Tag Archives: Guatemala

Climbed a Volcano then Experienced an Earthquake – Natural Disaster Day…

Posted on by verenico
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My Guatemalan Host Family

Missed my alarm…  However it was 6:05am so I still had a chance.  I was supposed to meet some local Guatemalan dude 5 minutes in the past to guide me up a volcano that morning.  As I threw some chips and water in a little backpack I raced down the stairs of Guatemalan host family’s house in hopes to catch him.  The moment I opened the door and exited my house a fairly poor looking local guy with a sparkling gold tooth walked up to me, pointed to the volcano looming over my town and asked me to pay him immediately.  Now I knew this was supposed to be a 6 hour trek so I was a little hesitant at first to fork over the 100 Quetzales (Guatemalan currency) thinking, “Why I do I need to pay him now?  Is he just some random dude who walks around at 6am and looks for gringos waiting for guides, collects the money and disappears?”  He sure didn’t look like a guide, but I went with it anyway and before I knew it we were chatting in Spanish making our way to the base of the big volcano.

I was up there! - San Pedro Volcano

The air was crisp and after telling the local that I grew up in the great Rocky Mountains of Colorado and was used to high altitude he set a vigorous pace for our ascent.  After a couple hours of chit chat, practicing my Spanish and walking through the dense forest I began to realize this was going to be more difficult than I had initially expected.  Although I fancy myself a fairly fit young lad, the trail was a very sharp incline and virtually the same steepness as climbing large stairs for hours on end.  Slightly regretting building myself up to be an “hombre de las montanas” (man of the mountains) as there was no way I could ask for a water break and keep my integrity, we kept the pace and began to climb higher and higher.  My guide ran into a local coffee farmer who was making his way up the volcano and they began to converse in the local language of the area.  What most people don’t realize about Guatemala is that Spanish is actually the second language in most areas of the country.  In the town of San Pedro La Laguna where I’ve been studying Spanish for the last 2 weeks, the first language of the people is called Tz’utujil.  This is one of the twenty some different dialects of Mayan language, and one of the most different sounding languages I’ve ever been exposed to.  Consisting of strange, exotic sounds in combination with these noises I can best describe as ‘clucks’ coming from deep within the throat, the language truly makes you feel like you are in another world.

My Current Home - San Pedro La Laguna

Listening to the bizarre clucks of the Mayan language, with my heart pounding in my chest and legs feeling like burning rubber, minutes turned to hours as we trekked up the 6,060 ft volcano.  Rather than trying to take my mind away from the pain in my body I just embraced the moment, felt my muscles straining, heart working overtime and brain being overwhelmed by all my senses from the sights and sounds of a forest like none I’d ever seen.  Our first real break was only 20 minutes from the summit where the guide showed me a flat area where some people come up and camp.  As I sat down on an enormous log and tried to replenish the large amount of water that I had sweated out, I had a nice little moment of peace.  Unable to see anything but thick, lush forest, I felt like I was in a scene from the movie Avatar watching birds play in the huge moss covered trees and immensely green fauna all around me.  Eventually we made our way up the last steep bit to the summit of the volcano, and the moment the forest opened up to the view below I remembered why I liked to climb things.

               With quite literally a bird’s eye view of a large, spectacularly blue lake surrounded by perfectly shaped volcanoes protruding violently from the earth, the landscape was overwhelmingly beautiful.  High above the clouds, I rested on a rock and let my eyes smile for a while.  As I tried to snap many photos of the ridiculous view, I was affected by what is known as the ‘Alaska Effect.’  This phenomenon is when you attempt to photograph something that is so huge and beautiful it is virtually impossible to accurately portray in a simple photo.  Eventually my desire to see something beautiful had been fulfilled and we began our descent conversing about international soccer, food and poverty.  What’s interesting about many people from other countries is that they have absolutely no idea that the US has poor people in it.  They often assume that everyone in the US is rich because the only Americans they meet are tourists with enough money to travel, and as MTV is hugely popular abroad shows like ‘Jersey Shore’ or ‘My Super Sweet 16’ brainwash them into thinking this is what normal life is like in America.  This creates somewhat of a problem as many people in other countries idolize the United States and center their whole lives on trying to get there for a better life.  It could be said that this contributes to our immigration problem and what’s sad is that many of these poor folks risk everything to go north only to end up in our country in just as bad poverty as they had back home.

