Seeing Mayan Ruins - Tikal and Belize

In my time between our main group trips to Oaxaca and then our 10-day tour of El Salvador, Jess, Maya, and I (2 other girls from our group) traveled in 4 days to Tikal to see one of the largest archaeological sites and urban centers of Mayans and to San Ignacio, Belize to climb through a cave with stalagmite, Mayan pottery, and even intact Mayan skeletons!

Our trip was a fun challenge at times: after a four hour bus ride from Xela to Guatemala City, our 9-hour planned overnight bus ride to the North of Guatemala turned out to take 15 hours and 45 min. because of multiple standstill traffic jams throughout the night. When we finally got to the city of Flores, we decided to see the Tikal pyramids with fresh energy. So, we checked into a cute little backpackers' hostel and took it easy for the rest of the day.

At 4:30 the next morning we headed to Tikal to catch an early morning tour. We drove into the official park property at 6am, the moment the park opened. The early morning tour was definitely a great idea - without the strong sun, we were able to see spider monkeys, toucans, and other birds and get glimpses of little mammals - one was called a "pizote"





We climbed up the pyramids, sometimes up stone steps and other times up steep, wooden ladders. Temple V was a highlight...apparently, they used the area to film plane races from "Return of the Jedi." At around noon we headed bak to the hostel, had lunch, and shared a yummy homemade brownie and ice cream, and headed to the Belizean border.

On top of Temple V! ->


We were worried about the border closing before we crossed that night b/c the cab ride from Flores took almost 2 hours but we had no problems. In the first minutes driving in from the border, we noticed so many differences between Guatemala and Belize. Most of the houses had beautiful finishes (felt a lot more "USA" style), there was cut grass and "Century 21" signs, and a lot fewer pot holes. It was weird to have a bit of a "culture shock" during a 10-minute drive from one Central American country to another. In reality, Belize still has significant poverty and corruption in government like in Guatemala, but the wealth seems a bit more spread than in Guatemala. When we got to San Ignacio, we found a cute little family-owned hotel in San Ignacio, Belize. The next morning at 8am we got ready for our tour to swim in and explore the ATM cave!

The travel rush to Belize was definitely worth it when we swam into the cave to see thousand-year-old natural formations, in tact Mayan pots, and even an intact skeleton of a young Mayan woman fro around 900 AD! The tour group we were with included our guide who had been going into the cave for 10 years, one girl from San Ignacio, 2 girls studying finance from Toronto, an Australian insurance worker, and another couple. It was fun exchanging travel stories during the tour.




The skeleton of the Mayan young woman!


Outside the entrance to the ATM cave -


That night after the cave we picked up a pizza and rushed back to the Guatemalan border in time to pick up an 9pm bus straight from the border to Guatemala City over the night. Then we were able to relax all day in Maya's friend's apartment where we showed, slept, and took a long visit to the high-class Guatemalan City mall...a great end to our little adventure before El Salvador!

Meeting a Guatemalan Midwife

For our weekly group conference, we got the pleasure of hearing from a Guatemalan woman named Berta who has been delivering babies in Xela for 24 years. This conference was particularly interesting because she told us about the therapy, plants, bathing rituals, and massages that she uses to take care of the mother, the delivery, and her newborn baby afterward. Midwives are particularly important in Guatemala because of the less than satisfactory treatment of pregnant women in hospitals. The hospitals in Guatemala (if there is even access) are overwhelmed with pregnant women and therefore, 80% of all deliveries happen in the home.

Berta and other midwives are so involved with the women in their community. They consult with women when they have irregular menstruation, when women think they may be pregnant and of course throughout a woman’s pregnancy (if it’s a normal pregnancy, every month). Berta has very interesting methods. She observes the woman laying down (her breasts, vagina, eyes, etc.) to determine the pregnancy. She also makes teas out of plants like chamomile to alleviate intestinal gas, corn “hair” to cure vaginal infections, “pimpinella” to strengthen contractions (has a natural form of oxytocin, the contraction hormone), and “milenrama” to prevent hemorrhages.

