Here at the lake we are surrounded by three gigantic volcanoes and to prove how hardcore I could be I convinced my friends Megan, Viente, Lucia and Samuel to hike to the top. We were supposed to meet in San Pedro at 7am to begin the ascent but there were a few snafus since neither of our boats left on time. My comrades coming from Santiago somehow felt that this was my fault. So I have included photos of their impatient unhappy faces waiting for the boat. :)

When we finally met up there was talk about it being too late but we agreed to go anyway and began hiking at 9:00am. We were told the hike was about 5 hours long (3 hours straight up and 2 hours down) but Lucia was anxious to get going so the two of us ran ahead for the first 15 minutes... until the return of my giardia caught up to me. I tried to continue climbing but had to stop every few minutes to mark a new territory on the volcanoe. By this time we had made it to the first mirador (lookout point) and so I told them to go on ahead and that I was going to climb down. Of course, five minutes later I decided-- out of pure stubbornness and perhaps a bit of pride--to climb up behind them. Samuel had waited for me and was a great cheerleader for the next couple hours. When we finally reached the top there was a bunch of fog but I felt so victorious for making it that it didn't matter.
Not as hardcore as I'd hope with a time of 4-hours up and 2-hours down but how many hikers can say they climbed San Pedro with giardia? As they say around here, "Guatemala has a way of building intestinal fortitude."

prepping at dawn
"yenni, are you sure there's a boat at 6am because all the lancheros say the first lancha leaves at 7am."
waiting for a boat.
loaded up ready for the boat to leave.

el volcan de san pedro...

hiking volcanoe + giardi = miserable yenni
megan generously offering to document my torment!
not even half way up and we drank all the water we brought.

having made it a third of the way here is our view from the mirador.

samuel, vicente, lucia and the frenchie tagalong.
megan and lucia trying to convince me to keep going. me, ready to keel over.



when i finally made it to the top the fog had rolled in and here is my spectacular view, lol.

and the rest of the troupe?

as is custom with 2 españoles and one wanna be: siestando (napping).
lucia expressing her enthusiasm for the return.
down we go with our guide, pedro.

¡Eva!

For the past 5 weeks I have been holding midwifery classes every Sunday afternoon. So far we have been working on understanding the circulatory system and listening to heartbeats, taking blood pressure, etc. All the women are doing great and I am so inspired by their dedication and enthusiasm for learning. But Eva is my gold star student. Despite the fact that Eva's coke bottle glasses are completely worthless (she can barely read anything smaller than 30 point font) she has been coming every Sunday as well as assisting me on Fridays in the clinic. Unlike the majority of the midwives in the group, Eva has not attended any births yet. When I asked Eva why she hadn't started delivering babies she told me that she had wanted to apprentice with the local midwives but they told her a real midwife doesn't have to study. Eva said she didn't feel comfortable going to births alone without understanding anything about the body so she was super excited about the opportunity to study with us at the clinic. And study she does! She takes home her handouts and comes back full of questions. And this week when I asked if anyone could summarize what we have been learning she explained the entire circulation process to the class of midwives! Now all we need to do is get her a consult for some new glasses.

I know it looks like I am holding her hostage but she's just SUPER camera shy.

Eva taking blood pressure!

lunch at Geydi's

got to the clinic this morning and geydi (our receptionist) said she wanted to invite everyone to her house for lunch. we got there and she had made tamales, chicken soup, limonada and chocolate covered frozen bananas for dessert!

my favorite pukey cute pareja

megan and my second favorite dog, birdie

what is a travel blog without a diarrhea story?

I contracted giardi within the first couple of weeks of being in Guatemala, most likely eating street food at the fair. And being the naturally inclined midwife that I am, I tried to battle the parasites with massive amounts of garlic and grapefruit seed extract. But finally after the 5th stratight week of diarrhea I gave in and went to the hospital for antibiotics. Within hours I was sure that flagyl was a miracle cure! However, for the entire week that I took it, I couldn't poop. Finally on my last day of the pills I was desperate because I was supposed to go on a 4-day camping trip with the clinic staff. The drive was going to be 8 hours and I thought I would die of painful bloating if I wasn't able to go number 2 before we left. Normally I would go for a run but it was night and its not really safe for gringas to be out running late, so I did 600 jumping jacks instead...nothing. Then I did yoga for an hour afterward, still nothing. Then I got creative and tried the old fashion q-tip and olive oil trick only I didn't have q-tips so I had to settle for a chopstick (gross i know, but don't worry I threw it away). But that didn't work either. So I broke into the clinic's bodega and found an enema kit. I got it all ready went into the bathroom laid on the floor and, well, gave myself an enema. But just as I was about done I heard some people cracking up outside. I lifted my head and looked out my little bathroom window and there were three guys in their mid-twenties sitting on the balcony of the hotel next door literally rolling on the ground with laughter. Completely mortified but fully indisposed, my only option was to move to the toilet. You can imagine what happened next: 7 days without passing a BM plus a liter of warm water exploded out my derrière to the sound of uncontrolable chuckling. It was painful--in more ways than one--but hey I finally pooped! And luckily we left early for our trip the next morning and I haven't seen any of my peeping toms since.