As you may know Viaventure has been running treks with camping through the highlands over many years for leisure and charity trek groups. Usually when we camp on public grounds, like school yards or soccer fields, we bring some donations, either school supplies, soccer shirts and balls etc.
There is one place, Antigua Santa Catarina Ixtahuacan, 2340 mts above sea level located near Nahuala which was largely abandoned by the authorities after the detection and effect felt by the appearance of geological faults a bit more then 10 years ago. Some houses have mayor cracks or even worse .and the church looks like that if someone would have pulled it from one side and stands in an incline
The villagers were offered relocation to an area near km 170 on the interamericana highway, in the so called ''Alaska'' mountain range in a town called "Nueva Santa Catarina Ixtahuacan" which was built on what was basically an untouched highland plateau.
Most of the habitants did leave and relocate to this village but those who stayed back were faced with the challenges that their village was now no longer officially being recognized by local and national government as they had been offered relocation and hadn't taken it.
For about 5 years Viaventure has been camping in the school yard with our groups a few times a year. 3 years ago we donated 2 of our old office computers when we changed the office to flat screen and faster processor.
The purpose of the visit this Saturday was to check everything and to do maintenance on the machines, software updates and some basic training to some of the users. We also installed two new "mouses" as this was really needed.
Mariano and Beat from the office got to the village on mountain bikes as the bike ride to the village was much shorter than doing the big detour via the road, and of course more fun!
Mariano from the Viaventure office did a great job, carrying all the tools needed in his backpack and while Beat went on ( to do some exploring into hidden highland ravines and river valleys) he got all the work done, many thanks to him!!
Mariano with his Students
Profe Juan - The School Director
