It's been way too long...

Due to very limited internet access during the past month, we obviously haven't updated the blog in quite some time. It's hard to even know where to begin. A lot can happen in 6 weeks of travel.

We covered the rest of Central America by bus, stopping in Managua, Granada, and San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua; San Jose, Costa Rica; and Panama City. Since we had a set date for arrival in Ecuador, we didn't have too much time in each country. We really enjoyed Nicaragua and would have loved to spent more time there, as well as Costa Rica.

We flew from Panama City to Quito and spent a couple of days there before heading to Santa Martha, an animal rescue center in Tambillo, Ecuador. Quito is a cool city, and while we were there they were celebrating their 200th anniversary of independence. There were a lot of festivities, and we got to see some parades, live music, and dancing.

The next five weeks we lived at Santa Martha where we worked with all sorts of different wild animals. The animals at the center had been rescued from various places - the circus, people's homes, etc. Some of them are living at Santa Martha while waiting to be sent to rehab centers in hopes of returning to the wild someday. Others, because of health conditions or domestication, have no hope of going back to their native habitats, so they are permanent residents. We both really enjoyed our time there. The animals there included many types of birds, monkeys, turtles, large cats, and some we had never heard of until we got there (coatis and kinkajous). It was pretty crazy to fall asleep and wake up to squawking birds and lions roaring every day. The animals provided some very interesting experiences, as did the work we did. Our work included feeding the animals, cleaning, fixing enclosures, machete-ing lots of grass, digging a giant hole, and any other random tasks our supervisor came up with, such as butchering a horse (to feed to the carnivores, not just for fun). Here are a couple little stories that were highlights of our time there...

-Cheeky monkey. There are several capuchin monkeys at the center, and one particular fellow was quite a punk whenever you passed by his enclosure. He has a history of slapping or pulling out volunteers' hair if you get too close (including a big chunk of Catherine's). Crystal and him developed a very special relationship. During the first week, the saga began. When cleaning out the monkey enclosures, you have to trap the monkeys in one half while cleaning out the opposite side. Crystal had closed the gate between the two sides, and cheeky went ballistic. He was screaming at her, swatting at her arm, etc. She made it into a game and started grabbing at his hands and tail playfully, and the game continued basically every time she went past his enclosure after that.

-Percy the donkey. The center generally feeds chickens to all its carnivores, but a year or so ago there was some sort of sickness in the chicken population and the center had to buy donkeys to feed to the animals. Thrown in with a group of donkeys was Percy, a sickly little fellow that the vendor didn't want to keep. Percy never ended up getting fed to anyone, and he now just hangs out around the center, eating grass and terrorizing those that come close to him. At first he seems sweet, but turn your back and he will bite it. Hard. One day we had just got back to the house after evening cleaning, and as Catherine looked out the window, Percy walked past. Seeing as he is supposed to be tied to a fence quite a ways away, we immediately ran out of the house to try to catch him. It took 4 women, half an hour, and lots of running and being chased to finally get him tied to a fence nowhere close to where he was supposed to be. If you would have been an onlooker, it would have seemed to be a small rodeo and quite entertaining I'm sure.

-Pumas. There are three adult pumas at the center, and they are absolutely beautiful. Two of them are very friendly and come up to you to be petted. While it is not ideal for animals to be born in captivity, sometimes it happens. One of the females got pregnant and gave birth to two babies shortly before we left. They were adorable, but sadly, they both died shortly after birth. It was very sad, but it was a cool experience to see them while they were alive.

Here are a few pictures from Santa Martha; we will try and post some more in a few days... Enjoy!

Love,
C & C

El Cuco

For the past two weeks, we have made our way south from Guatemala through the rest of Central America. It has been an interesting experience, one I doubt we will forget. Since we haven´t had much time or computer access, we will try and slowly update some of the stories from our extensive bus trip...

