La Florida, Atltlan

A bit delayed, but here is an entry about my trip with Karen and Angela to the coffee plantation La Florida and then to Lago Atitlan

We left for Colomba, the nearest town to La Florida, around 10 am Sunday. We took a chicken bus which took only abuot an hour. After arriving in Colomba, we met up with somone from La Florida who got us on the right pickup truck (a common mode of travel in more rural areas). After the 45 minute ride, we then hiked for 45 minutes before arriving to the plantation. By then it was after 2pm and we put our things in the dorm (a dimly lit room of four beds with straw matresses) and then went to the families who gave us our meals. Karen and I were put with a family with 5 boys ranging from 2 to 7 years old. The house consisted of a room with two beds, a kitchen area, and a bar-style table across from the beds where we all ate. The room had a tin roof and concrete floors. The boys- with an incredible amount of energy- were constantly doing cartwheels and flips onto the beds. The food was simple but good: frijoles (beans), huevos (eggs), tortillas, and soemtimes cheese or pasta.

For the two mornings that we were at the finca, we ¨helped out¨in the fields. The first day, we removed weds twisted around soy plants and then deshelled macademia nuts using rocks. The second day we picked a bit of coffee and then collected macademia nuts. Turns out raw macademica nuts taste like coconut and are delicious. In the afternoon, it was always raining and there wasn´t much for us to do except entertain/teach the millions of kids running around, so we ended up napping and studying most of the afternoons. It was still an enjoyable experience, but it made Karen and I change our minds from volunteering there for a month to WWOOFing for a month and then doing volunteer work that related to our skills and interest if we were going to volunteer.

We were originally going to stay the last three days of the week at another finca nearby, but thinking that it would be more of the same, we decided to go to Lago Atitlan to visit San Marcos, San Pedro, and Panajachel. In San Marcos, known for its new age retreat centers, we went to a yoga class, metaphysics class, and a meditation class at one retreat center called Las Piramides. I actually liked it a lot (way more than I expected). After two nights in San Marcos, we went to San Pedro, a hippy hotspot, and spent a night there hanging out with the hippies (pronounced ee-pees). That inspired our next goal which was to find hippy pants in Panajachel--which all three of us suceeded in marvulously. The hippy pants here are almost all made of pieces or patches of material of traditional skirts. I wore mine yesterday for the first time, and am kind of in love, though mine are much more tame than many of my other options. There´s not much more to say about Panajachel except that we went to a place for breakfast where there were dead ants in Karen´s granola and hair in my crepe- which was cold, hard, and plastic-like anyway. After complaining to the waiter, we left without paying. So, if you ever go to Panajachel, you can probably skip Restaurante Taly (or any of the restaurants that are right on the lake, for that matter.) We returned Sunday, refreshed and ready for class on Monday.

I´ll post photos when I can.