Belated Mother's Day picture

I got a photo from Mayan Families this week of the Mother's Day basket we sent to the Cumpar family.

Look at how much baby Antonio (the mother's baby) has grown! And Candelaria is looking more mature, herself.

Unfortunately, I have not had much time to devote to Guatemala this year, since we are expecting our first child and just moved from the city to a house in the suburbs.

But it is something I plan to go back to once we get settled into our new lives.

New blog!

I am pleased to announce the launch of my new blog, Gonna Make a Change - Motherhood at gonnamakeachange-motherhood.blogspot.com.

Please check it out in the coming days and let me know what you think!

I will be including pictures, updates, what I'm reading, a list of my favorite pregnancy/childbirth/parenting blogs, some cool widgets, and more. Let me know if you have anything I should add!

Also, I would be extremely honored if you could add me to the blogs you follow. :-)

Finally blogging again

It's been quite a month since my last post. We had to put our dog, Othello, down after his cognitive degeneration progessed. I had started to write a tribute to him that I was going to post here, but I didn't have a chance to finish it. I will at some point.

Thankfully, there have been a lot of positive things keeping us occupied.

For one, I am now 23 weeks pregnant. Three weeks ago, Michael and I found that we are having a boy. I am now very much showing, as you can see above. And last week I finally started feeling kicks! Now I feel them quite often. It turns out the placenta has been in the front, so it was acting as a cushion, preventing me from feeling movement sooner.

We are also getting ready to move out to the suburbs, if all goes as planned. While we love our cozy condo in Jersey City, it isn't where we want to raise kids. Both of us have been longing for a big backyard, and hopefully we will have one come mid-June. Fingers crossed till the closing, though!

I am trying to decide what I want to do about blogging. My life is in the process of changing immensely, and I will not be able to pursue one of the main themes of this blog -- adventure philanthropy/voluntourism -- for the time being. I do intend to pick it back up once our child/children is/are here and a bit older. However, right now, the adventure I'm about to embark on is that of becoming a parent, and I need to give that my full attention.

So, I am wondering whether I should continue this blog but with a different focus, or if I should put this blog on hold and start a new one. I do want to keep writing and taking pictures and sharing stories with you, my readers. If you have any thoughts or suggestions, please let me know!

Thank you again for reading! I still have some travel tales I haven't yet blogged, so whatever happens, I will be posting some new stories of my past journeys when I get a chance. As I have said so many times before, stay tuned....

Quick Guatemala Update

Here's a picture of the Cumpar kids with their Easter/Semana Santa basket. Looks a lot healthier than last year's basket!

Back to the real world!

Hi all, I'm sorry for the lag in communication! Things got crazy again with work, and then Michael and I took a much-needed vacation this past week to the Caribbean.

Our destination was the island of St Martin/Sint Maarten, which has both a French and a Dutch side, hence the two different names. We were on a bareboat yacht charter, which means that we rented a sailboat for a week, and Michael captained it. The crew was myself and two of our couple friends, Miles and Sarah and Kelly and Letham.

The boat was our floating hotel and our means of getting from place to place. In the end, we visited both sides of the island, the country/island of Anguilla and of St Barths.

Michael and I originally got together as the indirect result of a charter he organized for New Year's 2006 in the British Virgin Islands. This was our first time back on a boat together...and most likely our last major trip before the birth of our child. So it had lots of special significance.

Here are some of my favorite photos from our time there:

Local restaurant in Marigot, St Martin. Supposedly, our fave traveler, Anthony Bourdain, had eaten here and recommended it.

Palm Sunday procession in Marigot, St Martin.

The procession continues down the hill.

Marigot bay

A taste of the turquoise water yet to come on the trip.

View from a patisserie in Marigot.

Closer look at the architecture and boats.

Sunset in Grand Case, St Martin -- looking towards the ocean

And looking in towards the bay

Gorgeous views until it got completely dark

And then the lights...

Boat life

Michael taking a break on deck

Michael as captain

An unexpected sign in Orient Bay, St Martin

Me in Orient Bay

Little bird and bananas at a restaurant in Ille Pinel, St Martin. Early morning, before all the people arrived.

Peace and quiet before the crowds arrive

Dinghy dock and cafe in St Barths

Michael in St Barths, mega yachts behind him

Anglican church in St Barths

Michael and I on the deck of our boat

Santiago de Atitlan to Antigua: Sunday, December 14

Dear Readers, Thank you so much for all of your well wishes on our pregnancy! I can't wait to blog all about it.

But I feel like there is some unfinished business to take care of before I move on to this exciting new stage: I have to finish the story of our December trip to Guatemala. I still haven't shown you some of the most beautiful scenes I saw during our travels. And there still are some stories to tell. So let me begin wrapping this up...