Our first bus took us from Guatemala to El Salvador. After staying in the capital for a night, we decided to try and go to the beach. Looking through a flyer about beaches in El Salvador, we chose El Cuco, ¨the most famous beach¨in the country. It seemed easy enough to get to, we had to take two city buses which cost less than a dollar each. First bus was easy to find and the ride was great. We arrived at the second bus station in the city of San Miguel and searched for the next bus, also fairly easy to find. This bus was more of a traditional bus, an old school bus where people and their things cram in to beyond full capacity. We boarded it and found a seat, with our packs on our laps for the entire hour-long ride. While we were waiting to depart, the usual people came on board selling everything imaginable or asking for money. One man came on, gave a long speech about God, and then came around to each person asking for money. No one gave him anything, and he proceeded to put a curse on each person that refused him, including us. Awesome. We eventually pulled out of the bus station and started our journey, stopping every 5 minutes or so to pick up more passengers or vendors selling some occasionally questionable food. About 20-30 minutes into the ride, we cruised to a stop at the side of the road. Apparently there were some mechanical difficulties, and the driver and some other men popped open the hood (which is in the aisle directly next to the driver´s seat), poked and prodded and tinkered for a few minutes, and eventually got it ´running´ again. We pulled back onto the road, crawled along for another five minutes at most, and once again came to a halt. More tinkering, and off we went again. Until we stopped again. And again. And again. We lost count, really. Finally, we were all instructed to get off the bus. All 40-50 of us piled off, the driver mumbled something, and he drove away. So there we were, standing on the side of the road, carrying our large packs, in the middle of a forest, with nothing around us. We stood there, trying to make conversation with the people around us with our less-than-stellar Spanish skills; most people seemed annoyed, one woman was friendly. One man was slightly creepy, as he squeezed Crystal´s biceps and kept saying ¨Fuerte, fuerte (strong, strong)¨because of the size of her pack. We moved away from him very quickly. So, after about half an hour of standing and awkward struggling to converse, we spotted another bus coming our way. Our hearts lept and then immediately sank as we looked into the bus and saw that it was already full. But fitting people onto buses is a Central American specialty, so all the passengers from our bus loaded up into the remaining empty portion of the middle aisle. Now, I´m pretty sure we were probably the first gringas some of these Salvadoreans had ever seen, and we were quite the spectacle. Two white girls, each carrying a pack the size of a small person, sweating profusely, trying not smack every person in our radius with our bags, and holding onto the sides of the seats for dear life. There was a lot of gawking and laughter, and we couldn´t help but laugh, too. It really is too bad there wasn´t anyone there to take our picture, because it was quite a sight to behold. So, with a double-capacity busload, we rode for half an hour more, finally arriving at our destination.

Oh, our destination... After we got off the bus, there was more gawking and confusion, and we soon realized why. If by the most famous beach in El Salvador, they meant a dirty, polluted, sketchy beach, we definitely found it. El Cuco was no tourist attraction. Shady hotels, questionable restaurants, the mangiest dog I have ever seen in my life. I seriously thought he was going to fall over dead in front of us. It was getting dark, so we were frantically looking for a place to stay. The first hotel we walked into, we quickly turned around and walked out of. The next one we saw seemed deserted, so we asked some locals if they knew of a place. They again seemed confused, and pointed us down the road. The dirty little dirt road. But we went down and found Viña del Mar, with a grumpy woman working the ´desk.´ She showed us our room, which was basically a cement box with two beds, a sink, and a family of spiders living in the ´shower,´basically a pipe coming out of the wall. Drenched in sweat, exhausted, and hungry, we unloaded our stuff and turned on the air conditioning, a sweet relief. After finding a little place for dinner and eating some delicious pupusas, we tried to settle in for some sleep. If it would have been possible to sleep without touching the bed, we would have done it. Bugs were everywhere, and we couldn´t help but imagine them crawling into every orefice of our bodies while we slept. I wrapped myself into a coccoon in the blanket, and I think I did a fairly good job of keeping myself encased during the night. Crystal may have some bugs growing inside of her, but no serious symptoms have shown up yet.

Needless to say, we caught one of the earliest buses out of there in the morning.

There is little photographic evidence of this trip, but here is what we have:




The palm trees were one redeeming element of the trip.


Love,
C & C

Conquering the Volcano!

On Sunday, Catherine and I decided to step up our adventurous spirits just a tad. We thought it could be fun to hike an active volcano. The drive wasn't as sketchy as our last one and a bit shorter as well. Upon our arrival to the national park entrance, we were surrounded by an overwhelming flood of children trying to sell us "hiking sticks." Being the wise Americans that we are, we of course, decided that we wouldn't need them...even though they kept insisting that we would. We were wrong. Dead wrong.

