Guatemala - First Days in Antigua

6 degrees in Wisconsin or 76 degrees in Guatemala. Tough decision eh? I am missing that country so much (and my friends!). But hey, it was a fantastic trip that will be remembered forever. I'll tell ya'll a little about my first few days in Guatemala.

You can kind of see the two volcanoes in the background :)

We left Madison at 1a on the 5th of January and landed in Guatemala City around 3p. Then all of us piled on a bus (that the Department of Agronomy from USAC let us use for the trip) and drove 45 minutes to Antigua. When we got to Loc Bucaros (the hotel), we unpacked and did the whole introduction/welcome stuff that takes the rest of your day!! I met my partener, Hugo Ferres, and got to know all of the other USAC boys. Luisa, the best tour guide ever, gave us a tour of Antigua. Luisa is from the Antigua area so she is a walking encyclopedia. Here's a photo of my beautiful eco-tour guide. If you ever travel to Guatemala, I highly, highly, highly recommend her. Not only is she brilliant, she is outgoing, kind, easy to get along with, and bilingual. Miss you Luisa <3

Luisa Zea - seriously. Google her name and eco travel guide Guatemala. She is rated one of the best :)

The next day, we went to a coffee farm (finka de cafe) that was also a museum. Ricardo, the owner, gave us a tour and explained everything. His family had owned the farm for generations and he was the first to turn it into a museum to bring in the history. He was also bilingual which made is easier to ask questions :) Organic coffee is incredibly hard to grow in Guatemala, that's for sure! Ricardo's plantation was not organic and he had so much disease on all of his crops! Personally, I was trying not to be super excited (rusts are my favorite disease) about all the fungal and bacterial infections. At his plantation, he uses native tree species from Guatemala to provide the shade that coffee needs to grow. It was beautiful, but there was very little wildlife. This is one theory why - since the farm is NOT organic (meaning chemicals in fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, bactericides, and whatnot are allowed to be sprayed), there is less wildlife because of the toxic compounds being put into the environment. The only wildlife I saw was a dog so skinny that I wanted to cry. Overall, the Finka de Cafe was still beautiful and obviously well taken care of. It was easy to see that Ricardo was proud of his plantation and loved that we were interested in visiting it. I had my first cup of coffee at his finka! Needless to say, I'm still a tea drinker :) 

coffee plant

Passion Fruit Flower

Fruit of Coffee

This is the name of the Coffee Plantation/Museum

Later that day, we visited a Macadamia Nut Farm! That was super cool! One, because I love macadamia nuts (which are super healthy for you). Two, because macadamia nuts can be used for so much else! At the farm, they made creams for your skin (which heal sunburn faster than anything I've ever tried) and extracted the oils for skin therapy too. That oil left my hands smooth and moisturized for days (not exaggerating either). That stuff is a wonder! Our tour guide, Ricardo, was also very happy that we wanted to visit his place (which was organic). There weren't as many diseases but there was a serious case of bacterial trunk rot. We told him about it and what he could do, which he really appreciated. When we were packing ourselves onto the bus, I caught Luisa giving Ricardo a kiss!! I asked her about it and found out she was engaged to him :) They make a cute couple - I'm very happy for them.

Dried Macadamia Nus Ready for Deshelling

Just Some Beautiful Scenery

The next day, we visited Pilones de Antigua (which means Antigua Seedlings). The place was interesting, but not nearly as exciting as the previous two tours. Here, the company specialized in growing vegetable and tree seedlings that they would later sell to Guatemalan customers. I don't believe they exported anything out of the country; it was all domestic. They had a few sustainable practices such as reusing the trays they planted seeds (don't worry, they steam sterilized every tray and the soil before they were reused), not having heat or cooling systems (instead they had open air vents that were screened to prevent pests and some diseases from getting through) and a few other practices. It was a striking difference between the old greenhouses and the newly built greenhouses. Talk about sustainable! They had the old greenhouses for 20 years before they decided it was time to rebuild. Pilones de Antigua was very different than any greenhouse we have in Wisconsin (in many ways - especially how they deal with the weather changes and dry season). We also visited La Hojita - a small community organic farm. That was interesting except it looked like disaster (not well taken care of, unfortunately).

Some wildflower at La Hojita

Tomato Seedlings

Harvesting corn at La Hojita! I don't want to do that for a living!

Flower grown at Pilones de Antigua.

'll leave this post at this for now! I'll try to do another one later tonight since classes started yesterday and homework is minimal :) Get this, I graduate in less than 4 months. Yeah that's right, in 4 months! Bye!!