Hey everyone,
This past Saturday - Wednesday I was fortunate enough to travel to Guatemala with my brothers and father to go deep sea fishing for a few days. The trip was great, and very eye opening. I went not knowing many things about Guatemala and it was quickly realized it is a very poor 3rd world country in a lot of parts. We got there and had a two hour car ride to the place we were staying. We didn't go out of the resort we were staying at unless we were going to the boats to go fishing so I didn't get too many photos outside of the fishing.
We landed in Guatemala City and headed out packed in a van. I got a few shots outside of the window but that was about it.
When we were walking to the van a woman with her baby walked right next to us asking for money the whole way, there were kids trying to sell stuff and people willing to help you with your bags for money. People were trying any way to get money just outside the airport.
We headed out and I tried to get some pictures of the area and any art in the area, but there wasn't too much there. Here is one of the few things I saw.
We continued on and quickly realized how dangerous the country could be. Every gas station and nicer business had an armed guard. There was one place with at least 10 armed soldiers with Galil Rifles guarding the port and power plant.
We saw people like this everywhere.
The sides of the streets were very dirty and almost all of the buildings had a wall around them with barbed wire on top. Shops had bars over the front entrance with a small opening to do transactions through. Trash was everywhere in the city and the air quality was very poor.
There was a traffic jam going out of the city and panhandlers were walking down the center of the road trying to sell anything and everything. People were selling flowers, gum, phone chargers, snacks and everything small enough to carry.
We got out of the city and we could see a lot of the countryside, which was gorgeous. I took this picture randomly on the drive back and until yesterday didn't realize the significance of the mountain in the picture. The mountain in the picture is Mt. Pacaya, which erupted the very next day causing thousands to evacuate. There are satellite pictures of the smoke going for miles. We never saw the mountain again due to either the smoke from the eruption or the smog and when we drove back to leave it was 4am.
When we got to the resort there was an armed guard at the gate as well. The resort was great and had a lot of really cool animals there. There were parrots and peacocks walking around. One day when we got back a huge male peacock was standing right outside our room.
They also had a Toucan.
There was a resort dog who was a 7 month old pug named spike. Spike would bite your shoe laces and tug on them until you pet and played with him. He would also playfully bite you, but his bites were full on bites.
Now onto the fishing pictures. When we went to the dock we saw the Brigitte Bardot of the Sea Shepherd organization. Apparently they go out and disturb the shark fishing that is almost 200 miles off the coast.
This was the first Sail I caught and brought into the boat. Roughly a 125 sailfish and was the biggest we caught the whole trip.
Then my brother caught the most gorgeous sailfish we saw.
It was a really fun trip, but I am glad to be back.
