Huehue to Hawaii

hej again. how may thee be?

let us continue shall we.

in Huehuetenango at the diviest bar i have ever seen in my life. a drunk guatemalan girl fell off her chair and kept talking into her mobile while her friends helped her up. the cowboys at back were smashed on this aguardiente stuff. another guy was in corner singing to himself then decided to talk to me and asked me to get him a beer. this is all at 1 pm. the toilet was a little latrine in the corner w/ no cover or door and the other had a bit of material as cover.

kids played soccer all over the fields on our chicken bus ride to Guatemala City

in the hostel in Guatemala City. only one night there anda few hours outside hostel and still saw a crackhead girl smoking outside a restaurant. a guy walking in middle of street w/ a cut open head and no top on. a drunken old man. no thanks

one of many signs around Hawaii tortugario.

some of hatchlings in my book

was bored one day so let music inspire me :)

found a human jaw bone washed up on shore in this place called El Rosario. second one found by volunteers in parque this year.

Ysabel taught environmental studies at five schools in the area. i went once w/ her to school in El Dormido, a town that was basically destroyed last year when Hurricane Stan hit. chicken and pigs roaming freely through class which was just nine wooden poles and corrugated iron roofs.

Carmelo is a local kid in Monterrico who i usually see when in town. met him when he led me and a few others to a pool (had four failed attempts before that as other pools were empty or dirty or closed). always get a shout out now

a turtle came up during the day. doesn't happen often. most of our work actually occurs at night as we patrol beach looking for nesting turtles. i found five myself this year and saw quite a few more. so thats about 500 eggs i found. may save one yet :)

a dolphin skeleton we have at the Hawaii park. also have machorras which are a prehistoric type of fish, an iguana named Pancho withamazing texture on his scales, some river turtles and a 7 caymans plus their babies. cool place

and we can go kayaking through a mangrove forest and into a big lagoon. amazing, tranquil place w/ a lot of herrons and other birds, crabs, shrimp and fish

the talked about lagoon

and also find this weird lizard type of creature in mangroves which Kenny (a mate) and i have claimed to have discovered. (a lot smaller than scale sugests and no fire, pointy tail or razor sharp teeth. also saw the man on the moon

you can see three volcanoes from beach off in the distance everymorning before the clouds cover them. one on left, Fuego, still smokes once in a while

we do crawl counts in mornings to see how many turtles came up the previous night. one time we found a very bizzare track trailing through park

had a bbq one saturday, everybeer bought gave 5 quetzales to buy turtle nests. this is me w/ David (New Zealand), Kenny (Melbourne, Aus) and Chad cooking the meat and fish. i of course was put in charge of lighting and running the actual bbq, being Australian it was my patriotic duty ;)

another pic drawn in book. we play cards a fair bit in Hawaii


and have these two dogs which are freakin' cool. Colilla and Stan (yes he was named after the hurricane)

and here they are running and playing in beach. Stan is brown one, Colilla the black one. i was away for a few weeks and when i returned she wouldnt leave my side. followed me to ocean then hammocks then common area, shower area and back to hammocks. always played w/ them there

we had about 30 kids from area in one day so we could show them around the park and teach them about conservation and the environment. activities included a treasure hunt, football (soccer) and short talks

...

sunset as we rode in the back of a ute (picop they call them) to a dinner

and here are all (or most) of volunteers that were there at time w/ some extra ones

had a second day w/ school kids from area. this is Augusto who came and joined me as i played my ukulele on this lookout tower during sunset. whenever i am in Hawaii i always play either tghe ukulele or a guitar on that tower while the sun sets. some amazing ones

woke up in the middle of the night once and Ysabel and Rachel were getting rid of a scorpion in fits of giggles. funny sight to wake up to

leaving Monterrico w/ my Anna and Kate to go to El Salvador