Hombre de Los Volcanes

My guide was very cool, open and told me all about his life.  Among other things he brought tourists up the volcano 4 times a week (at age 45 that’s a lot of strenuous work) for just a few dollars each time.  He came from a huge family in a small town in the south and had come to San Pedro in hopes to make enough money to feed his large family with the help of tourist dollars.  Two of his younger brothers had been murdered in Guatemala City and although he was very kind and nice I could tell that this man was struggling.  He kept talking to me about drinking beer and thinking we were getting along pretty well I offered to treat him to a beer to celebrate climbing the volcano.  He obliged, but instead of taking me to a bar we went to a little convenience store in the center of town.  I took two cans of Gallo (my least favorite of the local beers) out of the refrigerator and before I even had time to pay for them he had chugged his entire beer.  Quickly afterwards he thanked me and took off, leaving me to awkwardly drink my beer as quickly as possibly alone in the store while people shopped and looked at this strange gringo who was choking down beer and covered in sweat just before noon.

Where I Read Books - From the Roof of my House

Eventually I returned to my house and sprawled out exhaustedly on my bed.  My leg muscles were slightly shaking from the over exertion of summiting the volcano, but I was tired enough that I closed my eyes and almost instantly feel asleep.  I awoke to a feeling like I’ve never experience in my life.  My bed began trembling and over the course of about a minute continued until it was shaky fairly hard.  As I gripped the sheets, terrified watching the furniture in my room jump up and down for a while I had absolutely no idea what was going on.  Wondering to myself if I was experiencing an earthquake or perhaps ironically the volcano that I had climbed earlier was erupting, I just sat there too tired and confused to move.  Eventually the shaking stopped, but I was too tired to do anything and all the walls in my room seemed to be in tact so I fell back asleep.  An hour or so later I awoke and thought to myself, “What the hell happened a little while ago?”  Not quite sure if I had experienced a natural disaster or just a dream I went to ask one of my housemates if he noticed the same thing.  Luckily I hadn’t gone crazy and he had experienced the same frightening experience.  We checked the internet and discovered there had been a pretty sizable earthquake near the border of Mexico and Guatemala.  We had only felt a tremor of it, but I can tell you that having the ground beneath you shake is quite an unnatural and unnerving experience! Having climbed my first volcano and experienced my first earthquake in the same day, I will forever remember January 21st as Natural Disaster Day. 

Written by Alex Vere-Nicoll

Am I Doing What a 26 Year Old Should Be Doing?

Posted on by verenico
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Buenos Noches

Today marks the day of my 26th birthday in this beautiful, strange and awesome world.  As I write these words I am watching the sun set behind a volcano over the surreal Lake Atitlan in Guatemala.  If someone told me as a kid that this is where I would be spending the 26th anniversary of my birth, I would have been very confused and wondered how and why this was going to happen.  Funny enough, I am still pondering those same questions, how did I end up here?  What factors in my life influenced me to become infatuated with traveling to strange lands, meeting new people and exposing myself to different things on a daily basis?  Am I doing what I should be for a typical 26 year old American male?

What are some of the things that people consider to be important for someone my age?

  1. Career – Well simply put I don’t have one of these.  In fact I’m currently unemployed besides doing a little travel writing on the web for small amounts of cash.
  2. Relationship – I find it hard to stay in the same city for more than 6 months without craving new adventures, try explaining that to a significant other….
  3. Possessions- Everything I currently own is probably worth less than the computer you are reading this on and if I can’t fit it into my backpack I don’t really need it.
  4. Education- I have a bachelor’s degree in Business, but my last job was teaching foreign kids English in Panama.  However, I can honestly tell you that I’ve learned more from traveling than I did in my 4 years of University.
  5. Experiences- Well I’ve traveled to 43 countries, have friends all over the world and should probably write a book I have so many stories.

So Alex let me get this straight, you’ve got no job, no girlfriend, a backpack full of cheap crap and smelly clothes, you aren’t using your expensive college degree and you justify this because you’ve traveled a bit…  Is it really worth it?

This is WHY I Travel!

