Hasta Luego Guatemala

Dear Guatemala,

Thanks for a great 4 weeks! As I reflect back on our time together, I can't help but think about the next time we meet and I. CAN'T. WAIT.

Why you might ask? It's obvious::

1) Guatamalans are some of the most sincerely friendly people I have met.
2) Your country is beautiful.
3) I have grown to love "chicken buses."
4) Hiking volcanos is a BLAST!

That being said I am glad to be making my way back to the states.  I can't wait to sleep in my bed. To take a shower with perfectly hot water. To be able to throw my toilet paper down the toilet. And salad - JESUS, how I've missed salad.

As I reflect on my time away, as always I am so very greatful to have the opportunity to travel abroad to experience another culture and to meet new people and practice medicine on a new health system.  I know I'm a privileged white male that grew up with a loving family, in a safe neighborhood, with clean drinking water, never worrying whether or not I had access to healthcare and never going to bed hungry.  This is definitely not the case for most Guatemalans and often times not the case for many of my patients in the USA.

I hope that everyone reading this realizes how lucky we are to live in the US. To have clean drinking water, minimal to no corruption in our government or out law enforcement officers, great roads, access to healthcare, access to public school past 6th grade, I could go on and on.

I urge you all to consider traveling to a less developed country to experience this first hand. If you can't that's cool, but next time you are getting upset about how the Barista at Starbucks screwed up your order, or your primary care doctor is running 30 minutes late or your internet is slow, it could be worse. Much worse.

Please consider supporting Pop Wuj and all of the amazing work that they do!

Here's the link again:  http://www.pop-wuj.org/volunteer/partners.html

Thanks for following me on my trip! Can't wait until my next adventure!

Take care,

Bradley

Antigua

Last weekend (my last full weekend in Guatemala) we decided to travel to Antigua. So Matt, Alex and I hopped in a checked bus early Saturday morning and made our way west to Antigua.

So first off - our chicken bus driver was a LUNATIC. At this point we have been on quite a few chicken buses, and they always take corners a little fast and speed through residential areas like a bat out of hell, but this guys was just "loco."  It was reminiscent of the double decker bus from Harry Potter driven by a shrunken head - luggage was flying off the overhead area and smashing innocent grandmas and you had to have two hands white knuckling the handle bars and two feet firmly planted on the floor to avoid being dislodged from your seat. I would say that maybe it was just that we were gringos and didn't know this is how things were done, but on this bus, native Guatemalan and gringo alike was white knuckled wondering if each turn may be our last.

Anyways, we survived and made it to Antigua (not mentioning our connecting chicken bus which was so full that each seat had three adults and then people in the aisle) in one piece!

WHAT A BEAUTIFUL CITY!  Apparently Antigua used to be the capital of Guatemala so there were a large number of Catholic Churches built that now lie abandoned and in ruin due to a decrease in population when the capital was moved to Guatemala City.

So we took a walking tour and ate and drank our way through the city.

Here is a selection of pics:

All in all it was a great day! So we made our way back to our luxury hostel and hung out on the roof deck partaking in a few beers!

Here are some pictures from our hostel:

We headed back on a Sunday! All in all a great weekend - other than my bout with traveler's diarrhea. But we'll leave that for another story!

Champerico

Last Friday we took a day trip to the pacific coast of Guatemala! Champerico is a coastal town that is NOT touristy at all - that is unless you are a Guatemalan tourist.

We woke up early to take a chicken bus to the coast... it was about a 2.5 hour endeavor to get from Xela to Champerico and we needed to switch buses once in Retalhuleu.

When we arrived on the coast the temperature was easily 20-30 degrees warmer than in Xela. It was warm, it was sunny and it was humid.  Perfect beach day!

So we found a restaurant that we used as our home base and then grabbed a few liters of beer and walked down to the beach. It. Was. Epic.

Black sand beaches with warm water... it was heaven!

Here  are some pics:

And to make the weather and seafood and beer even better? On our way home in the chicken bus we heard "Total Eclipse of the Heart" in Spanish.

I love this country.  Can't wait to retire here!

Until next time,
- B

Last week was great!  We had an awesome time providing medical care in a small village outside of Xela.

Here was my work station last week:

We had a few mobile clinics which was awesome. Again, the malnutrition rate in the kids here is horrific. Something I never see at my clinic in Boston.

Good news: Pop Wuj is doing amazing work in the Xela area! If you want to donate please use the link below. There is so much to be done and every donation counts!

http://www.pop-wuj.org/volunteer/partners.html

Anyways, we have clinic the rest of this week and then I'm going to the coast on Friday and to Antigua on Saturday/Sunday.

Stay tuned.

-Braulio