AUTOSHOW 2008

This marks the 8th time that the Autoshow will be coming here to Guatemala. The dates are from October 31st to November 9th. Times are all day from 10am to 9pm.

A bus can be taken into the city from Antigua at any time and the park is easy to find. Just ask for parque de la industrial in zone 9.

If there is enough interest, we can offer a minibus to the even from Antigua. We can offer transportation to visit the historic zone 1 in the morning and the autoshow in the afternoon. Contact us at backpackguatemala@gmail.com for pricing. Let us know your group size and the date you would like to go.

Ambassadors go home!

"According to the Venezuelan press, Chavez has claimed 26 times in the past six years that there were plots to assassinate him"

This story comes after the U.S. Ambassadors from Venezuela and Bolivia were thrown out of their respective countries by the governments of those countries. Once again as with media stories, especially when the most dominant media story comes from the U.S., it is hard to tell who is at fault here. The governments of Venezuela and Bolivia have accused the U.S. ambassadors of starting violent protests in their countries which of course the U.S. denies totally. Chavez, the sometimes eccentric president of Venezuela, has also accused the ambassador of and his party of an assasination attempt. But as the headline states, the president has avoided assasination 26 times in the past 6 years. Either many people want to see him dead or I smell a little bit of an exageration here. Although I would not put it past the U.S. to do such a thing based on their history in Central America and they seem to have a hand in many political matters.

Meanwhile, Bolivia may suffer a huge blow as the relationship between Bolivia and the U.S. has deep roots and serious problems will arise if relations are cut.

Despite everything, both Venezuela and Bolivia continue to see violence in the country, and I don't believe that either president will see any benefits to ousting the their U.S. embassadors.

La Venezuela, A Village through Barbed Wire

Following up on yesterdays Day of the Child and talking a little bit about the poverty here in Guatemala, I thought that this is a decent picture showing you some of the poverty but in a different perspective. This is not even close to being the poorest that it gets in Guatemala but it is a poorer neighborhood that I live in.

This is a picture taken from my roof. Note the barbwire on the borders to ward off potential intruders. I have always thought that the houses in Guatemala, while normally made only of brick and cement, have their own personality and are very beautiful. They are normally a pastel color and are normally little square buildings. The soccer field in the middle is a cement slab and there are also basketball hoops which are usually only used as target practice and are riddled with bullet holes.

It looks rather peaceful. Except for the contrasting and seemingly out of place barbed wire. This is a typical colonia and the barb wire is typical for most houses. I always see it as a village through barbed wire.

National Children's Day

Today, come to find out is a special day here in Guatemala. I found out yesterday that today would be a day dedicated to the children here in Guatemala. I have lost touch with my initial mission down here and today I realized it.

I initially came down here thinking that I would do some good. I had been here a year earlier touring the country as a tourist and as a Pre-Med student. I had come with around 20 other students and being my first time in a 3rd world country I was rather struck by the poverty and the amount of street children. The first night that I arrived, I arrived alone here in Guatemala without speaking very much Spanish. I arrived alone because my passport did not come on time and I was forced to take a later flight. My friends were allready in the central part of Guatemala. I arrived in Guatemala City which is more towards the West of Guatemala. I found a nice Guatemalan in the airport who decided to take me home. What sounds like the begining of another tourist horror movie turned into Guatemala's biggest eye opener. It was around midnight driving home and on the outskirts of the city I got to see the gangs of street children that Guatemala is known for. Running around in the dark, some of them as little as 2 or 3 years old tightly holding the hand of their caregiving 6 year old brother or sister. Just yesterday I saw a little boy who couldn't have been older than 4 walking around the city with no one around him and I am pretty sure this dirty little boy had no family with him to speak of.

This brings me back to an interesting day here in Guatemala that makes me respect more the establishment McDonalds. Today you can go to McDonalds and buy a happy meal for the street children. The street children know about this and go in groups to McDonalds to collect on their day. Unfortunately, McDonalds might be the most wholesome meal that they will have all year.

Another interesting day that a friend told me about on the bus is National Pen Day. This is what brought me back to the realization of my initial goal here in Guatemala. I realized again today that there are some people here that live in such poverty that they have to have holidays such as National Pen Day. In the jungle is where most of the poverty is and they do not have many resources but before today I hardly considered a writing tool a resource. It is hard to believe that a pen or a pencil could be out of the financial reach of anybody but some people live in this type of life that I had wanted to learn myself. Thus days are created, pens are donated and trucked out to the poor outskirts of the city and to the jungle so that kids can receive what we wouldn't even consider a luxury. The ability to put pen to paper.

These are the kids I wanted to help. I took a job teaching down here thinking that I would do just that. Give some one an oppurtunity to better themselves with the ability to speak English and maybe get a job in Guatemala's big moneymaker tourism. Here there are the rich and the poor. The rich stay rich and the poor stay poor. It is hard to get around this. The poor need the help. I teach the rich. This is where I went against myself.

A start

So this is how we will start.

I am starting a tourism company based in Guatemala that is not up and running yet. This blog will eventually be placed in the up and coming website. I feel like this is how most lives seem to be, "up and coming". At least mine has been this way since I can remember. Always going or coming but I can't seem to fix myself in one area. This need to not stay in one place for more than a year is what has put me in Guatemala. I am going on my eighth month here and may decide to stay.

Probably the greatest adventure of all is just living in a third world country. Those of you who have never visited a country like Guatemala really need to do so. I don't want to get into the start of my story yet so I won't say more than that.

What I hope to achieve in this blog is to demonstrate my love for Central America but also giving an opinion of travel in other parts of the world. This might proof tough as I have only been to this part of the hemisphere. Research and everything I hated to do in college I will have to do again in order to bring you the latest news and scoop on world travel. The travel channel will also help me and who knows, maybe I can pick up on the latest recipe for "anything you can find and put in a bowl and cook" soup, the main staple of any third world country.

I want to write and, in the mean time, also learn about other cultures and countries and hope to keep you captivated.

Lastly, I want to tell you how I am doing. Not because I think you really need another blog telling you what color short I put on in the morning or who has a crush on who in San Jose Junior High but because I do think we could all benefit from learning about life in a third world country. I realize that some people drastically overexagerate the poverty a third world country might exist in. I still have people who find it impossible to believe that I do not live in a dirt floor tepee nor do I bury feces in the back yard nor slay my latest meal with bows and arrows. I mearly go to the closest McDonalds.