The timeless explosion of fantasy's dream

El Final

2007-06-02T01:37:00.000-06:00

As most of you now know, I am currently safe and sound in the insulated confines known as “the region” (for god knows what reason?) in Indiana—living with an elderly couple who once gave birth to me and a small speckled white dog. Life is good.

I feel as though I need to write one last entry focusing on the crazy journey of the past four months that culminated just 2 weeks ago so that some part of me will feel something resembling closure. That’s silly of course, but hey, you’re still reading, and I appear to still be writing…let’s see if I haven’t yet forgotten all the madness:

Starting from where I left off, it felt wonderful to get out of the heat and humidity of southern Mexico and into the more centrally-located, hilly Xalapa, the capital of Veracruz. After nearly 10 hours spent in buses, though, we were quite happy to be picked up at the station by our lovely couchsurfer Bana and her mother. They were unbelievably generous and hospitable, offering us more food for dinner than we’d seen in days (our bus food was avocado and tomato spread on a roll and then a banana). That night we also became acquainted with Bana’s spritely dog Luna. She was a energetic little pup, pouncing all about. She made me miss Milkshake.

We ended up spending more time in Xalapa than we spent in any other city in Mexico: 3 nights. During our time there, we took in some pretty parks, saw some pretty art in two museums, and looked at the pretty plazas. Ryan was also finally able to withdraw money from a bank using a credit card, multiple forms of ID, and many, many signatures. Also, I was diagnosed with amoebas!!! Joy! So…this means that in my time away from home exploring the nooks and crannies of Latin America, I was able to acquire parasites, a bacterial infection, and now, amoebas! Ta-da! Collect them all. Batteries not included.

Anyway, I took some medicine that supposedly kills amoebas that day.

From Xalapa it was onto Puebla which required a bus change in the inescapable magnetic hub of Mexico D.F. (perhaps known to you as Mexico City). There I explained to a confused man how to enter the bathroom. (You have to pay for pretty much all public restrooms in Mexico, and then sometimes they don’t even put a seat on the toilet! Hmph!) After an hour or so of waiting at the bus station in Puebla, we were met by our poblano couchsurfer Ivan. He was a nice guy and showed us around town with one of his friends. We also went to the Feria de Pueblo for a few hours which was basically a big state fair complete with carnival rides, lizard women, corn dogs, men and women dancing with mops, and children singing in hula skirts.

Puebla was the largest city we spent any actual amount of time in, but it was a pleasant place. We walked around a LOT, watched a flag ceremony, bought typical candies, and ate the special food of Puebla like cemitas and mole poblano. Yum. We also played (tried to) ultimate Frisbee with Ivan and one of his friends. It was fun but embarrassing.

The next city on our agenda was Guanajuato, a city I was somewhat familiar with, as it would be my third time visiting there. It was nice to be somewhere that wasn’t completely foreign to me for once. However, I was feeling rather worn down from my illnesses and weeks of traveling, so it was hard to enjoy everything as much as I would have liked to. I went to another pharmacy and talked to a doctor for free and she put me on some pills that would later do me more harm than good.. (never trust them free doctors in Farmacia Similar). I put myself on special super diet, only eating things like juice, grains, and fruits.. nothing fried, with cheese, no beans, nothing spicy, you know, nothing Mexican. Right.

Ryan and I still managed to have some fun. We took the teleférico (cable car) up to the Pípila monument overlooking the city, where I’d been once before several years ago. It provides breathtaking views of the attractive city perched in the hills and brought back some memories.

We also watched the “tunas” sing at night, for the callejoneada, where they walk down the little narrow alleys that the city is full of, serenading everyone in the process. We did this until we had to pay, and then we left and just peered over a balcony at the city lights. Also of note is that this overweight woman began dancing with the tunas in the main square, and I believe it was the same exact woman I saw dance four years ago!! Astonishing. It gives me some strange sense of comfort knowing that this woman is always there, dancing up a storm.

On account of the way we were feeling (mostly me), we decided to cut Zacatecas out of our itinerary and come back to the US one day sooner. We were on to even more familiar ground in San Luis Potosí.

(Dedicated Ilene fans will remember that she spent 7 weeks living in San Luis when she was but a wee lass of 17 years.)

It was good to be back. We got off an intra-city bus from the bus station close to downtown, but near a huge park I’d somehow never seen before called La Alameda which even had a little duck pond. We decided to find a place to stay, this time without the aid of Lonely Planet, as the places they listed were too expensive for us. Luckily, we ended up finding a place close to La Alameda which only charged 200 pesos/night for a double which was cheaper than what we’d read. It even had a private bathroom and tv.

I called my friend Paco who I hadn’t seen in four years, and we walked around town. He hadn’t changed much in those four years. Memories flooded back to me slowly as we ambled through plazas and up streets. Somehow things appeared bigger and wider than I recalled.

We went to Paco’s house and drank some juice and then to a restaurant to get some lunch. One of the only things I thought was safe for me to eat were eggs, so unfortunately I had to skip out on the enchiladas potosinas, but at least Ryan got to try some. That night we went out with Paco and some of his friends to one of our old hangouts, the coffee shop Chaire’s. It’s so strange visiting places that belong to the past. In your mind they stopped existing the moment you left them behind, so it’s a bit unsettling to return and discover that not only do they still exist, but they’ve been evolving and functioning away from you.

