18-Jun-2006 -- El Progreso contains 15N/90W. From historic times, this region was called Guastatoya or Huastatoya; this name comes from the Nahuatl: “Guaxhtl” means morros and “Atoyac” which means last. A morro is the fruit that comes from the morro tree. This fruit is not edible for humans, but often cows delight on its sweet smelling flavor. Its shell is very hard and the locals use it to make vases, bowls or Guacales to dispense water.
In this region, the cold climate ends giving place to the hot temperatures. The northern territory is crossed by The Sierra de Chuacús which in turns gives birth to The Sierra de Las Minas. In the South, we can appreciate some mountains that are part of Sierra Madre. The center is flat. The Rivers Motagua or Grande and Guastatoya run in this territory receiving several smaller tributary rivers.
There are several agricultural products in this region: Cotton, tobacco, sugar cane, corn, beans, cacao, tomatoes, vanilla, coffee, lemon tea, and a variety of fruits.
After taking mom to the airport in Guatemala City, we began our drive on the route to The Atlantic (CA-9). It took us a long time to reach San Augustín Acasaguastlán due to the highway turning into a 2 lines highway. Part of it was washed away due to the constant rain, land slides and also, traffic was backed up a bit because of a traffic accident: A truck went into a ravine and there were two tow trucks trying to bring it up. We had to wait a little.
Our GPS was pointing toward a small village named Las Sidras (a fruit that is a mix between a lemon and a tangerine, very hard skin; big in size) We left the car parked under a tree and began asking questions to a man by the name of Juan Manuel Hernández whom was accompanied by three children: Francisco Gutierrez Lima, Elvis Segura Gonzales and Jaqueline Gutierrez Lima. The car could not make it all the way up, because the road ended shortly after.
We noticed that the dirt had this particular shiny appearance, almost like gold dust. With the intense sun, it gave reflections of shine sparkles as we stepped our way up.
We came up to an old sugar mill. Anabella had tried to explain to me in the past, how the locals extracted the juice out of the sugar cane and now it made more sense as she demonstrated to me with real props and utensils, how it is done.
We stopped in a house up on the hills. The owner gave us water to drink and was very interested in our endeavor. We continued until we reached our destination near La Piedra del Gavilán (The chicken hawk’s stone). The point was near some big trees, but we could not reach it due to the terrain: filled with briar thorns and unpassable underbrush. Our GPS showed us as being 15 feet from the confluence.