Tonight we’re going to brave the torrential rain in order for one last dinner out in Pana. Last night we weren’t so brave, and stayed inside with deli sandwiches from a market pointed out to a few of our party by their Tuk Tuk driver. With expectations of about 10 feet of rain per year, Guatemalan storms don’t waste time with little drizzles, but get down to business. Gutters and streets fill within minutes, and the little gardens outside our room looks like it will fill up like a swimming pool. The rainy season is supposed to be over by now, so this weather is a little odd.
The view from lake Atitlan
The weather for the most part has been great up until about 3 or 4 pm every day. Today, we ventured out first thing and found our new friend Mario down near the ferries to the western half of the lake. We had negotiated a price with him yesterday to take us to see several of the pueblos of interest: San Marco, San Juan and San Pedro de Atitlan, and a cruise near the shoreline to see several other smaller communities.
Since Colin was sick yesterday, we didn’t venture out as a family. I did take a little trip into the local grocery store, where I had intended to buy papayas, bread and cheese for our lunch. Instead, I got ramen noodles, cookies, juice, eggs, cheese, bread, marmalade and beer. I stayed away from the black cloud of fruit flies that hovered over the produce department and stuck with packaged foods.
This precious little thing had a basket of beaded jewelry to sell, while wandering around on the docks and leaning precariously into boats.
Our first instinct was to engage in polite conversation, agreeing that the merchandise is lovely, the highest quality, yes, but we’re not interested now. Maybe later.
Maybe.
Unless you’re moving, the mob doesn’t actually disburse. On our trip to Santiago at one point, we were sitting in the shade, enjoying drinks when about ten women and children descended upon us, with “best price, highest quality for you,” draping scarves and jewelry across our arms. After insisting vehemently that we weren’t interested for about ten minutes, we were able to get them to leave. Three minutes passed before they all came back and we went through the same routine again. Then another person joined our party and the game was on again: the mob descended, we insisted we didn’t want anything, the mob left, then gathered around us again.
In Guatemala, families celebrate birthdays be setting off a barrage of firecrackers and firing something that sounds like a cannon. Either they try to do this as early in the morning as possible, to get a jump on everyone else, or they set them off to correspond with the exact time of birth of the celebrant. In either case, at least 5 people had started celebrating birthdays in Panajachel by 5am this morning. My initial reaction was to wonder if some sort of revolution was starting, and ponder where one could find the American consulate.
All was well, as it turned out, and when the rest of the family was up, we set out to meet up again with Semilla Nueva staff members Anne Barkett and Lauren Brown who planned on joining us on a trip to the village of Santiago Atitlan across the lake from Pana.
Jack and the Volcano on the trip to Santiago
Atitlan is about 16 km wide surrounded and surrounded by volcanoes and little towns named after saints or apostles. Panajachel is the largest, apparently named for neither any saint nor apostle that I can think of. Today happened to be October 28, the day of Maximon (Mah-she-mon), who is celebrated mostly in Santiago Atitlan, which is why we decided to go there.
Bright and early Saturday morning, Colin and Jack met Curt in the lobby of our hotel to go machete shopping. You heard me: machetes. I’m told there will be no special requirements to get them through customs in our checked bags, but I have to do a little research to be sure.
From Reu, we set out for the campos again, this time to visit the fields of Gerardo and Carolina in Las Pilas. Last spring they planted two acres of test crops of two different varieties of corn, and today we were going to divide into two teams, harvest specific plots of corn, and compare the samples to see which produced the bigger yield. The results were interesting: a test hybrid that Semilla Nueva introduced last year produced less than the variety this community had been cultivating.
Friday morning we woke up bright and early in Xela to a street scene reminiscent of early mornings in the French Quarter in New Orleans. Xelanians partied quite robustly until about 5 am this morning after their soccer team won in a match against Guadalajara. Our hotel room overlooked the Central Park area, so we made good use of our earplugs – except Colin, who passed out around 8:30 pm and didn’t move all night.
Our hotel breakfast was slow in coming, so we set out on our own to find breakfast and coffee. We found a cafe that advertised a traditional Mayan breakfast for 20 quetzals (about 3 bucks). Mike and I had juevos revueltos (scrambled eggs) with black beans, roasted plantains and sausage. The breakfast was preceded by a milky drink that tasted faintly of tapioca and cinnamon. We found out later it was a corn-based drink called pinol. The boys didn’t care for it, but I thought it was yummy.
