Guatemala

Rotary Club Collaboration

Worldwide there is an amazing collection of worthwhile projects pursued by the 1.2 million members of Rotary Clubs. Projects focus specifically on supporting education and job training, providing clean water, combating hunger, improving health and sanitation, and eradicating polio.

Knowing that there are groups of people around the world individually and collectively committed to the ideal of “service above self” is in itself incredibly encouraging to me.

So I was excited to receive my first chance to experience first-hand some of the joint projects between a US club and a club in a developing nation on this trip.

Rotary Club Collaboration

The way international service works in Rotary, is that clubs with an excess of resources partner with clubs with an excess of needs. In this way the resources are directed to the actual needs of a community, not those perceived from afar. Both clubs put in time, money and resources and through all phases of the project, there are people nearby invested in and overseeing the project.

A few weeks ago, we were given the rare opportunity to visit projects successfully completed by the Rotary Club of Fort Collins and the Rotary Clubs of Chiquimula and Gualan, Guatemala. We were hosted in the homes of fellow Rotarians and were even able to unexpectedly represent the Rotary Club of Fort Collins at the dedication of a recently completed project.

To see more of what we saw and experienced, take a look at the photos below. Watch as a slideshow or click to enlarge to see the description of each photo.

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Rotary Club collaboration

Rio Dulce Guatemala

Today we  caught a little boat up the river to The Roundhouse, a highly rated hostel located about 20 minutes up the Rio Dulce. We chose to sleep in Livingston on this trip, so didn’t actually stay at The Roundhouse, but we were looking for a base upriver to kayak a bit and I’d heard about the Rio Dulce canyon and wanted to see what that was about before we head back to Belize tomorrow. It was easy to arrange for them to pick us up, rent us a kayak and drop us back in Livingston in the afternoon.

It was definitely worth the trip and as soon as we left town and turned up the river it was like we entered a different world. It was a canyon for sure, but unlike any I’d ever seen. There were steep rock walls, but they were barely discernible beneath the dense jungle. From The Roundhouse, we rented a kayak and paddled upstream a bit further to explore and search for Agua Caliente, a hot spring on the edge of the river. We did find it and it was hot alright.

Back at The Roundhouse, we had some lunch and hammock time, and then a neighbor ran us back to town.

This trip was the perfect thing for our last day in Guatemala. I’ve been feeling ready to move on the last day or so, and I notice this happens when we spend more than a few days in one place. But one little excursion around the corner was like a new world, and I’m feeling renewed. I’ll be sad to be leaving Guatemala tomorrow, but I’m equally excited to be headed back to Belize.

We leave at 7 am, take a boat, a bus, and a water taxi and meet our Couchsurf host at the Barefoot Bar in Placencia – sounds like an ok day to me:)

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Mangoes are quite possibly the best food on the planet.

Just an opinion of course, but based on the few really good ones Daryle and I had managed to sample prior to our trip, we knew they had the potential to be quite amazing. And we were betting they’d be even better fresh.

Not only would they be better fresh, but there would be more of them. There are hundreds of varieties. Each tastes a bit different and only a few make their way to US supermarkets.

We’ve been sampling local fresh mangos as much as possible since day one in mango country back on April 1 in Sayulita. However, Daryle has been constantly thwarted on his mission to eat a mango straight from the tree.

So it was rather serendipitous that, only moments after climbing into the car of Salvador, our host in Gualan, Guatemala that he asked, “Do you like mangoes?”

Salvador proceeded to lead us out to his yard where the gardener picked one after another kind of mango, along with a few other fruits we’d never tasted. We sat on the patio carving and slurping up mangos until we were sticky up to our elbows and we could eat no more.

Thanks to our new friends – Mission accomplished.

Enjoying The Journey

Life is a journey, not a destination. I know I am not the first nor will I be the last person to tell you that.

Even more obviously perhaps, traveling is about the actual traveling as much as it is about the places you are headed.

However, there are days in life and in travel where enjoying the journey is harder than others. This has been one of those.

Instead of sleeping much, I spent last night relieving my stomach of its contents. This morning, I politely ate as much of the breakfast prepared by our gracious hosts as I could, while explaining in my mediocre Spanish that I was feeling just a little ill and not all that hungry. After breakfast, there was a 3 hour bus ride through the winding Guatamalan countryside, another incredibly gracious family who picked us up, showed us around a new town and took us home for lunch and then dropped us off for our half hour boat ride in this lovely craft.

At the boat terminal, I was trying to be as prepared as possible, practicing Spanish phrases that might be needed, like “Disculpe, por favor puedo tener esto asiento. Possible necessito vomitar.” And on board, I was sure I could feel my brain rattle against my skull and the hull bend under my feet.

And it was hot like I’ve never experienced. Possibly when your Guatemalan hosts are worried that your upcoming hotel doesn’t have air conditioning you should pay attention instead of arrogantly thinking, “we’ve been fine without air conditioning so far and its been hot.” Nope, nothing like this. We are apparently in the hottest part of Guatemala at the hottest time of year. Who knew.

Anyway, you get the idea, it wasn’t the easiest travelling day, but part of the journey none-the-less.

Enjoying The Journey

Through my haze of discomfort, here’s what I was lucky enough to experience anyway:

• I saw an amazing slice of green Guatemala with its gorgeous mountains (from an air conditioned bus!)
• 
• I witnessed a tree being removed from the highway using only machetes. On our bus ride, we came to an unexpected stop. As we finally crept past the bottleneck, what we saw was 10 or 15 Guatemalans, machetes in hand, hacking away at a tree that couldn’t handle the first rain of the season last night and found itself lying in the road.

  If you need something done here, like the removal of a large tree from the road, you can’t wait around for someone else to come along and do it. I am certain these 10-15 gentleman were just the first ones on the scene. Pretty much every man in Guatemala has a machete, all the time. It’s a pretty essential tool for life in rural Central America but takes an adjustment to get used to for the average American.

• I felt the overwhelming graciousness of Guatemalans in general and Rotarians in particular. Nearly everyone you pass on the street greets you. We were hosted and treated as friends by people we had never met based solely on a few emails or phone calls from a mutual friend. We weren’t just welcomed, housed and fed, these new friends went out of their way to share their country and community with us, connect us with others in our upcoming destinations and make sure we got where we needed to go.
• I saw a stretch of beautiful Guatemalan coast from the ocean while zipping along in a little boat, and atleast for a few minutes I wasn’t quite as unbearably hot.

And now I’m here:

Challenging day for sure, but so much to be thankful for and so many good experiences had, despite the challenges.

Footnote: Tomorrow, we’ll be moving to a hotel with air conditioning. A hotel recommended by our last hosts, who were so concerned that we didn’t plan to have air conditioning that they made 3 phone calls and a short list of hotel recommendations within 15 minutes of meeting us. Yet another cause to be thankful 🙂

Enjoying the journey everyday I can!