The next day was spent in plazas, in my favorite Plaza de San Francisco with my favorite fountain and the little callejón with the “hippies” that sell things.. I was surprised to see that the merchandise was a bit different from what I remembered too. Later we met up with Paco and a friend again to eat sushi! which was so delicious as I hadn’t eaten sushi since probably January (not counting the Korean kimbab in Antigua). Ryan and I walked down Carranza and to the Parque de Tequis, that I used to live near. I was even able to find the old house that I lived in during my days in SLP, and saw that it and some of the businesses in the area had changed a little. At night the four of us went to a bar where we were given a ton of free little snacks. Anyway, it was nice to see an old friend and an old city again.

Our plan for the next day was to take a bus to Matehuala, and from there take another 2-hour bus ride to Real de Catorce, a “re-awakening ghost town” a little difficult to reach.

We would, however, never make it to Real. Once within the bus station, I suddenly felt rather weak and ill—nauseous. Deciding that I was too sick to make it to the ghost town, we ended up just taking a taxi to a hotel in town and staying in Matehuala for the night. There was a good man who worked the desk in the hotel who offered to drive me to the hospital. Once there we waited in a waiting room with crying babies and their mothers. The doctor gave me a brief consultation telling me (without examining me) that I probably still had amoebas and was supposed to repeat treatment after 7 days, and that this other drug would be more effective, and that the pills the doctor in Guanajuato put me on (apparently a blood thinner) were making me dizzy and weak.

After stopping in what must have been 7 different pharmacies looking for these blasted pills, we finally found one that had Amoebríz in stock, and I began my new course of treatment, taking it easy for the rest of the day and night. I knew we only had two days left in Mexico, but man, was I ready to get home.

The next day we continued with our updated plan and landed in Saltillo. We were greeted in the main plaza by our couchsurfer Diego. We sat around and chatted, waiting for his friend to come pick us up in his car. When we arrived at Diego’s house we were met with his very drunk roommate who told us (in English), “Hello. I am drunk.” continually offered us alcohol, and then passed out a few hours later. We went back into town with Diego, grabbing some late lunch/early dinner, walking to the park, stopping in the cultural center to see a photography exhibit, and chatting about good things like music and movies. Diego proved to have quite good taste and we exchanged some tunes later in the evening.
Later, drunk roommate woke up and drove us all to some bar where I just drank orange juice due to amoebas. It was a hip, calm place with a nice décor though and there was some good conversation.

The next city would be the final city on Grand Mexican Tour 2007: Matamoros. Here we didn’t really do anything except (1) enjoy the ridiculously cheap hotel which was fine except for mosquitoes, (2) pay our tourist fee ahead of time, (3) eat dinner and buy water.

Oh one thing of note: we decided to hop on the intra-city bus from the bus station to the center of town in the city, cause you know, we’re really cheap. So we get on this bus with our huge bags and sit in the back where everyone in the entire vehicle is unabashedly staring straight at us.—I guess cause while they’re used to seeing gringos in their border town, they’re not used to seeing them in their public transportation? I don’t know, but I was just sick of being stared at and ready to cross that border the next day to the land of the free and home of the brave or something like that.

Crossing the border was an experience in itself, and one that I’m glad I had the opportunity to witness first-hand. The next morning we hopped on another intra-city bus that would drop us off at the border crossing bridge. We easily got our exit stamp from Mexico, and proceeded down the pedestrian bridge over the Rio Grande with the rest of the people who probably cross the bridge everyday to go to work. Ryan and I were definitely the only Americans waiting in the pedestrian line. We got through without much of a hassle (they just scanned our bags in the X-ray machine). I saw a drinking fountain and remembered that oh yeah! Those exist!

And with that we were in Texas. Brownsville, Texas. Everyone around us was still speaking in Spanish, though, and in fact the first person to greet us was a Jehovah’s witness speaking to us in Spanish to which I just replied, “No gracias.” without even realizing it was strange. Apparently when Ryan went to change currency, all of the transactions were in Spanish as well.

We found the Greyhound station and immediately noted the decline in quality from buses and bus stations in Mexico. The seats are first come first serve, there is hardly any leg room, and they don’t show movies! Give me ADO any day. I’m not sure I would ride Greyhound again. The bus ride from Brownsville to Austin was interesting though. Nearly all the passengers on the bus were still speaking in Spanish. There were two border checkpoints where officials would board the bus and first in Spanish and then in English ask us to have our IDs and papers ready for them to check. We passed a station that had a sign detailing how many illegal aliens and drugs had been caught at that checkpoint.

After maybe 8 hours we arrived in Austin, which is to be my new home starting in about a week! Yes, yes. We stayed with a friend of Ryan’s and her boyfriend’s super nice apartment. They were friendly and fed us (BBQ! So much meat and so unlike anything we’d eaten in months, and a homemade meal.), showed us around town, and drove us to possible future housing arrangements.
All in all, I think I’m really going to enjoy the city. It seems like my kind of place.

From Austin we took a bus to Lafayette, Louisiana where Ryan’s mother and grandmother picked us up and drove us to their family home in Bourg, LA on the bayou where I saw a real live huge alligator! I thought it was a statue at first, but no, it was real!

I relaxed in Louisiana for a few days, soaking in the comfort. Though, I didn’t get to eat a shrimp po-boy, I did get a mufaletta, fried shrimp, and red beans and rice. Not bad. On Tuesday May 22nd I took a free Southwest flight courtesy of Ryan’s dad’s incentive passes to Midway Airport in sweet home Chicago.

