So, Guatemala is changing.

And so is the rest of Central America, I think.
Its beginning to be a daily occurance, big rain storms, often with lightening. And Im still planning to go riding a very long ways. Rain like this I havent seen in Guatemala, up until now. I was actually bombarded with mud on my ride in to Antigua this morning, and I thought, what the hell is this? But its so, so beautiful to see rain and storms again..These pictures were taken from the roof of Maya Pedal. We can hear and feel the storms long before they get to us.. the increased humidity and decreased temperature.. and the booming thunder. Its very intersting, because the storms always seem to come from across the flatlands in front of us.. we can see the huge sheets of rain and lightening before we even get wet.

So, today I hiked my first ever Volcano. Her name is Pacaya.
To get the facts strait.. I would potentially work for a company called Guatemala Ventures, not the Old Town Outfitters shop. This one does the same sort of things though.
The volcano hike (more of a walk) was free from Guatemala Ventures.. along with a free tastey lunch... and a free testride on a halfway-decent mountainbike.. and a free really good frickin pinapple danish thing which Im eating now while using free internet. Hmm. Along with a free place to live (Im allowed to continue living in Maya Pedal, for free).. this aint half bad. Wow.

But still, I have this crazy drive to actually do what I set out to accomplish.. to ride to Nicaragua. And I really dont know where either option ahead of me would take me (speaking non-geographically), so this is a really hard decision.

For right now, Ive decided to leave for a couple of days on bike, to just get a feel for travelling around with a tent and a backpack in Central America. Itll give me some more clarity of thought too, I hope.

The funny thing too is that my two options that Im currently thinking about, are just some of the things I could do. I could head off on bike and try and get a job in another country, I could actually go and volunteer with QuetzalTrekkers like I wanted to..

So many possibilities.

Thunder's picking up again, already started raining. Peace out.

¿Whats happening with me right now?

Semi-recent photo.. a couple weeks ago, I think. Before Monterrico. Oh right.. second time riding to Antigua for Spanish school, about 18km, and that time on kids bikes.. what a hell of a ride. A lot of steep downhill between us and there.
So, as some people may know I have this crazy plan to ride to Nicaragua. As of right now, tonight, Im almost ready. Ive bought nearly everything I need for my trip, the only thing I really need to buy still is some.. toothpaste, and... Um, I have to find some spare bike tubes. I also need to finish welding part of the crazy rear rack I have right now on my bike, it has two big wire boxes, one on each side of the bike.
But Im basically ready to go.. if I wanted to, I could leave tomorrow morning, and start riding south. But Im letting a couple things stand in my way; one is an issue with aquiring a plane ticket home, Im getting that underway before I leave. The second is a potential job.
Last monday I went by a place called Old Town Outfitters (www.bikeguatemala.com) and said that I had many skills they could use, as far as their multi-day mountainbike excursions go (bike mechanic, mountainbiker (I wont tell them I have a reputation of destroying bikes), etc.). Since then there has been some phone tag, and now I potentially have an interview on monday (Im going and talking to them again on monday, its not officially an interview. Actually, now that I think of it, they already said that they have a job for me, but Im going in to see actually what it is and other details like that.)

Keeping the pictures going.. above is a picnic we had, to show appreciation for some volunteers who were leaving. I was in the middle of some serious Piñata asskicking.. but as soon as the candy started falling out some of the kids that were around went crazy. The piñata murduring continued until I noticed that I was surrounded by kids..

Me returning from some spanish school in Antigua.

..

Some 6 inch spiders from Honduras..

and some cool pictures

of trees.

Phase One Complete

So this is my weapon. This is the bike that I bought to ride to Nicaragua. Shes a beast, weve already done a few epic adventures. The grandest of which would include a trip to a place called Motericco, on the pacific ocean some 150km south of here. And we (a few other volunteers and I) rode there. A pretty wicked time. Above: One of many fishing boats waiting to head out off of the beach in between waves. Waves were a little smaller in the morning, and it was the only time they could forseeably go out.. around 11am the waves got huge.. bigger than Ive ever seen, anywhere. What a crazy adventure to go swimming in them.. they beat the crap out of the waves at Tofino.

Above: The shack we lived out of for four days. For free. So sunny and warm.
This was similar to a shack we were to stay in the night before we got to Monterrico, in a place called Puerto San Jose´. We arrived into town just as the sun was setting, and on our way in we met a guy on a bike who said he had a friend with a cheap hotel on the beach. We followed him, and soon we were pushing our pack-laden bikes though a sandy beach, with the pacific ocean right infront of us. In front of us aswell were some of these shacks, and he told us that hed only charge us Q30 a person (CDN$6). This is fairly expensive as far as Guatemalan prices go, for a shack on the beach.. we decided that if we were going to sleep on the beach, we wouldnt be paying for it. So we walked away.. then noticing the huge half empty drinking stalls that surrounded the place we were thinking of sleeping in. The time was around 7pm, plenty of time for them to fill up.. As we were walking off the beach, wondering where we were going to go to maybe find a hotel, we were approached by a man who immidiately started speaking french to one of the volunteers. The particular volunteer (named Matt) was from Montreal, so they picked up a happening conversation.
It turned out that the particular town we were in, at that particular day of the year (but not yet quite the particular hour), was one of the more dangerous places we could have put ourselves in, in Guatemala anyways. There were huge parties lined up to happen that night around were we were thinking of sleeping, and people had travelled from all around central america to come to this town for the parties. The troublesome part was that none of them were white (which meant that we appeared like walking sacks of money to most, with bikes). The man who spoke french turned out to have a friend who lived close by, and we were quickly ushered away from the growing crowds. We ended up sleeping in a tent with a rooster directly behind us, in the walled-in yard of the friend of the man who came and rescued us.

Above: A very large pelican, that was pretty pissed off.. was blocking traffic, both vehicle and pedestrian.

