Hiking Burnt Mountain

Like most hikes, you first have to drive up as far as you can. This crazy road was so narrow, and rather scary. Jared got a good kick out of me freaking out on the drive back down, especially whenever we had to pass somebody. OH! And Yes, if you got off the 2 lane tracks those "cobble stones" are VERY bumpy.

And like every hike before you start you have to use the bathroom. Since we were in a village with no trees I had to pay 20 cents to use this. By far the nastiest bathroom I have EVER used. They don't flush the toilet paper here, and I really don't think anyone has emptied that garbage can in like a year. You can imagine the smell in this little shack.

So we finally got hiking. Our "tour guide" gave out 10 mins in and we continued on for another good hour, at least. And this was no beaten path. Rocks, rocks, and more rocks! And not just pebbles either, HUGE rocks everywhere.

And though we tried our best to stay on the "trail," we did run into more than one of these tight squeezes. The trail was marked by arrows of all different colors. We backtracked all the time, or just lowered ourselves down to where it looked a little easier.

And though we were in the wilderness hiking forever there were "churches" ALL OVER THE MOUNTAIN. It was craziness. Singing, clapping, some actually preaching, and I think we saw a man casting out devils. Crazy. Most of the people in these churches were Corte. And I have no idea how those women managed to hike up that Mountain in those dresses. I was in shorts and had a bugger of a time, I can't imagine doing it in a wrap around skirt with flip flops on. And lugging kids on top of that. Craziness.

So this is the top of Burnt Mountain. Kind of reminds me of Moses and the Israelites out in the wilderness for 40 years. It's actually a volcano that killed off everything when it erupted forever ago. That's why there's not much up here. But it was kind of nice and quiet. I understand why the "Top of the Mountain" was usually considered the Temple back in scriptural times.

We figure the different colored arrows leading us to different trails were actually designated colors for the different churches. Too bad there wasn't just one trail, it would have made this hike a heck of a lot easier.

Mt. Vesuvius

K, so that's not really what it's called. But Jared's not home and I can't remember it's name at the moment. But it really is a Volcano and it really had smoke coming out of the top.

Random Parade

Check it out! They even have Marching Band geeks in Guatemala.

While we were at the Food Market we heard all this music and noticed everyone migrating back to the main entrance. Low and behold a Parade. The man that was our unofficial tour guide said it was propaganda for the local schools, which made sense because there was about 8 different bands all followed by a truck/float carrying the "Homecoming Queen" type girl.

Being a past Band Geek myself I'd have to say they did not play the best. But they did have a lot of spirit, which made it fun. I did accidentally mess up one of the musician when I caught her eye. Random blonde American in the crowd does that to a teenage girl.

Where to buy your Food?

We went through the coolest food market ever. And there wasn't just food either, there were clothes, hardware stores (that's where we got London's machete), toys...all sorts of junk. But I'm just going to focus on the food for a minute.

The fruit in Guate was absolutely amazing. We purposely bought a super sharp pocket knife so we could slice into all the yummy goodness. Just missed out on Mango season, but we did get to sample a few end of seasons that left us totally sticky and wishing for more.

So I don't remember what either of these fruits were called. The "hairy" red one you'd slice open to find a clear, gummy, almost grape like interior with an almond sized pit in the middle. They had a kind of coconut flavor, but not quite. The yellow ones were so sour and tart I wasn't quite sure what to do with them.
Any veggie you want was available, and totally cheap. I just missed the kid that was selling this stuff in my quick snap shot. But the little teenage girls across the way got a good laugh at him because they thought I had got him in the picture. :) I guess teenagers are the same no matter where you live.

K, so the red piles are different types of dried VERY HOT peppers, seriously just smelling them got your nose burning. Then the black piles (depending on which stand you were at) were either another kind of pepper or beans of some sort. Now the white piles are not something you'd see here at home. They are dried Sardines, small, medium, or large variety. They too were RATHER stinky.

This was the smelliest of the lot though. The meat markets. No refrigeration, flies everywhere, and what's worse they were right at the entry way into the market. So you smell it when you come in and you have to smell it again when you go out. As we rushed passed I notice some of the meat was BRAIDED. I really had to think on that one to figure out what kind of an animal could you braid. Then it clicked, intestines!!! BLAH!!! Waste not, want not I guess.

Guatemalan Men

Now not all the men in Guatemala dress like this, only the Corte people still wear this style. It's kind of neat though, because each color pattern or design is designated to a certain tribe. It's a way to distinguish which family you belong to.
Check out those awesome pants. We found a store that sold them, (I'll post that picture later) but Jared wouldn't let me buy him any. Go figure?!?

The women always wear aprons and in some cases so do the men. We wondered if the tradition goes back to the Temple or somewhere like that, because they don't really seem to serve a purpose, just looks.

I don't know what was in those boxes but this poor old man was having an awfully hard time pulling this cart up that tiny hill. Eventually someone came along and gave him a push. It's just amazing the kind of work they do for the little pay they get.

Keep in Mind

I'm making these posts with out Jareds help and I havn't totally sorted through all my photos yet. So make sure as you read them all you look back to see if I've added to or edited previous posts. Sorry if that's a bit confusing, I just wanted to get started and not have to make everyone wait anymore.

