Well, here we are --- first week of November! It has been a
big week of celebration here in Guatemala with Día de los Muertos on November 1st,
which may be one of the most beautiful, tradition-filled holidays I have ever
experienced. Things are hectic here today as I try to get my blog post up, do
laundry and pack for our two-week immersion trip to El Salvador. We are leaving
tomorrow morning at 5:30 AM!
If I had to pick one word to describe the last week, it
would be 'hiking'. After finishing our volunteer projects last Wednesday, we had
a few days off. A few of us decided to tackle one of the biggest
challenges we wanted to try while in Guatemala: climbing to the highest point in
Central America: Tajumulco. It ended up being one of the most difficult and
incredible things I have ever done. More on this a little later…
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| A Sunday morning hike up to the lava fields near Xela. Gorgeous! |
Since Día de los Muertos is a national holiday in Guatemala,
we took the day to venture to a small community called Sumpango to eat the
traditional food of the day, fiambre,
and check out one of the biggest barrilete
(kite) festivals around. It was amazing! Many of the kites were the size of
small houses, and the sky was filled with tons of
kids and adults alike flying their colorful barriletes.
As for the fiambre --- well, I won’t
need to try that dish again, at least for a few years. I got my fill of
intestines, hearts, liver, and everything else for quite a while. The perfect
vegetarian dish! J
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| All of the fiambre on Día de los Muertos, ready for the fiestas! |
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| One of the giant barriletes at the kite festival in Sumpango. |
To switch things up a little bit, I tried my hand at veggie
lasagna with my host family today. I was again amazed by how well the kitchen
can bring people together; we had a great time! It is fun to continue to learn
things from my host family and give them some new ideas in return. They are
used to spending several hours preparing lunch, and they loved how quick and
easy my mom’s recipe was. It was also the first time they had used the
oven in almost a year. Definitely a good lunch!
To elaborate a bit on the Tajumulco hike…
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| We made it! Wet, cold, and so, so happy. |
To get to the mountain, our guide navigated us through
several buses and micros winding upward toward the Guatemalan coast. We began our
five-hour hike to the base camp in early afternoon, and the views were
gorgeous! Around 5 PM, with just a few minutes left on the hike, it started to
downpour. And it didn’t stop for several hours. So, there we were, huddled in a
cave while our bags got soaked in tents that leaked (which we didn’t realize
until it was too late), fighting off the cooling night air. We got creative
with eating our spaghetti since the forks were lost somewhere inside the small
lake inside our tent and then worked on getting the tent dry enough to try to
get some sleep. It had stopped raining by this point, gracias a Dios, and we settled in for a long night in some wet
sleeping bags. Waking up at 4:30 AM the next morning, we hiked the final 800
feet to the summit and were pleasantly surprised to have the mountain – and one
of the most beautiful, rewarding sunrises I have ever seen – all to ourselves.
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| Sunrise on top of Tajumulco. |
That night on Tajumulco taught me a lot about myself and pushed
me to limits of discomfort that I hadn’t touched before. I have learned a lot
about myself in Guatemala, and one of the biggest things that has hit home is
the importance of looking at difficult situations and discomfort to learn
something about oneself and take advantage of the opportunity to push the
limits. I kept that in mind during our adventure up Tajumulco, and it really
changed how I perceived the experience and the challenge. Instead of, “I’m
cold…and soaking wet…and just want to sleep in a tent that doesn’t
leak,” my thoughts became, “Wow, how many people get to say they hiked this
mountain in a bigger storm than our guide has ever seen?!”. I am grateful to
have developed this type of perspective for the challenging times, especially before beginning
medical school next fall.
It looks like we will be pretty busy in El Salvador, so next
week might be blog-less (although I am going to try my best to post an update).
But, I am looking forward to sharing the experiences with you when I can. In the
meantime, disfruta la semana y continua viviendo y aprendiendo. Cada día es una
buena oportunidad. ¡Te extraño, y hasta próxima vez!
Paz,
Nico
Hi Nicholas!
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love reading your blog and hearing all about your experiences. I applied to Somos Hermanos for the Fall 2013 session. :) I have a question for you regarding the language aspect of the program. Has your Spanish significantly improved? Would you consider yourself semi-fluent now?
Hey Alexis, thanks for the comment! That is great that you applied for next fall -- it is an incredible program, and it is hard to give the experience justice through blogs and pictures. It is phenomenal! As far as the Spanish piece goes, I definitely feel like my Spanish has improved significantly. I came with a little background in the language, but only enough to talk a little bit about my family and the weather. Now, I can understand the vast majority of what people say and responding and talking in conversation feels pretty natural. Best of luck, and feel free to email me if you need anything!
DeleteI'm sending an email your way now :)
ReplyDelete