Guate, accessible? Porque no! Guate, accesible? Why not!

Before writing my last post tomorrow, I wanted to take a moment to write down some travel highlights from the last few months.

Kayaking Lake Atitilan
Lake Atitlan is Guatemala's famous volcanically-formed lake. Surrounded by 3-4 inactive volcanoes, Atitlan just might be the most beautiful spot in Guatemala (when the lake isn't going through an algae bloom, that is). Mickey and I went to explore, and did so in kayaks. It's been confirmed: kayaking is our new favorite non-basketball activity.

Tikal: the New York of the ancient Maya
We weren't too excited about the prospect of a 10 hour bus ride to the seemingly inaccessible Guatemalan national park, Tikal, but we finally got off our butts and planed the trip. Tikal is one of the worlds biggest and tallest Mayan ruin sites. So I knew that Tikal's pyramids were big, but I had no idea they were sky scraper big - puchica! holy cow!

We spent a day and a half in the park and fully enjoyed lounging around these Mayan giants, in addition to climbing them. Props to Mickey who pulled himself up each pyramid, including the jaw dropping ladder on Pyramid IV.
Sailing Belize
Since my arrival here I haven't stopped noticing fliers for "Let's Go Sailing Guatemala." Mickey and I kept telling each other we'd do it, but found ourselves putting off the planning for work's sake. With only a month more to go in Guatemala, we finally sat down to pick the sail-off date, and asked our boss, Alex, if we could disappear for a week.
We spent 5 days and nights on a sailing through Guatemala's Rio Dulce (translated: Sweet River, because it's fresh water), and Belize's southern islands. Each and everyday we swam, snorkeled, explored beaches/islands, napped, read, and enjoyed eating the day's catch. And...we got so swim with reif sharks (well...Mick swam, I hid a bit more), and saw manta rays and a 4-7 foot (ft. depends on who you ask) sting ray. Most amazing water life I've ever seen!

The trip's tiny hiccup: about 4 hours into the bus ride to our boat's sail off point, we realized we had forgotten our passports (which were a tad necessary, as we were sailing to Belize islands). Ah! Fortunately we were able to board the boat the next morning, after our passports arrived on a night bus.

¡Míranos voz! Check us out!

The new Transitions website was unveiled a few weeks ago. Take a moment to check out our website. Take a look at the recent news...we are never short of amazing stories!

If you like what you see, consider sponsoring a wheelchair in honor of your father for this upcoming Dad's day.

And away we go!

Semana Santa. Holy Week.

I can't say I'm the biggest Jesus fan, but I can say I got to remember Jesus the best way possible on this planet: Semana Santa in Antigua, Guatemala.

Semana Santa (Holy Week) starts on Palm Sunday and ends on Easter Sunday. Many countries and cultures partake in Holy Week celebrations, but the Semana Santa in Antigua happens to the be the most beautiful, fanatic, and famous of them all.

Here is the gist: everyday there are 1-3 processions that make their way in and around the city. What makes up a procession? There's lots of incense smoke and a funeral banks, and then 70-300 people in purple robes taking turns in carrying an absolutely humongous platform of solid wood on their sholders. The platform has a life-size Jesus figure on top.

Before the procession reaches a street/neighborhood, friends and family get together to decorate the street in front of their homes - they literary carpet the streets with colored saw dust and flowers (and are thus called alfombras = carpets).

Before the procession walks over these beautiful carpets, people come from all over town to admire the work of the neighborhood, and enjoys the mangos, churros, and pina coladas sold on the sidewalks.

It was a really cool week for Mickey and I. One morning we got up at 4am to make sure we caught a glimpse of Antigua's best-known carpets before the procession walked over them at 5am. Here is Mickey, me, and the Transitions dog Yogi at 4:30 that morning (please notice large crowd, and so early!):
The processions that came through our own neighborhood were the most enjoyable. It was during these processions that I realized how many friends we have in Guatemala. The whole week felt so warm, so familiar, even amongst the parking chaos and bloody Jesus figurines. But I must admit...it was pretty powerful to see a life-sized Jesus carried through our streets, and we also witnessed a crucifixion re-enactment. It was the closest I'll get to to 1st century Jerusalem, and I was left impacted and reflective on the significance of my holy week.

Todo bien, para nosotros. All is well, for us.

Dear friends and family,

I'm guessing from the recent emails and facebook posts I've received that many of you have heard about tropical storm Agatha that hit Guatemala this past weekend, in addition to the Pacaya Volcano eruption this past Thursday night.

All is well here in Antigua. We are on slightly higher ground, so instead of Antigua flooding, the Antigua streets just turned into rivers. Some of our friends from work had to evacuate their houses on Saturday. We had solid rain for about 48 hours. Early Sunday morning the rain stopped. The storm headed north of Antigua and quickly died out from there. But damage has continued to occur in Guatemala: mud slides have taken over towns and streets, bridges are no longer, and a 200 ft. deep sinkhole has appeared in the middle Guatemala city! Here's a link to one article, of many.


As for the volcano eruption on Thursday night, apparently the volcano shot up 250 meters in the air. Note that this volcano is a frequently visited tourist attraction! I visited last fall with Mickey's brother Jake, and my friend Adam just hiked it a couple weeks ago.

It started raining on Thursday, so the volcanic ash combined with rain. A friend of ours said it was literally raining mud in Guatemala city on Thursday night. Clean up has been ongoing...but I'm sure the recent mudslides have not helped.

The airport has been closed, which wasn't too convenient for Mickey's flight out of Guatemala this morning, but he got on a flight on Thursday. School has been canceled for the week, but Transitions scholarship recipient, Nacho, has enjoyed his extra time helping Mickey on the computer.

Well, this is a lot to marinate on, no? Although Mickey and I, and all our friends at Transitions are safe and sound, this isn't true of everyone in Guatemala and Central America (the death toll is over 170). And like we saw with Hurricane Katrina, among other natural disasters, those hardest hit are often those with the littlest capital.

One thing I've been thinking is if this same destruction would have happened if the Agatha storm hit the States. Although some deaths would have been inevitable, we are lucky to be from a country where the infrastructure is extraordinarily sound...although we do need to work on our oil pipelines, don't we?

Thinking of you in Guatemala,
Brittany