Rocking that *International* Paradise

Step 1: Wake up when the sun rises, unaided by an alarm clock.  Roll over and stay in bed for another hour or so, just relaxing. Step 2: 1 st breakfast.  Eat a little something to kickstart your metabolism.  Check email and facebook while munching on your Special K. Step 3: Suit up and go out for a 10 mile run.  Don’t get down on yourself if this turns into an 8 mile run.  Your muscles are tired from yesterday’s swim and trail run; 10 miles was probably ambitious for today anyway.  Enjoy the view and the sunshine and the city that you live in all the same.  Agree to use the run as an excuse to eat and drink whatever you want for the rest of the day.  Step 4: Runner’s yoga following an online video to help you stretch out.  Step 5: Shower, then brunch.  Be sure to eat a good mix of protein and carbs to keep your energy up after that run.  Step 6: Whip up some delicious baked goods for a party this afternoon....

The first time I went to Semuc Champey, it was with a group of 11 co-workers.  The weather was cold and cloudy our first day, and we stayed in a hostel where rats crawled through the thatch roof above my bunk bed each night.  I mean, it was a great trip and all, and I actually really enjoyed it (check out this post if you don’t believe me!), but when Liz came for Semana Santa this year and wanted to see Semuc, I decided we’d do it right.  We researched our hotel and booked a private room for the three of us (Kenra joined in on the sister trip too) at the Utopia Eco Hotel, just a few kilometers from the Semuc Champey park.  The location, accommodations, and service did not disappoint.  No rats this time—but plenty of cacao trees, hammocks, and the view of the turquoise river flowing past our front porch.    The weather also helped on this trip, of course.  Each day was around 95F, which made the crystalline pools of Semuc Champey...

Liz only had a short time here in Guatemala City on Easter Sunday.  Her flight left around 12:30pm, which meant we only had until about 10am to do…anything.  Liz really wanted to see the Easter festivities in Guatemala, since she was well aware it would probably be her only time in Guatemala for Holy Week.  So I did a little research, and we set of for Zone 1 to try and catch a procession in the morning. Each year during Holy Week in Guatemala, elaborate alfombras (carpets) are designed on the streets, made of colored sawdust and plants and flowers.  Then a procession of people holding up floats bearing images of the Lenten story moves slowly down the street, walking over the alfombra.  The processions happen the entire 40 days of Lent, but are most impressive in Antigua and during Semana Santa.  Going to Antigua was out of the question, but we knew that Guatemala City would have its own processions.  I found that one procession would leave at...

Semana Santa started on Saturday, with a quiet weekend in the city and a short trip to Lake Atitlan.  But on Saturday morning, it seemed to me it started in exactly the wrong way.  It started not with an epic adventure worthy of my last months in Central America, and not with my “best friend,” and not with the person I once convinced myself that my world revolved around.  But as it turns out, this Semana Santa is not about showing off my travels or adding another country to my list.  And it’s not about spending it with anyone in particular.  This Semana Santa is about me .  About finding myself again, the person I once was.   And the first three days have been perfect .  With the help of two very good friends (whom I think I had sort of forgotten were such very good friends; we’ve seen so little of each other this year), we filled Saturday, Sunday, and Monday to the brim with goodness.  Kenra and Becky and I went out to brunch, ...

A little less than a year ago, Richard and I were at Lake Atitlan, and I read the news that there had been an earthquake in Nepal which had caused an avalanche at Base Camp of Mt. Everest.  At the time, I was teaching a book all about a boy who climbs Everest, so I read the article and was excited to tell my students of this current event, bridging fiction and real life.  I looked forward to hypothesizing with them what this avalanche would mean for the climbing season, which takes place during a short weather window each year. But when I told Richard about the article, his eyes got big and worried, and he gasped, “My friend is there!  She’s at Base Camp right now!”    For the next day or two, Richard checked facebook maniacally, waiting for an update from his friend.  Thankfully, she checked in, reporting only minor injuries and announcing that she would be evacuated in the next few days.   But that was the first time I heard about Barbar...

Although I had climbed Volcan de Atitlan (the highest of the three volcanoes at Lake Atitlan), two years ago, the fact that Rachel and Christy and I planned last weekend’s trip to do it again all on our own made it seem like a brand new adventure.  Our first order of business was to decide how exactly to arrive at San Lucas Toliman, the town we’d hike from.  We decided to drive directly to the town, rather than driving to Panajachel and taking a boat across the lake, and therefore, we had to gamble on which roads leading to the lake would be least full of potholes.  After much deliberation, and after getting the opinions of multiple people, we took the way the app Waze said would be half an hour shorter than the other two options.  This southern route meant no winding through the mountains, no traffic jam passing through Chimaltenango, and best of all—a brand new landscape that none of us had seen before.  And we lucked out—only about a 3km stretch of the r...

I’m really not great with technology.  I am constantly on my computer or attached to my phone, yes, but when it comes to how things work, I rely almost entirely on techie friends.  So, you can imagine the pure dread that went through me about a month and a half ago when my computer started making strange noises, froze, and then the “blue screen of death” popped up asking me to restart the computer.  But worse…when I did that, this disturbing message popped up: Insert full-blown panic.  It’s so easy to get caught up in the idea that “life” is saved on my computer.  And it’s true—I have a lot of memories, both in picture and journal format, saved in electronic files.  (Thankfully most of my digital materials for work are saved on the school computer or in the cloud, so that was less of an issue).  Fortunately, as I mentioned before, I have techie friends.  I sent a few frenzied photos to them on my phone, and they succeeded in c...