Last weeks in Guatemala

As mentioned in my previous blog, I still owe you a summary of my last weeks in Guatemala. I told you about Miami, where we stayed until April 26th. The Friday after was Queen's day in Holland, so also for the Dutch people in Guatemala. That evening there was a borrel in te house of the Dutch embassador with bitterballen, Heineken and other Dutch stuff. The next day there was a celebration in Xela, so in the morning I quickly arranged the bus and a hotel and around noon we (another Dutch guy, a Norwegian girl and me) took the bus and 5 hours later we arrived in a very rainy Xela. After having relaxed a little in the hotel we went to search for the Dutch bar and fortunately I had remembered correctly where it was and we met some Dutch people that I knew (from the Dutch football team and the embassy) and some I didn't know (among others an old woman who invited me to stay with her next time I'd go to Xela). We left for a short while to have some great dinner and then returned to find the embassador doing an attempt to dance salsa with a local girl. Later we went to another bar, but we were tired and went to bed pretty early. That Sunday we just walked around a little and took the bus back to Guatemala City early in the afternoon. 

I don't remember what I did next weekend, but I guess that means it was not really interesting to tell you about anyway. 

The weekend after that we went to Xela again (this time with other people,  mostly AIESEC trainees from Brasil and Mexico who work in Novartis). We left Saturday early in the morning and slept for 5 hours until we arrived in Xela, where we checked in to the same hotel as last week. Then we had some breakfast, explored the city, the cemetary and a market. We walked around a lot so in the evening we took some rest before we went out. Upon arriving at the place with all bars we realized that that night the football club of Xela played the finals of the national league, so everybody was watching the game in the bars. So we had no choice but to watch the game as well and see Xela lose in a game of a terribly low level. After the game we enjoyed the night for a bit, but again went to sleep early, because next day we would have to wake up early to make a volcano trip. Unfortunately our room was on the side of the street, so we had to hear the drunk football supporters all night long. The next morning when we woke up at 5 they were still on the street.. Anyway, we were picked up by a van and were taken to the foot of the no longer active Santa Maria volcano. From there we walked over the green hills among the locals that went up to pray for the souls of their ancestors to the viewpoint of the Santiaguito volcano, with the Pacaya volcano one of the most active volcanoes of Central America. The nice thing of the Saniaguito is that it spits out huge ash clouds all the time. So we sat at the viewpoint for about 1.5hr and saw various clouds coming from the volcano (accompanied by a sound like that of a jet plane). Unfortunately it got really cloudy and we would no longer see the volcano se we returned to Xela where we had lunch and then left to return to Guatemala City.  

The next weekend was pretty boring, I don't even remember what I did.

The Wednesday after that I had a poker night with some friends and at some point we realized that our window was getting black, apparently the Pacaya volcano (the one I climbed a few times) had a huge eruption and covered the whole city with ash. The same evening we got a phone call from the office informing us that we should come 2 hours later because it was not safe to drive on the slippery roads in the dark. So the following morning we woke up and found our building surrounded by a kind of black beach, very strange.. It was like the first day of snow in Holland, you know that you will find the world in a different colour than it had when you went to sleep the day before, but still you're surprised by how different it looks and of course now it was black it was even stranger for us (and also for the locals, last time it happened was 12 years ago). Fortunately it had stopped raining ash, but the next day it started again and we had to leave the office early and take our laptops with us, just in case we would have to work at home. 

The day after, Saturday, it didn't rain ash anymore, but a lot of water and in some places in the country also mountains came down. We tried to go to a party some kilometers outside the city, but we didn't make it, because the traffic was so bad; parts of the road were blocked because of stones that had fallen on the road and other parts because of accidents. Then we returned home, where we sat quite a while without electricity. But later in the evening the electricity came back and the next day the sun shone again: we were survivors of hurricane Agatha (only late in the evening I realised it was an official hurricane, I thought it was just raining a lot), unfortunately about 170 people died in Guatemala, mostly because of poorly built or located houses.

The next day was the last day of the contract of our apartment and three days before that we were notified that we could not stay longer, even though we had agreed upon that before (but oral agreement, so not so valid in a country like Guatemala). So we had to move and fortunately the house owner had offered us to stay in an apartment in his house in zona 1, so on Monday we moved all our stuff with his pick up to our new place in zone 1. It was an ok place to stay for 2 weeks, not as luxurious as our place in zona 10, but we had all we needed. Zona 1 is not known as the safest neighbourhood of Guatemala City, we also had some transvestite prostitutes walking through our street from 8pm to 5am, but we were fine. And actually I like zona 1 more than zona 10, it's more alive, you can actually see people walking around instead of just driving around in their cars. 

The first weekend after that I relaxed all Saturday and on Sunday I went with a colleague. Her boyfriend has a collection of guns and had offered to go and try them for a while. So we drove out of the city to a ranche and took out the targets and loaded the guns. We shot for about two hours with 5 types of guns, among which one shotgun, very exciting. It did not give the feeling of power that I expected, but I guess we were not in the right context. Anyway, it was very enjoyable and interesting to find out how it is to fire a gun.

Then my last week in Guatemala started. I made some long days at the office in order to finish all my pending issues and leave my position behind in a good condition. And that Friday Alberto and I organized a goodbye party and invited all our friends and colleagues, of whom about 60 showed up, so we had a good evening and felt appreciated by the locals. The following days I packed my bags (didn't do much else) and Monday at 22:30 I took the bus to Mexico and my adventures from there will be subject of my following blog.

Saludos from San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico!