One week out of Flores!

forest near Coban

Since I left Xela at the end of march I´m in Flores, in the north of Guatemala, the department Petén. But I needed a break and went for some days to Baja and Alta Verapaz.

a Quetzal

In Cobán I met a friend in the hostal and the next day, the 12th of Abril, we visited the Biotopo del Quetzal. What´s a Quetzal? It´s the national bird of Guatemala, living in the cloud forests of Latin America. But there aren´t that much anymore, because of the deforestation in that areas. At least I hoped to see one in the Biotopo del Quetzal. It is not that easy, but when we went inside, the guide told us 30 minutes ago there was one in the visitors center. He also made the voices of the bird, that we know, what we should listen for. Suddenly there answered a Quetzal, we had a look and it was a female one. The male ones are the more exciting ones, blue, green and red with 3 or 4 one meter long tail feather. But he didn´t come. So went inside the parc, it was a nice walk, we decided to make the 4 km round and we also saw a 450 years old tree. The trunk was amazing big!

the old tree

The next day we (my italian friend and another german woman we met in Cobán as well) left to Laguna Lachúa. This is a national parc in the north of Alta Verpaz next to the Mexican border with a really nice lake in the heart. As we left the minibus in front of the entrance, a guy explained us the way to the Ecohotel. This is first a 2.4km way through the forest to a viewing point over the lake and then another 1.8km to the hotel and the bathing point. The forest is great, rainforest as yiou know it from pictures, very green and tall trees. Nice shadow and fresher air, which is awesome in the midday heat. The ecohotel was really eco, we only had a compost toilet, cooked with firewood and the electricity came from a generator.

The beach was awesome, better with less people and less noises. Fishes were swimming around you, you could see the bottom of the lake, nice sunset and listen to howler monkeys while watching the stars and the moon on the night.

Laguna Lachua

I can recommend going there, you have to take your own food, but there is a kitchen you can use and also drinking water (we didn´t know that and carried our water trough the forest). The beds are nice with mosquito nets, very clean and it´s not to hot to sleep. You can also camp there, but with your own tent, which is better, because so much cheaper. It´s not touristic at all, we were the only foreigners there and you should go there. They are also building the street, which is a plus to get there less dirty ;)

different prices for foreigners and guatemaltecos

Katja (Germany), Fabio (Italy) and me at Laguna Lachua

reforestation from I.C.A.

The most of my time in Guatemala I lived in Quetzaltengo, like most of you should know alreday. After my first 2 weeks in Xela having spanish classes I went to a coffee farm, but that wasn´t what I liked. So I moved back to Xela and started working voluntary in the reforestation project of the Spanish school I.C.A. I talked to the director Enrique on a Friday and on Monday Carlos picked me up to go with him to Zona 10, where the tree nursery was. But before we collected seeds in front of a hospital from the Eucalyptus.

The Eucalyptus isn´t actually the main tree in the nuersery, because this tree needs a lot of water, what isn´t that helpfully in the dry season. Other trees are : Alder, Cypress, Pine, Lang Oak, Peruvian Pepper Tree and the Guatemalan Fir. I was only working with the Cypress, Pine and Alder.

What I have done is watering the plants, weeding, transplanting, filling bags with soil, seeding and building protection walls of the cold night wind.

But unfortunately in december almost all of the taller Pines died, so I came to the reforestation in January and the joke was, that the trees now have the same color as my hair. But for me it was kind of a pitiable sight and not funny at all. Later on in January I went twice with Enrique, Carlos, Cesar, Eugen, Luis and his little brother to the mountains to collect seeds of the Alder. This was fun, except the early stand up. Enrique picked me and Eugen up at the school at 6 am and we arrived in the mountains at around 7 to walk a bit more up. Because of the dry season it was very dusty and I have never been that happy to take a shower afterwards. We worked until one and were back in Xela at two. To see the sunrise over Xela from the mountains was worth to stand up that early. And as soon as the sun was out, it got nice warm.

In total it was a lot of fun to work there, now is the season to transplant the babytrees in there bags. That is a lot of work, so the numbers of workers raised from 2 to 10 in the last month. 

To say goodbye I went there with a cake, but I underestimated the numbers of workers and that in the break other family members are coming to have breakfast as well. So finally I coulnd´t catch a piece of my blueberry cake.

collecting seeds

If you want to know more about the reforestation, how they finance thereselves and stuff like that, have a look here: ICA page

Pictures:

tiny Pines

tree nursery

mostly dead plants

breakfast

Xela in the morning

me working