Semuc Champey

I went to Coban this weekend to visit with other volunteers and see some sites out there. I didn't really do any research in guide books before hand so I just jumped on Kay's plan of seeing Semuc Champey. Unfortunately, we both got food poisoning the night before the trip. She didn't want to risk going in the morning. I didn't want to waste the really long trip out there so I went with some other volunteers, Mackenzie and Natalie.

It was the most spectacular natural phenomenon I have ever seen. Regretably, I forgot my camera in the van... however Mackensie brought hers so I'll get some photos some day. (only have photos of the cave here and on my flickr site)

Semuc Champey is really hard to describe, but I’ll try briefly. It a land mass over a river. The river both flows atop the land mass and below in an underground river. Atop there are several warm limestone pools that cascade down until plummeting of a 20 meter waterfall.

On either side we saw where the water enters and exits the cave below. Also, there is a lookout (mirador) where we took in the whole beautiful oddity in.

If you come, which you should sometime before you stop living, take the tour. The tour enables you to do this in one day, and climb down part of the waterfall on a rope ladder then jump 35 feet off a cliff that protrudes from the waterfall, if you so desire. Mackensie and I both looked over the cliff separately and decided we couldn’t do it. However after both a young Brit and a girl from Costa Rica did it, I had too. Call me a chauvanist. Then Mackensie after seeing her friend jump off a cliff decided it was the best course of action as well.

All in all, this was an amazing experience. When I was under the waterfall looking back I could see into where water raged on from the cave and looking forward I could see through the waterfall to the river below.

It’s really hard to describe this experience and the geological formations because it's such an oddity.

On the way back to Coban, we stopped by a cave in Lanquin, but that's not much to talk about comparatively however for this I did bring my camera. I think the cave looks better in the photos than it did in real life. It was not very well managed.

Later, I was talking to the volunteer in that area who works in ecotourism. She said that she got the a new management plan to enhance the natural beauty that is there. So perhaps in the future it will be worth your time, but now they basically strung power lines through the place and adorned them with incandescent light bulbs. They also have tacky signs on formations that vaguely resemble some animal or other common object.

But they do have some interesting spider like insects. Our guide caught one then took this embarrassing picture of me looking lovingly at this cross between a crab and a spider.
Bottom line go to Semuc Champey, take or leave the caves...

In other job related news: food security, my program, might be terminated with Intervida... I had a meeting this morning with someone in Intervida. My counterpart might change or I might be working with two different people with medicinal gardens... I don't think they really know yet. They are trying to secure funding to support the food security program but they only have a week, and it looks improbable. I'm frustrated and I'll leave it at that on this public blog.

I'm starting a blog...

I've decided that I'm going to start to a blog. Before, much earlier in my life, I thought these things were a narcissistic waste of time, however, as some of you know I do write letters and emails to a select few people and those serve as my narcissistic record of my life if I ever want to see how my former self spent his time. I also journal the dirty little things I don't want to tell other people.

I plan on keeping up with those few correspondents. However perhaps those letters will have less biographical content, so much the better as I see it. Also, it seems like a waste to be here in Guatemala and not tell people about my experience if they want to know. I have been keeping a kind of photo blog already on flickr.com, but only pictures and a few lines leave alot to be said. But enough lofty preamble.

A bit about my daily life: I get up at around 7am, however I want to change this due to a recent photograph taken of me with me shirt off. I´ve put on some pounds here and would like to begin my days with a run because I don't really want to change my eating style. I´ve found a new love of food I never had before, perhaps a sign of age or maturity. I'm okay with either, but not with the fat.

Then I go have breakfast in a house a couple blocks up the mountain with Intervida one of the NGO's I work with here. However they are having some financial difficulties right now because the administration in Spain stole a bunch of money. Currently they have half the budget they had last year. So they have decided to cut half the personal and projects they have. This is huge for Guatemala, and I don't know how many other countries b/c almost all the schools here were built by or in conjunction with Intervida. They provide huge support to the rural subsistence farmer here. There methods may not be as sustainable as they could be, but perhaps this drastic change in funding will promote change in that area.

After breakfast I go to either Intervida or ADICTA, the NGO here in Tejutla that I work with. They too are also having financial problems. I work with them three days a week, miércoles a viernes. It's weird to explain all this basic information in inglés. I've been telling it to everyone in Spanish the last three months or so. They only have one project so far this year with Veterinarians without Borders. It's a small project with micro loans for buying animals: cows, goats, maybe chickens too. I think that they are promoting "criollo" animals which is a good thing. "Criollo" means local. So they are more resistant to diseases but don't produce as much milk or and their the meat isn't as tender. The same goes for plants.

So we go out to "aldeas" and meet with men’s and women’s groups and when I first arrived here I would be introduced by my coworker, either Juan Carlos (Intervida) or Virginia (ADICTA) and then I would stand up introduce myself saying many of the same things b/c that's about all I could say at the time. Then after that I just tried to understand everything I could.
However, more recently I've been giving a "charla" about composting. That's my project here: Organic Farming. The goal is to start a bunch of family vegetable gardens so that the family can supplement their diet of chicken flavored noodles and tortillas and sometimes "tortrix" the junk food of choice here with vegetables. Malnutrition is a huge problem here. I really like the project for it's sustainability. The people only have to buy seeds which are cheap and fairly accessible here.

I have also been selling seeds in small quantities to the people in the groups. I buy them by the pound and then divide them into little baggies I can sell for one quetzal. At first I was selling what I could in "bolsitas" for 50 centavos but the people would almost always take two of the same thing for one quetzal! The idea was that they could diversify their garden without spending more than three quetzales, but it was working and costing me alot of time...currently I'm selling both sizes. (Right: One onza bolsas)

Well, that's probably too much to hold the attention of my future readership. So just end by saying I just bought some little computer speakers to hook up to my iPod, and I love them, all 30 little Watts and "bass you can feel" the box says in English, French and, of course, Spanish.