Panajachel

Last weekend some of the teachers from school went to Lake Atitlan.  It was beautiful and we had a fun weekend.  The lake is surrounded by small towns and we stayed in one of the larger ones called Panajachel.

We took a boat ride across the lake to another town called San Antonio.



I am loving the sky in this picture!



This volcano appeared to be topped with Cool Whip!



Dulce and Matthew are the children of my school's director.

In San Antonio we visited a ceramics shop. 

The next day we went to a nature reserve.  The highlight of this trip was that Kristen, Charlotte, and I did the zip-line.  They also had waterfalls, monkeys, and amazing hanging bridges.


"Smile" the CIA is watching




Monkey in a tree.

Getting the harness on

Me, Kristen, Charlotte



Here I go!

Or not....  The guide had to
push each of us off on the first line.

After zip-lining they had two more challenges for us.  The second was much more difficult that it appeared.

Having the guide get the spider off the rope before I started :)

Another week in Guate...

Honestly this has not been a good week, so please excuse me while I whine for a moment.  I have not been feeling well, school has been frustrating, and I cannot seem to get anything accomplished in this country.  (short pause while you sympathize with me....)

Ok, now some pictures.


Legos, it seems, are popular in any country




My view as I wait for the shuttle every morning.

the Park

cool fountain

iglesia San Francisco



View of the volcano

Ruins of Santa Clara:  I need to return on a sunny day!





View of the volcano
 




Volcano again-
you guys may be tired of volcano pictures come June

Una Finca de Café

 

Before Leslie moved back home this past week :(  she invited me to visit a coffee farm last Sunday that is owned by one of her friends, Felix.  It was an awesome experience!

Remember that you can see a larger picture by clicking on it.

To start, we drove to a town about 10 miles from Antigua.  Neither of us had any idea of how far "off the beaten path" the farm was.  We climbed up and up the mountain, stopping at one point to put the pick-up in 4-wheel drive.  Here are some pictures of the drive up.  It was a rough ride.  Near the top we had to stop and get out so the truck could make it through the loose dirt.  I don't know how obvious it is from the pictures, but during heavy rains this road turns into a small river- at some points the ruts were over a foot deep.  Leslie can back me up on this; I am not exaggerating!                

Leslie and Felix



gh

 

(I'm sorry, I don't know what "gh" is or how to get rid of it!  When I try it just deletes the last picture.)  Felix showed us where the coffee plants were spread out over his land.  I'm sure he told us, but I can't remember how many acres he owns.  It was quite an amazing story he has, how he started just helping his father on this farm and then was able to partner with an organization down here to start his own business.  Since then he has bought more plots of land, helped many other farmers to buy land and export coffee beans, and has a crew of 7 working on his farm.

The dark green small shrubs are the coffee plants. 

Not an easy terrain to farm... but beautiful.

 

 

  

 

Felix also had corn, frijoles, and many different types of fruit trees.  He likes to experiment with plants and had avocado trees from Mexico and some type of fine-wood trees from Africa.  He picked a lot of fruit for us to try.

Don't remember the name of this fruit.
Update:  The fruit is called Granadilla.  (Gracias Eileen!)

Newly planted coffee field.

 

 

Three-year old plant on the left.  You can see the coffee beans- the red ones are ripe.  Apparently you can eat the middle of the bean seed. 

Six-year old plants on the right.  The higher the altitude where they are planted, the better the quality, though it is harder to farm and takes more years for a plant to produce seeds.

 After, Felix took us to see his greenhouse with the baby coffee plants.  We ended by going to his house to meet his family and see where they split, dry, and sort the coffee beans.