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What is Soul Projects?

Soul Projects, or Spiral of Your Life Projects, is a small, family run non-profit organization that was set-up in early 2008, to give travellers the opportunity to have adventurous travel experiences that are deeply internally rewarding. While at the same time helping to support the local communities, in the most positively active and sustainable way possible. Giving you the chance to really leave YOUR mark, and make YOUR difference.

Our ultimate VISION is to set-up a range of projects that will give people from all over the globe opportunities to work together in remote places, in different parts of the World, with different cultures. Giving real experiences that change lives and enhance spiritual development.


So what is the expedition about?

Challenge your body, energize your soul, clear your mind, and aliven your spirit by joining us on our newest expedition here in Guatemala. You will be living and working high-up in the mountains with the indigenous Maya Indians, the Kaqchikels and the Tz´utujils.

The essence to the project itself is about getting people out there, into the unknown, off the beaten track, into nature, and away from the many blinding distractions of a too comfortable modern day western culture. And by doing so, giving people the opportunity to glimpse ‘themselves,’ and the other deeper side to life that is there right in front of us every moment, if we just learn to open our eyes to it.

This is YOUR chance, to truly absorb Guatemala, and to get a good FEEL for the culture and DIFFERENT way of life for yourself. GAINING AND GIVING the most from the experience!


YOGA &
MEDITATION IN THE FOREST

Come live with us in the middle of the beautiful cloud forest of Papa’ Ecological Park Reserve, high-up in the mountains above San Marcos la Laguna, surrounded by an unending beauty and magical silence.

A large part of our project will involve hiking & camping out in the middle of the forest, and living and working in a more secluded location with a group of other similar, like minded travellers from around the world.

Learning together about how to survive out in the wild, and to live more in harmony with our beautiful Mother Nature. Seeing and experiencing for ourselves the magic and benefits of living the ‘simple life,’ in a more natural and high energy environment.

Yoga and meditation practice is an important element of the expedition as well. As it will help us clear the mind, connect with nature, and connect more with ourselves, by simply putting us more in the present moment. We teach Yoga at sunrise three days a week, two hours a day, and Meditation at sunset, three days a week, 1 hour a day.

The rest of your days will be spent finding peace with yourself, cooking over an open fire, chopping firewood, collecting water from a natural spring, getting close to nature, sleeping in tree-houses, and feeling what it really means to get back to your roots.


SCUBA DIVING AND
LAKE EXPLORATION AND CLEAN-UP


Join us, as we work together with the local communities, to help tidy-up Lago de Atitlán, and for the unique experience of scuba diving in a high altitude lake, as we go around exploring and cleaning-up rubbish from the depths.

Lake Atitlán has it all: Character, Mystery, Magic, and Style. It offers you something different! It gives you the opportunity to dive somewhere unique! In a high altitude freshwater volcanic lake 1560 metres up; whilst only still wearing a wet-suit!

Look for ancient Mayan artefacts and pottery hiding from you in the silt. Swim over the branches of submerged underwater trees. Go through eerie rock swim throughs. Put your hands in hot volcanic mud. Climb underwater rock cliff-faces going down to over 300 metres, chase giant freshwater crabs as they scuttle away from you across the rocks...

...while at the same time, feeling satisfied with yourself, for having made your difference, in helping keep Lake Atitlán clean, and in spreading a positive environmental message to the local communities.

We scuba dive (weather dependent of course!) TWO mornings every week when we are back in San Marcos la Laguna.


LEARN TO SCUBA DIVE ON THE LAKE

We can also give you the unique adventure and experience, of learning to scuba dive on the lake, as part of the project, all the way up to being an internationally certified PADI Rescue Diver.


Courses that we can offer you:

PADI Open Water Diver classroom, confined sessions + 4 dives
PADI Advanced Open Water Diver classroom sessions + 5 dives


Emergency First Response (EFR) classroom + scenarios
PADI Rescue Diver classroom sessions, in-water skills +
diving scenarios

Learning to dive here on the lake is a much more environmentally responsible and conscious way to learn as well, for two main reasons:

Firstly, you are not damaging thousands of years of life when learning to dive in a freshwater lake. As you are every time you kick a piece of coral with your fins on a coral reef. Which you most certainly will do during the early stages of learning to scuba dive, it’s inevitable. Better being rock and silt than a thousand year old living and breathing animal, wouldn’t you say?

A lot of people do not realise the extent, impact, or immense pressure that our coral reefs are under from scuba divers. The ‘truth’ is that sadly, it is a contributing factor in today’s world, to reef decline and destruction.

Secondly, starting your new soon to become hobby, on a freshwater lake, doesn’t spoil you too early! As once you are more confident in your own skills as a diver, and have some experience of some very different underwater conditions. You are then more ready,
to go off and explore the fragile reefs of this beautiful world, with more confidence, ability and greater vision............with your eyes truly open!

Our aim will be to prepare and make you ready to take part in our Lake Clean-Up Project on completion of your courses and training.

Dive training with a ‘deeper’ goal or purpose you could say. Overall, giving you a very adventurous, thoroughly challenging, and rewarding experience!


LOCAL SCHOOL ENGLISH & CREATIVE ARTS


Come with us, as we help to teach English, Art, Dance and Music, to different groups of children from various villages around the lake. We volunteer at a school in San Juan la Laguna, and at schools in San Marcos la Laguna every week.

Children are the future generations! They hold within their hands, the key for positive change on all levels. Freedom of expression, using your imagination, and letting a child’s creativity flow, is an essential part of this natural process. A part that very often gets blocked out from many cultures at a very young age, especially in today’s fast moving world.

That’s why Soul Projects is working with the teachers and the schools on the lake. To help defend this right, of every child, to see, feel and experience the benefits of the arts, as a universal tool for personal growth on every level; physically and spiritually.