So a recap of the timeline of our trip: Wensday morning of April 12th we left on bike, heading south from Itzapa and Antigua, passing through Esquintla. We took a longer route as to avoid the large highway heading to the coast, and after nine hours of travelling (we had several long and drawn out breaks), and 120km, we arrived at San Jose´. The next morning we rode the 30-40 km East to Monterrico. We stayed the entire time on the beach, leaving only to buy food, and spending most of the day in the very warm ocean. We left and rode back on the following Sunday, via the very-long-and-incredibly-hot open highway, about 130km or so.

Economy boat storage.

Lanquin & Semuc Champey

Semuc Champey and Lanquin are located West about 50km of Coban, and like 6 hours by bus North of Guatemala City. I went here on.. erm, the 11th to the 13th of Feburary.
What Semuc Champey is is a large fast-moving river, that magically obtained a 400m long chunk of limestone on top of it.
My trip out there was fairly mindblowing at the time, because I went from a very dry, and hot climate to a very humid forest. We left Coban at 5 in the morning, and we were greeted by a lightening storm and pounding rain (I handnt seen anything that resembled humidity or rain since I got there). It took us 2 1/2 hours to drive the 50km in the cramped oversized van, the roads were quite intense and washed out.

Side note: I have a new-found appreciation for intensely overloaded, 4x4 Toyota passenger vans. Those things kick ass.
So, Semuc Champey was gorgeous. Nuff said.
The Caves near Semuc Champey were absolutely astounding (I love that word). One needed us to swim in as we entered, holding candles (it is not the above picture, unfortunately). The other was absolutely massive, and after the lights were turned off (7km of cave, first 50m conviently had overhead lighting), there were a healthy amount of bats. From my mass email at that time:

We went caving there too and saw bats so thick that it was similar to beingcovered in honey in a swarm of bees (but its toxic honey so they dontactualy land on you, but you could probably breathe one in if you tried. They were really, really thick.)

Where we stayed..

Wow, look how clean my clothes are.. that shirt is now somewhere in Honduras, doing its own shirt kinda things.

Maya Pedal & San Andreas Itzapa

Above: A sweeet bike that Steve just finished making, and the new exterior of Maya Pedal, thanks to two awesome people Tova and Ky.

So, two weeks after I got into Guatemala, I moved to a town a half-hour away called San Andreas Itzapa, where Maya Pedal is located. Maya Pedal (www.mayapedal.org ) and Izapa have been one of my favorite places on the planet, and I plan to return, if not once than numerous times. Im already planning to come back and visit on my way out of Central America, and have tenative plans in mind to come down next year...
The people of Itzapa are definately noteworthy. Id like to think they represent the larger population of Guatemala, but I dont really know. From what Ive seen though, they do pretty well. They´re very friendly, and generous, and trusting.. the children of Itzapa are equally, if not more noteworthy (that being said, I communicate a lot more often with children than I do adults). I have many good friends under the age of ten (which is a norm for me, even in Canada..).

The children are potentially the greatest part of the experience of living in Itzapa. No matter how long you leave for, no matter how tired and miserable you feel when you return, the children run and excitedly greet you in the street yelling your name. No matter how long youve been working for, no matter how many bikes kicked your ass that day in the shop, the children always come by asking if you can come and play.

There´s a family that lives close by to Maya Pedal, which the volunteers have come to support. The three kids in the above photo include them. We often cook food for them; Maya Pedal is kind of a second home it would seem.

Recent picture of me.

Aaaantigua!

Yeah, rightous!
So, I lived here for the first two weeks in Guatemala. The emails associated with this time are fairly amusing.. it was such a shock. Guatemala, you raped my outlook on.. a lot of things.

Above: One of the three volcanos around Antigua. Below: A buddy named Al, and I, and Elliot (behind the camera), and a few bottles of rum (in various locations throughout the city).

A beautiful cathedral, in ruins (angle head left for clarity).

General street in Antigua, with the infamous arch, and the same volcano in the background. Please note that theres no where else in Guatemala (that Ive been) that looks like this city, so clean and european looking.

Miami

This is my attempt to share some of the things Ive encountered with the world.
These photos are of when I got into Miami, on my way to Guatemala. I had a 6 hour layover. What a frickin shock, 3 or 4 days before I had been fighting huge blizzards in a small 4 wheel drive vehicle. And then all of a sudden Ive been awake for 30-40 hours, and Im thrown into this crazy humid way warm frickin everything place.

This is a tree I avoided climbing (very high), because I felt drunk from lack of sleep. I have scars from such things..

Very different than BC...

Info

So, this blog entails my current trip to Guatemala and Central America. Im here volunteering with a group called Maya Pedal (www.mayapedal.org). Its a sweet Guatemalan NGO that builds pedal-powered machines such as grain millers, water pumps, and (now) washing machines. Ive been in Guatemala since the 16th of January, and I dont really have too much plans as far as leaving Central America goes...

The two long posts below entail what Ive written in my mass emails, since I arrived in Central America. The bottem set is more recent, the above set is what I wrote when I first got here. I personally think the first entries are the most entertaining..
Who knew that everything in those blogs would appear on the same page. Well.. go ahead and read them, if you like.

Take two of all my entries from Central America

-----Original Message-----
From: Tyler Walker [mailto:sondaybludysonday@hotmail.com]
Sent: February 10, 2006 10:32 AM
Subject: MP is da place ta be

So here's the long-awaited spheal on Maya Pedal, although its not as long as

I origionally wanted. (www.mayapedal.org) Maya Pedal is basically a bike
shop that takes thrown-out bikes, uses volunteers to fix them up, and then
sells them.
My experience: I was really intimidated in the beginning, but Ive managed
now to have my own little bowl of confidence here. The other volunteers
here are really well-rounded, well-centred people. Many of them are
currently in the middle of bike tours of Guatemala.. I think this could be
something I might do before I leave. One pair of volunteers just arrived
here from India on Wensday. They were riding around in India for 3 months..

another pair of volunteers, brothers, are doing a loop from Oregon, and
are riding around all of Guatemala. Its really, really awesome to talk to
these people. Its really inspiring. Now I just need to find someone crazy
enough to tour the world on bicycles with me... .......
The food we eat here in Maya Pedal is definately a memorable and noteworthy
part of the Maya Pedal experience. Clearly, it is the people that live here

that make Maya Pedal what it is, but what MP is right now is an emporium of
fiendishly extravagent and delicious meals, 3 meals a day.

