Introduction

This blog will follow me through my travels and experiences working at a clinic in Quetzaltenango (Xela), Guatemala. The clinic sees primarily indigenous (Mayan) patients in a rural mountain community. More than half of the patients are children, and the clinic is expanding its population even more to include more adults. Much of my struggles actually come from the rather universal theme of being a new healthcare provider, in my case, a new nurse practitioner. I'll also try to post plenty of travel stories to keep people entertained, and share some more cheerful stories. I apologize if there's an overkill of clinic stories. Sometimes it helps to tell the stories, even if only for my own sake.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Trip to Lake Atitlan


I love my birthday, so in planning for my birthday, I tend to extend my plans to cover an entire week! While in Guatemala, this turns out to be a particularly good thing, because it serves as motivation to go out and do all the things I've been saying to want to go do. The weekend before my birthday, I went to Lake Atitlan with my friend Clare. Lake Atitlan is uniquely beautiful because of its gorgeous mountains and volcanoes that surround a volcanic lake. Charming towns are scattered around the edge, each known for particular attractions (hippie enclave, weaving co-ops, etc.). There's also a large coffee industry there, and some of the surrounding areas are particularly scared to the Mayans.


Transportation to the lake can be difficult, and this year seems to be particularly difficult. The rainy season this year (which just ended last month) was said to be especially harsh, and the landslides took a drastic toll on the roads here. The consequences are deadly in the time of the initial landslide, and during the rescues (which often kill more people than the landslide itself), but also spread to the transportation. Currently, the road to Panajachel is closed, so although everyone at the bus terminal in Xela claims that there are direct busses, this is nearly impossible. Going to Pana, we took 2 micro-buses (our first one got a flat tire), a bus to a nearby city, another bus to a lakeside city, a pickup truck to the lakeside, a motor boat to the town, and a tuk-tuk taxi to the hotel. But it was worth it, because when we finally got there it was gorgeous.



Due to our limited time there, we decided to take a boat tour, where we'd get to see 3 towns in half a day. It was great to get out on the water and see as much as we could, but since we were only in each place for an hour or two, we basically only got to the superficial tourist stuff.







If you are interested in seeing more photos, check out what I posted on facebook. I set the privacy settings on this album to allow anyone to see, so you don't need to have a facebook account.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2011580&id=69000076&l=99b24d5ae2
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