TravelStream™ news feed for member travelrob on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/travelrob en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:38:56 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/travelrob/2/1247772639/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/travelrob/2/1247772639/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/travelrob/2/1247772639/tpod.html Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:38:56 -0400 Around Central America in 23 Beers

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San Pedro, Belize Cayes, Belize

So we're staying in this sweet guest house about 5 km out of San Pedro. We rented the entire house. It's huge. We have a dock and a private breach type area. It's sweet.

Prices here are really expensive. As expensive as Connecticut which is an expensive part of the US. most things are priced in U$. It's pretty crazy.

I'm not as close to the town as I would have liked so I probably won't be doing much updating while I'm here. So here is another quick executive summary:

* going snorkeling tomorrow
* Belekin beer (the local Belizian beer) is TERRIBLE
* I drank 14 out of 23 beers in Guatemala
* we stayed at a sweet lakefront hotel on an island for our last night in Guatemala
* some Canadians did yoga there in the AM

That's all for now, have to run! My next update will probably be to fill in the gaps when I get back to CT on Monday. Have a good weekend!

/Rob



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Rabinal, Guatemala

No idea where we are. We drove 10 hours to see this particular hotel but arrived at 11 PM and are going to be leaving at 7 AM. Not much seeing going on!

Just having breakfast before heading to the Tikal Mayan ruins. Then one last night in Guatemala before heading to Belize. I will try to update the blog when I get to Belize. we have been travelling every day and haven't had a chance to settle anywhere or take a break. Some highlights:

we hiked a national park
we hiked a volcano
we swam in a really cool river
we drank 40 beers in a van



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Rabinal, Guatemala

I make it to breakfast. It{s going to be a good day! Porridge. Meh. Eggs. Yum.

My eye is also feeling better.

(I{m going to leave my notes below and finish this later, gotta run but didn{t want people (ie mom) to worry!)


skeleton
rain lunch
awesoime chicken
ice cream
best lunch

soccer
ceramics
orphanage
dinner

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Rabinal, Guatemala

I miss breakfast again. My wake-up calls didn{t expect me to get out of bed. Ha!

I go to the site. My eyes hurt and I pretty much leave right away.

At this point I do something stupid. I can already hear my mother 'Oh Rob'bing me. But I decide that the eyedrop antibiotics are not working so I switch to the 1 year expired oral antibiotics. Dr. Beattie in the house!

I sleep for what I think is all day. I get up and figure that I missed lunch and wander around a little bit to find food. I manage to get three small bags of chips and a bottle of water for $1 US. Back at my hotel room lunch arrives. They told the restaurant where I was and what room I was in!

I sleep all afternoon as well.

Everyone returns from the work sites and we head over to a local soccer stadium to play some soccer for an hour. It{s basically an indoor sized statium that{s outdoors with a room. The team runs around for an hour trying to get a feel for the game and the field in preparation for playing locals tomorrow. Things are not looking good.

Steak for dinner.

After dinner we play games. Sherades, celebreties are popular hits.
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Rabinal, Guatemala

I make it to breakfast. Score. My two wake up calls help.

At this point my eye is starting to bother me. For the full details just read up on Mongolia. I started to bother me the prevous night but I neglected to put that in that entry. Sue me. I do have antibiotic drops that I start taking and I hope that these do the trick.

At the work site I start making holes in concrete. It{s definitely low skill labour.

But my eyes are bothering me enough that I leave the site and head back to the hotel. I basically sleep the afternoon away. Now that{s my idea of a vacation! Minus the eye pain part of course.

I miss the orphanage visit that was scheduled for the afternoon. I{m not too bummed out because I find them really hard to visit. (See the refernce in the Mongolia blog).

Dinner was spaghetti. Not very Guatemalan but I find out later the owner had about an hour to cook dinner. It was good. He even bought shredded cheese - very expensive.

I go to bed early trying to rest the eye.

(I feel like the old woman in Dark Crystal who can take her eye out when I talk about resting my eye.)
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Rabinal, Guatemala

I sleep through breakfast. Mental note: bring a travel alarm even if it´s to just so I know what time it is.

We head to the build sites. They are within a km of the hotel. One site is in one direction and the other site is in the other.

Our site is in a large field. I don{t think the family owned the entire field. They did have a large compound with two houses/rooms and a passage leading into a large open space. In this open space they were building a Habitat house. To be honest, this sounds a little ´ritzy´ for Habitat but I´m not in the Donor Relations department.

The family is very nice. It{s a husband and wife. The husband works on site every day. The wife brings us juice or drinks every day at around ten thirty. They have a son, Eric who is learning English. They have a daughter Natalie who it turns out is the granddaughter. The mother of the daughter is off working in some ice cream shop. It sounds like she would not be living in the house. Drama!

Tasks for building a house in Guatemala:

- cutting rebar
- bending rebar into c-bars
- tying the c-bars onto bigger pieces of rebar making a spine that will eventually go into cement blocks as support against earthquakes
- chipping cement blocks into u shapes
- chipping holes in said cement blocks to allow rebar to pass through
- building wood frames for the foundation
- mixing cement
- pouring cement into foundation and cement blocks

For kicks we practice Thriller during lunch. The Habitat representative knows all the steps and we happen to have an iPod with speakers (how did people travel in the olden says????). We get about 1 minute of the dance memorized. We can hear the locals laughing at us. Jealousy. Must be.