Most of the volunteers at MP are vegitarians. In addition, most of the
volunteers at MP are rediculously good cooks. In additionaddition, fridges
in San Andreas Itzapa dont really exist all that much (due to energy costs),

so almost all food is picked fresh daily.
Most of our meals here are preceeded by a "Dear god this looks/smells/tastes

fuckin' fantastic."

The building we're living in is upkept by us, and we clean it almost daily.

We all share the tasks of cooking, cleaning, and working. Its really cool
seeing how much respect we all have for one another, the maturity of the
whole group definately lets things work more smoothly.

The bikes. Theres currently around 250 bikes here at MP, most of which are
in a state of disrepair. They were all either thrown out or donated by
their previous owners, so theres a lot of work that needs to go into each
one to get them ridable again. Its a really cool experience bringing life
back to these things that were origionally trash. We spend usually about
6-8 hours a day fixing bicycles. As volunteers we are allowed to comendeer
the bikes we want, and use them until they are sold, or keep them until we
leave MP. Its a pretty sweet arrangement, and Ive actually befriended a
couple of serious BMXers living here in Itzapa from riding around some of
the old BMXs. They're my first spanish friends!!! ITs pretty sweet, but I
need to learn more spanish. I taught them some sweet BMXing trials stuff.

So, Id have to say, overall Im having a pretty frickin amazing time. I
really, really like the people Im living and working with, I love the people

of the town we{re in because theyre really friendly and accepting, and I
think its amazing that I get to spend my days in a absolutely beautiful
country, helping out with something that I really love to do.

On to other stuff. Last weekend, I did a sort of weekend excursion about
200km (took 7 hours or so) north to a place called Coban, and Semuc
Champey/Lanquin. I mentioned this in my last email...but this time I have
pictures!! Snap it was pretty. The forrest was beautiful and very
different. There was a lightening storm both nights I was there.. it was
kind of magical. What an awesome trip. Semuc Champey is basically a 400m
limestone bridge over a roaring river, most of the river goes under it. we
went caving there too and saw bats so thick that it was similar to being
covered in honey in a swarm of bees (but its toxic honey so they dont
actualy land on you, but you could probably breathe one in if you tried.
They were really, really thick.) This weekend, Im going to a place called
Lago de Atitlan, which is a fairly large lake, which Ive heard is pretty
fantastically pretty.
Oh, and before I forget. I can recieve long distance phone calls here!! 1
502 7832 0860. But I wont be getting back to this number till next monday
night, its a lot better to call in the evening too. I feel bad for not
calling back home regularly, but I have been really busy, and I now have to
go to a different city to do so..
I dont really have time to talk about each picture, but they{re of maya
pedal, and semuc champey. I came to a different town to use the internet,
but its still relatively slow, and Im running out of time.

I also included one picture from a whole set of pictures we took during a
fun night in antigua. We went into the shadiest bar we could find, bought a

bottle of rum, and started from there. It was a long night.

Anyways. Im alive! a little sick, but alive..

Love you guys.

Tyler


-----Original Message-----From: Tyler Walker [mailto:sondaybludysonday@hotmail.com] Sent: Sunday, February 05, 2006 8:40 AMSubject: Ola

I havent had a chance to write a group email lately, I have been really
busy. And tired. And kinda sick.
Im still having an amazing time though. Slowly adjusting more and more to
Guatemala. Its hard, Im still having a tough time with spanish. The
communication barrier is making things tough for me, but Im still trying.
A little on Maya Pedal..
I actually want to write a full out email on Maya Pedal, soley. Its been an
absolutely amazing experience. Its everything I could have realistically
hoped for. The fact that Im volunteering with 7 other really amazing
people, eating these amazing meals (most of the people there are wicked good
cooks, and vegitarian, we do 3 group meals a day that cost overall 70Q or
about $14CDN a week. Cheap living indeed.) ... and building bikes for 8
hours a day is frickin fantastic. Im also teaching some of the other
volunteers about bikes, which is really awesome, because Im the new guy!!
I have lots of pictures, but Im not sending them right now.

I did some travelling this weekend. I made it up to the city of Coban
(which is beautiful), and Lanquin and Semuc Champey. I went on a cave tour,
that mostly involved swimming in warm water through underground caverns with
candles... it was amazing. There were some kind of sketchy parts where the
guide told us to slide down a couple tiny little holes where the water was
rushing through..
Got to swim in two different caves yesterday. Both were amazing.

Anyways, gotta catch a bus. Letting you know Im still alive and kicking.

Tyler


-----Original Message-----From: Tyler Walker [mailto:sondaybludysonday@hotmail.com] Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2006 4:43 PMSubject: ! more (2)

Guatemala - The land of obnoctious, completely unecessary, continuously
present unstopping noise.

Its a custom here to celebrate people´s birthdays with fireworks at dawn.
People in general seem to just be bored here in addition, fireworks are a
common background noise at all hours of the day, on all days of the week.
Especially on weekends.

As I stated in an earlier email, there arnt any real traffic rules here.
That means, people seem to act like.. sheep. With horns. Purely and soley
in the sense, that if one person honks, everone around them honks, as if to
communicate that they too have horns.
Its not quite like this. But drivers have to be very agressive (people in
general are very agressive here due to the crowded situation.. another story
kinda) and so horn use is about as common as using brakes (which is also
very common. Just to clear up my point making).

