Santa Anita, a finca owned by ex-guerillas

The finca Santa Anita, about 2 hours from Quetzaltenango, is a coffee farm bought by ex-guerilla fighters more than 10 years again. There are some interesting politic and non politics murals:

Welcome to Santa Anita
Together we'll build a  real democracy with the heart on the left
URNG: Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unit
For more information on URNG, click here

We live to fight, We live to succeed

Rodrigo Asturias was born in Guatemala City in 1939, the first-born son of Nobel Prize-winning author Miguel Ángel Asturias. Following the outbreak of the Civil War, he joined the Guatemalan Workers Party ( PGT) guerrilla group. During this time he was arrested, tried, and jailed, after which he spent seven years in exile in Mexico. He returned to Guatemala in 1971 and helped form the Revolutionary Organization of the People in Arms (ORPA). He fought under the nom de guerre Gaspar Ilom, which he took from a character in Hombres de maíz, one of his father's novels. When four guerrilla groups, including these two, combined to create the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) in 1982, Asturias emerged as one of the four leaders of its general command. He was the only one of the leaders not to participate in signing the peace agreement reached with the government in the early 1990s. He died in 2005.

a poem written by a friend when he was a refugee in the States after fighting in Guatemala

Green children from the mountains
It has been almost a decade of fresh memories like the morning perfume
the laughts of the mayas are today in my nostalic eardrums
and smiles, quetzales, volcanoes, coffee plantation
stroke your day and remind me that
our town will better die with wild courage than beeing a slave!

The hotel
They painted their history for the 10 year anniversary of the community

during the civil war the army came to destroy their homes

They have to flee to Mexico

After the peace accord they came back to get reunited with their families and gave away their guns

they bought the land and are happy and collect coffee

the peace and the mayan cross

building bridges between the cultures
on the right it's America with hands of all the youths who participated coming from different countries

In memory of a young girl who died at 19
she was involved in the ecotourism project

For more information on Santa Anita, click here

Loma Linda, an other ecotourism project

On Tuesday, I went to visit Loma Linda a Community close to Nueva Alianza and who is developping an ecotourism project. Luisa, a Canadian friend, has been living there for the last 2 months and asked me to come with her to pick up a computer in Chimaltenango and bring it to the community. The computers are brought to Guatemala by a NGO named Computers for Guatemala . We were supposed to do it in a day Xela- Chimaltenango -Lake Atitlan -Reu and Loma Linda but because of manifestations we got stucked close to Retalhuleu for 2 hours 1/2 and decided to go back to Xela at night and try again the next day.

There had been lots of manifestations around Guatemala lately, people blocking the main access roads like at 4 Caminos, Los Encuentros, Retalhuleu, Huehuetenango and the roads going to Peten. The reasons are:
- Campesinos wanting the government to close a mine close to San Marcos (North of Guatemala) which is contamining the environement
- Campesinos asking financial assitance for agriculture, fertilizers and increase of the salaries
- people working in the health department asking the governement to give back the cut of 375 million of Quetzales in the budget
- and people were manifesting too against the exorbitant price of the electricity

So on Tuesday morning we arrived at Loma Linda. It's a community of 180 families living 1 hour from Retalhuleu, close to Nueva Alianza. They have a very different story. The land was bought by a Spanish priest in 1976 who invited the families to come and work. The community has very strict rules like no alcool, no cheating and no grossiping. If someone break one of the rule, he has to leave the Community.
They have started an ecotourism project and are building a small hotel all in wood with 10 beds to be able to accomodate the visitors. But their main problem right now is not having access to internet. But now that they have a computer, they are in the process to get acess.
The other problem is the access to the community. I have always thought the road to Nueva Alianza was bad but compared to the one to Loma Linda, it's really good!!!

I did a 2 hour hike to their waterfall with explanation of the diferents plants. A nice hike along the river and with view on the valley. I didn't have time to do the whole hike but I'll be back.
Between October and December, you can see the Quetzal, the national bird. Because they have a special plant the Quetzal eats, he comes very close to town. So I definitly need to go back there at this period because who is not dreaming to see a Quetzal?





View on the Community















A nice hike along the river






















The waterfall



































With my Canadian friend Luisa