Oh, the places you'll go!

Sorry for the radio silence! I actually can’t really believe it’s been over a week since we arrived here in Guatemala. Things have been interesting, fun, and challenging all at the same time.

I’ll do my best to paint a picture for you. We are living in a small town called San Andrés Itzapa, perched on a hillside. When you look around in each direction you’ll see volcanoes and green mountains filled with delineated farm land. There is one main street that goes into Itzapa, but once you get into the main town square it branches off into smaller streets and alley ways. In the main square you’ll find a bustling city center with a large open market area, fairly large concrete city government buildings, and tiendas (small convenience stores). Lots of Pepsi and Movistar ads painted on the buildings. In the morning you’ll find the market area filled to the edge with vendors selling fresh vegetables, fruits, rice, and beans. The air in the city is generally a bit humid but fairly cool; and smells a little like a warm concoction of vegetables, bread, exhaust fumes, and fertilizer. It reminds me of India in a lot of ways.

If you continue past the square and walk uphill on the cobbles and broken sidewalks, you’ll be in the company of fellow shoppers, a few stray dogs, a few more tiendas, panaderias (bakeries), and tortillarias – where inside youll see a few women chatting and flattening corn tortillas back and forth from hand to hand and placing them on a large flat grill. You'll smell the corn when you walk by. Keep going up and up the steep hill and, before the cemetery at the top, you’ll find a bike shop, and our home for the next two months – Maya Pedal.

We aren’t staying in a 5-star hotel, that’s for sure. Maya Pedal provides volunteer housing, which is one floor up from the main alley and bike shop. There are three rooms and a shared bathroom. Our room is probably barely about 70 square feet, but Nilit and I spent our first afternoon and evening fully cleaning before thinking about putting our things in it. Our bed consists of a twin-sized metal frame with recycled bike tubes strung across and a couple of foam pads on top. Together with our sleeping pads and sleeping bags (which nicely zip together) we actually have a fairly comfy bed!

Lots of natural sunlight through that window ;)

We've organized a few plastic crates as makeshift shelves for our clothes, and used the nails already in the wall to hang our backpacks and a line to dry our clothes and towels.

 

On the first floor we also have a kitchen with pots and pans, a full-sized camping stove, and a pedal-powered blender…

Making some horchata!

Vegetarian restaurant food is hard to come by in Itzapa - But the market sells beautiful avocados, beans, plantains, oranges, rice, and all sorts of veggies. Cooking those with some spices and together with fresh tortillas from the ladies at the nearby tortillaria makes for a truly fantastic home-cooked meal. 

It’s only been 10 days, but we are getting more and more acquainted with everything around here and it’s starting to feel a bit like home. I don’t know how we will feel in a couple of weeks or months, but I like where we are now.

I’ll write a bit more next time about our work with Maya Pedal, the bike shop, and what we’ve been up to..

Until then, adiós y buenas días!