This rule also applies to the ´public tranist' aka chicken busses here.
But, it applies two or three fold.
The public transit system here is amazing. Its very low cost, very left
wing (am I using that right Jenn?) and could be considered unsafe (they're
likely extremely unsafe, if not the bus then the style of driving), but
amazingly effective. The busses are all old bluebird school busses, but
painted very extravagently. There are usually busses heading in pratically
every direction, leaving every 15 minutes, from most locations. These
busses are made to contain about 40 or so school-sized children, but they
are very regularly full of around 60 or so adult-sized persons. There are
no bus stops either, you just have to wave the bus down as they drive by.
This works amazingly well, because there is no overseeing Public Transit god
that all the bus drivers answer to (there might be). The busses WANT your
business. The drivers yell to you where they´re going, and if they think
that you atleast MIGHT be wanting to get on, they´ll slam on their brakes
just to get your business.
Back to the point. They advertise their business by honking, almost
constantly. They also honk to eachother, and there's a lot of eachothers.
Its a lot of honking.

Car alarms. Due to the amount of poverty in guatemala, the people who can
afford to have a moderately decent car want to protect them. These car
alarms seem to all be super sensitive, as many are usually triggered by the
passing of a bus (a public bus.. there´s a lot of busses.. you can see the
chain of happenings). Even some of the little 80cc scooters, of which there
is a large amount of here (in Antigua), have alarms. Also, since the
majority of cars here are barely drivable (litterally held together with
tape, on the verge of falling apart), mufflers and other such unecessary
things are usually neglected. More noise.

To top it off, besides the noise of being around a lot of people all the
time, I slept in a hostel last night. To which, it would appear, they were
doing heavy construction work to until about 3am. I forgot my earplugs.. it
was hellish.

So yeah. For those wondering, life is good. Im looking forward to going to
San Andreas Itzapa next week (TO WORK ON BIKES.. sorry), because Im starting
to see just how touristy Antigua really is (I havent left antigua too many
times yet). Time to see the real Guatemala (endless agriculture, efficient
and cost-effective ways of life, no consumerism). I got to climb some 300
year old spanish colonial ruins today too, it was sweet.

Pictures:
A few pictures of the friends Ive made here, some from Britian, some from
the US, some from Germany, one from Switzerland.
A beautiful spot overlooking Antigua with more of above friends, and the
volcano behind the town.
A shot of Ronald Macdonald in the large garden-laden courtyard of the
McDonald´s in antigua, its fucking huge, and is very nearly the nicest
looking restaurant in Antigua.

Im off, dinner time. So tired. Time to get ready for a saturday night in a
shady Guatemalan bar (no joke)

Cheers
Tyler


-----Original Message-----From: Tyler Walker [mailto:sondaybludysonday@hotmail.com] Sent: Monday, January 23, 2006 2:04 PMSubject: A few more words than last time (2)

I went to San Andreas Itzapa yesterday, where Maya Pedal is. The village is
virtually the opposite of Antigua. Antigua is a very artsy looking tourist
town with a small tinge of Guatemala. There are forieners everywhere, and
you dont have to walk more then 2 or 3 minutes to find someone who speaks
english. Itzapa has a similar population (Antigua has 40,000), but, there
are only around 10 or so white people that live there. That means, no
englih. No friendly tourist lady who speaks fluently to you and makes you
feel so relaxed (and much more willing to purchase items in her tent). And
a whole lot of Guatemalans that make it very obvious to you that you´re not
from around there.

I visited Maya Pedal, and it is everything I wanted it to be. The main
floor is pretty much entirely a workshop. Various devices for welding,
machining, and fixing bicycles crowd the walls. There are some of the
bicimaclinas (I cant spell it.. or say it for that matter) sitting around,
but the shop is moderately clutter-free. There´s a kitchen with a gas(?)
stove and few other things, but no fridge. Which means I cant cook a bunch
of junk and eat left-overs for an entire week.
The second floor has the showroom (a cleanish open space) and the rooms for
which volunteers can live in. Ill be staying in a room with a bunkbed and a
window (horray!).
The third floor is open, like many of the multi-story buildings in guatemala
(I havent seen one that wasnt.) It has a bunch of racks with bike frames
and stuff hanging from them, and offers an amazing view of Itzapa.

Itzapa is a little higher than Antigua I think (in regards to the ocean),
but its still fairly warm. The temperature these past few days have been
similar to early fall, although it still heats up a lot around noon till 2
or 3pm. (Sweet note about Guatemala.. common buisness hours are from 8
till noon then 2 till 6 or 8. They break for two hours, because it
regularly gets too hot for people to work. 2 hour lunch breaks rock.) The
city is pretty hilly its self, the centre of town being more or less the
bottem with hills going up on most sides. Maya Pedal is on such a hill.
Past Maya Pedal is a dirt road that apparently goes all the way to Antigua.
Im looking forward to making the trip on a bike. The road heads up into the
mountains (more just like very, very big hills by canadian standards), which
are pratically entirely culivated for agricultural use. Its really cool
seeing ´fields´of cabbage and stuff on these rediculusly steep hills. A
friend of mine (from Germany, he happily acted as a frickin translator for
me most of the time while we were there) and I decided to hitchhike further
up into the hillmountains in the back of a pickup truck. It was pretty fun
hitchhiking in a direction where we had absolutly no idea of where we were
going. We passed a large group of ´farmers´ all carrying various kinds of
rifles (note to self, I need to find out why they were carrying rifles), and
the pickup truck stopped to pick them up and drive them back to town. We
kept walking higher and ended ùp coming across some large manmade caves (dug
into compacted sand), a lot of really pretty butterflies, and some AVOCADO
trees (I learned that avocados grow on trees..).

After many hours of hiking random trails in the mountains, we headed back.
Didnt get back till late last night.. slept for 11 hours. It was awesome.

Anyways, I know I said Id write a journal. But definately most of my energy
for that kind of thing goes into these emails.. so maybe.. NATALIE (or
someone else?) could keep a record of them, as hotmail doesnt easily have
that capability.

Including couple of pictures. They´re from our treck in the mountain.
And.. one of my dinner table in Antigua, with the three other students Im
living with (from Switzerland, US and England), and my host father.

