Mini pandemonium broke out as six of us teetered on a jaggedly tiny ledge of dried volcanic lava – although the top surface of the lava was hard and quite solid under our feet, the heat radiating from every single crevice of the charred gray rock had me feeling like a pot roast in a […]
I was sitting on a chicken bus this afternoon and had one of those moments where things just sort of clicked. One of the reasons that I travel, and let me assure you it’s certainly not so that I can ride chicken buses, but rather for the faces of the locals surrounding me. The bumps […]
Semana Santa is certainly a week for the religious, but it’s also a week where the Antiguan community comes together and all of the residents are on the same team. The same goal. There is a single minded purpose to many of the activities and a devotion within the community that makes this week unlike […]
A fantasy series that I once read revolved around the premise that “all knowledge is worth having” (among many other premises). I’ve always loved that quote because it echoes my own sentiments to very closely. I love to learn. And I love to tell other people about the cool little fact’s that I’ve learned – […]
I won’t say that it’s the most asked question I get when I’m on the road, but it certainly ranks right up there in the top ten, perhaps after the standard “where are you from?” and “how long are you traveling for?” People want to know why I’m vegetarian. And not just why, but also […]
Semana Santa, or Holy Week, is perhaps one of the best times to be traveling in a Catholic country. Just as the Buddhist, Hindus and other religions have their colorful celebrations of devotion, sacrifice, and religious fervor, that’s Semana Santa week for the vast majority of Catholic Guatemalans – and the fantastic part of Semana […]
Deep into night on the Wednesday before Easter a few new friends and I were wandering the streets at the late hour of two o’clock in the morning in a search for water (you can’t drink tap water in Guatemala). Let’s not get into precisely why we were searching for water at that hour, but […]
Construction on a Semana Santa carpet, or alfombra, starts in the wee hours of the morning when the cool Antigua air is still chilly on the skin and spotlights light up portions of the street where the alfombras will lie for mere minutes sometimes before the parades slowly shuffle along the cobbled streets, destroying the […]
