Too Hot to Handle!

Buenos Dias!
Yesterday, Sunday, was different, the most "touristy" day of our visit here to the central uplands of Guatemala. No work in the village. Rather, we took a little drive, then a little horseback ride, up a mountain. An actively erupting volcano, to be exact. It's called Mount Pecaya, and it's one of 3 volcanoes that are actively erupting right now in this country. There are over 30 active volcanoes, but just these 3 are in eruption.
It's an incredible scene to see flowing lava up close. At one point, we were maybe 20 feet from a slow moving stream of it. Some of our guys got even closer, close enough that they could have roasted hot dogs or marshmallows over it with a 4-foot stick (kids at the bottom try to sell you sticks and marshmallows, but we didn't buy). We tossed baseball-size rocks into the lava and watched them melt and disappear. We took pictures and videos, I'll try to post some of them shortly.
To get to the volcano, we drove to about 7,000 feet of elevation, then got on horses to go up another 2,000-3,000 feet to where the lava spills out of the mountainside and flows downhill. That last stretch is very steep, in very poor footing, and that's why you do it on horses. The horses here are not exactly in thoroughbred shape, and I worried about my Perla getting me up there, but she did. Then, we walked maybe 1,000 feet farther over an old, cool lava bed to get to the fresh lava, glowing red-hot at over 2,000 degrees F. It's awesome, maybe the most spectacular natural phenomena I've ever seen in person. You can feel and smell the heat from far, far away, and as you get closer it gets very intense, something like standing way too close to a big bonfire. In North America, they'd never let you get this close to an active volcano. But, we're in Guatemala, and there are no rules here.
After the volcano, we spent the afternoon in Antigua, a regional shopping mecca. I didn't buy anything, because I'll be back in 2 weeks with another group of folks, and I don't want to lug stuff around with me. But, Coulter Goodman from our group bought a beautiful black cowboy hat that makes me jealous. He looks good in it! I ask him where he bought it, so I can go back there in 2 weeks. Shopping here in Guatemala is, of course, like shopping in Mexico, every price is negotiable, and you are expected to haggle. I'm not a great haggler, just give me a price and if I want it, I'll buy.
The whole day Sunday was an off and on conversation about buying milk goats here in Guatemala. Denny, Ryan, John, Paul, Christie, me, we all keep thinking about buying a goat or goats and giving them to poor families with little kids who desparately need milk. Paul and Christie live here and know the people better than we do. They think that if you give a goat to a family, they might just sell it and take the money now. Or, rather than feed the milk to their own family, they might sell the milk for the cash. So, we need to choose the family carefully, and have somebody here follow up with them regularly. Paul and Christie know some people not far from where we are here in Chimaltenango who raise goats, we're going to send someone today to inquire about buying one or 2, or more, price, etc. We could buy a couple of goats, and try our experiment. We've met 3 or 4 Guatemalan families who could be candidates for a goat.
Today, we're building houses again, farther up the hillside in a village, so it will be a little more challenging. Because our house building has gone faster than expected, we've added 2 more to our goal for the week, now will try to do 12 by Wednesday. Our skills are getting better, we'll get them done. Adios for now!