This time I was met by my family, which was a nice change of pace. It felt good to be back home, and eating real pizza again. Milkshake has not been snobby to me this time. I have turned 23. This has brought unexpected new levels of enlightenment! Totally. I also now have a juicer and should soon find out if I still have amoebas.

In exactly one week I will be re-locating with Ryan to Austin, Texas—“live music capitol of the world!” I’m ready to live somewhere for longer than four months. (I will have lived in four different places during the past year: Bloomington, New Orleans, Quetzaltenango, and now Austin. It’s time to relax.)

And that basically brings us all up to date. Yes, being home is kind of strange, but then not strange at all. I’m extremely grateful for the time I spent in Guatemala and do not regret a day. (Although in the future, I’m not sure I would travel through Mexico in buses at the same insane pace.) (And maybe I’d eat less street food…maybe.) My time there now feels like a dream and an entire world away, which is in some ways quite accurate. My perspective and ideas have been permanently altered by what I saw and experienced there and I don’t want to forget.

Thanks to everyone who spent time reading my writings and leaving comments. They were a nice reminder of familiarity at an unfamiliar time.

Back in Mexico

2007-05-10T11:38:00.000-06:00

We are now in Mexico, just recently out of the tiny country of Belize. It’s good to be back here, but I think I’ll be doing better when the trip is at a less breakneck pace.

The rest of our time in Belize went rather smoothly and calmly. In San Ignacio we spent time on our little porch, walked to the lovely, peaceful ruins of Cahal Pech up on the hill (that we had all to ourselves mostly, a nice change after Tikal)—and ate in one of the many delicious Chinese restaurants. Belize almost reminded me of parts of Louisiana. It was strange. Leaving San Ignacio, we headed up north in Belize’s version of the 2nd class bus, still an old North American schoolbus like those used in Guatemala, but less elaborately decorated, (no tweety bird or Jesus stickers), people didn’t sit three to a seat, and people had fewer bags in general. It was more relaxed.

Our final stop in Belize was the small town of Corozal strategically positioned on a bay that leads into the Caribbean Sea. It was a very sleepy little town, which was fine by us. We walked down to the “beach” which really wasn’t a beach at all but the place where the water met the land with people swimming. It was rather rocky, and difficult to get in the water because of this, but we still managed for a while. We were going to swim in the Caribbean, damnit. The water was beautiful and sparkling and I really felt like I was in a travel brochure ad, just again, without the sand for the beach.

At night we dined on Belizean rice and beans and ceviche and boy was it tasty.

Flash forward to the next day—crossing the border between Belize and Mexico. It all went rather smoothly, hopping on and off buses to go through immigration on both sides. In Belize we had to give in and pay their ridiculously high 37 Belizean dollar tourist fee, but oh well.

The same bus took us all the way to Chetumal, where we stop for the night. The first thing we did after getting to the center of town was buy a Mexican SIM card for our phone, so now we can communicate within a new country, yay. We then waited in the park in front of the Museo de Cultura Maya to wait for Hector, the guy who would be kind enough to let us stay with him. While waiting, this crazy bum strolled up to us and kept rambling. Ryan listened and talked to him more than I did, and it was difficult to get up and bolt, as we were hampered down by our massive bags. He would say a few words in Spanish and then afterwards translate into broken English about his work and how he painted houses and was once a lion tamer? (we think) and other random things. I stopped paying attention finally. At last, Hector arrived, but the guy still followed us and helped us put our bags in Hector’s trunk. He finally left after Hector gave him a few pesos.

It turned out Hector’s new house was still being worked on, so he set us up (paid for) with a room in a nice hostel that his friend’s mom owns, and therefore gets a pretty amazing discount for it. We got some good Mexican lunch and a driving tour of the city. The water in the bay was still so beautiful and crystal clear as we drove past it, seeing the various neighborhoods, little sculptures that littered the boulevard, and landmarks. We mostly took it easy, going out again at night for delicious taco treats, cebollitas de cambray, and some drinks at a bar where old fat people were performing really bad karaoke. It was fun.

The next day we caught the 7 am bus to Valladolid and arrived a little after noon. We found a cute little hostel. (oh and I have to mention that in Valladolid, I think you could flush toilet paper down the toilet again! It felt so strange and wrong to do so after over three months of not…) We wanted to come to Valladolid, a small city in the Yucatan, to swim in the cenotes (sink-holes filled with water) we’d read about. Well, before we could do that we got some lunch at a little lonchería where men wave menus at you from their little stalls, begging you to eat at theirs. Lunch was huevos motuleños, at last! I’d been looking for them for so long. What they are: tostadas topped with fried eggs, pieces of ham, cheese, tomato sauce, and garbanzo beans! Amazing! Ryan got cochinita pibil, another regional specialty and also quite tasty.

The little lunch counter we picked was I believe the best one because it was the busiest and they didn’t try to make us eat there. Always a good sign. Lunch was followed by Ryan’s unfortunate realization that he didn’t have his ATM card and that he must have left it in the ATM we’d used an hour earlier.. returning to the bank didn’t turn up anything though, so that was rather frustrating—but everything should be okay.

After that mishap we changed and walked over to the cenote inside one of the saddest zoos I’ve ever seen (after the Minerva Zoo in Xela). There were two monkeys in one cage. One monkey pathetically laid on the ground with one arm clutching a room tied to the ceiling while the other approached Ryan and I curiously and later looked like he was searching desperately for an escape from his tiny cage with dirty drinking water and watermelon rinds.

