Extreme Extracurricular Activities in Guatemala

Lest you think the BECA 580 trip to Guatemala is all work and no play, consider what the students have been doing in their spare time. The first week we were in Guatemala, we climbed Pacaya, an active volcano. It was what might be described as a medium climb to Bay Area hikers. At the top of the mountain, we saw huge lava fields. We were able to walk out on the black, rough lava. In the distance, we saw several red hot spots. All of a sudden, one of these - about 100 feet from us - began to flow with red lava. As we watched, the lava became a flowing river! True to the BECA spirit, one of the students caught the lava flow on video! And, as we stood there, we noticed that the soles of our feet were heating up. That was the cue to start walking away.
Last weekend, we took a two-day trip to Lake Atitlán, a gorgous lake surrounded by volcanoes. It's the lake, we learned, where the children's book, Le Petit Prince, was written. We rented mountain bikes to ride the curving mountain road down to the lake. Using all the gears and front and rear brakes was a new experience for some of us. Three of us bit the dust as we made our way down. We are still nursing our wounds! But the rest had an exhilirating ride past cornfields and small huts and colorfully dressed women carrying packages on their heads. And we had a view of the lake through most of the ride. Then we took a boat to our overnight lodging, Casa del Mundo, perched on a cliff overlooking the lake. Each of us had a room with a gorgeous view, and some of us even had balconies where we could sit to see the lake. At night, we sat in a wood-stove-heated hot tub overlooking the lake. The next morning, some folks swam and kayaked, while the injured parties indulged in "extreme hammocking." We had a short hike overlooking the lake before taking the boat back to Panajachel, a touristy harbor where all kinds of Guatemala products were being hawked in the street. From there, we returned to Quetzaltenango, our home base, and awoke to a shoot involving Guatemalan civil war widows, members of the weaving collective with which we are working.