Volunteers Needed

First of all, the volunteers that have been on site, You Are Awesome! The help you are giving is very necessary and appreciated. Please continue your efforts.

We are still in need of more Volunteers.

Schedule of Volunteers

Date: Mon trough Sunday
Leaving Time: 9am - 1pm
Leaving From: Y Tu Piña Tambien (1era Avenida Sur No. 11, Antigua, Guatemala)

What to bring?

- Rubber boots, rubber gloves
- Hat
- Shovel
- Bottle water
- Long pants (no shorts!)
- Sunblock
- Cell phone
- Tifoidea shot (be sure to get one)
- Lots of energy!!!

For more information and donations please contact us via FB or call Blake at: 4298-8159 ; Pablo at: 5876-7355 or Emilio at: 4768-1433

Items that are needed to support a sustainable recovery:
Please donate money for items that cannot be donated. $$$$$
NEEDED IMMEDIATELY:
-Diesel fuel
-Anti-Bacterial soap
-Brooms/ cleaning supplies
-Medical Masks
-Bedding
-Large Pry bars
-Buckets


***Please bring your donations by OldTown Outfitters. (5 Ave Sur #12C)

Tropical Storm Agatha

I am sure you have heard of the recent volcanic eruption near Guatemala City,
but we have been affected more by recent Tropical Storm Agatha battering
us here in Guatemala dumping an unprecedented amount rain in 4 days.
Water saturated soil has prevented the constant rain from
being absorbed, thus the entire country has been inundated with water.
Rivers have jumped their banks, bridges have been taken out, and mudslides from flash floods have buried villages and made roads impassable leaving many communities completely cut off from the outside world.




When the worst of the flooding happened a few days ago, we shut our doors
and began collecting food, water, and clothing to distribute to the most
heavily hit areas around the Antigua valley. We were absolutely shocked to
travel just 5 short kilometers down the road from Antigua to find
neighboring villages covered in some places by as much as 9 feet of mud.
For those of you who are familiar with San Miguel Escobar and Ciudad Vieja (towns along our famous “Valley Ride”) route, a massive landslide has completely destroyed 44 homes, partially destroyed countless others and displaced over 200 families. We have since gone there as well with shovels and food to help the people dig themselves out.

Many villages are completely covered in mud and the villagers are left with
nothing. Their houses and belongings completely covered or washed away.
We carried hot food, canned and dried food, and clothing to try and reach
as many people as possible.



Supplies are starting to trickle in from abroad and make it out to the areas
most in need. However, this is going to be a long rebuilding period and
many will be left without. In efforts to provide more long term support to
folks, we are trying to raise money for the following projects:

1. Rebuild homes.
2. Provide basic necessities [food, water, diapers, toilet paper, etc.]
3. Building supplies for reconstruction.
4. Long term aid for folks who lost their entire crop for the year.
5. Vaccines for disease from standing water and thick mud.



We are seeking any amount of donation to help in these efforts. The US dollar goes a long way down here, so any assistance is greatly appreciated. Old Town Outfitters as well as other concerned citizens, business owners and NGO’s are working with a 501c(3) Non-Profit organization from the affected area to channel the funds to those affected. Please request a receipt if needed (only donations over $500 please).

**************************************************************

Please see below for 2 options on how to make a cash donation. Note any deposit should be flagged with “Agatha relief”.

OPTION #1 BANK DEPOSIT

Deposit Info:
Citibank
NY 111, World Trade St., N.Y. 10043
ABA 021000089 or SWIFT CITIUS33
TO BE DEOSITED TO ACCOUNT: 36236584
I/N/O BANCO REFORMADOR, S.A. - GUATEMALA
For Further Credit Account # 4761000494
I/N/O Matthew Ryan Hartell


OPTION #2 PAYPAL.com

Follow this link which will take you through the steps to pay with any major credit card online to our account here in Guatemala. Please label any deposit with “Agatha relief”

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=Q95PGBVM9BLZE

A Paypal account is not needed, just a Credit Card or Bank Account.

Please look for the Continue without signing in link if you do not
wish to use a Paypal account.


Thanks,
Old Town Outfitters team

Pan American games

This weekend Guatemala hosted the mountain bike portion of the Pan Am games. Our young buck guide and star old town race team captain Pancho was leading the charge of the Guatemalan hopefuls.


Pancho warming up pre race

The racing was fierce with several top US and Canadian riders in the field. Guate was clearly out gunned but still showing up and taking care of business



Todd Wells holding on to the #1 spot up the climb. The hill of pain was a move making spot where a strong rider could make a critical pass as the weaker riders were pushed off their bikes by roots and off cambered steep sand.



Young gunner Pancho manages to keep both wheels turning on the climbs which helped him roll onto a 13th spot finish in the Sub 23 group.



At just over 18 years old Panchito is gonna be a force to be reckoned with at next years games. Thad right a 13th spot finish in his first major competition and barely old enough to compete.
Watch out gringos Pancho will be on the
Move next year!
Congrats on a great race Panchito and the rest of Team Guatemala.