Another important part of a Guatemalan midwife’s treatment is massages and bathes. She massages every part of a woman (her arms, breasts, stomach, legs, etc.) after the pregnancy to relax the woman and help with the discharge of the placenta. She even did a demonstration of this massage with Judy (a girl in my group).

I learned a lot by listening to Berta talk. What’s wonderful about her is that she gives very complete care to the woman and her baby. Berta always looks out for more serious medical problems in pregnancy (like ectopic pregnancy or a baby in the wrong position in utero) but sadly, she is not allowed into the hospital with the mother. Hopefully someday, doctors and midwives can work together (which in limited cases they do) both in Guatemala and the States, because together, I think the care of a pregnant woman is much more complete and safer.

Hike up Santa Maria and the Earthquake!

This morning at 4am after returning from our wonderful "quarantine," Sharon, Maya, and I climbed Santa Maria, an active volcano, a half hour outside of Xela. Our friend, Steve, here in Xela, who has climbed the volcano two times before was nice enough to be our awesome guide.

On our way to the base of Santa Maria -


The climb up (including these slightly cute stray dogs who accompanied us up) -


I'm falling in love with these hikes in Guatemala. The views are beautiful and the air is so fresh (especially compared to Xela). Although it was tough getting out of our beds before the sunrise, it felt great to get moving. Around 7am, the clouds moved in really fast and I expected a pretty normal time on top of the summit eating our peanut butter and honey sandwiches, but there were a lot more surprises! The clouds moved away in time for some great pictures.





After some picture taking, we sat close to warm up and waited for San Aguito to erupt (the active part of the volcano along side the summit of Santa Maria). As we sat there, the ground started to move! We were on top of a volcano to feel at 36-second, 6.1 grade earthquake!!! I've never felt an earthquake that strong before, and we found out later that the entire city of Xela felt the quake too. It felt like we were on a moving building on top of the volcano. It was scary (we later found out an earthquake like that can actually cause a huge cave-in of the summit) but pretty fun especially in retrospect.

20 minutes later, after recovering from the earthquake, we were still waiting to see San Aguito erupt and as we gave up and started to walk away from our viewpoint, I heard Sharon calling, "It's erupting!" It was an amazing site and experience We couldn't have had any better luck with choosing to go up the volcano today.

Trip to Oaxaca, Mexico and the Swine Flu Scare

The group in the afternoon during our first sunny day in Oaxaca,


One of the main parts of the "Somos Hermanos" program is learning the culture and language of Latin America, and in addition to our months studying in Guatemala, we take a week long trip to Oaxaca, Mexico to live with a family, learn about their culture, and take class with Mexican teachers to learn Mexican-Spanish. This is such an important part of our program to ensure that we can learn how to be better health care providers for immigrant populations in the U.S.

The family we stayed with in Oaxaca was a wonderful family. I lived with my friend Rekha from the program in a beautiful little house with a sweet Oaxacan woman named Conchita. Rekha and I felt exceptionally lucky with this nice family who lovingly picked is up at the bus station with a little, handwritten sign when we arrived Sunday morning in Oaxaca. Conchita and her husband, Luis drove us to their house and served us fresh fruit, yogurt, and homemade granola. It wasn't long until we learned that Conchita takes care of the house and many students as well as teaches Oaxacan cooking classes! Between the Oaxacan cheese, homemade mole sauce, fresh tamales (otherwise known here and in Guatemalan and Oaxaca as "tamalitos") we definitely got the heavenly Oaxacan food experience!

It was also great living with Conchita and her family because the family could give us even more information about the prideful and rich Oaxacan culture. Conchita's family had lived in her beautiful house for over 3 generations before. Also, just by eating our three meals at home, we noticed the different ways Mexicans would speak Spanish. Guatemalan's always say "vaya" when they're agreeing, but Conchita was constantly saying "andale." It was great to get a bit more familiar with other speaking patterns in Central America.

Our Spanish classes in the mornings in Oaxaca helped with this learning process too. We had a great, exciting teacher named Octavio who went through all the history of Mexican community (mainly their community values like respect for elders and even fiestas!), and he defined lots of vocabulary that you can't find in the dictionary, for example "Toda la madre!" = Perfect!

