava comes out of the ground and hardens..... the earth is torn open and bleeding....its bolld is red too, but much thicker than ours...

Check out the flow! It moves more towards the end of the video!




I finally got some shots of the chicken buses! They are copletely repainted from their old school bus colors but the seats remain the same. There is a man called an adelante who is th ebad guy and ticket guy, he hangs out the door most of the time looking for people and is always crawling over the roof and going in and out the backdoor as often as the front... I think this is probably the wackiest job you can get in guatemala, haning off the back and roof of a bus flying down the highway!



Tonight is another Habs game, obviously I hope they win, but If they lose I wont be tempted to stay inthe city to see the next game! Soon I am off to El Salvador, and then maybe Nicuragua before going diving in Honduras.... I iss the carribean!

Cheers!

mike


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Up and Down again, a trail by me

San Pedro....where Jesus is the Lord! Tons of buildings either have this or other similar saying...you can only be saved by jesus...Jesus is the one who brings change..... This is the side of a school.


¨What a wonderfull new smell you've discovered¨... Han Solo once said this and it would apply perfectly to this pile of what I believe are part of the coffee plant! The long black thing comes from a building where something is done to the beans and this is produced...as you walk in the town you see fields with large dark plastic tarps with coffee bens drying on them. But this pile and some others like it emit an odor so foul and intimidating to one's olfactory system that nostrils pack their bags and go on vacation, some never to be smelled from again.


The day I arrived at San Pedro we were ontop of something called the nose....when seen from the town it looks like the nose of a giant head in the mountains. From there we saw San Pedro Volcano and made plans to climb it... It became evident after a week that it would never happen...Well, never happened....Charlie of Massachusets (if you can spell it better ill be impressed) came to me one day as I was perched resting in my hammock and he said: Mike, let us go forth as we discussed and climb to the very summit of that volcano yonder. And he continued: We shall not begin our descent at first light, but rather we will begin halfway between the setting and rising of the sun so that we can be atop the volcano for the rising of that which brings life to the planet. And I said unto Charlie: That plan is a good plan. (after a little nudging)
And so it came to pass that the very next evening we lay to rest before the sun and awoke to depart at the early hour of 2 in the morning.

The climb was all in the dark and lots of fun! We were joined by Chen, who harlie has been travelling with and Near, an Israeli we met by the lake. Our guide was Cheo (pronounced Chay-o) who is working at the campground where I'm staying.... It took us a while to walk up to the trailhead, and then a while longer to get up the mountain. Charlie and I ran ahead to catch the sunrise and made it with minutes to spare! The lake looked incredible and the mountains in the distance were all surrounded by clouds with their heads poking out to taste the day.

Geology Interlude

The area the lake occupies used to be a giant holding tank for lava. When this erupted and emptied there was a giant hollow in the ground, we're talking a couple hundred meters deep and you can see how wide from some of these pics and from the post when I first arrived.... So this empty chamber collapsed and two main rivers and Im sure tons of streams filled up the hole, making the lake. This happened about 140 000 years ago. If you say that the earth is not so old, there is an interesting video caled ¨the young age of the earth¨ which tries to show 'scientifically' how the earth is roughly 7000 yrs old... Although it contradicted 3 years of university studies, I found it amusing! One can reverse engineer anything to make it seem to have happened in a certain way... Back to the lake... So once this lake was formed there was still lava that wanted to get out of the ground (not lying at the bottom of the lake but under the lake bed or beside it) , and this created San Pedro volcano, the oldest currently around the lake. From what I understand, as lava kept pouring out it solidified, slowly building up into a mountain... When it stopped, lava still needed to come out and made 2 more volcanos, the last one still active!

On saturday night there was party at an ecological reserve that lasted past sunrise! The music was in the main building, and you could follow a condle lit path uphill for a few minutes and come to asmall fire with some benches and drums and happy people. The area is sacred to the mayans and it was interestign to be there.... It is also the site of the longest zipline in central america, form one mountian to another across a chasm.... and was supposed ot be included with the ticket but due to some miscommunication it never happend.... But the music was good, some one had made very good friends with a dentist as they brought a tank of N2O... lots of people seem to have found this FUNNNNNYYYY! Come morning there was a very colorful sunrise and a good view of San Pedro volcano..... (the one the other pictures are from)



Coming back form the party was another exciting adventure! It was an hour drive almost all uphill through insane swithcbacks with hairpin turns...so naturally the only way to come back down is in the back of a pickup truck! But to make it more interesting the truck was first loaded with the whole soundsystem forem the party. In the piuc of the other truck (the one our driver thought it bes to pass) you can see how there are bars to hold onto....most of the trucks have these as it is a common form of transportation.... the fact that our balance was high sitting on meter tall pseakers added to the fun....to top it off we had beer...although it was sometimes sketchy to let go of the railing with one hand to grab the beer with the other.... nothing like flying down a mountain in the back of a truck and drinking at 8am after a night of dancing!

Its great to be living right on the lake, so when we got back (safely) I hopped in to relax and swim about.... I have my tent pitched at an up and cming place that is still being built....A guy form Hungary who grew up in Quebec is building giant teepees and he and his wife are taking care of things. There are only a few people there and it is the sweetest spot in town... I opted for my tent over a teepee....which I only regretted for a few minutes when I had my very first infestations of ants! Good times..... Here is the cutest girl in Guatemala.... the third helper in the teepee project...with her mom....