My coca necklace tastes like wood.

Talk to you guys later,
Tyler

Yes, yes Im still alive.

The pictures included are mostly of the crazy trees in Miami. They were
really near the airport, where I had to wait for 6 hour, I cant even imagine
what the actual forests would be like. The trees were amazing. The ´roots´
that are ´hanging´off of the branches are actually as strong as the branches
them selves.. I climbed a couple, but the fact that I hadnt slept for 30-40
hours kept me from doing too much of that. (When Im tired I feel kind of
drunk, and do things with out paying enough attention to what it is that Im
doing. I have a few scars from such things).
The weather in Miami was really humid, it felt very very much like Butterfly
World (super humid) and smelled like Id imagine a jungle would smell. Super
awesome place to see a sunrise (I was there from 6am to 12pm.

The pictures of Guatemala include the yellow church, the yellow arch over
the street, and the ones of the strange wooden animals. The one on the
street shows what the streets look like in Antigua. Super bumpy
cobblestones. Behind the yellow arch is one of threee volcanos that are
visable from Antigua. The streets outside of Antigua look a little more
north american, but because of the surroundings you´re till very obviously
in Guatemala.

StewartAndyDarien - remember those masks in Jen´s pictures, I found a store
with an enormous collection of them!!! And those crazy wodden animals! The
masks cost about $10 CDN each.. hmm..

There was something else I was gunna say but I dont remember.

Hasta lluego

Tyler

January 16th

So yeah. Letter one of many. I made it!!!!!! And I spent a total of about
..12 minutes in customs. That includes the states, guatemala, and airport
security.. things went really smooth. I coulda easily smuggled things in in
both occasions (except for the airport security.. sheesh). I have been
awake for a very long time. Far too long.
On to more important things. Guatemala is the most beautiful and amazing
place, its so.. incredible. The flight in was amazing, everything I could
see from it was so beautiful, so different. I was so nervous and ancious
through my whole trip through the states..
The forrest.. is like jungle. I havent ventured in there yet, but it is
eons different than BC forrests. And the people, and the city I landed in,
and the.. driving. The driving is basically like having absolutly no road
rules at all. It would seem that the country constantly assumes the police
are on holidays. Even the police (who were weaving in and out of traffic
doing 30-40 over with AK-47s on their backs) are pretty confident that they
donty have to do anything. The only rules are the ones that are (seemingly)
common sense, such as, dont turn across a lane of traffic if theres a wall
of traffic coming at you.
The place where Im staying is also unbelievable. Most of the house is
outdoors. I have my own room (has a ceiling and a lock), thankfully.
Although Id trust Delcia (mother whos house Im at) with my life and all of
my belongings I think.
Anyways. I want to go back and help out with making dinner. I have taken
some pictures, but Ill work on sending them another day (maybe tomorrow).
Maybe Ill even have time to send a few individual emails.
Im smiling so much it hurts.

Denada
Tyler

Everything that you ever thought could possibly have something to do with me.

These are the latest emails. Im going to cut the entries up to keep blogspot from crashing.

-----Original Message-----From: Tyler Walker [mailto:sondaybludysonday@hotmail.com] Sent: Monday, April 03, 2006 1:14 PMSubject: Update time

Not too many epic adventures lately, mostly just volunteering. FYI because
a couple of people have asked, Ive been volunteering 1 1/2 months out of the
2 1/2 months Ive been in central america, and Ill continue to be with Maya
Pedal until the beginning of May.

Since my last update, Ive confirmed my stay here until the end (or so) of
Augest. Who knows, I might stay here past that aswell.

My brother and sister have further confirmed that theyre going to come down
to Central America in the beginning of July. My brother is buying a one-way
ticket, so he says... maybe they like my trend, ´go away and plan to return
in a perpetually exsisting ´couple of months´´.

Âfter I finish volunteering in May, Im going to travel down to Leon,
Nicaragua to start volunteering with QuetzalTrekkers. I miiight travel down
there, via, BICYCLE.. 4 countries, 500km or so, frickin booya.

Rainy season is coming up soon aswell. Which means that the environment
down here I know to date is likely to change, and get much wetter and
greener. Im really looking forward to it, becaue you can basically clasify
where Im living right now by the colours Blue and Brown, blue sky brown
everything else. Except of course for man made things, but the above
statement is really just a generalization anyways.

Ive realized that in the lizard picture I sent a while ago it wasnt that
difficult to spot the lizard. Seemed to just be one friend ;)

PICTURES AND VIDEO include a video of a market where I got to act as a
vendor with my boss carlos and sell bikes,
a cool picture of some trees in the hills near itzapa,
and a couple of photos of a sweet rasta hat. I want dreads.

Hasta la vista baby,
Tyler

PS I may soon move my mass email sort of set up to a more advanced web-blog
sort of set up..maybe just send emails when theres updates or something.


Keep the flow.
Bergn


-----Original Message-----From: Tyler Walker [mailto:sondaybludysonday@hotmail.com] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2006 4:33 PMSubject: Carri bean!



Once upon a time there was this beautiful Island, about 11km off of the
coast of a town called La Ceiba, Honduras. The Island was called Utila.
The water we passed over on our way to Utila was the oddest colour; blue.
But, a blue Id never seen an ocean be before, not this light tropical ocean
blue-turquoise crap, but a deeper, creamier blue. If purified water were
ever to be given a colour, it would be given this colour.
Utila was about as warm as could be, very humid, and very salty. The
approach to it was over open Atlantic ocean. I didnt wear a shirt for the
entire four days I was there. I only wore shoes after my feet were
repeatedly burned on the soles from hot pavement. The ocean near the
island was almost hot, literally, definately a very nice warm bath. This
was in the sheltered areas, in about 4 feet of water. The water off of the
island was that of a very warm lake, easily warm enough to swim in without
any kind of wetsuit (or bathingsuit, depending on the company). It was
unbelieveable.
Although, evidentally, the saltiness of the water was a shock to my system.
I was in the water a lot the first day I was there, and that night I became
quite sick. Im quite sure it was from digesting all that salt.

