San Pedro/Chichi

i landed in guatemala city and needed to get money at an atm and find a taxi to the bus terminal that was going to take me to panajachel where i´d need to catch a boat taxi across the lake to san pedro. finding an atm that worked was a problem. guat. has been having issues with their money. many haven´t been working for some time and when they do, they are quickly depleted of their funds, leaving travelers without. i ended up having to exchange my USD to quatezales for a rate of 7.4% which wasn´t the best rate, but my only option. good thing because when i met mateo in san pedro he was nearly out of cash. the rest of the trip to san pedro was easy considering i don´t know spanish that well.
san pedro was a happening little town, on lago de atitlan, littered with tourists who´s primary goal was inebriation. tourists town, i live in one, not that appealing while i´m on my travels. we went out the first night only. the next day we rented kayaks and headed across the lake to some cliffs my friend zeb recommended jumping off. the highest one was approx. 13m (40ft). it was fun jumping off the cliffs and relaxing on the rocks in the sun. the next day we hiked a volcanoe, volcan san pedro, which was approx. 4000m (12,000ft). this was probably the steepest climb i´ve ever done and it wasn´t a good time to break in the new chacos. once we were on top we could see for miles and miles, overlooking the lake and towns surrounding, amazing. one incredible thing is that the locals planted corn and coffee plants nearly all the way to the top of this volcanoe. this was typical for all mtns in this area. they´ve hiked these mtns countless times carrying seeds up and the harvests down. these people would probably dominate any climbing competitions we know of.
the next day we jumped on another chicken bus headed for chichicastenango. let me tell you about these chicken bus rides. first of all, the roads between towns are steeper, more narrow and have more turns than any road i´ve seen in CO. the drivers are absolutely crazy. (Em...you think i´m a crazy driver, these drivers scare me.) they drive fast, passing people uphill/downhill with oncoming traffic. if nascar´s road courses had oncoming traffic, these bus drivers would own the circuit. these chicken buses never stop and never get full. people are getting on and off the bus while it´s still in motion and they pack the people in like canned sardines. unreal. probably the most dangerous thing many would ever do without a choice.
chichi was a cool local mtn town inhabited mostly by mayans. we only stayed there one night, walking around checking out the town. at one point, before dinner, i was hungry for red meat, until i saw slabs of meat sitting in the box of a pickup, uncovered and exposed to everything. that desire for red meat quickly subsided. that night we were hanging out at the room drinking some vino and playing some cribbage until we heard some live music that suddenly snagged our attention. we had to check it out. we went to where it was playing and it ended up being some sort of christian rally. from what we understood, the locals had been converted to catholasism and the rally was trying to convert people back to protasism. so it was protisans v. catholics while many are pre-christian altogether. the music, this lady was absolutely whaling on the mic, it was so loud, the loudest live music i´ve ever heard. it was incredible, unexplainable, nothing i´ve ever experienced before. after she was done singing and the music stopped, she started talking to the people in a preaching sort of manner. the crowd started praying, chanting, bowing, worshiping in large groups. a bit memorizing. if we had stayed any longer we may have been converted ourselves. that was definetely an experience i´ll never forget.
the next day we grabbed some breakfast (most meals consist of tortillas, tamales, tostadas, beans and avocato or guacamole) and caught another bus headed for antigua were we´ll celebrate NYE. i´ll follow up with that in a couple days.
i apologize for this post being so long and full of errors. i´ll try and write more often to rid of these issues. happy new years to everyone...be safe!
(pics yet to come)

travel updates

the time to depart for my journey is near, 4 days. work is finally getting wrapped up and packing/organizing has just begun. i fly out of denver at 1915 on xmas day and land in guatemala city at 0538 26Dec. from guat. city i will be traveling via bus to panajachel and then taking a ferry across lake atitlan to san pedro to meet up with my brother who will be chillin' in a hammock. we'll hang out in san pedro for a couple days and make our way to antigua for new year's eve. then we'll make our way north to to coban for a couple days and ultimately end up in tikal to check out all the mayan ruins for a few. the later part of the trip we will be on the utila in honduras where we'll do an inordinate amount of diving. the next part of my trip is what i'm most excited for. after diving we're headed to the pacific coast to surf, either nicaragua or el salvador. that's where we'll split again, if matt comes to the pacific coast with me, and i'll be headed back to guat. city to fly back to the states.

those feeling i've previously talked about are starting to set in. entering a foreign country and making my way to meet someone when we really have no idea where. me not being able to speak the native tongue makes me a bit nervous, but not as much as i've anticipated. i'm actually welcoming those fears, scared, nervous feelings. i think it'll be extremely exciting being lost in the middle of something i know nothing about. i'll have to manage, if you will, with what i know, which is little and makes it all the more exciting. i'm not as worried as i should be, perhaps i'm being naive, but that's me, i love those challenges. i'm confident i'll do fine and find my brother without problems.

chao!!!

where's it going...

work has really been taking over my life as of late. i have two weeks left before i head to guatemala for six weeks. project need to be finished up and/or handed off. i'm currently working on three big resort project and one smaller project i call my own, it's a harley davidson dealership. this project was almost yanked from me but i requested that i kept it and volunteered to work additional hours so i could keep it. what was i thinking?

this past weekend was our company xmas party. my company rent out ally's cabin up the mountain at beaver creek. we end up taking a sleigh to and fro the cabin. open bar, amazing food, you can probably guess how the night was. they rent us hotel rooms in vail and bought us lift tickets for vail the next day. we get treated quite well around xmas. the party is always enjoyable, conversing with co-workers from our denver office that we seldomey see and only speak with on the phone. i know most of the voices but i cannot put a face to the voice/name.

three days of hard snowboarding this weekend was fun. all except the last day, yesterday. i rode the basin in which i'm not a huge fan of anyways, but some friends really wanted to go there and considering i have not rode there in some time i thought i'd tag along. the day was going fine, besides the poor terrain park the basin represents, until we started waiting in line at the 'polly lift'. wondering why there were so many people waiting in line, we noticed the chairs were stopped. soon they started up again and not clearly thinking of why they were stopped to begin with, we got on. two and a half hours later the ski patrol rescue teams had to evacuate us from the chair lift. now we were on the north west face which is probably the most difficult part of the mountain, so this was no easy task. i've never experienced a situation like this so i was quite interested on how they planned on evac'ing the people stuck on the lift. i found out shortly. they ended up draping a rope over the lift chair's cable and on one end of the rope was a small chair with a circular loop you enclose yourself in. once you have the chair wedged between your legs and the rope under your arms and instructed to, you jump off the chair and the rescue team slowly lowers you to the ground. i was impressed with how well the rescue team did their jobs. unbelievable actually, how they climbedthe towers so quickly and with all the clothing and ski boots restricting easy mobility. for all of our inconvenience, waiting, we ended up getting a free cup of hot chocolate (in which i passed on b/c i just wanted to get home) and a free lift ticket which was awesome considering i already have a season pass. i overheard that the last time this happned was '95. at the end of the day we were safe and i give props to the rescue team who did a great job fighting the cold and the time frame as it was nearing the end of the day. my amazing luck continues!

two weeks before i leave, on xmas day, for guatemala city. time is passing without notice and i'm only becoming more busy as xmas nears. i don't' have time to do all the things i want to do which leaves me with altering my priorities which will all know isn't that easy. where's time going...

BIG NEWS!!!

clap your hands say yeah! is coming out with a new, highly anticipated album, some loud thunder, which is to be released 30Jan07 and available for download (mp3 format) on 16Jan07. view track listing and preview two full length tracks here. you can also check out another track on their myspace page.