Semicolin's Blog

A 6-1/2 minute review of our year:

This is for our friends and family who either attended or couldn't attend our wedding. Thanks to everyone who helped take photographs!

Slightly updated proposal video:




Wedding video:




Click here for full-size pictures that you can download.

Or to see and download non-full size photos from flickr click here.

To download 100 full-size images in a single zip file (300mb) click here.

I hadn't been out of the country since 2003. Okay, so I went to Canada in 2008 and had been into Mexico for work-related travel since then, but a real vacation somewhere that felt real far away is what Elisa and I were wanting. Something Different. So, Guatemala it was.

Our route took us along a pretty typical tourist circuit in a counter-clockwise pattern:
1. Spent as little time in Guatemala city as possible (1 night).
2. 2 days in the Rio Dulce area (a beautiful river on the Caribbean side of the country).
3. 3 days in the Tikal area (hot, humid tropical forest teeming with wildlife and outrageous Maya ruins).
4. 2 days in the Semuc-Champey area to see limestone pools and do a cave tour.
5. 3 days in Antigua (we were luckty to time our visit on a Sunday between Lent and Semana Santa when they do processions and have some floral carpets).
6. 3 days in the Lago Atitlan/Chichicastenango highland area.

For more detail about our itinerary, costs, and a bird list (along with some other wildlife) you can check out this spreadsheet:click here

Once we were in Guatemala, traveling was pretty inexpensive- about $32 per person per day and while we were careful about our spending we weren't quite bare bones; there were some splurges. If you don't count a zipline tour which I bought for Elisa as a birthday gift and $172 of souvenirs and gifts (wool blankets!), travel costs were about $26 per person per day, including national park entry fees, hotels, food (we bought fruit, bread, and grocery stuff for many lunches and breakfasts), and transportation (we took the more expensive tourist shuttles rather than chicken buses for the most part). Note that we only drank 2 beers and 1 pina colada during the entire 2 weeks and that might be difficult for some travelers.

While I had some trepidations of having to donate some items along the way to the local bandido groups, based on stories we heard, we experienced the opposite. I felt quite safe in almost all places, and in one circumstance Elisa left an mp3 player on a shuttle and hotel owners and shuttle drivers went to great lengths to get it back to us 2 days later (aventurasturisticas.com was the company, but we booked everything through the hotels in Flores and Semuc-Champey). We did hear stories of some pick-pocketing (in Santa Elena) and one robbery at gunpoint (during a guided trip up Acatenango Volcano) from fellow travelers who were a bit off the more routine tourist path.


The Maya, both past and present, are impressive people. Having etched out not just a life, but a great civilization out of the dense tropical forest was fascinating to see and learn about. And I was very pleased to see many of the Maya in the highlands practicing traditional activities. I understand this is quickly changing with increasing prevalence of cell phones and the pouring in of money ($3.5 billion annually is what I read from the Moon guide) from family members working in the U.S. and I feel fortunate to have witnessed at least a little bit of what I felt was authentic, traditional Maya culture. I was not impressed by some of the agricultural practices, such as plowing up and down steep, bare slopes (no contouring). But I realize this is a product of taking "green revolution" flat land techniques into the hills, where more ag has moved due to population and development pressures. I'm sure this is a challenge Peace Corps volunteers in the country are addressing.

The Maya and Guatemalans are strong people and hard workers from what I witnessed. An American medical volunteer we met was bewildered by the poverty in the country despite a year-round growing season, many natural resources, and ample ecotourism opportunities. I agree that Guatemala has a lot of potential, but can see how a long history of political turmoil (including a CIA-assisted coup that deposed a democratically elected president and led to a succession of dictators that lasted for decades), natural disasters, and unfair trade ("aid") agreements take a while to recover from. I hope Guatemala can find its own way to build its economy that's not based on drug trade.

On that happy note, here's a slideshow of our trip (that hopefully contributed positively to the Guatemalan economy). After you click on the link below, click on the "SHOW INFO" on the upper right to show photo descriptions. Approx. 10min:
Colin & Elisa's Slideshow

OK, new this month from a trip back east: The weather was *much* nicer than last year's North Carolina deluge trip that we spent with Hurricane Ida. We spent about 25 hours driving from New Mexico to Kentucky to sample the famous overhanging red sandstone pockets at the Red River Gorge for three days. Of course we savored pizza and met some sprightly, fun folks camping at Miguel's.


Four more hours put us on the New River Gorge bridge in West Virginia, second in height in America only to the Royal Gorge Bridge in Arkansas. And driving right under the bridge brought solid sandstone cracks that took trad gear very nicely but in general had slippery feet. Roger's Rocky Top Retreat was a bit disappointing after Miguel's cheery campground (which was also half the price) but was the best option around. Just one night there and a second day climbing under the bridge and we packed up to visit Elisa's family.


A good trip with unseasonably good weather for the first weekend in November!

To satisfy my curiosity about whether I'm getting much benefit from riding the train to work, I did some quick calculations: After six & half months, I've calculated about $173 in savings from commuting on the New Mexico Rail Runner train. That's averaging a little more than three trips on the train every 2 weeks, which is about 33% of my work days. Lately I've been closer to averaging about 2 days per week on the train, so a little better.

It's not a whole lot of savings- about $3.76 savings per day if my gas (in-)efficiency is 19.5 mpg and if gas/petrol costs $2.69 USD (the approxiamte cost for the last few months in the Santa Fe area). But $170 bucks saved every six months can buy meals at some nice restaurants, get some nice "toys" for hobbies, or can be saved to offset all my other driving for road trips. Less wear & tear on my truck, a little smaller carbon footprint, and 170 miles of exercise on my bike are other perks. The disadvantages have been less flexibility in my work schedule (which is why I don't take the train every day), the whole commute takes about 30-minutes longer per day than driving (however, I can read and I also watched all of Season 5 and 6 of the TV series "Lost" on my 10-year old Archos media player), and I've had to wait at the station for an extra hour when I missed my train going home (twice in 6 1/2 months).