Not many people

get to see an active volcano from mere feet away
and a week later see and photograph a Quetzal,
the rare national bird of Guatemala. I've been
a photographing fiend this past month or so.
I've gone through at least 12 rolls of 36 exp film.
I've ordered myself a new lens too, the first in
almost 15 years. My disk came for the computer
today, so I could be up and scanning some of these
photos in the next few days.

Picture of the Quetzal I saw Sunday 

Cimbing an active volcano

My son was here a few months back and never saw it
due to clouds. Other friends saw very little.
Well lately Pacaya has been active, I can see the
lava go up in the air at night with my binoculars.
Today I climbed it, up close and personal. It
is the "easiest" of the volcanos to climb people
tell me...which also tells me that I'm currently
in no shape to climb the others. It was a great
time, shot over 100 pictures with my film camera.
Hopefully they came out, it was a beautiful day
and off in the distance, Fuego belched a big bunch
of grey ash and steam. Enjoy the snaps I took
with the digital camera.

Pacaya's newest cone spits lava with Fuego, Acatenango and Agua in the background 

Looking back at the trail on the way to the top of Pacaya 8 Jan 05 

Hemo the Magnificent

where have I been....(and where have YOU been?)

I'm finishing the 9th week of a cold/sinus/ear infection.
I thought I was getting better, but today my sinuses are
hurting again.
I've had a CAT scan, and twice a fiber optic camera
wiggled up my nose and took a lighted tour of my
sinus cavities. I got to watch, live and in livng
color, on a 15 inch or so color monitor a mere 2 ft
or so in front of my face. It reminded me of the
movie in grade school science class...Hemo the
Magnificent...which is a clue to my age.

The first tour, the sinuses were clearly infected,
even to the layman. This Tuesday, they appeared to
be a picture of health, but my left ear is still so
clogged (and possibly the ear drum ruptured) that I
can't hear out of it. So I started yet two more
medicines. I'm sick of being sick though. The
second camera tour was also a little worring...Doc had
that thing jammed a good three inches or more in
there, he went left, right, up, down and all around...
and you know what...I never noticed any brains at all.

In other news, Pacaya has been very active of late,
last night and this evening I could see the lava
shooting up. I'm scheduled to climb it on Saturday
with a group, but if the lava is actually flying into
the air, we may have to cut our hike short...its
pretty hot if the rock is melted!

Despite feeling terrible, we've seen a bit more of
the country, I'm waiting to get my slides back, but
we've been to Chichicastenago, Queztaltenango, and
spent 4 days at Lake Atitlan (see "she married me?"
for photos) where we spent time hanging out as well
as a little time in Santiago Atitlan, and walked
around Panajachel for almost a whole day. Just watching
the colors and light on the lake and San Pedro (volcano)
could have occupied all my time though.

My computer died again a couple weeks ago. Waiting
for a harddrive. I killed it when I tried to fix it.
It had problems either because I was overzealous in
keeping junk off of it, or because the significant other
used Internet Explorer on it.

Hopefully I'll post more soon...like that book parents
could write, or my New Year's resolutions. (I actually
have a history of keeping some of mine...have any of
you seen me wear a watch in the past 7 or 8 years?)