I remember an activity I did in elementary school with my class where we had to create a timeline of what we thought our life was going to be like in the future.  My timeline and the majority of my classmates consisted of your typical, college – job – marriage – house – kids – retire.  No one mentioned things such as visit a new continent or learn a new language or climb a mountain.  Why is that?  What would the teacher have done if my timeline had looked something more like this:

College – Boring Office Job – Teach English in Thailand – Travel SE Asia – Bartend in a Brewery – Travel Eastern Europe – Start a Hangover Helping Business – Teach English in Panama – Go to Spanish School in Guatemala – Travel South America – ?????

Mornin’ Lake Atitlan

In all honesty the teacher would have probably handed back the assignment and told the student to be a little more realistic.  This is what frustrates me about the expectations placed on young people in the USA these days.  There’s this unnecessary pressure to jump into a career as quickly as possible before we even really know who we are or what we want to do.  Deciding what we want to do for THE REST OF OUR LIVES is an extremely important decision and not to be taken lightly.  Why not try a variety of things, travel around a bit, see different ways of life and experience the world before taking a decision on what to dedicate life to?

To answer the question of whether this lifestyle is worth it, my simple response is HELL YES it’s worth it.  The single most important reason why is because for this brief period in my life I am truly experiencing ultimate freedom.  While FREEDOM is a frequently used term in our great “Land of the Free, Home of the Brave” take a step back and analyze your life to see how free you actually are.  Ask yourself this question.  If your best friend offered you a one-way ticket to a country half way round the world tomorrow to go live for an indeterminate amount of time with them, could you accept their invitation?  The answer is probably no.  There are a number of factors that would inhibit your ability to just leave this world tomorrow for an adventure.  The most obvious reason is your job.  Even if you have money in the bank, you can’t risk losing your job in an economy like this one.  You probably have an apartment or a house that you need to sell or sublet.  That house is probably full of furniture, a TV, and lots of other things that you don’t really need.  You may have car payments, credit card debt, student loans that need to be paid off.  A spouse or girlfriend wouldn’t be too happy if you just took off one day… Maybe you have a dog, cat or even children that need to be taken care of.  Beyond material things what about expectation from your parents, peers or even yourself?

Steamin’ in a Volcano

Now in no way am I saying that having these things is a negative thing and to be honest, besides the debt, I intend to have all of these things eventually.  Just not right now…  In the brief window where you are old enough to take care of yourself, but young enough not to have a lot of the things mentioned above this is a time when you can experience this ultimate freedom.  Not until you journey across the ocean and cut yourself loose to truly experience what the world has to offer doing absolutely WHATEVER you want free from expectations, judgments and responsibilities can you really get to know who you are as a person.  Slowly the closet full of clothes, TV, car and shoe collection become unimportant and your realize you only need a few bare essentials to survive.  This is a humbling lesson in our materialistic world and one that you will never learn in a book, lecture or movie.  As I reflect on my mere 26 years of life I am astounded where my journey has taken me.  Never in my wildest dreams would I have foreseen the wild adventures, awesome friends and strong lessons I have learned in this crazy life.  Thanks world for a hell of a ride, I’m stoked to be 26, what will this next year bring???

Written by Alex Vere-Nicoll

Please Don’t Rob Me!! – A Scary Day in Guatemala City

Posted on by verenico
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After spending my first NYE on an epic beach in Santa Catalina, Panama one of the cooler surf towns I’ve come across, I found myself on a plane headed to Guatemala for a month.  The reason I’m going to Guatemala is simply because I went to the Copa Airlines website and looked for the cheapest special they had running for the New Year.  Round trip to Guatemala for $189, sold….

Antigua: The Destination

All I really knew about Guatemala was that they got some sweet Mayan temples, big volcanoes, cheap Spanish schools and a fairly dangerous capital city where a number of backpackers had told me they’d been robbed.  As it was just me and my trusty backpack traveling to Guatemala I decided I better not spend too much time in the capital alone and just head straight to a touristy town called Antigua.  Unfortunately I have a handy knife that I like to travel with so I had to check my backpack on the short flight across Central America.  Planning to hop a bus directly to Antigua from the airport the only thing that could force my hand into spending time in Guatemala City would be if they lost my best friend (my backpack).