Things I did in the Carribean:
Went on a "dolphin" search with a local diveshop, we didnt see any. But
something cool did happen. We were crusing along through open ocean, when
the captain suddenly asked if anyone wanted to see a shark. We immidiately
drastically changed course, and became aware of a large black dorsal fin
about 200m ahead of us. We tore towards it, and soon we were floating along
side this huge black shape in the water, the same length as the dive boat
(close to 10m). We were all unprepared, and it turned out by the time that
the message got across that we were going to snorkle with it and people
started getting ready, the creature had dove and was no longer visable.
About 2 minutes later it was spotted again, and again we tore towards it,
this time the guide from the dive shop yelling at us to put our snorkle gear
on. By the time I was geared up, pandemonium was breaking out as both the
captain and the guide were frantically yelling "GET IN THE WATER!! GET IN
THE WATER!" I rolled backwards off of the side of the boat, and as I blew
the water out of my snorkle and untangled myself from the 2 other people who
jumped in next to/on top of me, I noticed the shark about 2 meters below
me..
The thing about Whale Sharks is that they dont really look like anything
else on the planet. The rows and rows of small white dots that cover their
deep blue skin look very magical when super-imposed on the cool creamy blue
of the carribean ocean. The size was intense, and the smoothness of how it
moved made me feel I was watching some kind of movie. I managed to follow
it as it dove aswell, because it was still visable due to the dots. For a
while, it was just me and the Whale Shark..

It turns out, that the captain of the boat is obligated to recieve a $10 tip
from every person on board, if they get to see a whale shark. With a boat
of 20 or more people, it became obvious to me why they bypassed pretty much
every rule they have about greeting whale sharks, such as not jumping on top
of it, and not getting within 3 meters, and always staying behind it.. it
really bothered me.
There was another boat in the area too, they were following the same
rushandattack style of whale shark watching that we were.

Okay, so the next thing I did in the caribbean (I really dont know how to
spell it):
Snorkling (in a coral reef). It was really, really amazing. Natalie, you
would poo yourself. And a lot of other people would too, Im sure. The
colours of the fish were almost blinding. The coral was absolutely
spectacular.. so huge and plentiful. Brain coral is the shit. The water
was crazy warm. I dove down and tried to swim through a coral tunnel and
realized why ships get screwed up in reefs like this, its crazy sharp. It
was really awesome, because the reef was off the island. You poked your
head out of the water, and it looked like you were 100m off shore in open
ocean, in a fair sized surf. Under water, it turns into this colourful
tranquil world of ... stuff. I dont know. Looks at some pictures of coral
reef, I dont have any.. so much life, so beautiful. Also, we saw a moray
eel about 5 feet long.. huge gaping mouth, just chilling next to a rock..
pretty awesome. I need an underwater camera.

Thing number 3:
Walking in a jungle. I dont have any good pictures of the jungle on the
island, I didnt have enough time to see it close up. Got a nice look of it
from the dolphin boat. The spiders we came across were very very plentiful.
Apparently there are all kinds, the ones we saw are in the photos I sent.
The number of them that are visable in one are goes from about 6 or 7 to
around 50 in the summer. They werent very dangerous either, a bite being
about the equivalent to a bad bee sting apparently. If I had seen one of
these things on a wall in the room I was staying in, I think I would have
either had a seisure or screamed like a girl. The way they moved and looked
was just.. poison. That discriptive term seems to fit them really really
well.
There were also those huge lizards every 15-20 feet, flopping through the
bushes and stuff. Pretty sweet.

So, Im running out of time. There were a lot of amazing things that
happened. Just for the record, The Bay Islands of Honduras (Utila is one of
them) I believe are the cheapest place in the world to learn how to dive.
The diving there (I did two dives) was as beautiful as the snorkling, lots
and lots of life.

Im beginning to line things up for staying in Central America until the end
of Augest. If it all works out, then Im staying. Im positive I want to.
The longer I stay here, the more I love it. Even occasionally asking around
if I can work somewhere as a paid bike mechanic down here..

Anyways, spread the love.
Peace out
Tyler

-----Original Message-----From: Tyler Walker [mailto:sondaybludysonday@hotmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, March 15, 2006 6:32 PMSubject: About a boy

If you dont want to read all this, read the first part, and the few
paragraphs at the end. Only real important parts.

Okay.

So, once upon a time there was this guy named Tyler and a super cool friend
named Ky. Together they biked up into the majestic mountains behind San
Andreas Itzapa. It took about an hour to ride the 10km uphill to a
viewpoint.
There, they sat and ate strange Guatemalan food that didnt really taste all
that great, and picked forien objects out of their trailmix. After an hour
of chewing the fat, as one might say, they were happened upon by some merry
policemen, in a jolly black pickup truck. One of the policemen leaned out,
using his rifle as a conch, and a conversation ensued:

Where are you from, Antigua?
No, we live and work in San Andreas Itzapa.
You should leave. Its very dangerous here.

They sped off, out to oust banditos out of their evil plots (moderately
known fact, the policemen in Guatemala can be nearly as bad as the
banditos). Ty and Ky considered the advice, and deciding there was time
already well spent, they mounted their respective bicycles and headed for
home.

Then there was a jump.

More like an over-sized rut in the road, which Tyler got sufficient enough
speed to pull an impressive full-ridged-bike-with-seat-high kind of jump.
The rest happened in a matter of seconds.

Tyler, aided with his apparently bald tyres and the dusty loose nature of
the road, began to initiate a non-intentional two-wheel slide (note that
bikes indeed ONLY have two wheels.) The slide was a long one, and was in
the form of a sweeping turn, but resulted in both bike and rider eventually
on their side, skidding and bouncing.

Ky was surprised at the sudden reduced visability. She was choked
momentarily by dust, while baralling full-tilt down the rutted road.

Tyler thinks: I wonder how far back Ky is?
Ky thinks: There is a bike in front of me.

