Viento del mundo (el segundo parte)

When I last left, I was going to sleep in Xecocon, which I did. The next few days I will condense into images, rather than many words, mostly because they do better justice to the beautiful scenery than my written meandering.

We awoke before dawn to hike up some 90 switchbacks, 3.5 horas of invigorating work, to rest here, and watch el sol rise...

We then saw these things along our way...


















Entonces nosotros dormimos, barely, on a dirt floor in an old barn in Canton Primero. Not so remarkable. But, oh what was to come...

this next day was my favorite. We hiked through so many different zones, the vegetation and scenery went from altiplano, to massive rock formations, to old growth forest. We hiked up two hills dubbed Hell Hill and the Bitch, rightfully so. And this day too produced the most baby animal sightings yet. I saw baby dog, baby pig, lamb, baby fowl, baby goat...and spoke to all of them in my best spanish. I tried to take pictures of them all, but they were hard to capture. Take my word on their adorableness, especially the piglets...

Despues hitching a ride encima de a dump truck filled with gravel,

this night was spent in La Ventosa, the home of Geranimo y familia. We were so warmly recieved, with beds, mashed potatoes, tortillas and la temezcal. La temazcal, or chuj in Mam, is a type of sauna in which the indigenas use as their ducha. It consists of an adobe brick igloo, some hot coals upon which to pour some hot water for steam, and a basin of cold water to rinse with. It is possibly the best thing ever after three days of climbing.

La proxima mañana subimos a La Torre, the highest non volcanic peak in all of Central America. And from there we went down, en mi caso slid down, a Todos Santos de Las Cuchumatanes.

Estas son las vistas ví este dìa...

Los demàs salimos la proxima mañana para Xela, pero me quedè en Todos Santos por una semana de clases. Todos Santos es un pueblo de 3000 personas settled in a valley of the Cucuhumatans. Practically every person, inclye los hombres, wears traditional traje....beautiful traje. The colors they use here are stunning, deep purples and tealsand maroons. My Todos Santos madre weaved these brilliant textiles, so I was given the chance to see the process. The family also grew mushrooms, mi verdura favorita. And I can vouche that the papas here are the best in Guatemala.

I woke up todas las mañanas knowing I was in the mountains, not by memory or sight, but by a more abstract sense. And the feeling and sights in the middle of the night, being in Guatemala, in that valley, in those mountains, under that sky, rivaled some of the better ones in my life.

I will spare you the deatils of my first bout with a Guatemalan parasite, except that of course it was going to happen in a place with no more than an outhouse for a bathroom. Mi madre aqui was very madre like though and insisted I sweat it out in the chuj, which I did.

So this ends my two week trek through the Guatemalan highlands. I am not sure exactly how much ground I covered, but it is a really impressive and large number of kilometers. Again I leave you all with my unwavering love and best wishes and sincere anticipation to give you all loads de abrazos very soon.