Further down the path was a cage of some other strange animal, the agouti we believe, which held at least 5 of these creatures. Some lazily sat around while one restlessly paced back and forth back and forth in his cage in a desperate manner. It was a sad sight to see, I must say. Ugh.

Anyway, the cenote was pretty cool. While it was a tad too cold to swim in for my liking, it was a very tranquil place (except for the two men singing along to the El Chapo songs on their stereo.) After sitting there for a while, pondering the water’s depths, we made our way back to the hostel in the intense, intense heat . We tried to get our laundry washed, cause our clothes are all dirty, but she said it wouldn’t be done till the next day so we are still dirty. Maybe tomorrow. We actually cooked dinner in the hostel since we had kitchen access so that was nice and cheap. More inevitable annoyance with European hostel people, but that’s par for the course we are discovering.

The next day, today, was another early day, but not quite so early as we caught the 8:15 AM bus to the famous Mayan ruins of Chichén Itzá. You think I’d be ruined out after already seeing two ruins within the past week, but it was still quite interesting and fun, and still unique. The price of admission, however, was rather high for the third world, and the lady at the admission desk was pretty rude for so early in the morning. I love people. We dropped the massive bags off at the baggage storage and set off into the ruin wonderland. The first thing we came to was El Castillo, the pyramid complete with feathered serpent heads at the base, which were unfortunately not allowed to climb. Too many accidents. Apparently there’s a sound and light show at night! (oh boy!!! I just love sounds and lights!) but we decided to pass… The patches of tourists were thin this early in the day, thankfully, as was the heat of the sun, so we saw most of the ruins early on.

My favorite thing about Chichén Itzá, and what differentiated it from the other 4 Mayan ruins I’ve seen, was that there were many carvings and sculptures still visible. This was pretty neat and made me more easily imagine the ruins as once being a real city. I also really enjoyed the vast number of iguanas present! They were everywhere and would pop out at us randomly to scurry down a rock.

I stalked a few.

There was another giant cenote at Chichén Itzá as well, which was pretty neat. By the time we made our way out of the site a little after 1 PM, the obnoxious tour groups with people wearing their little floppy hats and carrying parasols were in full force, as were the rays of the sun, so it was time to move on. We made our way with bags in tow to wait underneath a tree where our bus to Mérida would take us away.

This was the nicest bus we’d been on yet, and within a few hours we were in the city. Overall, we were a little disappointed in Mérida. We couldn’t reach our couchsurfer when we arrived so we just got some late lunch at a little lonchería near the bus terminal and then took a cab to a hostel near the main plaza in the centro. We just wandered around, getting accustomed to the city, realizing we were still quite surrounded by tourists either on their way to Cancún or Chichén Itzá… with all the usual people trying to sell them (and us) hammocks. not so fun anymore. The couchsurfer called us later so we said we’d meet up with him the next day. For dinner we ate cheap slices of pizza and 2x12 peso street hot dogs.. mmm. Everything was unfortunately closed because it was the Mexican Labor Day.. There was a strange service going on in the main plaza to commemorate the centennial of the cathedral. It got more interesting later when all the church folk and Jesus talk cleared up and musicians and dancing children in traditional dress took the stage.

The next morning we awoke in yet another obnoxious hostel full of mostly European “backpackers” where people of course assume we don’t know Spanish.. (How could we? Americans don’t know two languages..) We ate the silent free breakfast of papaya and bread and hit the streets again. Mérida just didn’t really appeal to me as much as I thought it would. People walked the streets in a quick, purposeful manner, much like how the people take to the streets in the center of Manhattan. It’s a bit much. We got in touch with the couchsurfer, and took a bus out to his part of town, which was a bit confusing, but we figured it out. He was a nice guy who gave us our space and a few tips of things to do. After at last doing our laundry on his rooftop, we emerged into town again going to a free museum about the city, buying some fruit in the market, and eating ice cream in the shade whenever possible. We decided to stroll into the Teatro Mérida, a cute movie theater that shows various artsy films. They were showing something called “La Posada de Jamaica” which started right as we were walking into the theater. It was an old black and white flick. (I didn’t learn till later that it was actually an old, old Hitchcock movie), and the volume was turned down so low that I was forced to read the Spanish subtitles to figure out what was going on in the story. I enjoyed it overall. There’s not much else to say about Mérida…

The next day we woke up and took off for the city of Campeche. We were warned by the couchsurfer the night before that it would be dull, but we were ready to leave Mérida and had to follow our route. After another nice overly comfortable bus ride, we were in the city. We reached the couchsurfer we’d be staying with, and he actually came to pick us up, which was cool. Up drove a man, a woman, and two children in a car. The man said, “Ryan?” so we hopped in, only slightly confused. We had forgotten the information about our host, so we were a tad surprised when he wasn’t the assumed twenty-something. But, it was nice. He took us to his nice house which we were granted free reign of. The worst thing was we had to sleep on an air mattress at night that deflated half-way through the night, but hey, it was free.

Our host’s house lay just a block away from the Gulf of Mexico, so we followed the difficult path of the coast until we reached the much nicer malecón, pedestrian walkway that runs along the water. We somehow forgot that it would be insanely hot, so we sweated our way a few kilometers down to the center of town in search of some foods. Campeche is a rather attractive town. For one thing, it’s on the coast. It was originally a walled in fortress city of sorts to keep out pirates, and some of the bastions still remain and house tiny museums you have to pay too much to enter (or we’re just damn cheap. Yeah that’s it.) The plaza is rather pretty and clean and full of pigeons while all buildings are pastel and quaint. Campeche was a nice place to wind down a little away from the mad rush of people that was Mérida. Also, while there were some tourists, they were far fewer in number, thankfully, and we were basically left alone.