BIKE Magazine Sneak Preview

A few months back the good lads at BIKE MAGAZINE sent a team down to Guatemala to check out the mountain biking scene here. Needless to say we made sure to show them a good time. Jordan Manley took some stellar images of our trip. Having seen his images I thought maybe he had shot in some other location. Damn does he have a good eye. Keep an eye out for his stuff in BIKE and most every SKI publications.

-taking in the sunset in the Cuchumantanes-

A few of the photos from the trip that will soon grace the pages of this summers BIKE magazine telling the story have been leaked to us here at the shop. I figured I would go ahead and post ya a few of these jewels.

-Atitlan Singletrack at sunset-
We greased the trails at Atitlan for a few days making sure to hit all the favorites and a couple stealh new trails as well. We had amazing weather and I think Jordans images can attest to that.

-Mateo roundin it out on a new ride "Ladies Choice"-

Not sure how he can make these images so bad ass, but they're pretty stellar.

-Luisa Getting nasty on the Santa Cat-

For more images go to Jordan's website and hold tight for the images to come out this summer.
-Traffic jam on Volcan de Agua-

Western Highlands Mayan Trail

One of my favorite trips that we do here at Old Town Outfitters is the 3 day trek across the ancient Mayan trade routes that once connected the Maya cities of the lake atitlan area to those of Xela.


The trails wind their way through farms and fields where the locals are going about life in much the same as the generations before them. We camp the first night just outside a traditional Mayan settlemet that has been abandoned after Hurricane Stan came through in Oct. '05. The government has yet to rebuild the road that was washed away forcing the locals there to move up on the ridge


From up on the ridge we traverse the mountain tops at just about 3,300 mts. The mountains cut a ridge that seperates the Xela valley below on one side and the lake titlan caldera on the other. It is a spectacular place to camp.


But the weather can roll in at any moment and close out the view. It always breaks though giving up huge vistas over the pacific ring of fire and the atitlan basin.


It's a stunning view back to the east over looking the lake all the way back to the volcanoes outside Antigua.
The walk continues on the ridge before dropping down some 3,000ft through lush bamboo thickets and dense cloud forest


It's a tough walk, certainly not for the faint hearted, but such amazing areas are worth the effort. Here are a couple more shots from the trip.

The Northern Traverse

Last week the good lads from BIKE Magazine came to Guate for a week or so of riding and some off the grid exploring. We spent the first couple days here in the Antigua valley and took advantage of a crystal clear night donned the lights and went out for a night ride. Agua volcano just south of town is the perfect place for a twilight ride. We left Antigua in time to enjoy the sunset from the top f the climb and then pick our way through the rocky descent with lights. A perfect way to roll into town and stop off at the local watering hole at Cafe No Se.
After Antigua we headed out to



Lake Atitlan where we hit all the local favorites: the Santa Cat, La Culebra, Atitlan Slickrock, the San Antonio MayaInca, and a new trail called ladies choice named for luisa who found the new jewel.
We shuttled out to the cuchumantes to start our northern traverse but first hit the Todos Santos downhill as a mice way to warm up for the big days to come. The trail into todos has some of the nicest flow in all off Guatemala. I think Jordan's images will showcase this amazing piece of trail.



What goes down must go back up and climb we did out of the Todos Satos valley back up to the high elevation altiplano of Paquix.
The riding on the plateau is fun and rocky and pretty techy. You definitely want to bring your "A" game up here. We stayed the night in the Blue Unicorn, a super sweet horsefarm at 3200 meters. From te horsefarm we pushed out through uncharted waters linking together century old Mayan trails and trade routes across the mountains.


We camped for the night in a beautiful high alpine valley before setting off on our 2 day unsupported push across the mountains.
We pushed, rode, fought and triumped our way up the ridge to the remote throw back village of Chortiz. Life here has not changed for centuries and it's like a page torn out of your Anthropology text book. The trails were either super technical or high altitude valley cruisrers, not much middle ground. We got to town managed to roust up a couple cold beers (some poor soul carried those a half day just so I could have a cool beverage at the community hostal whil swinging in my hammock.


Our last day treated us to nearly 1200 meters of fore arm burning, foot numbing, brake squealing ear to ear grin downhill all the way out of the mountains to the nearby village of Acul where lunch a cool unit and a shower were awaiting. We screamed past a group of hikers amazed to see us up there and mos likely afraid of the crazed glaze on our faces as we picked our way down the descent.



Keep your eyes open for this summers issue of BIKE to get the whole story and some sweet images of the ride.

Guate's only true mtn bike park

We at old town have been working with some friends of ours to design and build guate's first and only true mtn bike specific trails. Some friends of ours have an enormous piece of land on the volcano just south of town and want world class trails.
We've finished about 6kms so far of roller coaster goodness. Once we're open for business we'll let ya know!