The Beautiful Women of Guatemala

This is my most favorite picture I took on this entire trip. Isn't she beautiful. These colors are EVERYWHERE! So bright and beautiful, its amazing! This woman is called a Corte (quart-eh). There are the Native Indian tribes of Guatemala, they usually live in the Mountains and not much in the cities.
I think these women invented the Snugly. Babies up to 3 year olds were lugged around like this, sometimes with the baskets on the head too. The women in Guatemala are just amazing.
Sweet little Corte girl. She was so cute, her little sisters were rather shy of the camera but she'd always stay put for me. :)
You see women like this every day. If you look close at her head she has a cloth rolled into a donut type shape under the basket. They either have that or just a regular cloth flat on their heads. I'm guessing it helps balance better. I never once saw a woman just carrying something, it was always on their head, the men too. I even saw a 5 year old girl carrying thing this way, though she did have her hand up there for balance.

Cool Buildings in Guatemala

In every town, in the center of town there is a park. And in most cases, right next to this park is a Church and a City Hall. These are just a few of those buildings I took shots of.

Catholic Church in Reu, Guatemala.
City Hall right next door. Notice the Xetal bird on top.
I think this one was actually a Museum, but I'm not too sure.
Church most likely.
This building was dead center in the middle of 2 very busy streets. It's actually a Temple of some kind. Kind of reminds you of Greece, doesn't it? But it's actually for the Mayan Faith, they still hold meetings here.
Another cool Museum/Church.This was a City Hall in Xela, right down the road from where they're building the new LDS Temple.
Random White House on top of someones house, Statue of Liberty on top and everything. And they say foreign countries don't like Americans. ;)
So I've seen a lot of Catholic Churches in my day, but never a Purple one.
The beautiful lilac interior is just the coolest. We'll have to ask our leaders if we can decorate our churches this way. They actually have a Black Christ here, kind of neat.

Let's Blog Guatemala

Well it's time to finally sort through all these photos. Get ready for some MAJOR POSTS. I'm very excited to share this with all of you, and I hope you will enjoy our travels as much as we did.

I've always loved these trees and never knew what they were called till Marlene, my sister, informed me when I got home that it's Wisteria.

Home to Ourselves

My home was rather quiet today with only 2 kids hanging around. We did some MAJOR grocery shopping and I decided to let them pick a treat, THEY decided to share. Enjoy!

First Day of School

We got up bright and early, 6:15, for our first day of school, the bus comes at 7:15. These 2 were so excited to be back. Aspen starts 1st grade this year, and London is the big man in 4th. I can't believe how fast the time has gone.
Here we are at the bus stop. And these are only the kids on our street!
London was the 1st on the bus, didn't even wave good-bye. Aspen on the other hand had to give me one last hug, and a good ol' wave.
They had a wonderful first day back. Both of them loved their teachers and had fun making new friends.

We're Back

Well, we're home, had loads of fun, completely filled my Memory Card and we are so glad to be home. Future Posting Warning! There will be many to come.

So Long All

Tomorrow morning 11 am I'm on a flight to Guatemala. We'll be back Sunday Aug 16th. We love you all, if we love you most we'll bring you back a prize. :) If you see my kids driving my sister crazy PLEASE offer to help. But introduce yourself first, or she make just chop you in 2. She is a black belt in Tai-Kwon-Do after all. Have a good 2 weeks, we sure will.

We love Family!

Jared and I are taking a trip all on our own for our 10th Anniversary. So one of my most awesomest sisters consented to come babysit our chillens. The kids love all their Aunts and Uncles but Aunt Marlene is supper fun, and so AWESOME to do this for us.

We've had a few days to get her acquainted with our schedule and have the kids warm up to her a bit more. We leave tomorrow morning, so feel free to call and check in on her and make sure she's still alive. :)

1st Haircut

Sicily's hair has been growing in kind of funny. She had a rather nice mullet going on and it was getting a bit obvious. So we decided to give it a trim to fix that up.

Sicily sat pretty still but only because I was on the floor in front of her keeping her attention. She wouldn't wear the cape so Angie did really good job to keep it off of her. Actually we saved most of the hair in a little baggy, I'll post that later.
She looks supper cute with her bangs and shoulder length hair.

Self Water Fight

Never knew you could have a water fight by yourself, did you?

Everyone Loves a Birthday Party

Sicily was in absolute heaven at London's party. Chocolate dipped frozen bananas, cupcakes and Pizza, what could be better? Oh Yeah! My Aunt Marlene making sure I have everything I want. :)
Aspen and London are very fond of calling me a big fat scaredy cat. They tell everyone how their Mom's a big wussy. And I am very proud to say I am too big of a chicken to jump off the high dive. But not my kiddos. London and Aspen are MUCH braver than me. Phoenix can't wait till he can swim so he can show how brave he is too.

Happy 9th Birthday London!!

We had an absolutely awesome party for London this Saturday. 12 boys under 10 at a humongous pool and NO BODY drowned! I think we did pretty good. :)

We had some crazy free swim time, races, slides, boys trying to drown each other, you know the norm.

Followed by some cannon ball competitions.

Which was won flat out, not by London, but one of the Dads. His splash was immense.
Then a very crazy game of tag on this. It's really hard to run through 2 ft of water. But it definitely makes the game more interesting. :)

Top it all off with pizza, chips, 40 Gatorade's and some yummy cupcakes, I'd say this party was a hit.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LONDON!!!

Blueberries Anyone?

Blueberries are now in season. And no, sadly enough these did not grow in my garden. But they are cheap at the store so we bought a TON. They are HUGE and yummy! Sicily decided one breakfast that I was not feeding them to her fast enough, so she just stole the bowl. We've now made blueberry shakes, blueberry pie, blueberry buckle (so good), cornmeal blueberry pancakes and still have 3 cartons left over.

We love blueberries!!!