KyandbikehitTylersendsKysailing10feetdownroadtolandonhersidewhileTylerwrastleswiththetwobikeshesinfusedto.

Ky and Ty note later that the Police were right.


But all is well, we both had road rash, and mine is almost healed. That
was... um, a week and a half ago. Before I left for Xela and
QuetzalTrekkers.
As some people have heard, my experience with QuetzalTrekkers was
absolutlely amazing. Heres the itinerary:
Wensday March 8th
We left Xela at about 8am. 7 hour bus ride through Quiche, Chichicastenango
and other places, to a town called Nebaj. There we ate a tastey dinner, and
watched part of Blazing Saddles. We conversed with the large american that
owned the place, and thanked him for the banana cream pie.
Thursday
We woke for a frickin huge pancake breakfast, and were outside hiking
towards the mountains by 7am. The first ascent was about 400m vert, very
painful (for muscles) when you havent done too much walking due to a knee
scraping. We got a beautiful view of Nebaj, the random rediculusly steep
`feilds`on the side of the mountain, and met a few locals on our way up who
gave us strange looks. On top, we laid in the sun for an hour. We filmed
some really strange looking catapillars that looked kind of like goats, and
ate food (one of the two pics I send earlier today). After, we walked down
into the next valley, a green lush paradise compared to the crazy dry desert
kind of place we just left. People insisted it looked much more like
Austria.. We ate lunch at a cheese farm which produced fresh cheese by hand
from the dairy cows there. They got mad at us for not buying beer but using
their patio. We left, walked by a large bull (who seemed very interested
with us) which was tied to.. some, grass. Very safe.
Anyways, we started our slow ascent to Xexocom (pronounced Shieshowcom), and
happened upon some random guatemalans who asked us to take pictures but
couldnt stay long because they had to go back to work (another picture..).
We arrived later that night, and slept well. We got to use something called
a ... I dont remember. But it was a Guatemalan steam bath, which looked
like an over-sized concrete dog house, which they built a large fire in and
let simmer down to hot coals.
Slept well under the stars, awoken only occasionally by big turkeys. Those
suckers are ugly.
Friday
Wow.. this is long. So, first thing friday, after a hearty breakfast of
porridge, we started climbing some more. We rose about 900m in 2.5 hours,
wow, that hurt. Passed more random near-vertical feilds, and rose to meet
the top of the mountain.. a huge limestone rock garden. I couldnt believe
how different everything suddenly looked. It was as if a huge frickin
meteor shower had hit.. And after climbing a little more (without my pack)
I stumbled across, way away from any sort of road, at around 2800m, a
thriving village. The guides of course knew about it, but wow... what a
sight. After being way out in the middle of nowhere, and thinking we were
pretty solitary up there.. bam, in the face. Beautiful village, amongst the
limestone. We ate some food and hiked through it, saying hi to the locals
as we passed, and recieving more smiles and weird looks.
The next four or so hours passed very, very slowly. Our `mountain`was way
much more of a plateau. The heat was .. very irritable, and our plush green
forest had quickly yeilded to limestone-strewn deserty hills. After nearly
collapsing from the altitude, we sat down for a very tastey lunch we had
brought. An interesting thing happened about a half hour into it..
We were sitting, conversing, muching, when we all noticed a single horse
approaching from the west, along the trail we were due to head out on. It
walked slowly and lazily towards us, gave us a bit of a berth off of the
trail as it went around us, and continued on the trail away from us. It
looked, tired. Noone followed, just the horse by itself, heading home from
an early morning at the horse bar... but, wow. What a spiritual place.
Anyways, after lunch, we walked through more beautiful desert and trees
until we came to the end of the plateau. We were confronted with this
immense valley, which one of the guides proceeded to tells us we would
cross, strait down, and strait up. About a third of the way down, we
stopped at a school (still no roads here), whipped out our sleeping bags and
had a very cold nights sleep.
Saturday
We continued down the valley to have breakfast at the bottem, where we all
jumped in the ice cold stream, some were nude. We watched a Guatemalan
family come down to wash their clothes in the stream, they looked at us just
as often as we pondered after them, both parties in wonder. We hiked out of
the valley, and noticed that the climate was getting indeed drier. By 12pm,
we were hiking through full out, cactus strewn desert. It was hot, but not
too hot. I got sunburnt. We passed very brightly coloured homes, and
brightly coloured cemetaries (most guatemalan cemetaries look like some kind
of childrens playground, crazy colourful with all the graves above ground in
concrete condiminiums). We hiked up one last large hill, which I proudly
made it up much faster than everyone else, and decended down to lunch, a bus
ride with some drunk Guaetmalans, and a place to sleep with another Teneskul
(the Guatemalan steam bath/sauna).
Sunday
We had a nice hike up to the highest non volcanic point in Central America
(3832m), a 400m ascent from where we slept. We ate lunch, talked some
smack, and looked out towards our final destination, Todos Santos. We
watched a volcano eurupt.. twice.. spewing huge mushroom clouds into the
air. Unfortunately, it was about 100km away (there is a hike one can do
with QuetzalTrekkers, where they hike up the inactive volcano next door to
it, at watch it.) Todos Santos was a vertical 1.5km decent through thick
forests, cliffs, rivers, and feilds. My knees hurt bad, once again. Got
vertigo a couple of times, from walking down thin paths with a heavy pack on
loose dirt, with a cliff right next door. We got into our hostel,
collapsed, exmained blisters, and slept hard, needing to wake early for the
bus home the next day.


So here´s where you can start reading again, if you skipped all that, Im
playing with the idea of staying here till Augest so I can volunteer with
QuetzalTrekkers. The volunteers there not only guide the hikes, they run
the entire business.. there is no overseeing coordinator or anything like
that. PRetty amazing opportunity, I think. Well see how money goes though.