A picture at border control on the Guatemalan side on our day long bus trip to Chiapas, Mexico -



Maya and I on the Mexican side (with the "Welcome to Chiapas" sign in the background, which is the southernmost region of Mexico)


Trying out the famous Oaxacan "nieve" (water-ice),


Unfortunately, after a day in Oaxaca, the cases of swine flu in Mexico City (200 miles north of Oaxaca) began to rise, and anxiety abut the flu rose as well. Our group, "Somos Hermanos" immediately began investigating the flu and our risk of being exposed to the disease. We searched out some Tamiflu and monitored the news closely, and after about a day, we decided to leave Oaxaca early to avoid any risk of contracting the disease, and more importantly avoid problems at the border (there were rumors of the Mexican-Guatemalan border closing and of possible quarantines there). With all this anxiety, we were all pretty bummed, but in the afternoon we had left, we had a little time for a few jokes...

Wearing our newly bought masks that supposedly prevented the air transmission of swine flu. (However, after my own research, I don't think that these masks make a huge difference on exposure to the flu although the government distributed them for free probably more to calm the general population, and even more, there were hardly any cases in Oaxaca.)



The swine flu unfortunately cut out Oaxacan study trip short, but in the two days we were there, we definitely took advantage of a lot of the wonderful things to do in Oaxaca.

Oaxaca is a very old city with so much history, culture, and beauty. The city is so clean and elegant, full of markets, stores, and beautiful architecture. The first afternoon (after sleeping all morning to recover from the overnight bus ride), we wandered around the city to the main square, called the "Zocalo," where we tried a Oaxacan delicacy called "chapulines" or fried grasshopper (they didn't taste like much of anything except crunch) and wandered around the market to look at clothing, little art toys, and artwork.


Monday afternoon after our first Mexican-Spanish group class, we were fortunate enough to have our trip to Monte Alban, home of the ruins of the Zapotecs (a really strong and intelligent indigenous population before the Aztecs around 500 B.C.). The afternoon was hot but clear, and it was amazing to see and even climb the pyramids that these people had built so long ago.

A bit more of our "quarantine" pictures in Monte Alban... we're "flu fugitives" :)


The famous "Danzante" stone artwork in "Monte Alban." This stone below is probably a depiction of a pregnant women having the baby. These depictions may have been religious or possibly, just an outlet of creativity, but I found the stones very beautiful. And even more exciting was the fact that so many of these stone depictions are still in tact after all this time!




The second (and unfortunately last afternoon) in Oaxaca, we wandered around getting in some last minute shopping and wandered into the beautiful Santo Domingo cathedral, with its baroque architecture from 1572 -



That night we went all out with a heavenly Oaxacan dinner downtown before our quick escape from Oaxaca...the mole sauce, Oaxacan cheese (and even cheesecake), and sangria were divine!


As we made our way back to Guatemala that night after dinner (an overnight bus ride again to Chiapas) we were informed that we would not be going directly back to our houses in Xela as to not put anyone else in risk of getting the swine flu from us. Although none of us showed any symptoms of flu, we decided to spend two days at a government resort in Reu, 45 minutes outside of Xela. Despite being "quarantined" for 72 hours, our group had tons of fun at this resort - it was beautiful with its tennis courts, large pool complete with water slides, a badminton and mini-golf court. We felt like we were on a cruise ship on land.



There were even huge amounts of peacocks wandering the resort!


After two days, we headed back to our coordinator Liz's house in Xela to spend one last night before returning to our families. We ordered Domino's and watched movies all night, and I think the group definitely had a great time being "quarantined." In fact, we were a bit sad to leave each other after spending the whole week traveling together. The whole experience makes us even more excited for our 10 day trip to El Salvador in about a week.

Also, thanks to everyone for their concern. I know that with the media-craziness and general uncertainty a lot of you were very worried about my proximity to the swine flu pandemic in Mexico City. I'm sorry you were so worried, but now I am safe and sound (and healthy) back in Xela, and I miss you all and hope for the best for everyone.

Love,
Sarah