The following morning, we had breakfast in the lodge and, sadly, got ready to leave. This was such a relaxing place, and the physical beauty of the area was just astounding. I made sure to take some last pictures.

From our table in the lodge, we looked out onto the road to see people passing on foot, tuk-tuk, and in the backs of pickups.

I was glad I finally got a shot of the pickup means of transport that is so common around here.

I took a walk down to the Posada's lakefront property.

The scenes were just so majestically beautiful, the clouds just hovering over the mountains.

I wished we had time to stay for another dip in the pool.

Or to take a canoe around the lake...we hadn't had time for that.

The fishermen looked so peaceful and meditative in their solo boats.

Ahh, we will have to come back.

I took a last look at the lounge chairs and the little sauna hut.

And then one more time back to the lodge.

I decided to try shooting a video on my way up the path to our room, as I tried to catch my breath, due to the elevation.


We packed up, and our taxi was waiting to take us to Antigua.

We drove around Lake Atitlan, and we caught a glimpse of CFCA's Guatemala facility. When we were just about to leave the lake behind, we got this panoramic vista. It was too good to pass up -- we asked the driver to stop, so we could take some more pictures.





After that, we drove through unbelievably beautiful and little inhabited country to get to the main road. We traveled up and down steep inclines and saw meadows and streams. There was no real place to pull over and stop, and it was just a two-lane road, so I have no pictures of this part of our journey.

But I will never forget the beauty on that gloriously sunny day.

Slowly, we made our way to more and more populated areas and then to a small city, where a busy market was taking place. We started seeing signs for Antigua. And then we were back in the city that had marked the conclusion of our trip last April, as well.

Last time, we had had dinner at Casa Santo Domingo, an amazing hotel and museum that is a former convent. This time, in honor of our anniversary, we decided to splurge and get a room at the hotel. It still was a relative bargain, especially compared with the States.

Here's a tour of our room:

The Postcards from Antigua Guatemala I posted in January include pictures from that Sunday, as we walked around.

Here are two other photos from that afternoon:

The gate, ready to go from 2008 to 2009.

A beautiful courtyard from a small hotel where we stopped to check email.

That night, we thoroughly enjoyed the hot tubs and big pool in one of the hotel's courtyards and then had a gourmet meal by candlelight in the restaurant. Heaven!

Big news!

There's another reason why I haven't been blogging that much the past few months: I have been too darn tired!!! Why? I'm pregnant!

More updates to follow!

Horseback Riding Above Lake Atitlan, Saturday, December 13

It's been a few months since I left off with the tale of our trip to Guatemala in December. Work and life have gotten in the way, but looking at some of my favorite bloggers' posts about Guatemala, I am inspired to finish up our travelogue.

If you have not already, make sure you check out Rudy Girón's La Antigua Guatemala Daily Photo, James and Beth's Teco/Teca, and now Dave and Danaya's Hand Up Tierra Linda for nostalgia and/or inspiration to travel to this amazing place.

Back to my tale...it was our second day in Santiago Atitlan at Posada de Santiago.

Saturday morning, we rose early for a hearty breakfast at the lodge. Particularly of note were the blue corn pancakes with macadamia syrup. Not your traditional pancake, but the taste grew on you.

Then Nancy Mattison came to pick us up. I had gotten in touch with Nancy through the Posada. She and her husband, Jim, offer all kinds of horseback riding and walking tours that are combined with gourmet dining.

As it turns out, we were joined by a young guy from New York, who was also going to be part of the ride.

Nancy drove us around the lake, past the memorial to the people who had been killed during the civil war, and by a private air strip, to their house and horse ranch.

We went in through the gate to their home and past their large pack of trained dogs. Inside their house, Nancy gave us coffee, hot chocolate, and homemade coffee cake, and we met her husband, Jim.

I knew this was not going to be your run of the mill horseback riding tour from the moment Jim introduced himself as a "libertarian anarchist." Born in the Baltics (Latvia, I believe), his life in Guatemala since the early 90s is just one of many extraordinary lives he has led. He had been a professor, run various successful businesses, been an adviser to US presidents, had made tons of money and then lost it all.

The Mattisons came to Guatemala when the civil war was still on, and Jim quickly developed a reputation as someone not to be messed with. He assured us he was the only one in the area who had never been robbed and warned, "Don't think I'm not armed in three places right now."

In parts of the country, Guatemala is still a lawless place where crime, from petty robberies to contract killing can take place. Jim likes living in his fortress he designed and built himself from polished stone. It's a good place for an anarchist.

There were no papers or waivers to sign. Liability law doesn't exist like it does in the US, and he told us cooly we were all responsible for our own selves. Alrighty then.

