Independence day and Guatemala

This weekend we had quite the adventure in Guatemala. We had Monday through Wednesday off of school due to Independence day (Sept. 15^th) and Teacher’s day (Sept 17^th) and thought we should take advantage of the time off. Sunday morning we marched with our students in a parade around town. There were parades Sat.-Mon. by the different schools in the area. Our turn was on Sunday and it was fun to see all the students and parents. At noon we (Zach, David and Cody) took a shuttle to Antigua, Guatemala which was supposed to be a 6 hour bus ride. We ended up getting into Antigua around 8:30 due to delays from boulders in the road, a flat tire and multiple high school groups running torches on the highways. Guatemala also has their Independence day on Sept. 15^th and one way they celebrate is for mostly high school age kids to run torches over all of Guatemala.

We arrived finally in Antigua and found a nice room for about $10 a person a night for the three of us and immediately went to the central park for some food. It was fun to be there and see all the celebrations for Independence. There was music, food vendors and tons of people out. Antigua is a very old city, hence the name, and has many old ruins, enormous Catholic churches and a lot of history. Monday morning we woke up early and had breakfast at a small café and then watched some of the parades. The parades lasted all day and as in Honduras all of the schools participate in their school uniforms. We checked into many different tours from Antigua and decided to take a bus to an active volcano called Volcán Pacaya. It was about an hour bus ride up to the volcano and then a 2-3 mile hike up to the top. It was very steep and we were surprised how difficult it was. We got to the beginning of the volcanic rocks which looked like dunes of coarse sand. Our tour guide turns around and asks if we’re ready to ski. We looked at him puzzled and then he took off into the thick fog, jumping down the dune. We all followed and it was strange to leap off into a place hidden by fog. We eventually climbed up more and made it to a place where the lava was flowing. It was so interesting to see it ooze and then dry up as it burned underneath. The pictures don’t do it justice. We stood around on the top for awhile but couldn’t see much because the fog was so thick around us. Occasionally it cleared a little and we could see that we were surrounded by tall mountains and deep valleys. It was just great.

On Tuesday we took another trip to one of the largest lakes in Guatemala, Lake Atitlan. The lake is surrounded by several villages, with a very large indigenous population. Just about all of the women that we saw were dressed in very traditional dresses. This was actually a theme for the whole country of Guatemala. All of the women had very colorful, traditional clothes. They also carried babies and other heavy loads around on their backs. We took a small boat to one of the villages, and found that Spanish was definitely the second language of nearly everyone there. We could hear bits of their conversations in their native tongue, which was of Mayan origin. Well, the lake was pretty but there were a lot of people that made their living selling overpriced things to the tourists. We all felt like we spent the entire day being hounded, chased, bothered, and lied to.

We had booked a shuttle to take us back to Copan at 1:00 on Wednesday, so that we could be back around 7 and get ready for teaching the next day. After a morning of visiting ancient churches and shopping in the market we showed up at the travel agency to find out that our shuttle had been cancelled. We ran to several other agencies to see if they had any shuttles leaving that afternoon, but none did. The next shuttle wouldn’t get us to copan until around 10:30 the next morning. We decided to go to the bus terminal and try to make it back to Copan by public bus. We took a bus to Guatemala City, then a taxi to another bus station in the city. We took another bus to a city called Chiquimula, and arrived around 8pm due to more delays on the road. There were no more busses to the border or into Honduras that night, but we really didn’t want to stay there, so we found a taxi that took us across the border and into Copan. We arrived to find that the power was out in the entire city, but the dark streets never looked so good. We were so happy to be home. We got home around 10pm, and were up in time to make it to school on time this morning.

All in all it was a good weekend with everything that comes with travel. We are glad to be home now.