Guatemala - Part One

I started this series over on Instagram, but never finished it. Trying it out again over here :)

Truthfully this story begins before I was born. Shortly after my parents married, they traveled the world together (well not the whole world, but they sure did explore many beautiful places!)

Somewhere along the way, they encountered a family with young children who were unschooling/homeschooling on the road. Connecting with that family inspired something within my parents. They knew deep in their beings that they would do something similar when their kids came earthside.

Fast forward a decade+ we were a family of 5 and my parents decided it was time to take a family sabbatical with us (we were 4, 7 & 9, gosh my parents were brave)! My mom was doing research about possible places, Guatemala was not even on her radar/short list, but she somehow landed on the fresh new website of @escuelacaracol !! The school was not even a year old at the time, yet she knew it was exactly where we needed to be (thanks mama!). So off to this tiny and, at the time, relatively unknown village we went!

When I was nine, there were wide open spaces and trees to climb, my siblings and I would walk home from school alone, meandering down the paths in search of jasper and obsidian. We lived across the path from @laspiramidesdelka and I would walk into the gardens and meditate. Little nine year old me was a hoot and she was also the sweet pea that feel in love with yoga. Shout out to good teachers and role models. In those first yoga classes, I learned how to breath deeply + play though intentional movement!

There were no big stores in town so we’d take the boat to Pana every week to stock up on essentials and wandered though the open air markets for fresh veggies. The colors + smells + sounds were vibrant! Those lancha rides were bouncy. Through stories + myths + lived experience we learned to have reverence and respect for Lago Atitlán.

This was life as I knew it. So many of the roots of who I am today were seeds planted on that first trip. I’m not even gonna try to sum up a year’s worth of experiences into this, but am excited to keep sharing snippets 🫶