First Days at Hotel Backpackers

So here we are at Hotel Backpackers, the first stop of our trip in Guatemala. This is where all volunteers at Casa Guatemala come before taking the boat trip down the river to the orphanage. We showed up here on Thursday after flying into Guatemala City. We hopped a bus rather quickly, neither of us was very excited about the masses of American fast food and the condition of most of the city. In our 20 minute trip from the airport to the bus station we saw Macdonalds, Taco Bell, Wendys ( I fought the temptation to get a frosty actually ), Burger King, Chucky Cheese, etc.

It was a six hour trip on the nicest bus I've ever been on probably (way better than greyhound!) The road was paved the entire way here as well as being in very good shape, surprising to me as my bus time in Costa Rica was a very different experience. It was dark when we arrived in Rio Dulce and we still thought we would have to get a ride to the backpackers hotel. It turns out our place was only a short walk from the bridge where we had the bus drop us off. Here we met a few volunteers who showed us the ropes to staying at the backpackers hotel. Amalia from France who showed up the same day we did. She managed to meet up with the guy who was meeting us at the airport, but we didn't see him! There is also a couple from Spain who are here working on a web application that the hotel staff will use to book guests at the backpackers hotel, they also have improved the Internet situation here ( its ADSL if you were wondering ) Lots of Guatemalans seem to be into gadgets, cell phones are very popular. So is putting some sort of meat on everything, powdered chicken broth seems to be the biggest thing. I know this because I've been working in the kitchen here.

Rebecca has been working in the restaurant waiting on some tables, cleaning glasses, and counting silverware ( they do a daily inventory of the few precious items ) I have been working in the kitchen doing dishes, chopping things, and hoarding forks to throw Rebeccas count off. Today I caught a fish through a hole in the kitchen, did I mention the whole place is built above the river? It sure makes the sink drains easy to maintain. I think it was a bluegill, one of the cooks caught more of them and then fried them up for a snack ( after coating them in powdered chicken broth of course ) As volunteers, we get to order off of a smaller menu which includes food that they think we would want such as Hamburgers and Fries, Deep fried eggrolls ( they call these tacos ) Deep fried rice, Spaghetti with powdered chicken sauce. Needless to say we have been trying to eat what the Guatemalans are eating. They all get made their own food which is usually black beans, rice, eggs with peppers, and tortillas. The tortillas are pretty different, they are thicker and are some blend of corn and wheat flour. The best thing is they are made every day by a Qechue woman who doesn't do much else but smile a lot. Everyone says we are going to get sick of rice and beans so we should eat restaurant food, but we are already sick of deep fried things coated in chicken flavoring.

And now for the living situation. We began with an entire room for ourselves but all the beds were smaller than a twin size. We haven't seen a bed bigger than this anywhere yet so it looks like we will spend the next six months sweaty and smothering each other but we are happy we got the mosquito nets. We actually haven't seen any mosquitoes yet but are getting bit by something.... When we go to Casa Guatemala we will be living in the couples house. This may or may not mean a bigger bed but it does mean less housemates.

We're going to be here for at least a week, everybody working here stays at the backpackers hotel so they can determine if you are a weirdo before they send you off to work at the orphanage. It seems to work well, today they effectively weeded out a guy that definitely not here for the right reasons. After asking us if we did drugs, insinuating he wanted to do some with us, he told Amalia that he had 8 months to live and various other conflicting stories.