Standing in disbelief as the last of the bags from my flight emptied onto the baggage claim, I realized my backpack was still in Panama.  Approaching the baggage counter with my fingers crossed another flight would be here soon I was told to return to the airport in 7 hours to claim my backpack.  To make matters worse the only things I had in my daypack were the expensive things I didn’t want to break or get lost in my luggage, including a Laptop, Camera, Ipod, Kindle and Cell Phone.  Not willing to waste 7 hours in the airport and thinking 10am probably isn’t the most common time to get robbed I tightened my jaw, asked a cab driver if he thought I would survive a walk around the city center and set off.

Guatemala City

Feeling cold air for the first time in 6 months I was dropped off at a fairly run down town square with some older, but fairly interesting looking buildings.  Putting on my hardest “Don’t fuck with this Gringo” face I started wandering around the city.  I quickly realized my blond hair and blue eyes were a beacon for attention and feelings of discomfort began to arise immediately as it seemed every single person within a 3 block radius was staring at me.  Although there was a large presence of police force equipped with menacing looking AK-47s, they seemed to give me the same unwelcoming look as all the others.  Not enjoying my time I decided I needed some information on things to do for the day that didn’t involve the feeling of cold gun metal to my head and all my possessions being taken away from me.  I found an internet café and whilst searching for info on the city a seemingly nice Guatemalan man told me where the tourist center was.  He offered to walk me there as he said it’s a bit dangerous to wander around alone and even paid for my internet bill as I still didn’t have any of the local currency.

An older man who was quite a lot smaller than me and not threatening in any way, he insisted on talking me on a little walk to see some churches.  As we began to enter some neighborhoods that did not look like the type of place for a gringo I kept repeatedly asking him if it was safe for me to be there.  He kept pointing to devious looking, homeless people saying at this time I won’t get robbed, but after 4pm that’s the type of guy that would rob me.  Not sure if that was supposed to make me feel comfortable or not I just went with it and got to see a good deal of the city.  I couldn’t decide if this guy was trying to get something from me with his kindness or was just genuinely being a nice guy.  After telling me to only eat chicken in this area of the city as it is widely known that vendors sell dog meat disguised as beef, he took me to a decent looking restaurant.

Not The Nicest Area

After telling me he was an out of work school teacher and watching this guy’s teeth literally keep falling out of his mouth he told me that he didn’t have enough money to eat at this nicer place.  As meals were only a few bucks, I offered to buy him lunch and a beer to thank him for his nice tour that didn’t end with me getting robbed.  Instead of lunch he asked if I could pay for some chicken for him to bring to his family that weekend so they wouldn’t think he was as bad off as he was.  He told me the chicken would be about $8 at a local market near the restaurant.  Feeling a little deceived, but realizing this dude could really use the money more than me I bought him a beer anyway and told him I would buy some chicken for him as a new year’s present.  I ate my meal to the clicking sound of his broken teeth secretly praying that my backpack would make it this time.

Just Textin with my Shotty...

After paying for my meal I realized it was time to return to the airport and I offered to just give him the money so he could buy the chicken himself.  All I had was a 100 Quetzal (Guatemalan currency) note which is about 15$ and the restaurant wouldn’t make change so he walked me to a bank where we could get some change.  As we entered a sketchy little strip mall he told me just to give him the money and he would run in and do it quickly.  As I absent mindedly gave him the money he promised he would be back and took off into the mall.  Still not totally trusting this man I followed him into the mall.  Passing a hair saloon the entire staff of middle aged woman ran out trying to grope me, cat calling and telling me how beautiful I was.  Trying to escape I ventured further into the mall where an angry looking man dressed in civilian clothing with a huge shotgun was walking right towards me quickly.  My heart began to race and I truly felt scared so I scampered out of the mall as quickly as possible.  Hiding in a little corner I realized that this was probably the most uncomfortable I had ever felt in my entire life.  Not even caring about the money anymore I started to walk away to find a taxi.  Just when I began to walk away the man returned with my change, thanked me profusely for helping him out and flagged a taxi for me.

Fortunately my backpack was at the airport, but the last bus to Antigua had left so they told me I would need to return to the city center and catch a chicken bus later that evening, but it was very dangerous so to be careful.  Not wanting to set foot back in the place especially after the 4pm time where I would get robbed I haggled a taxi guy to $20 to take me to Antigua directly….

Written by Alex Vere-Nicoll