Todo lo que hago, lo hago por ti

So things have been going all right here in jolly ole Xela. The weater has been rather cool and cloudy lately, though. It’s truly hard to believe that I have almost been here for two months already, but that’s the way time works. In just a little over a month, Ryan and I will probably begin our slow ascent back to the country we call home. Meanwhile, Bush is making his “Latinamerican tour.” Splendid. It’s like no matter where you go, you can’t escape the guy. At least I didn’t see him. But I digress.. we’re just starting to form ideas about our trip back home—most likely seeing the Río Dulce/Lívingston area of Guatemala before heading up to Tikal and the Péten (of course), and then swinging into Belize for just a few days before we get to Mexico where we’ll be for several weeks. I’m really excited about this trip, even though I think at times it will be exhausting. It’ll be great to be able to connect the dots, so to speak, between here and home. And I’ll get to return to San Luis Potosí where I lived for seven weeks, and Guanajuato that I enjoy so immensely as well. We’ll most likely be crossing the border at Piedras Negras which is purportedly the “birthplace of the nacho”!!! which excites me way more than it should. Then it’ll be onto Texas where I’ve actually never been, and should be interesting in its own right, if only for comparison’s sake.

But things have been going fine here. I began weaving my scarf last week, which is really fun, but difficult at times. A great experience though. After watching this woman trying to learn how to weave for several days last week, I kind of picked up some of the steps already. I’ve been putting more time in at Trama as well. I like it there lots.

So after the long week of teaching and sometimes not teaching when students don’t show up, and volunteering, Ryan and I decided to wake up early, armed with an immune system full of malaria pills, insect repellant, and sunscreen tocatch buses to the Pacific coast. The first bus was okay, except that we unknowingly got on one that took the long road instead of the shorter one. We had to change buses in a dismal, hot, humid, wasteland known as Coatepeque to mapmakers and locals alike. There we hopped on a bus with a sign that said “Tilapa”—which is good, cause that’s where we wanted to go.

Oh and the bus rides were eventful as always. Of course. I don’t think I’m going to miss second-class buses in Guatemala when I’m done here.. or maybe I will. I don’t know. But anyway, as usual, people get on trying to sell “aguas” (which are just soft drinks), “chuchitos” (tamales), “piña, sandía, papaya!” (pineapple, watermeon, papaya) and other lovely things. Then people get on making sales pitches. We heard a guy trying to sell foot cream, and then later a man selling little pens with dangling things on them—3 for 5 quetzales! On the way back an annoying kid started out with this huge pitch about how he and his friend were from some other town and poor and trying to raise money and then he said, so what do we have behind door number 1? Da da da da… japanese peanuts, in a little bag. Just what we need. When he got up to Ryan, he looked at him and said, in a terrible accent, “Do you want to speak English?” to which Ryan just replied, “No.” and then the guy said, “hablas español?” to which Ryan just said, “Claro.” And the guy walked away uttering, “Yo hablo tres idiomas!” (I speak three languages).. like anyone cares or asked. Freak. I love the subtle racism we’re constantly on the receiving end of. Wait, no I don’t. But it surely puts things in perspective. Also, on every bus ride we take there are at least several indigenous people who throw trash out the window of the bus, which truly leads me to believe that old commercial we had at home where people litter out of their car, and the Native American on the side of the road sheds a single tear, is a complete and utter lie!

So we finally got to Tilapa. It was kind of a sad little place, with several rows of comedores, and visitors walking around. Although we were the only foreigners I saw there. After paying 2 quetzales each to use these dirty bathrooms, we decided to try and catch a bus to this other town called Tilapita we’d read about. We found a man to take us out in a lancha (little boat). Tilapa wasn’t even right on the beach, as it was at first surrounded by a little swampy nature reserve, you’d have to take a boat to cross anyway. We floated past pelicans dipping into the water, palm trees, and other people in their brightly colored boats.



It only took a few minutes to arrive in Tilapita, and I already felt transported into another world. This, I realized, is what I imagined Central America to be like. I’d been in Guatemala for nearly two months, but this was honestly the first time I really had a notion of my place on the globe. I could finally picture where I was in relation to everything else.

There were no roads or paths resembling anything I knew as one in Tilapita. It was just all sand. Everywhere you walked was sand. These were the paths. Little open air houses filled the town, the likes of I’d only seen in books or movies before. This was unlike anything I’ve ever seen. I can’t stress that enough. Pigs and chickens roamed freely, strutting down the little sand streets.



By this time we were hot and exhausted, and the dark sand kept burning my feet—so we found a place to stay for the night, perhaps the only such place in the whole town. After putting our bags down and changing into swimsuits, we trudged down to the beach which was just around the corner. Gorgeous. It was simply gorgeous. The only other time I’d been to the Pacific was during my stay near Los Angeles, so this was simply breathtaking. When we arrived, we pretty much had the whole pristine stretch of beach to ourselves. The water was amazingly warm, the undertow stronger than I’m used to, and with crashing waves upon the shore. This made for some wonderful water to play in, and we basically spent the rest of the day at the beach until sunset.




Eventually some more people showed up, but not many. A few stray dogs ran around, some looking sicker than others. The sunset was really beautiful and I have the pictures to prove it:



Feeling spent, we headed back to the hotel, changed, and got some dinner, right at the hotel. I had the fish and Ryan had the shrimp. It wasn’t bad. Just a bit overpriced, but what were we going to do? And I guess in the real world it wouldn’t be an expensive meal, just in the Guatemalan world. Oh, my mind is so warped. After dinner we called it a night and fell asleep quite easily.

The next day we headed to the beach again to play a little bit more before heading back to Xela. There’s not too much to say about the return trip except that the buses were equally if not more excruciating than the way to the beach. I slept during the bus ride to Coatepeque, but from Coatepeque to Xela we had to take a Xelaju company bus, who I hate! They are the worst company we’ve come across. Basically they don’t leave town until people are already sitting three to a seat and some people are standing in the aisle. Which means they pick up even more people on the sides of the roads, so that the entire bus is full, people down the aisles from the door to the back, so that the slimy jerks can make as much money as possible. At least this time we paid the proper amount, since I asked the lady next to me how much the trip costs, so they couldn’t swindle me. Ha! And Ryan had to sit next to this rude couple that would hardly give him any room.. ugh, all the while having to listen to music like, “Todo lo que hago, lo hago por ti” (Everything I do, I do it for you, that awful sappy ballad song by god only knows who) Those buses really make me hate humanity for a few hours.. but when we got back we treated ourselves to some ice cream. So all was well.

Then when we got back to our room Ryan saw a tiny scorpion but killed it before even telling me about it, so I didn’t even see it. But yeah, scary. And thus concludes the story of my weekend. I hope yours was equally enjoyable. Now, it’s back to the grindstone.