Dinner was Guatemalan steak. Pretty much minute steak but it was really good. We heap some home made hot sauce on it. Yum.

Beer Count: 12 (Gallo Dark)

There are no bars in Rabinal that are open after 9PM. Our hotel runs out of beer.
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Rabinal, Guatemala

We arrive at the hotel and get our rooms. It is like an enclosed motel with a gated courtyard for cars on the inside. The rooms are ... plain. Mattress, fitted sheet, blanket. I´m glad I brought a sheet with me! The bathroom is ... plain. When you walk in you reach the shower area. Then the shower curtain. Then the sink. Then the toilet. The sink leaks constantly onto the floor. The toilet also leaks. On the plus side the hot water heater is on the shower head so we won´t run out of hot water. Assuming we don´t get electrocuted of course.

We head out for lunch at what turns out to be our main eating establishment. We will be eating breakfast and dinner at this location and will have lunches brought to us onsite.

The restaurant has potential, it looks like it is well stocked with beer. On the back wall there are bottles and cans of beer and they even have taps! This place has potential.

Psyche!

The bottles and cans are just for show. They only have the beer on tap. So we are robbed for Sol and Gallo Dark. We wallow in pitchers of regular Gallo.

The afternoon consists of some Euchre, Whiffle ball and getting the lay of the land. This is giong to be our home town for the next 5 days. It´s a very small city. Town. Village? Less than 5K people. It´s probably 10 blocks by 10 blocks. There is a nice market where we can get all sorts of street meats and a very populated city square. The streets are paved and most have sidewalks. Outside a 7 by 7 grid, however all bets are off and the streets are no longer paved.

Dinner was good. So was lunch. Fried chicken for lunch. Can{t remember dinner. But the owner of the restaurant promised to have Gallo Dark on draft for tomorrow. Score!

Early night for me. I read jPod. Yeah. Geek.
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Antigua Guatemala, Western Highlands, Guatemala

(CENSORED)

I had a restless night and woke up to disaster. Paul had woken up and gone for a run. So much for my easy money! I fork over my 30 qs at breakfast.

After breakfast we pile into vans to head to Rabinal, the site of our build! We pile into two vans with all the luggage on the first. We pass the time by playing name that tune. Being musically challenged I am not good at this game. I do, however, get the NJ artists (Boss and Bon Jovi)!

Please don´t read anything into that.

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Antigua Guatemala, Western Highlands, Guatemala

We arrive in Antigua four hours later. It was a long four hours. We did manage to get a little sleep and some of the roads were under construction. But for the most part the roads were better than those in Connecticut. When not in construction, they were in good condition.

We arrive in a huge bus depot. There must have been over 100 buses. These drivers must really like their rids because some were pimped out: decals on the front and side, names, chome and stainless. Yeah. Badass.

Our hotel was only two blocks away so we walked. It was immediately apparent that this was a different city. First of all there were many more people. It was crazy crowded. And second of all there were tons of gringos. It was a tourist destination.

We arrive at the hotel, settle in. The hotel itself was nice and clean. It had tile floors, an inside courtyard and was well located near downtown. I have a quick shower (no hot water :( ) before heading down to the lobby. There over the next hour we meet the rest of the team.

Beer Count: 10 (Gallo Light)

We head off to dinner at a Habitat approved venue. This basically means that they are sure that everything is going to be well cooked. At dinner I bet Cathy (a crazy-awesome Aussie) and others that leader Paul would not go running with them. Even Paul´s gf didn´t believe he would. She had tried and failed for months to get him running. Easy money!

After dinner we wander to a local bar. They are decked out with a pool table, ping pong and darts. Cathy and I battle to a tie in ping pong. Well basically I suggest we give up the table after winning the first and losing the second game in ping pong. I can feel my control slipping away. Yeah, I chickened out.

(CENSORED)
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Panajachel, Guatemala, Guatemala

Happy 4th of July!

We woke up, had another amazing breakfast (Huevos Rachos) and then headed to the ferry back to Panajchel. The boat ride was uneventful. The boat disembarking was not. We disembarked successfully and then were approached by a white male who asked for Lynn. Apparently the hotel had only received one night´s deposit. Lynn remembered paying for both nights so we went over to this man{s house (he was the owner of the hotel not some random guy) to sort things out with the help of the internt.

This guy´s house was awesome. A nice big compound, full trucks (not the mini ones) a great garden. Apparently there is good money in hotels! The fare was sorted out (they were right) and we went on our way.

We headed off to the bus terminal to take a chicken bus to Antgua where we were meeting the rest of the Habitat team. I have never been on a chicken bus. I have visions of the bus that Joan Wilder takes in Romancing the Stone. Basically they are former US and Canadian schoolbuses repurposed for passengers.

We ended up on a greyhound-type bus instead. Oh well.

We did eat some pretty good food on the bus. Apparently bus food is an important part of the culture. It even got a write up in the guide books.
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