Week 3 of 3 in Lake Atitlan
Trip Start
Jan 01, 2007
1
28
141
Trip End
Ongoing
San Pedro La Laguna,
Guatemala
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
By Wednesday, we were pounds thinner and weak, but finally able to get out of bed. After consulting our trusty Lonely Planet guidebook and comparing our symptoms to those listed, I diagnosed us with having at least one or more of the following:
- Cholera (how appropriate since I swiped Love in the Time of Cholera from the hostel!)
- Dengue Fever
- Brucellosis
- Histoplasmosis
- Leptospirosis
Though our syptoms sounded alot like the following illnesses in Lonely Planet, I was fortunately able to eliminate these contenders because we´ve been vaccinated: Typhoid Fever, Hepatitis A & B
Coffee - Pile o Cafe
.Whatever we had, I don´t want it again. We didn´t dig into our supply of Cipro or any other medications, so hopefully our immune systems are intact and prepared for another battle in the future! It was very odd because we´ve been very cautious about what we eat and only drink purfied bottled water. (Though the last hotel in Santa Cruz used a filter for their water...suspicious!)
Anyways - feeling better, we resumed classes to complete our course. After 2 days of starvation, our tummies were empty and hungry! We headed to our favorite restaurant, Zoo-La, and ordered more than enough food for a family of 5. The waitress gave us a funny look and we explained that we´d been locked up in our room for 2 days without any food. We thoroughly enjoyed every bite of our fantastic lunch of falafel pita, fries, lebane, fruit smoothies, and veggie sandwich. During lunch, I felt something scratch on my arm and swiped at it only to discover what I thought was an ant was actually a SCORPION! It was the tiniest thing, only about the length of my thumbnail. After showing off my pet to the neighboring table, Frank escorted the little fellow out of our dining quarters. I was quite proud - my first live SCORPION siting. And he was cute!
Coffee - Processing Plant
The next evening, we stopped by Freedom Bar, which was hosting a fundraiser for the local children. Our tummies were still a little too weak for the salsa dancing and drinking, so we only stayed for a few minutes. I met an American girl who is working for the Peace Corps in the next village over and was helping with the fundraiser. They were selling some locally made crafts - some were made by local impoverished women (a project of the Peace Corps girl) and some by a school of handicapped children. I bought a colorful purse for my neice and a volcanic pumice stone for myself.
The next day, Friday, was our last day in San Pedro. We finally decided to break from our rather lazy routine and finally do something adventurous! We rented a double Kayak in the morning and paddled around the lake to find a small private beach. We treated ourselves to a hot-lava rock massage by laying on the lava-rock beach in the noon sunshine. It was fabulous! The water was clear and crisp, great for a dip in the heat of the day. On the beach, we found hundreds of pumice stones, just like the one I bought the night before! We grabbed a handful before pedalling back to town for a yummy lunch of tacos.
On our last day of class, class ended a little bit early for an excursion
Coopertiva Spanish School - Classroom
. We each accompanied our teachers to visit different local families that the school supported. Twice a month, the school delivers a bag of staple food to these impoverished families. Frank went with his teacher and two others to visit a family that lived on the outskirts of town. Their dirt-floor house comprised of a couple wooden battered fences in a square, forming one single room. They speak to the family for a few minutes, who speak in a local Mayan language. The teacher translated and explained that the man of the house went blind due to untreated Cataracts 4 years ago. He is in his early 40´s and unable to work. He and his wife have 4 children, and the children work to try to support the family and cannot go to school. It was a real eye- and heart-opening experience for Frank. Meanwhile, I escorted my teacher to visit a different family and deliver food. This family lived a couple doors down from my teacher in a tin structure. The grandmother was making a belt using a traditional Mayan weaving thing that looked similar to a loom. She explained to me how she made it and the process. Her grandson ran out from the house and immediately hugged my legs, followed by two other children. They immediately started asking me my name, age, etc (in Spanish). They were the sweetest children, so full of happiness! Two of the kids left soon after, but the little boy clung onto my leg. I bent down and picked him up in my arms and spoke to him in Spanish. His name is Alejandro and his favorite game to play is Hide and Seek
Coopertiva Spanish School - Frank and Wendy
. Our trips to the local families was a very special experience we both will remember.Education in Guatemala
Public education in Guatemala is free until about 12 years old. After that, it is not free. The public school in San Pedro charges about 700 Quetzales per year per student (about $100 US). Most families cannot afford this, so the young children go to work immediately at a very young age. The education rate is about 26%, and the number is even lower in the Mayan communities which have been ignored (and mistreated) by their government for decades. The children are very friendly and curious, they are very talkative and interested to chat with visitors. One friendly girl, Rosaria, sold us a few yummy cakes and sat down next to us wanting to practice English (and teaching us Spanish). She was only 10 years old, and learned English from talking to the tourists. She proudly showed me how high she could count. Another child we befriended was Andreas, a boy about 12 years old. We first met him when he tried selling us a kayak rental, and later horse rentals. One night, we saw him working in the coffee processing plant late in the evening (barefoot). He saw us and came running out to say hello and ask how we were. Kids in Guatemala as so genuine and sweet. We had a banana bread in our hand and his friend asked for a piece, we gave both of them the bread
Coopertiva Spanish School - Kay and Luis
. San Pedro Coffee
Decades ago, the local farmers grew maize (corn) along the hillsides around the lake in San Pedro and Lake Atitlan. Over time, coffee became a more enticing crop because of the profits and increasing demand. So the farmers switched to coffee. Coffee trees are quite small and wiry looking. They also require only partial sun, so the farmers plant larger trees around the coffee trees to provide shade. This makes the hillsides appear like they are green and lush, which is a nice diversion from the rest of the highlands which appear mostly deforested. San Pedro has coffee farms everywhere. Way up on the volcano slopes, outside of town, and even inside town amidst the hotels and houses are coffee trees. There are also several areas that they lay out the beans to dry, and several processing plants along the water. During our stay there, we observed at different times the entire process: picking the beans, farmers carrying 150 lb bags on their backs to the processing plants, processing plants that clean an separate the beans, drying the beans, roasting and packaging the beans to be sold. And finally, of course, grinding the beans and brewing into one of the BEST CUPS OF COFFEE IN THE WORLD. The coffee is incredibly smooth. We learned from our spanish teachers more about this process, as well as the financial aspect
Dock in San Pedro
. - Field pickers at the farms earn 35 Quetzales a day (about $4.50 US). Paid by the farmer.
- Farmers typically earn about 120 Quetzals (about $16 US) per 100 pounds of picked beans (paid by the processor). This rate is higher than normal due to demand, the rate used to be 60-80 Quetzales.
- The processors make 200 Quetzales (about $26 US) per 100 pounds (paid for by the distributor, or possibly Starbucks?).
- The coffee picking season usually lasts for only 3-4 months per year. The rest of the year, many farmers and pickers are out of work.
- Kay