Food in Campeche included papadzules (enchilada-like creations rolled in some kind of pumpkin or squash sauce and hard-boiled eggs.. yum), cocounut shrimp, more ice cream, and shrimp cocktail. Delicious.

While the parts of Mexico we’ve been going through are somewhat enjoyable and interesting, they still differ greatly from what I was used to in the central part of the country, and I am eager to get back there to see familiar places. The rest of our time in Campeche was spent with Ryan trying to figure out what to do about his ATM card situation, getting his haircut since it needed it badly, and trying desperately to stay out of the sun and in the shade. As the afternoon turned into evening we would follow the the sea back to the house as the sun set over the waves.

Today we left Campeche on a long bus ride to the dull, hot, hot, city of Villahermosa in Tabasco. There doesn’t seem to be much worthwhile in this state, nor in this city except for a big museum they have that has Olmec artifacts, but we’re not going to stay longer because of it. The bus ride today was rather comfortable and they showed three different movies and an Animal Planet special on seals, all dubbed in Spanish. Fun.

One thing is for sure, in Villahermosa, we are finally out of Gringotouristland. We have not seen any here so far. People even look at us somewhat confused and definitely are shocked when we speak Spanish. It’s strange. The waiter at the Rock and Roll Cocktelería at dinner tonight (yes that was what it was called) even asked us if we were here for the Feria that we didn’t know was even going on. He couldn’t figure out we we’d be there. The reason we are is just because the roads happen to go through this godforsaken city and it was as good as place as any to stop.

Tomorrow we will leave here, enter the state of Veracruz and if all goes well, fall asleep in Xalapa, sometimes also spelled Jalapa. We’ll be there for three nights, which will be nice and give us sometime to catch our breaths. We’re already over halfway done with our long trip home.. Only two more weeks in Mexico and I can kiss that Texas soil, or something. Oh and today was el Cinco de Mayo but I forgot and just remembered now. Oh well. I would also like to add that tomorrow marks the first day during these past four months or so, that we will be leaving the Mayan world as well as the malaria-world! So, so long malaria and Mayans.

Sorry the blog was rather rushed and below my usual standards.. it’s much more difficult to find the time and energy to write when traveling at such a constant pace. I must say I’m excited to be getting back home soon, and I look forward to seeing everyone.

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Note: This entry was actually written several days ago and we have since visited Xalapa, are now in Puebla, and will be leaving for Guanajuato tomorrow. More to come soon maybe.

Out of Guatemala

2007-04-27T22:53:00.000-06:00

Greetings from Belize, the country in Central America that a lot of people probably don’t even know exists. That’s where I am. This morning we woke up on the city-island of Flores, Guatemala with the intention of leaving the country that had stood in as our temporary home for the past three months behind. I must say, though I’m sure I’ll miss it in some ways soon, right now it feels pretty good—mostly due to the piling up frustrations that the past few days of traveling entailed. Already so much has happened… let’s go back.

After I last wrote in Cobán, Ryan and I went to grab some cheap dinner at a place that promisingly called itself GG Burger (or GG Burguer as their other sign said). We were presented with more meat on our plates than we’d had in quite a while, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but then later Ryan felt sick.. but who knows from what. We’re just always sick. So, the man who worked at GG Burger was surprisingly accommodating and friendly, much more so than any other food-service person had been in Guatemala. And this was a burger joint. He let us pick out which straw we wanted, asked us if we wanted to listen to music or watch tv, and then if the music we were listening to was ok? He asked repeatedly if everything was ok, if we were sure, and later he told us about a special Guatemalan soft drink they produce in Quiché called India Quiché. I’d never seen it before, but he was apparently quite in favor of it. Then he told us we spoke good Spanish and that he once lived in Alabama. Ha. It was random but cool.

The next day we woke up and tried to find transportation that would take us to a small town north of Cobán called Chisec. We eventually did this after it wasn’t in the place our map said it was, and several people gave us directions. The bus terminal consisted solely of microbuses, quite a contrast to the “chicken buses” of the western highlands, and far more comfortable. In fact, we hardly saw any of our old pal buses in the rest of our time in Guatemala, nor did we ride one. But! They appear to be back in Belize, thank goodness.

So we hopped in the micro to Chisec, staring out the window at the green, green hills of the Verapaces. When we arrived in Chisec, we did not know where to find our next transportation which would take us to the Lagunas de Sepalau, these gorgeous natural lagoons 9 km away from town.

We were greeted by un-subtle, curious, amused, giggling stares as we walked through the town… I guess they don’t see too many gringos in their neck of the woods.
The only mode of transportation we could find were taxis, but they were charging 60Q for a ride there which seemed rather expensive for the short ride. Well, luckily we ran into 2 other foreigner girls who were looking to go as well. We split a cab and it was cheaper because we were now four people instead of just two. They were friendly enough, one girl more than the other, but as we began exploring the lagunas, they eventually just left, and we’re still not sure how they got back. I guess they were less than impressed after just visiting Semuc Champey, which is supposed to be just beautiful and amazing, but we didn’t have the time or funds to get there really. Next time.

