Sunday, June 1:
I arrived in Guatemala at about noon and proceeded to baggage claim where I crossed paths with two FINE Guatemalan girls. And me and about 3 other guys all turned our heads to look and then they all proceeded to have a conversation with me in Spanish. I just smiled and nodded but at the same time knew what they were saying b/c "man speak" is universal haha. I went down to baggage claim where i met up with fellow classmate Pai. We then went out of the airport where we were greeted by 1000 Guatemalans that were waiting for their respective families to come out of the airport. Here we met up with Dr. Craig Sinkinson who is basically our boss for this trip. We hopped in the car and went to a random parking lot in Guatemala City. Here we met up with Craig's wife - Carmen. She's the pediatrician at the clinic as well. It was at this point where Pai and I noticed the militia carrying shotguns everywhere. I feel safe.
Carmen then drove us to Antigua where she dropped us off to explore the city. It's a gorgeous and historic town. Pai and I took the opportunity to get some money here. The currency is the Quetzal named after the country's famous bird. We get 7.5Q to one dollar; awesome rate. I bought a cell phone and we got some awesome cake and walked around just taking in the sites. Then we met up with 3 more of our students: Kristen (or Krake as some of you know her), Kina and Shannon. We then shuttled all the way to Lake Atitlan which is where we are staying. It was a 2.5 hour grueling ride through mountains and it made me pretty sick haha. Finally we arrived in the largest town on the lake called Panajachel. But we are staying in Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz is a small town that has only 2000 people and we are staying in one of 4 hotels there. When I got to my room, I got the apartment style. So here I am livin like a king with my king-size bed, kitchen and private bath. Only downside is that I gotta deal with bugs...including scorpions. Sounds awesome right? NOT. But i do get to sleep under a mosquito net that has butterflies on it...jealous? Anyway - after we checked into our rooms we just had dinner and then we basically conked out for the rest of the night because we were essentially dead tired.
Monday, June 2:
So today we went on our first trip to the clinic. All got up, brushed teeth, took cold showers and had breakfast at the Iguana which is the hotel next to us. Quick aside here - the Iguana is basically the place to be in Santa Cruz. There are hikers and climbers and travelers that run through there all the time and there's a bar and they serve AWESOME breakfast lunch and dinner there for reasonable prices. So we go there a lot. But anyway, here we were the 8 of us ready to go on this trip:
Me, Kristen and Pai - MS2's from UNC
Shannon and Halie - MS2's from University of South Dakota
Christina and Lianna - MS2's from University of Indiana
Kina - MS3 from University of British Columbia (She says "Eh" a lot")
So one of the things to get used to in Guatemala is the hills. Well - our clinic is on top of a freaking mountain. Every morning we have to climb a 60 degree incline for about .75 miles to get to the clinic. So basically by the end of this trip - I've decided that I'm going to have the sexiest legs ever as well as buns of steel. We'll see how that works out for me. But at clinic we just got a little overview of what we do and what to expect. Then later on that afternoon we all took a boat out to Pana - the big town on the lake - and we got a tour, grabbed lunch, exchanged more money and bought some groceries. Liquor is super-cheap and milk is super-delicious. It was also hard to find a jelly that I liked...but I found one! So we all then headed back to Santa Cruz for dinner at the Iguana again and then we passed out. We go to bed so freaking early because the sun goes down at like 6 and we're just drained from all the walking that we do. We're old - what can I say?
Tuesday and Wednesday, June 3 and 4:
So the last theme of this trip so far has been the rain. There's been a lot due to the tropical storms running through the region and so its been hard to see the beautiful sights we were promised and to go out and do things. But we're making the most of it. We've started spanish lessons in the clinic and we're quickly building our medical vocabulary and grammar so that we can talk to patients in the later weeks. We've eaten and had a couple of drinks at the Iguana as well but other than that nothing too exciting. I did find out that Christina is a lil ghetto girl and is instantly my favorite on this trip haha. We talk about rap and engineering cuz she was a BME too. But anyway - we also planned what we wanna do for the rest of this trip. Here's what we've come up with so far, feel free to look up the places for yourself!
- San Pedro and San Pedro volcano
- Antigua and the Pacaya volcano
- Chichi market
- Monterrico
- Tikal
I'll post more details on these places when the dates get closer for us to visit them.
Anyway - I'm going to go ahead and sign off this because it's already gotten too long to begin with. I hope everyone's enjoying their summers and let me know if you want a postcard!
Hasta Luego,
Neil
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