8/14/16 9:00 AM
The 2016 AMIGOS, “fresh” off a red-eye flight to Guatemala
In Guatemala the roads have lots of speed bumps, called tumalos. They are very effective in slowing traffic when traveling through the many small villages on the way to Ixcan. In one 40 mile stretch I counted 52 tumalos. But life in Guatemala is full of tumalos, lack of electricity, sanitation, water treatment, adequate health care, the list goes on.
Today we encountered a small tumalo as we prepare to travel to Ixcan to begin our Enfoque Ixcan/Amigos Eye Care mission trip. There is construction on the highway and the van coming to pick us up has been delayed by a couple of hours. This means that when we finally get on our way, we’ll probably encounter more delay as we pass through the same construction site.
Taking good advantage of this downtime, most of the students and doctors on our team are at the market buying gifts or searching for a bakery to supply our day’s travel. I’m guarding the luggage and getting caught up on e-mail here at the hotel. I’ve found the one place where I can get a good internet connection.
Internet at last! Dr. Pike to catch up with email as he guards the luggage.
Hopefully we’ll be on our way in a couple of hours, with a minimum of tumalos.
Scott Pike
Enfoque Ixcán