My first glance of the laguna instantly recalled in my mind the limestone quarries just outside of Bloomington—except instead of being manmade these were natural and in the tropics. There was next to no one there, just one indigenous Q’eqchí family who again, just stared at us. We continued our exploration of the area, leading us to another section of the first lake, and a second lake which was a little more difficult to reach. The heat being rather intense, we decided we were ready for a swim in the first lake. It felt so good to plunge into that pretty blue water, surrounded by rock and jungle on all sides. We ate our peanut butter mango chutney sandwiches and a zapote, swam a little more, and headed back to the road after several hours.

We waited by the side of the small gravel dirt road for several minutes in the heat, and then decided to just start walking the 9 km walk… this was rough. We passed more indigenous families who were simply not used to seeing white people and they would either stare, stare and look at us suspiciously, say “buenas tardes”, and the younger ones would just giggle.

So thankfully a microbus pulled up to us on the side of the road eventually, so we hopped in and got a ride back to town, for only 2Q each. Yes. We then got back into Cobán a few hours later where we just relaxed, ate some tacos 3x10, (well I got a burrito) and then went back to the room where I saw a giant cockroach while Ryan was in the bathroom. It actually ran across the bed while I was turning on the computer and it made me jump. It then flew onto the wall by the door (yes it flew too!) and I opened the door to see if it’d like to fly out? And then I moved to the opposite side of the room. THEN! It flew straight at me, making its attack. I audibly screamed, and I think the man outside on the phone heard me, but he didn’t come to my aid, jerk. Finally, Ryan came back and I begged him to kill it while I wait outside. He swung at it with his shoe and it ran to the corner where we lost sight of it forever. Who knows where it went. It’s probably still out there somewhere, waiting for me. Sigh.

The next day we woke up, ready to continue on with our journey to our next stop: Lívingston. To do this, we had to change buses several times.. first we took the bus from Cobán, to a junction in the eastern Guatemalan desert town of El Rancho. There we basically just waited by the side of the road like hitchhikers for a few minutes, waiting for some kind of bus to pass. Eventually one came that said no, they were not going to Puerto Barrios on the coast, but we could go with them and eventually there’d be more transportation to Barrios… confused and annoyed we got on the micro and got off at Río Hondo where the road split. Sure enough, as soon as we got out, we were shuttled into a fairly nice direct bus on its way to Puerto Barrios. This was a long bus ride where the landscape changed rather quickly from desert to very tropical vegetation as we neared the Caribbean.

Once we got to Puerto Barrios, we dragged our cumbersome bags to the where my map said we had to go to get a lancha to Lívingston. So let me explain, Lívingston, a small town of only 6,000 people is on the Caribbean coast of Guatemala, and only accessible by boat. The greater population consists of Garífuna people, a mix of African and Carib people originally coming from the island of St. Vincent. It’s an interesting history, if you’re curious to learn more. So, the boat ride to the town was probably about 30 minutes and we got more than a little wet in the process. It was finally around 6:00 pm or so when we arrived in Lívingston, and the second we were off the boat, we were of course hassled by various men, this time Garífuna people speaking in English and pounding fists with us and telling us about these hotel deals. Great. We eventually found a place to stay, calm and quaint, called, I kid you not, Hotel California. Yes. They also spoke to us in English—I think their native language was a Creole English, which is common in Lívinston. We didn’t do much at night as we were pretty tired from the long day of travel, but we did manage to get some amazing dinner which consisted of the town’s specialty: tapado—a stew of sorts full of all sorts of seafood, made with coconut milk, plantains. It was scrumptious and worth every penny. We then ran into this man in the street who was riding a bike and called himself Alexander the Great. He said he had no money and was starving and just wanted to eat some empanadas from the street so Ryan was nice and gave him a little bit of cash. The whole place was kind of disappointing to us, though, overall. People were poor and you could tell the only work was tourism and fishing. There were many tourists there who wanted to soak up the Caribbean atmosphere and drink alcohol out of coconuts. We were going to stick around one more day, but a daytrip we were thinking of taking to Siete Altares, this group of waterfalls, turned out to not be something we wanted to do, as it still wasn’t the rainy season and they weren’t too impressive right now apparently….

Soooo.. we decided to just leave Lívingston the next day as there really wasn’t much to do there apart from being lazy, eating, drinking, and being bothered by people. In the morning we signed up for a boat ride tour down the Río Dulce, the other way you get away from Lívingston. The scenery itself was stunning—tropical birds flying about, small homes around the lake and river, jungles, rocks, and lily pads. The boat made two stops to let us off at a little cooperative which was kind of interesting, and then again at some hot springs which really didn’t impress us too much after being to Fuentes Georginas near Xela. Oh well. And even though it was gorgeous, I was a little unimpressed overall with the tour itself.. the guide didn’t go into detail about anything only occasionally saying something like : “This is called Island of the Birds.”—things like that.

