Vehicles in Guatemala in a day.

Oscar was driving today so I grabbed my 70mm-200mm and sat shotgun to hopefully see something unusual but all I seen was normal vehicles. At the orphanage we were working at they  wanted to paint a moral on the wall so we went into town (Chimaltenango) to get some paint and while we were waiting I took some pics as the traffic went by. The buses a.k.a. chicken buses are a normal mode of transportation. The  Pizza Hut motorcycle is a very common delivery vehicle. McDonalds also has delivery bikes.                                                                                                               Why would someone even build a road any wider?                                                                                                                                             This must be a 2 ton pickup!                                                                                                                                                                   Gas on it!                                                                                       Whew! That was a heavy bag too put up here. But hey I gotta make my 3 dollers a day.                                                                                                                                           Did someone say inspections.                                                        When it’s time to deliver pizza it’s time to deliver pizza, besides no one’s using the middle line. Also some places they even have bike lanes (shoulders).                                                                                                                                                   Now that’s a mini van!

Playing with my new lens that my friend got for me.

I’m loving the depth of field (2.8) this lens possesses and was just playing around and enjoying my new toy on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. I decided to also post a picture of Agua  that I took on the way to work the other mourning. Oh and the bottom picture is a small shrub that I got and then trimmed and am attempting to turn into a Bonsai tree (a miniature tree). It takes years until it looks like a small tree.

Landslides and what not.

At Amor del nino (an orphanage) they had a landslide that got within 15 feet of the one building. Their drain for the washer (which they have to use a lot everyday) used to drain down over the bank. We think the concrete pipe was leaking and over the years made a big void underground and when the hurricane hit the other month it created a big landslide. Anyway we dug a 6 ft by 4 ft by 7 ft hole by hand and found the old pipe. Then we built a box around the pipe, busted out the old pipe and ran a new pipe down over the mt. After we build the box up to the top of the hole we are planning to put a grate on top so it also catches the roof water and surface water.

The other pictures are of a project we are helping with at Vida (another orphanage). The building is going to be a kitchen and storage area.

Christina and Nicole’s 3 and 1 year picture’s

We took the work team to Antigua on Thursday and I thought it would be a good time to take Nicole’s 1 year picture and Christina’s 3 year picture. We walked around inside a big church that was built in the early 1700’s and then collapsed about 50 years later from a earthquake.

More lava pics.

After we went to see the lava more people wanted to go (I should start a tour group). So on Saturday I took my family and a friend here  at school. This time we went during the afternoon.  

Lava

After Pacaya erupted another crater formed at the base. We heard that lava was flowing so Nick and I went exploring to try to get some lava pics. We had seen in the paper that this new crater is in Los Pocitos so we went on Google maps and found this little village. We had never been over in those boondocks but we figured we would just go and ask. When we got close to the town it got real foggy but we kept going anyway and when we got to Los Pocitos we talked to a local and he offered to take us up to the lava. So he got in the car with us and we drove as far as we could and then we walked about 30 minutes up through a pasture to the crater. After we got to where it was erupting it finally cleared off and was very awesome. I never thought I would get this close to lava shooting about 100 ft in the air and a river of lava about 30 ft wide. Before the big eruption of Pacaya this pasture was just a normal pasture without lava flowing out of the ground and  all they had was a beautiful view of Pacaya.