At the same time, as tourism increases on the lake and comes to San Marcos, it is becoming ever more important for the local people to have a certain level of proficiency of the English language. Especially now, as so many local people’s livelihoods are almost totally dependent upon tourism in some form or another, either through direct income and/or employment opportunities.

Environmental education and conservation issues are an increasingly important issue to the local communities around the lake, as their natural environment is such a core part of their everyday lives.

Therefore, the project also focuses on helping to educate and spread a positive message to the village of San Marcos la Laguna and surrounding lakeside communities.

We teach three separate lessons a week that the viajeros are responsible for planning. If you are passionate about dance, teach a dance lesson. If you love music, then sing-a-longs it is! We have a specialized staff member that is responsible for over-seeing the teaching aspect of our project, but we want you to get involved as much as possible!

Our first lesson is with the mentally and physically handicapped kids of Centro Maya School in San Juan la Laguna, our lessons are approximately 3 hours a week with these children.

Next it is back to the base for an afternoon of games and fun with some of the local children, who range in all age groups. This lesson is about 1 ½ hours long.

Finally we volunteer at the local pre-primary school with kids that are from ages 4-7. Here we teach English and have some kind of creative game to re-enforce the lesson; relay races, dances, or songs are just some examples. This lesson is approximately 1 hour long.


MAYAN CULTURAL EXPERIENCE


Soul Projects promotes and encourages interaction with the local communities as much as possible. Giving travellers a chance to be able to experience and gain a real taste into Guatemalan way of life, music, traditions, and Maya culture for themselves, seeing what it really has to offer the world.

To be able to truly absorb, and get a real feel for a country, you need to go deeper into the culture, than just seeing it. You need to FEEL it! You need to be able to get closer to the actual people of that country and their way of life somehow. As these people, ARE the country!

To do that, you firstly need to be there for an extended period of time, and then you need to be able to integrate yourself into the community a bit more. You need to learn how to embrace and respect the traditions of that country, their customs, their beliefs, taste the local foods, and familiarize yourself with the local languages. We can offer you all of these things here in Guatemala.

The expedition gives you the unique opportunity of combining together taking Mayan Language and/or Spanish classes, while living & eating in a homestay with a local Guatemalan family. All in all, giving you the perfect mix, for a truly Cultural & Awakening Experience!

Our viajeros stay with a local family three nights a week, once we have returned from the four nights in the forest/on the beach. During this time you will get the opportunity to become integrated into a local Guatemalan family. You will get the chance to help them prepare traditional foods, ask questions and learn about their culture, practice your Spanish, and play games with their children.


YOGA & MEDITATION ON THE BEACH AND
BABY GREEN TURTLE LIBERATION


Explore & experience another one of Guatemala’s amazingly beautiful and natural landscapes in style, whilst living on its tranquil & deserted Southern shoreline. Come and spend some time with us on the beach, with nothing else surrounding you but nature, waves, driftwood and black volcanic sand.

Practice Yoga at sunrise and Meditation at sunset. Sleep on the beach under the stars, listen to the crashing of the waves, have a surf, cook over on an open beach fire, see Green turtles out in the wild, and have the fantastic opportunity to save & liberate a baby Green Turtle of your own.

The truth is that once upon a time, millions of sea turtles once swam in the earth’s oceans, but today only a small amount remain. In Guatemala, the greatest threat to the Green turtle is from the commercial harvest of their eggs.

This is happening because the local people are poor, and therefore often harvest the eggs to earn extra money for their families. This is also mainly due to poor education in the schools, because the people simply do not understand that if this practice continues, the turtle may become extinct.

Soul Projects supports and promotes the local project of El Tortugario in El Paredon which is also supported by the Guatemalan government through CONAP.

Every person in the village that harvests a turtle nest must now donate 20% of the eggs that they take, to the project. The donated eggs are then reburied in a protected area (the Tortugario), providing a compromise that allows more baby turtles to eventually hatch and make it to the ocean.

In a natural nest, around 40% of the eggs will hatch, but in the Tortugario this rate is increased to 90%. Normally, depending on the temperature of the nest, the incubation time is 60 days. However, in the Tortugario, the incubation time is decreased to about 48 days.

CONAP also helps to educate the local people and school children about the importance of protecting the Green turtle.

Unfortunately however, CONAP (the government organization that supports the program) doesn’t have sufficient funds to support and maintain the project.

That’s why in turtle nest season Soul Projects goes and buys fresh turtle eggs from the local people (there is no doubt that they will be sold anyway!). We then bury the eggs at the Tortugario.

In fact, what this means is that if you join our full 10 week expedition between June and January, you will have the unique opportunity to come back after 48 days to liberate your own baby turtles out into the wild yourself.

When it is not the turtle season we still run the project, but the funds we simply donate to the project, so that later on they can be used to buy more eggs during the turtle nest season. In El Paredon the Green turtle nests from June till November with a peak in August and September. Until January there are opportunities to liberate baby turtles.

There is also an amazing opportunity to actually see Green turtles living in their mangrove natural habitats all year long! A part of the project is therefore to give you the
opportunity, to see one of these mangrove locations for yourself. In fact El Paredon is one, of only two places in the whole World, where you are guaranteed to actually experience this natural phenomenon throughout the year. We will visit El Paredon twice during one of our 10-week expeditions.

Anyone can participate in one of our expeditions. We run four 10 week expeditions all year long and anyone is welcome to contact us for more information, and join us in helping the local community of San Marcos la Laguna, Guatemala.

How to Apply:

Visit our website at www.soulprojects.org...

...or email us at guatemala@soulprojects.org...

...and we will send you our Information Pack for 2010 and an Application Form.