Today we drove about 3 and a half hours through the countryside to Quetzaltenango, or Xela (Shay-la) as the locals know it. At a population of about 250,000, Xela is the second-most populous city in Guatemala. We’re at about 7,000 feet above sea level and surrounded by mountains.
Curt tells us that Xela is the only city of any size in Guatemala that retained its native name after the arrival of the Spanish Conquistadors.
After touching down in Guatemala City, we met up with the rest of our group and headed out of town to Antiqua. There was not much countryside on the hour-long ride, but here and there the jungle seemed to be reestablishing a foothold.
Antigua is the most popular tourist destination in Guatemala. It was the country’s third capital, founded by Spanish Conquistadors in 1543. It was the seat of the governor of the Spanish Colony of Guatemala for almost 200 years (an area which covered most of Central America and part of Mexico), until an earthquake destroyed much of the city in 1717. Much the the architecture is Spanish Colonial. The streets are treacherously uneven cobblestone.
It’s true. The rule of thumb in Guatemala, if the guidebooks have it right, is: Ask a price, offer something at half that amount, wait to hear what they offer in return, go from there, and be gracious, always realizing that the goods in the markets are often those the merchant or her family has made, and from which they make their livelihood.
It also assumes one has basic math skills. And can figure out the exchange rate of Quetzals to dollars (about 8:1, or 6:1 after you get ripped off by the airport currency exchange), AND isn’t trying to think through all this while translating the conversation from Spanish to English for the benefit of her ten year old.
Tonight the kids are happily gathering their electronic devices and books, extra batteries, packs of gum, and knicknacks they think will keep them entertained on the airplane. Earlier this month, though, they were expressing some anxiety about our upcoming trip.
We’re traveling to Guatemala for a tour of Rotary projects produced by Semilla Nueva, a nonprofit founded by Boise native Curt Bowen, that helps rural communities gain economic independence and rejuvenate their land through hands-on education and collaborative sustainable agriculture projects. We’ll have about four days to explore rural communities and talk to farmers, then a few days on Lake Atitlan, exploring the Guatemalan rain forest and Mayan villages.
Every spring break, it seems a number of my children’s friends look forward to exotic vacations. Although the thought of making exciting plans for the break is always alluring, the realities of work schedules and finances precludes this possibility for our family almost every year.
Fortunately, in our region there are a number of opportunities for short, inexpensive and accessible family trips – some of which are surprising discoveries even for long time residents.
This spring, we spent three days in and around Baker City, Oregon, at the suggestion of Andrew Bryan, Baker County’s marketing director. Bryan is the visionary behind Base Camp Baker – an effort to brand the area as Eastern Oregon’s travel and recreation hub.
The famed stained glass ceiling at the Geiser Grand Hotel overlooking the Geiser Grill
Two hours west of Boise off I-84, Baker City is steeped in northwest history and easy to access. As both of our children are prone to motion sickness on Idaho’s mountainous roads, we are always especially grateful given the chance to travel on such a relatively straight but scenic route.
Our stay began with dinner and check in at the historic Geiser Grand Hotel. The hotel is one of the most prominent buildings downtown and a symbol of the opulence of the gold rush era of the old west.
The Geiser Grand is also part of a story of the rebirth of a community. Following a heyday that lasted from the late 1800s to the early 20th century, the hotel had fallen into a stunning state of disrepair. With boarded up windows and chipping paint, it was a prominent eyesore. When the current owners arrived to study the structure for renovation, the hotel was within weeks of being demolished to make way for a parking lot.
Historic Baker City is a group of community volunteers that rallied in 1982 with a central mission to refurbish downtown. Barbara Sidway, co-owner and operator of the hotel, says the decision to undertake the years-long restoration project was based on her confidence in the visioning and planning work already completed by the group.
Coffee at Mad Matilda’s
“I saw that they had a great plan in place,” Sidway says, “and I could see where the hotel would play a role in that plan.”
The hotel has been refurbished with tremendous attention to detail – a famed stained glass ceiling was redesigned from the memory of a 90 year-old resident. New carpets were loomed in the same European mill as the originals. Light fixtures, door knobs, hinges and woodwork, where not original, were sourced at antique markets or recreated meticulously from archived photographs.