When we got off the boat we were in Río Dulce town, a not too special place where you pick up transit to go somewhere else. We ate our last Guatemalan breakfasts, paying with credit cards. Our bus onto Flores was supposed to leave at 2:00, but arrived nearly an hour late due to some road blockages. Then, once the bus finally did come there were no seats and we were forced to stand at the very front, even though this was a “nice” bus. But, about 20 minutes down the road, we were all forced to get off so some policemen could check everyone’s identification. Now, this made me nervous as our Guatemalan visas had expired several days earlier. Images of being escorted to the border to be deported flitted through my mind, but he just looked at the passport and handed it back to me. Either he didn’t notice or didn’t care. We were detained there for 10 minutes nearly, and eventually went back on our way, and we were able to get a seat since everyone had moved around. Yay. But… maybe another hour later the bus was forced to stop again and we all had to get out, this time to make sure we didn’t have any fruit we were taking in to the Péten department that might contain some kind of mosquito.. awesome. They didn’t even really check anyone’s bag, just felt the outside, with their magic fruit-detecting hands and let us get back on the bus, where some jerk picked up my backpack and put it in an overhead bin above him, and took our seats.. jerk. So I found some seat in the back and Ryan had to stand up for the rest of the trip through the jungle. With all these stops and delays, the ride took an hour longer than it should have, and we didn’t get into Santa Elena until nightfall, which worried us a little. We don’t like to travel after dark down here, especially when we’re unfamiliar with a place.

But as soon as we jumped off the bus and retrieved our bags, several cab drivers were in our face asking if we needed a ride to Flores. Yes, we did. He said he’d take us for only 5Q each which sounded good to us. The catch was that he worked for this hostel called Los Amigos and he kept telling us how good it was and how we had to stay there. We don’t like to be pushed into anything, so we decided to beat him at his own game. He told us it goes 50Q for one night, and then since he just assumed we don’t know Spanish even though we’d been speaking to him in fluent Spanish the whole time, he decided to say, “feefty quetzales” No kidding, thanks, bud. Then he stopped at this place called San Juan Travel and was like, here you can buy your tickets to Tikal, for tomorrow. Go buy them now. And we were like, No, not now, creep. (except not quite that mean). When we got into Flores, he again brilliantly announced “La ciudad” (the city), cause we’re such dumb tourists we couldn’t have figured that out for ourselves either. Then he drove us straight to this hostel Los Amigos where we didn’t want to go at all because I don’t trust any place that operates in such a sleazy manner. He rang the doorbell of the hostel and pulled our bags out for us. Then he told us we owed him 15Q, to which we replied, no… you said 10, to which he just stared at us evilly for 5 seconds, and gave us the right amount of change back. We then just walked away. Ha! Take that, you unscrupulous sleazeball. Like we would have forgotten how much he said the cab ride was, or we wouldn’t care cause we’re white and just have loads of money. Ugh. Welcome to Flores.

So Flores itself was rather pretty.

It’s a small town set on an island at the southern end of Lake Petén Itzá. It has an interesting history as well and I was excited to see it. Unfortunately, it was far more obnoxiously touristy than I was ready for, on par with Antigua if not worse. Everything was more expensive there. The cheapest internet we could find was 10Q/hr which was ridiculous to us as we routinely only paid 3Q/hr in Xela. They also didn’t sell bags of water, and lots of things were written in English, including the dinner menu handed to us that night at the Maya Princess Café. I had to translate it, ordering completely in Spanish. I was beginning to get utterly sick of people in the town looking at you and jumping to the conclusion that you don’t speak Spanish, but English. It’s really racist in a way and I was tired of it. This was not how I wanted to end my final days in the country, but I didn’t have a choice really. It we could go back we probably would have stayed in nearby town El Remate which has less tourists, I think.

The reason most people come to Flores, us included, is to see the magnificent Mayan ruins of Tikal which is only about an hour away. The next morning a shuttle picked us up (pretty much the only way to get there) at 6 am for Tikal, since it’s best to get there early before it’s super crowded and the sun’s rays are too oppressive. And indeed, compared to the crowds of later in the day, there were few people at the ruins when we arrived. Since the only Mayan ruins we’d seen so far consisted of Zaculeu and Iximché, we really were very impressed with Tikal, and the jungle setting made it that much more spectacular. We climbed many pyramids, sweated, and heard a lot of English from American families, (including one woman we overheard ask the water vendor if he accepted Belize dollars, in English. Yes. We hate our own kind. I really liked the Grand Plaza, the view from Temple IV, unfortunately being worked on, and our hike out to Temple VI deep in the jungle where few people were. So, here are some pictures, they speak more than I can:

There are still many more pictures… check out the flickr site. There were also fun animals about like monkeys, birds, and ocellated turkeys, Ryan stalked one for a while.

Exhausted by 2 pm, we caught our shuttle back to Flores where we relaxed, walking around the lake at sunset and eating some dinner where sure enough the waiter first addressed us in English, saying “Ready?” to which we just stared at him dumbfounded and then he said, “¿Listos?” to which we said, Sí, and the rest continued in Spanish. Ugh, so frustrating. I really didn’t feel like I was in Guatemala anymore, and I’m afraid these people that just come here for a few days to see Tikal have no idea what the country’s like either.. but maybe they don’t care. We then gave in for an expensive half hour of internet to which the guy said, “¿Hablan español o inglés?” to which I said “los dos” and then he started speaking in English! Even though it wasn’t his native language and we clearly spoke good Spanish. Ugh, whatever. It was annoying. I don’t get it. Anyway, after all these frustrations, we really realized how good we had it in Xela and in the western highlands in general..

This morning we woke up with every intention to just get out of the country that was beginning to grate on us (plus our visa had been expired for 10 days already)… so we jumped into Belize a day early. To do this we had to catch an embarrassing tuk tuk cab to Santa Elena and from there a micro to the border. The border crossing went over much smoother than I expected, the Guatemalan customs man being much friendlier than the prior one. He almost looked sad when he told us we had to pay the 100Q fine for going over our visa. The money changers on the Guatemalan side of things were also pretty friendly people giving us advice and decent exchange rates. At least we left on a last minute good note.. ha. Once into Belize, things seemed calmer, a little less trashier—people still gave us English, but it was OK this time because it’s the official language of the country and all, which is a little strange to adjust to honestly. But we won’t have to for long as we’ll only be here three days, and then we’ll be back into Spanish-heavy Mexico.

