GUATEMALA -- The road to San Miguel Ixtahuacán, Guatemala is a descent into a valley along an asphalt road riddled with potholes that could easily swallow your tire. In the chilly pre-dawn of a February day, six of us -- a videographer, human rights activists, a photographer, an interpreter and a driver -- make our way in the dark. We share the road with large and old slatted trucks carrying cattle, rickety brightly-painted school buses packed with sleeping passengers, women in traje, their indigenous dress, walking to town carrying babies across their chests. It's cold and the stars outline the silhouette of the mountains that separate Guatemala from Mexico just an hour and a half to the west.

"A carrion Death, within whose empty eye / There is a written scroll! I'll read the writing. / All that glitters is not gold."
- Shakespeare

As shareholders in the Canadian mining company Goldcorp met for their annual general meeting (AGM) in Vancouver last Wednesday, a jubilant and diverse crowd of more than 200 -- with some participants festooned in gold glitter -- pushed its way into the Pan Pacific Convention Centre, where the AGM was taking place.

Armed with a 10-metre-long painted banner, a marching band, and giant golden puppets, the demonstrators occupied the building for almost an hour.