As we climbed part of the volcano in the car, we got some great views and a basic explanation about the topography of Guatemala and the reason for so many volcanoes. We also we told the names of all of them, but I unfortunately wasn’t writing things down and cannot remember the details.
The trail head “Parque Nacional Volcan de Pacaya” was in a poor community, but certain organizations are introducing tourism into the area in order to improve conditions. Originally, the people lived off the land by farming, but large corporations and businesses have taken these opportunities away from them. Now, locals are trained to be guides. There is one for each tour group and they carry a machete and offer protection for the group. They are also able to answer questions about the land if there are any that the tour guide is unable to answer. The money tourists pay gets divided up between the company tour guide and the local tour guide.The children of the community make walking sticks and sell them to tourists, which teaches them the value of hard work and earning money instead of just begging. As children grow, they learn the land and once they turn 18, they are able to become local tour guides. Many youth also take care of horses and learn how to give horse guided tours to people who are unable (or don’t want to) climb.
Our local tour guide, although I sadly cannot remember his name, was a great guy! I practiced some of my Spanish with him. He hikes the mountain an average of three times a day and knows pretty much everything about the trail and the land and the volcano (he has been doing this for around 16 years). He also has something like 9 children! All but one son live in his community with their own families (the other one lives in Guatemala City and works for Tigo, the cell phone company of Guatemala).
On May 27, 2010, this volcano erupted. Here, you can see the difference between before (above) and after (below).
This picture shows the steam coming out of the still active volcano. Rain water gets into the crevices and the heat of the earth creates steam that rises out of the volcano.
Mom, dad and I in front of the three volcanoes that I can’t remember the names of, but maybe mom does.
This is a hole that had steam rising out of it. It was actually really warm inside! The guy creeping in the back is Armando, our guide.
These holes in the ground were all along the trail. They are there to save the community below from either the rain water or the lava rock that falls down, or both… we couldn’t really remember correctly and mom dad and I all had different ideas.
I tried to combine two things into one picture, and sort of failed. In the front of this picture, you see corn stalks. We learned that corn plants are often planted along with black bean plants. The black beans support the stalks and provide added protection from natural elements. In addition, corn stalks are often planted in groups for protection. Dried corn stalks are often used for fences. In the back of this picture, you can see, maybe, a green building. This building is called a “geothermal plant.” Water from underground is heated by the active earth, and steam rises. The steam is collected under a high pressure environment and energy is stored. This energy is transported to El Salvador. Funnily enough, the people who found this plant are from Israel. So, its an Israeli factory in Guatemala producing energy for El Salvador…. Makes perfect sense!At the top of the mountain, we had a great lunch of tuna sandwiches on whole wheat bread (and there wasn’t too much mayonnaise!), cookies, and plantain chips. It was a lot of food, so we shared with our tour guides.
On our way down, we bought some jewelry from a person that makes items from the lava rock. This was also part of the tourism initiative and part of the money goes towards the community for help in development.
After the hike, we got in the car and headed to Lake Atitlan. On the way, we stopped at café Katok, a rather touristy yet yummy place, where we got some snacks.
We arrived at Pasado de Don Rodriguez, our hotel in Panajachel, early evening. This hotel was awesome too! I was amazed by all the hammocks lining the pathway, and I wish we had more time to hang out there. There was also a great patio that overlooked the lake and I thought would be a prefect location for a wedding or Bat Mitzvah party! Anddd, there was a heated pool with an awesome slide, but unfortunately I didn’t have enough time to explore it (plus, I was missing Ali and without her could not appropriately act 10 years younger than I actually am).
That evening we walked around the main street of Panajachel. It was pretty touristy, but we bought some cool items. I got an awesome beaded bracelet and mom bought a woven piece of fabric after learning about the whole process from the guy selling it.
We were also successful in finding a place to be illegally served alcohol. Because of the elections, which were held on Sunday, it was illegal to serve alcohol all weekend. We were walking along the main street and saw a place that said happy hour. We asked the guy if he was serious, and he said yes, definitely. But, he took us way into the restaurant so that nobody could see us. We are pretty sure they were taking a large risk on us, but we clearly weren’t going to try and vote, so we didn’t see a problem with it!
That night, we had dinner back at the hotel. Mom and I shared a delicious dish of veggie pasta and a salmon dinner (the second day of fish for dinner!). There was also a marimba band and a cool but rather cheesy demonstration of the traditional trajes (clothing) from the area. I also got to dance with one of the guys, but it was more of a hoppy step thing.
After dinner, we headed back to the room and passed out, content with our day and excited for the next one!
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