Off we went to get our horses.

Michael hadn't been on a horse since childhood, and only once then. I had been an avid rider in my young teens, but I had only been on a horse a few times in the last 10 years. And I had never ridden Western before.

The New Yorker who came with us had never ridden before, and he was quite unnerved by the whole thing.

After getting on our respective steeds, we set off down the road for about a quarter of a mile, which had me tense to start out. I know from experience how spooked horses can get from cars, and I was without the protective equipment I was accustomed to. But there was nothing to worry about. These horses were very used to the trek.

After the road, we went down into a coffee plantation, where we had to take a path that ran right along a stretch of low trees. We had to duck down and feel the branches scraping over our heads as we passed along. The New Yorker was quite tall, so this was difficult for him to do, and he started crying out in distress.

Immediately, that got me tense again, as I flashed back to various incidents from my earlier riding career when kids had gotten scared, started yelling, and spooked the horses, thus making the situation all the worse. But again, my fears were unfounded. These horses were unflappable.

Finally, we got out of the tree lined area and started ascending the mountain. The paths were very narrow, and you really had to just trust your horse; otherwise, you might tumble into a ditch. So I slowly started to let go and relax. I had to. I couldn't hold the reins closely, like in English riding. I had to trust.

All the while, Jim was leading us in conversations about literature and politics, quoting Aristotle and John F. Kennedy, Friedrich Nietzsche and Franz Kafka, Madison and de Tocqueville, all verbatim (and not infrequently citing page numbers in specific editions!). It was unlike anything I had expected. This man was so well read, and he could remember it all!

After about an hour and a quarter of riding, we finally found ourselves at the top of the mountain. We dismounted and stopped to rest.





Below is the view west to the Pacific Ocean. There was some haze in the sky, so we couldn't actually see the water. But on a clear day, Jim assured us, it was possible to gaze that far.



A closer look, though, yielded the piles of trash by the lookout point. Trash was an issue we had talked about on the ride. We saw it so often in the otherwise beautiful fields and greenery.

Jim told us that it's part of the local culture. They don't see trash the way we do. For them, trash is a sign of affluence. You must be doing well if you can buy things that produce trash. People from the north, "do-gooders," he said, come and try to beautify and take away the trash, but it doesn't work. The trash may get collected, but then it gets dumped somewhere, like here.


To the east was Lake Atitlan, looking gorgeous, as always.




But looking at our feet yielded a different story.

Here are burnt remnants of medical waste, likely from a humanitarian mission. Jim's problem with the "do-gooders" is that they don't think about all the possible impacts of their activities: everything from what happens to the garbage to what happens if one family suddenly has a lot more than most of their community (the answer, according to him: the family becomes a target).

He said, some people here are better off than you think. Just because they live simply does not mean they don't have money. Most Guatemalan families will make money in a number of different ways: through a job, having an animal whose products they can sell, side endeavors.

It was interesting to hear Jim's perspective. While I don't think any of this is a reason not to help, it is an important reminder of the impact we may have, intentionally and unintentionally. Not everything is as it seems, and we can't always take the rules and values and life views we have in our own country and apply them elsewhere.

We rode back down the mountain, along the hair-raising paths, and through the brush. This ride had been completely unlike what I had imagined, and I was so happy for that. I felt an unearthed burning in me to start reading again, to discuss literature and politics. It was as if I had gone back to university in this three-hour jaunt.



But I was saddle sore, so I was glad to hop off my mount and head in for some lunch.

We got a tour of the house as Linda finished up the preparations for our absolutely delicious lunch.


The sun was starting to get lower in the sky, and we had finished our meal. We said goodbye to Jim, and Linda drove us back to the Posada.

On our way, we saw coffee-weighing stations along the side of the road, and Linda told us how people wait there with their coffee to sell it to wholesalers. However, these are also spots where the lawless know they can rob people, or worse. It is a difficult life.

Michael and I went back to our cottage and tried to process all that we had experienced that day. We wanted to make some changes to our lives. At the very least, we were inspired to make reading a priority and set up a library in our living room, rather than having the computer as the centerpiece. We were reminded, more than anything, of how reading opens the doors to knowledge and understanding and lends a richness to life unlike anything else.

While we were still quite full from lunch, we stuffed ourselves with more gourmet delights for dinner at the lodge. Michael had his Ron Zacapa, and I had a huge margarita. And then we settled back in our cabin.

Michael built a fire in the fireplace, and we snuggled together on that cool night, our minds still awash in thoughts from the day.





Next up: Sunday, December 14 -- we take an incredible journey from Santiago Atitlan to Antigua and stay at the inimitable Casa Santo Domingo.