The first part of the hike was chill and was pretty similar to a hike anywhere. The closer we got to the top of the volcano, though, the crazier it got. Instead of being surrounded by grass and trees, we were now surrounded by very rough and unstable pumice....not the easiest to hike up....or down for that matter. You wouldn't have known by watching our tour guide, Nelson, though. He was bounding all over the place with the confidence of a mountain goat. At one portion, near the top, he asked if we were interested in skiing. At first I was a little confused, but he laughed a little so I thought he was joking. Next thing I knew, we were at the top of a steep area watching him "ski" (which was just a sprint down the constantly shifting pumice... very similar to running down a sand dune. A much more rough and unforgiving sand dune.) and explained that we would all be doing the same. So we did. I'm not gonna lie, I was very nervous, but when it was done it was awesome!

After much more treacherous hiking, we made it to the "La Playa de Pacaya" as Nelson kept referring to it. Shortly, upon our arrival we saw our first bit of molten lava! It was crazy hot up there and crazy windy. There were times I felt as though I might be blown into the hot lava, but it was all very worth it. Some people were roasting marshmallows, some were trying to light their cigarettes on the lava, but mostly we were all just in awe of our surroundings. Catherine and I just took pictures. Here are some of them. Enjoy!

Peace,
C & C

Panajachel

This past weekend we went to Panajachel, a small town on Lake Atitlan. It was absolutely beautiful! I really enjoyed the ride up there; it was about two hours of winding up and down very scenic mountain roads. While in Pana, we rested, walked around and looked at all the wares for sale, studied, and just took in the surroundings. Sunday afternoon we were sitting at a cafe and decided to play some cards. Almost immediately, three little boys came up and asked if they could play with us. The five of us played a game of War, and the boys (Juan, Marco, and Daliel) were hilarious. Every time Marco knew that he had an ace or a high card, he would chant ¡Ahora si! ¡Ahora si! ¡Ahora si! The van we rode in on our way back to Antigua had some questionable brakes, but we made it back safe and sound Sunday evening and have been back in classes since then. Here are a couple pictures of us at the lake...

Love,

C & C

Estamos Estudiantes!

Hello all!

We thought we should update this because it's been a couple days. Since we last updated, we have met our Guatemalan family. Mama Rosa Maria, hermana Alejandra, y Abuelo Antonio, and the pet parrot named Cosmo. The family is very nice and we like them alot. Communication is still a wee bit difficult at this point, since today will only be our second day of language classes. It can be a little frustrating, as I would really like to get to know our family. Our spanish-english dictionary is definitely getting a lot of use!

Other than class and homework, we've just been hanging out at restaurants, cafes, and parks, and getting to know the city a little better. I feel like I can get around the city mostly now, so that's a reassuring feeling. This weekend we plan on catching a shuttle to Lake Atitlan, which is one of the most beautiful lakes in all the world. I have been there before, and am excited for Catherine to see it as well. We will try to take lots of pictures and post them!

Hope you're all doing well! Thanks for coming along on our journey!

Love,
C & C

Day 3

After a bit of a delay, we got into Guatemala City in the evening of July 1st. We stayed at a great little hostel, GuateFriends, and then headed to Antigua in the morning. While wandering around the city, we ran into one of Crystal's friends from college who has been living in Guatemala for the past two years. It was such a great surprise! We have just been continuing to explore Antigua, looking at some art galleries, and eating at cafes (Sky Cafe had a great view of the city and one of the nearby volcanoes). Also, we decided to change our plans and attend a language school in Antigua instead of Panajachel. We will meet our host family on Sunday and start classes on Monday. Here are a couple of pictures of Antigua...

Love,

C & C

And we're off!

Hi Friends!

Many of you have requsted that Catherine and I set up a blog so y'all can join us in our journey.....so here ya go!!!! Tomorrow is the day! We are excited, nervous, overwhlemed and a whole host of other emotions. Our flight leaves from Atlanta at 7am, and arrive in Guatemala City at 11:45am (central time zone).

We will miss you all while we are away and will update this as often as we can! Have a great 6 months!

Love,
C & C