The 5th Dude...

Call me the fifth dude. Call me the man on the Guatemalan mountain. Call me T-JACKULATION. I respond to all three.

After several hours of plane travel, a brief stay in a hostel in Guatemala City, and my first terrifying experiences with Guatemalan public transportation I arrived in Xela, Guatemala, home of Quetzaltrekkers. 

I spent my first day exploring Xela, buying a few odds and ends that I neglected to pick up in the states, and trying out my Spanish skills to (all too frequently) ask for directions. Xela is the second largest city in Guatemala with a population of about 250,000. It is a beautiful, historical city full of narrow streets, bright colors, street vendors, markets, and mopeds. It is nestled in the Sierra Madre volcanic mountain range. The city rests at 2,400 meters, near the foot of the volcanoes Santa Maria and Santiaguito (the latter is the most active volcano in Guatemala, spewing out ash and smoke approximately every 45 minutes).

View of Xela from Cristo Vive church. It's on a hill that I walked up on my first day. It was the first time I felt the altitude. The air is THIN up here!

A statue and Guatemalan flag in Parque Central. There's a sweet bakery called Xelapan next to the park and I like to buy cakes and bread there (you can buy a cookie for 33 centavos, roughly 1/32 of a dollar!), and eat them in the park. It's a good way to pass some time.

I also stopped in the Quetzaltrekkers office (conveniently located at the back of my hostel) to meet the crew and sign up for my client hike. The volunteers were more or less as expected: an international crew of dirty, hairy white people. I learned a little bit more about the organization as well, and strengthened my resolve to work as a guide. A bit of history on Quetzaltrekkers:

Quetzaltrekkers was founded in 1995 by two Guatemalans and an Englishman. The goal of the organization is to support two beneficiaries: La Escuela de la Calle, a street school for underprivileged children, and El Hogar Abierto (The Open Home), a home for children without one of their own. Quetzaltrekkers funds 85% of the schools running cost, and 100% of the homes running cost.  The organization is completely volunteer staffed and run. Volunteers stay for a minimum of three months. From the way it is set up (with constant turnover of unpaid positions) you would imagine that it would fall apart before too long, but it has been thriving for the last 18 years and is now the largest and most successful guiding company in Xela.

I did my client hike to Lago Atitlan. The trek to Lago Atitlan is three days and forty-five kilometers. We stay in Quiche villages on both nights and pass through several villages while hiking, making the trek a cool blend of wilderness experience and cultural immersion. 

Dweebing it up on the second day of the trek. Way out in the back, between the two ridge lines, you can kind of see the rim of the Pacific Ocean. It looks better in real life.

Lago Atitlan in the mid morning.

My client hike was followed by a week working in the office, and then a trial hike as an unofficial guide. I spent my week in the office largely washing dishes, coloring posters, and doing whatever other grunt worked needed to be done with two other hopeful guides. It went well, and I quickly became comfortable with the crew of current guides.

For my trial hike I went to Lago again. The weather and views surpassed my first round by a long shot. Check out the following series of pictures showing the sun come up over Lago Atitlan. Dope as all hell.

Upon returning from my trial hike the current guides convened to decide if I was a good fit for Quetzaltrekkers. After a period of deliberation, I was summoned into the office. The guides had arranged themselves in a solemn semi-circle facing a plastic lawn chair. When I entered the room, I was told to take up residence in the “hot seat.” I was then asked a series of questions about my work history, my two hikes, and my trial week. The final question, “would you like to be a Quetzaltrekkers guide?” eventually arrived and settled my nerves. I quickly agreed and began my time as an official member of the Qetzaltrekkers team.

That was about a month ago. Since then I have been pretty busy. Work is seven days a week. We cook and eat together in the office as well, which means that we end up spending about 13 hours a day in the office. Trekking days are like days off. In addition to the Lago Atitlan trek, I have also been leading trips to Volcan Tajumulco, the highest point in Central America at 13,845 ft. (that’s 4,220 meters if you’re really dedicated to your study abroad experience).

I’m also one of the rock climbing guides. We climb at La Muela, a volcanic rock climbing site of religious and cultural significance (http://www.summitpost.org/cerro-quemado/401998). It is a place of worship for evangelical Christians. Pilgrims from all across Central America travel to La Muela to pray, chant, sing, wail, and cry. It feels a little intrusive to climb around and build anchors on sacred rock that is supposedly close to god, but the climbing is great, so fuck da’ culture ‘n’ shit! Hopefully I'll get some pictures up of some sunsets from the top of Tajumulco and hot climbing action (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5IF77WwAvg).

Well, that’s a pretty decent summary of all of my Guatemalan going-ons.  Keep rocking it y’all. And remember: always go to the middle.

T-JACK OUT!

Tabaski and Tour of Dakar- Abe

Howdy y'all,

Last week was the week of Tabaski, a massive Islamic holiday here in Senegal.  The celebration is to commemorate the sacrifice of Abraham.  Each muslim family purchases a male sheep to kill and eat on Tabaski.  A professor here described it as a day long Senegalese BBQ.  The weeks leading up the Tabaski, the streets of Dakar were filled with sheep wherever there was space.  Below is a picture of a field, usually empty, that I walk through on my way to school.  All of the sheep farmers from the surrounding areas come into the city to sell sheep for Tabaski.

My family is catholic so I spent the day with Nate's family, who are my neighbors.   The day started with all of the men in Nate's family putting on there Bobo's (traditional Senegalese formal clothing) and heading to the Mosque.  When I arrived at Nate's house I was surprised to find 5 sheep tied up in his court yard!  I was expecting there only to be one, however many extended relatives came, each brought an additional sheep.