Right now Im in La Ceiba, Honduras. I met 7 other random travellers today,
on the bus to here. We all got a big room together at a cheap hotel, and
got it cheap because were a big group! go team! Tomorrow morning were
heading out to Utila, one of the Bay Islands. I, atleast, am going there to
do some cheap diving in the Atlantic/carribean ocean... hell yeah!

Anyways, I wrote too much. Miss you guys. Night.
Tyler


March 8….
Hey. Havent had a chance to do a mass email lately (because of computers which cant support my camera), but things are awesome right now.. I took a bus with a group of people to a crazy town way in the middle of nowhere. It is absolutely beautiful... huge endless pine forests and big cliffs and rolling hills.. it sounds like Canada, but it is so, so different. Everything is so jagged here, theres s And Im going hikeing till next monday starting tomorrow. Were going to rise above 4000m above sealevel, and we will cover 50km (strait distance, point to point...) Frickin I cant wait schewannabamb! Oh. And something else. The group Im hiking through (call QuetzalTrekkers.. they have a website) accepts volunteers, I read this on their website. From talking to volunteers, I found out that the entire organization is run by volunteers, who come and go. Im going to put some very serious inquiries to STA Travel to see if I can postpone my flight home till the end of Augest, with minimal cost. This would mean that I would be forgoing any university next fall (which I kind of want to anyways, I wanna travel!!), I would have to extend my travellers insurance, and I would have to renew my MSP from guatemala. I would also have to look and see if I could fund it, I might put a request forward to all relatives on van island for a possible loan of $500. The volunteering costs are a quarter of what they are at Maya Pedal. Instead of paying around $80 a month (for living costs, not sweet adventuring costs) I would be paying $20 a month, for food, housing, and my entertainment.. most of the costs are covered by the tips of the people they take. My entertainment, would be leading groups of people on hikes, such as the one Im going on tomorrow, 4 times a month. Ive been interrogating the volunteers since we left, and it turns out that the volunteers are responsible for the operation of the business, the advertising, organizing hikes and benifit dinners for the school that they support and EVERYTHING else. There is NO overseeing god who owns the business.. it is completely the volunteers that come there. The minimum time a volunteer can spend with them is 3 months, the tenative plan being from may till augest. Its three months, because the training needed for new volunteers takes a lot of time. There is also a similar group in Nicaragua, thats also needing volunteers. So I might go down there, I dont know. I just know that this is something I really, really want to become involved with. Anyways, my times almost up. Just thought Id through that idea out there.

Love you guys.
Tyler

-----Original Message-----From: Tyler Walker [mailto:sondaybludysonday@hotmail.com] Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2006 6:21 PMSubject: MASS EMAIL INC

Maybe some people will get that. Maybe some people wont. If you dont,
you´re not missing out.. ;)

Id like to say before you read the following story, that Im not even really
roadburnt, I gotta little patch on my elbow, nothin else. No problema.
This´ll make sense in a sec.

So. Once upon a time (yesterday) I decided to try and ride a particular
small silver bike fairly fast down a really steep hill, in order to film the
bike that some people associate with me. It was a good run, I got up to
sufficient speed but was faulted by a fact that became more obvious to me as
a decended: there is a very large truck in front of me (it was sitting in
the instersection ahead of me, about 40 feet or so away by the time I went
into emergency braking procedures). I origionally was planning to use a
couple blocks to slow down.. because the back wheel of this particular bike
likes to lock when someone over its designed weight rides it, and brakes.

Id also like to express that this is no busy street. Its waay more rural
than even metchosin.. as far as the roads go. There´s cows walking down it
several times a day.

So, there I was, still tearing down the hill, with my back wheel locked.
Then something kind of interesting happened. I happened upon a large patch
of water on the road (which I was planning to avoid prior to the braking),
and the bike suddenly moved out from underneith me, and began to act as more
of a sail, I suppose, on top of me. Surprisingly, there was no loss of
speed at all, likely due to the mixture of mud, in this 30 foot long patch
of water. I more or less stayed in the same orientation too, although some
spinning was evident towards the end.
When I hit the dry road again, I slowed down very quickly (and did not hit
the truck.)

It was sooo rad.

Anyways, the video if you can or cannot see it, contains said silver demon
bike, about 7 minutes after the event. The video of me crashing didnt
happen. People weren´t concentrating on the camera.

The other picture is of a cool bike (Pedal Power being the group who started
Maya Pedal), and a picture of three children whom Ive come to love sitting
atop my steed.

I hope everybody is having as much fun I am.

Love you all.

Adios,
Tyler

Original Message -----
From: "Tyler Walker"
Sent: Friday, February 17, 2006 10:45 AM
Subject: schtuff


> Some random photos, some photos of the beautiful lake I went to last
> weekend. I rented a 150cc dirtbike for $10/hour, cruized around a portion
> of the lake on the roads... soo, so pretty. I dont need a liscence to
drive
> a motorbike herr, either :D But, unfortunately, bikes higher than 200ccs
> are really uncommmon here in Guatemala. Ive seen a 600cc street bike, a
> 350cc dirtbike and a couple of 200s.. and I think the police bikes have a
> bit more goose to em too, but most of the bikes here are around 150. Gas
is
> expensive, and I suppose a big bike is expensive to run.
>
> I think I mentioned part of the above before. I cant remember.
>
> Other random photos include one more from the drinking night in Antigua, a
> couple from the plane when I was flying in to Guatemala, and a sweet
> branchy-leafy thing I found in Miami.
>
> This weekend Im working with a couple of new volunteers from Alaska.
We're
> going to weld up a cargo bike for MP, is going to be fun. We had a
birthday
> party last night for two volunteers, and had a piñata, it was really
funny.
>
> Im slowly becomming famous in San Andreas Itzapa for riding a very, very
> small bike very quickly down the hills in town. Its now my commuter bike,
> and I can tuck it underneith my arm when I go into stores. I need
pictures
> of that thing.. jeepers.
>
> Anyways, peace out for now.
> Tyler

Every time I open my hand I find a huge gaping hole

Just a beginning. Hold on to your frickin reins already.