Although we didn’t experience any events that would support the hotel’s reputation for being haunted, we could have tempted fate by participating in a monthly ghost hunting tour (from 9 pm to 2 am). The hotel is also home base for a new family friendly candle-lit walking tour. At 60 to 75 minutes, Haunted Historic Baker City Tours include special pricing for children and are free for kids under 6.
At one time the hotel was considered the finest between Salt Lake City and Seattle – claiming the third elevator west of the Mississippi River. Today, with its antique furnishings and chandeliers, much of the sense of that opulence has been restored.
Architectural elements in a Baker City retail store.
The Geiser Grand opens to Main Street, bustling with specialty boutiques, cafes and art galleries. Of particular delight to our family was the independently owned Betty’s Books, a saddle maker’s shop, and clothing stores that make use of former bank vaults for dressing rooms.
Baker City’s past is etched into its downtown storefronts. Ann Mehaffy, program director for Historic Baker City, says that the facades of than 60 downtown buildings dating back to the gold rush era have been restored to their original state after having been covered with sheet metal and plaster in earlier years.
On the sunny Saturday afternoon of our visit, foot traffic was plentiful and business was brisk, including those looking for a bite to eat. When it comes to dining with my family, I prefer food that is not passed through a window – preferably served in a locally owned restaurant. Fortunately, Baker City’s downtown includes a number of such establishments from café style to fine dining, a brew pub, or coffee shops that moonlight as art galleries like Mad Matilda’s.
Enjoying the spring skiing at nearby Anthony Lakes Mountain Resort
For a town of fewer than 10,000, there are a surprising number of art exhibits in Baker City, including those in a refurbished Carnegie Library building, which now houses a community art center. On the first Friday each month, downtown galleries and other businesses stay open late with entertainment and refreshments for those who want to peruse the exhibits.
The proliferation of interesting architecture is not the town’s only claim to history. North of downtown, the Baker Heritage Museum (across the Geiser-Pollman Park from a fabulous county library) touts the “World Famous” Cavin-Warfel rock exhibit which held the attentions of our budding geologists for the better part of an hour.
The surrounding countryside provides other opportunities to explore the roots of western expansion, from the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center, five miles east of Baker City, to a ghost town loop, train rides, and plentiful hiking and biking trails.
What can you fit in one covered wagon? An interactive exhibit at the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center
The two hours we’d budgeted to visit the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center was unfortunately not enough to accommodate a full exploration of the paved trails outside that lead to original wagon wheel ruts. The center itself, with its displays of life on the Oregon Trail, special programs, performances and videos, was educational and entertaining for both parents and kids.
The Cavin-Warfel Collection of rocks, fossils and minerals, housed at the museum, is one of the finest in the western United States, at the Baker Heritage Museum
Outdoor adventures and recreation opportunities are within easy reach of Baker City via the Elkhorn Scenic Byway (also with relatively few nausea inspiring curves), and the longer Hells Canyon Scenic Byway. On our way to visit the Anthony Lakes Ski Resort for some late spring skiing, we passed a number of trailhead markers and camp spots we intend to visit again this summer.
Of particular interest to my family is the lure of area ghost towns including McEwan and Sumpter, and a ride on the Sumpter Valley Railway. I’d appreciate a summer evening art gallery stroll through downtown Baker City, or a bicycle tour on one of the several bike friendly loops in the area. It will take a number of trips to fully explore and appreciate all Baker County has to offer.
Resources
www.basecampbaker.com – a great source for information on recreation and resources in the area
www.historicbakercity.com – includes a self-guided walking tour and information on historic downtown Baker City.
www.bakerheritagemuseum.com – with gold rush era exhibits and an extensive rock and minerals collection that our family particularly enjoyed.
http://www.geisergrand.com/ – a gold Rush era hotel, restored to near original state. Hosts hotel tours and ghost hunting tours, with a restaurant, meeting facilities and beautiful nineteenth century bar.
A version of this article was originally published in the June, 2010, issue of Treasure Valley Family Magazine, and sponsored by the Baker County Chamber of Commerce and Base Camp Baker. All opinions are my own.