Within a matter of minutes all the men of the house returned from the mosque and changed into work attire.  The house was similar to many traditional senegalese houses are fairly open with a tiled courtyard with  multiple smaller buildings containing the kitchens, bedrooms, and restrooms.  Located in the center of the courtyard was a drain, where we soon slit the throats of each sheep.  The killing involved only the men who tied the legs of the sheep, one person holding the head/horns, two on the body, one holding the neck, and finally the man slitting the throats.

After killing 5 full grown sheep in the courtyard, groups of two males started processing the sheep right away.  I personally helped out Nate's host brother Ibou dress one of the medium sized sheep, there was one massive sheep that a profession came to process.  The senegalese used most of the animal parts, the head was saved for soup, liver was cooked, intestines were cleaned and saved, hide was going to be made into leather, and fat was hung out to dry.  The dressing of the sheep consisted of me holding various body parts while Ibou used a machete.  However, the heads are too large to put into pots so me and nate comically tried to cut of one of the sheep heads, to much amusement of the family.

During this process the women had cut up an enormous amount of potatoes, onions, and had started 3 or 4 coal stoves in preparation of the meal.  Before we had even finished processing the sheep, meat was being thrown on the grill and being served to us, we first had to awkwardly decline so we could wash our blood and fur covered hands.  From killing the sheep to eating the sheep took about 3 hours.  The rest of the afternoon, the men washed up and rested while the women cleaned up the courtyard, 5 sheep had just been butchered where the party was going to be held in a matter of hours.

Lunch was ate around 4:30 pm, the men and women ate separately, but we both ate lots of grilled sheep, fries, bread, and mustard.  A meat and starch heavy meal but was complimented with a homemade smoothie made with mystery Senegalese fruits.

After lunch, cooking and cleaning resumed and slowly more and more family members and neighbors showed up, all wearing over the top Senegalese traditional clothes.  It felt like prom but with colorful and waxy Senegalese clothes.  The rest of the night at the house comprised of talking, eating, drinking, and lots of children.  The children on Tabaski run around from house to house asking for money or candy, similar to Halloween.  Dinner was exactly the same as lunch, but with much more food.  I ate more meat that day than any other in my life.

Unfortenatley the night didn't end quite as joyous as the rest of the holiday.  A group of K students got together at a restaurant/bar nearby to see each others outfits and share our Tabaski experiences.  Myself and four others left around 2am to head home on foot.  When we entered the neighborhood where me and Nate live, we were stopped by three Senegalese men, two with very large machetes. In wolof they told us to empty our pockets.   Lucky for me, it was dark and I was in the back, so I was able to toss my wallet under a nearby car without being seen.  When my fight or flight instincts kicked in I decided not to run but take a moment and save the item I cared about the most.   However, they did grab by camera and Senegalese phone.  Another friend of theirs then rode by on a motorcycle and they all took off.  Due to this event I lost my Tabaski photos, I asked for my memory card when they took my camera but I couldn't effectively ask in French or Wolof and was not successful.

Here are some pictures I took before Tabaski when the K group took a tour of Dakar the weekend before.

 Above: Kids playing on a homemade swing on a fishing boat at a beach in Yoff

Above: Panoramic view of the northwest part of Dakar, the grassy area in the center is the airport

Aaron- Vienna

Took a trip to Vienna last weekend with the gang. It was pretty stellar. Three (George,Mara,me) of us tried couchsurfing with this guy named Chris (for those not familiar, there is a couchsurfing website where you find people who have an open couch/bed/whatever and contact them and work out if you can stay with them whenever you travel somewhere else. It's a good way to meet new people, and you don't have to pay for a hostel!) who lived in an apartment complex (fun fact- Chris told us the building we were staying in was where the first porn movie was filmed. The more you know...) with four other roommates. He and his roommates were all super chill and friendly which was good because I was a little nervous about staying with a bunch of random people.

When we first arrived they welcomed us in and we chatted for a bit and Chris and his friends showed us around the city. That weekend there was a big music festival/conference thing called Waves going on which was a three day festival where during the day there are a bunch of conferences and discussions on music, DJing, etc and at night bands would play across several venues. They had a whole bunch of artists that I didn't know but there where some like CSS (they did the music is my boyfriend song for Apple alongtime ago), Au Revoir Simone, and Mum that rang a couple bells. The cool thing about the festival is that there is a channel (basically a mini-river) that runs through Vienna and all along this channel there are a bunch of docked boat venues where most of the bands/artist played. We ended up watching a guitar/singer due for a little bit in a coffee shop and then made are way to the Danube channel where we went on one of these boats for a little. The bands were decent (you were supposed to have pass to get in, but there were not many people at these shows so we got in without one) but the coffeehouse and boat were pretty good looking. It seems to be a big thing to have concerts on boats in Europe; in Budapest one of the big venues, A38 club, is on a pretty big boat too. Chris and his girfriend were working at the festival and the following day they worked on a boat that was part of the festival which started in Vienna and ended up in Bratislava (the capital of Slovakia) which I thought was pretty cool.

Anyway the next day the three of us did some exploring. We started off in the museum district and saw some cool sights and meandered our way around the city go in and out of tourist shops selling chocolate and trinkets. The city itself was really cool but my favorite part of Vienna is walking along the Danube channel because it is legal for people to graffiti the sides of the channel. You can walk a couple of miles and see a bunch of wild and crazy drawings. Here are some pics:

Later we somehow ended up in Vienna's version of Oktoberfest and found our way in to one of the beer tents or whatever they are called. There was a lot drunk people and singing in German. And it was pretty fun (despite not being the real Oktoberfest) and a little overwhelming too.

Next day i went and did some walking around the Vienna palace which is super-huge:

I mean the palace itself was only kind of big but the gardens around it were real spacious and there was a labyrinth you could walk around and even a zoo (supposed to be one of the oldest zoos around...). Anyway those are the young highlights.