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Impressions of Guatemala

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My first impressions of Guatemala came in with the break of dawn our first morning in country. It was early, I was waking up in a new place, and walked outside into this beautiful courtyard garden attached to the outside of our hotel room. I was delighted to see the canopies of fruit trees, passion vines, birds of paradise, and even a papaya tree. The beauty of the tropical environment and horticultural plants surrounded me from the beginning. Our hotel was open and almost a mix of Greek and Spanish style architecture with the outdoors coming in through large, open, clear windows and the courtyard garden space. Open ceilings allowed the feel of the space to be connected to nature; and I continued to notice similar architect choices throughout the week. Our first morning in Guatemala, our study abroad group packed up and left after our breakfast in Guatemala City and drove to Antigua. As soon as we stepped outside, we met the volcanoes. We explored the city of Antiqua, and even
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Have You Ever Felt That You Had A Second Home?

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Oh Guatemala, where do I start? It is safe to say that I really needed this trip at this point in my life. Isn't it amazing how easily we get swept away in our fast paced lives? Always racing, always competing, always trying to get more... more... more... Sometimes we need to take a step outside of that life and jump into a slower culture to realize how wrapped up we tend to get in silly, wasteful and senseless actions. What impacted me the most about this trip? I can tell you without a doubt the people I met and interacted with most definitely had the largest impact on my life. I have never traveled somewhere that farmers can work so hard, with so much gusto and with so much passion for quality and their crop, yet make so little. Coming into this trip I was aware that there is severe disparity in the coffee industry. Yet it never fully sank in until I met farmers like Froilan and Eduardo who work day in and day out, year round to produce a crop that likely gets sent across the wo
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Time to Pick

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Page V I am choosing page V because it holds a few of my top memories from Guatemala like seeing my first coffee farm, meeting Froilan, one of the farmers, and harvesting coffee. However I will get back to those moments when they show up on the page.                                                                                                                                                                                                             Like the beginning of most days it started off with breakfast which consisted of refried black beans, bread, plantains and coffee. The refried black beans were one of the things I can't forget because they turned out to be amazing! After breakfast we met up with Froilan and started up the volcano to his coffee farm. On the way we stopped by one of the shops that holds the parchment remover and sorting machine.  After that we continued up the volcano eventually getting to his farm. The hike up was long and Froilan does it every m
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The Heart of Guatemala

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From the very first day I noticed people eating at long tables on the side of the streets together, enjoying and valuing each other’s company. That was only my first glimpse into the character of the Guatemalan people. One of my main fears when going into this trip was the language barrier, I don’t speak Spanish and many of the people we talked to in Guatemala don’t speak English. This barrier may have been noticed at times, but it definitely didn’t stop me from seeing the hearts of the people I encountered. Each night we would eat with a farmer’s family and they would kindly serve us the most delicious meals. People who we had never met would welcome us into their homes and try to decipher our poor Spanish in order to share with us their stories. I was able to learn about their lives, the coffee industry, their past, and their future goals.  One of our activities for the week was to buy food for dinner that night. As we walked through the market, I saw a woman se
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Is it Just Me, or is that Mountain Smoking...?

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Ever just wake up, make yourself a good cup of jo, look out your window and appreciate the beautiful, majestic volcano in the distance? No? Me neither usually. But when you’re a study abroad student traveling in the gorgeous country of Guatemala - a country with a total of 37 volcanoes - that’s just a good ol’ fashioned “regular” day. On my week long excursion in Guatemala, I never stopped short of being amazed by my surroundings. That being said, I unashamedly had “tourist” stamped across my forehead 24/7. The music, the busseling artisan salesmen constantly husseling around the corner, and the smells (oh, the smells)...I soaked it all in. But nothing, and I mean nothing, beat the shock and awe of witnessing the smoldering, mountainous volcanoes surrounding the cities of Antigua and San Miguel Escobar. Occasional small, but bright eruptions from Volcán De Fuego could be seen from our pasado at night, whilst during the day billows of smoke puffed from Volcán de Pacaya - a volcan
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A Day Full Of Culture

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To start our first adventure of the day, we “hiked” up El Cerro De La Cruz where we were able to get a perfect view of the less active volcano . The upward hike was a bit exhausting seeing how I was not as in shape or athletically inclined as the others, but I still considered it to be an experience I enjoyed and would be able to share with others. During our hike back down the hill and through Antigua, I noticed more and more how there were a high number of stray animals, mostly dogs, on the streets.  Following our hike, we were able to sit down to eat and rest at a local restaurant in town called Rainbow Café.               Adding onto the excitement for the day, we were able to freely roam around Antigua to visit and shop at the many businesses gathering gifts for others and learn more about the social side of Guatemalan culture and tradition. As we ran out of free time, the scavenger hunt for our self-cooked dinner began. I enjoyed being able to visit their local
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Ruby Treasure

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Day 3: March 12, 2017  Who needs an alarm clock when you have roasters? Breakfast was pineapple pancakes with strawberry jam, papaya, and cantaloupe. The only thing missing was more plantains! Today we got our hands dirty by following the coffee process from harvest to cup. I cannot describe how exhilarating it was to stand in the middle of Gabriel’s coffee field; we were surrounded by beautiful plants hiding little red treasures. Coffee cherries are deceptive little things… Each cherry must be picked when ruby red and not half yellow. However, only half the cherry can be seen before harvesting from the stem. By the end of the two hours, our fingers were covered in volcanic ash and our baskets were barely a third full of red cherries speckled with tiny touches of green and yellow. Gabriel carried our collective sack of cherries down the hill strapped to his forehead! A group our size usually collects around ten pounds of coffee cherries; we collected an impressive ninety pounds of c
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