The only way to get to our current destination of San Ignacio de Cayo was by taxi, which reluctantly shelled out for. Things are a tad more expensive here with their Belizean dollars (which is just the USD multiplied by 2, easy). but we’re enjoying the change. Our hotel room has actual nice pillows and a little balcony which we’ve been taking advantage of, relaxing. We ate at this delicious Sri Lankan restaurant for lunch, where they actually gave us tiny glasses of water for free. There are also lots of Chinese people which means there are Chinese restaurants. Belize is strange yet familiar. The town of San Ignacio itself seems fairly laid back (much like the majority of the tiny country I’m guessing) and fairly cute and quaint, except midday when it gets way too hot and you have to take a siesta. Oof. So we’re going to stay here one more night, continue decompressing after this frustrating busy week, and then head up to Corozal where we will spend just one night. Then, on Sunday, we’ll be in Mexico!! (again). I had a dream a few nights ago that I got back to the US, but two weeks early and somehow we had just forgotten to see the places in Mexico we were going to visit.. so we were going to go back and see them. It was strange. Ay, if you’ve read all this you must be magical.

We accept our fate—learning gaining

2007-04-21T19:18:00.000-06:00

Our current location is the small city of Cobán within the cloudforests of the Verapaces. Having left Xela at the break of dawn Friday morning, we have officially begun the long arduous journey back Home.

The past week went by as all the other weeks had, just with the inert realization in the back of our minds that it would be our last week as such: volunteering at trama, teaching the few students who decided to show up English. We ate our cupboards and fridge bare and turned to street food at week’s end, as all good weeks should end. (There really is nothing quite as good as a pupusa at night.) (mmm)

My last day at Trama was far more emotional than I was expecting—in a way though, they kind of became my pseudo-family here. They had a little farewell despedida for me on Thursday afternoon which included not just a pizza, but tostadas with delicious guacamole (made from 6 avocados!), refried black beans, and cheese; a hot chocolate drink, tamalitos, and pineapple. It was a really nice of everyone and I started breaking down a little and crying when it came time to say goodbye. Also the day before I’d finished setting up my second weaving, and was given a backstrap loom as a gift to take back home! I shall be a master weaver and make everyone scarves. Or at least a mediocre weaver who makes everyone pot holders.

Later at Best English, Marilu our boss gave Ryan and I parting gifts (which turned out to be a funny shirt for him that he might actually wear and a purse for me that I don’t think I’d use but might make a good gift for someone…) I said goodbye to Alicia who called the mix cd I’d made her “strange.” To finish off the evening we met up with two other teachers from the school and Ryan’s student Hiroshi. It was a good way to end our time in the city. Although, the place we went to was pretty cool and I was left feeling disappointed we’d only found it just when we were leaving, but that’s how it usually works. When we got back to our room at night I found a postcard on the floor from our housemate Sophie wishing us a “feliz viaje” Two nights before she had cooked us a scrumptious feast as a way to say goodbye… when we left we really realized how many interesting and good people we’d met in our time in Xela, which is a good feeling to have when you leave a place.

It was still time to go. We didn’t even tell the so-called landlord-like people that we were leaving, fed up from days of pots and pans being left uncleaned, waking up with what I can only assume are flea bites, and coming home to the sourpuss cleaning woman Lucinda Maria responding with “Buenas tardes…” like she was a robot with draining batteries as she absently stared at whatever mindless soap opera was flickering on the TV. We just left the key in the door and hopped in a taxi with our massive bags (despite shipping a box home and throwing stuff away) for the bus to Guate. The bus took 5 whole hours instead of the estimated 4, with all the road construction. But as we’d woken up at 5 am, I was able to sleep for most of the trip. I never wanted to return to the capital, but we had to, to arrive in Cobán easily. So we spent a whole 45 minutes or so within the sprawling cesspool of a city, calling a cab to take us to the next fancy bus terminal. (We’re takin’ mostly nice buses on our way back home as we have all our belongings with us.. something about a guy throwing my bag on top of an old schoolbus makes me uneasy, as I picture it rolling down the hillside on a sharp turn.) Fortunately the next bus to Cobán was leaving in 15 minutes so we didn’t have to wait around.

This was the nicest bus we’d been on since we’d arrived in Guatemala—with the nice reclining seats, a guy who came around to collect garbage, and a bathroom stop halfway through the trip. However, it started to get hot, hot, hot and that should be how it is for another few weeks really as we continue to the lowlying Caribbean coast, up through the jungles of the Petén and into Belize and the Yucatán peninsula. Eesh. Here’s to hoping I get used to it. Though the scenery was quite varied from the landscape we’ve seen thus far in the country—green, wooded, lush, and misty, our traveling time yesterday totaled a grand 10 hours, and in true form we were quite exhausted upon arrival. All we were able to manage was dragging ourselves minus burdensome bags to some nice street food which consisted of empanadas argentinas and papas fritas. Mmhmm. Oh yes.

Today we woke up refreshed from our sleep and decided to spend the day in the city. First we went to this coffee farm which was started in 1888 by a German family. (Cobán has had lots of strange influences including those from Germany: there were many Nazi sympathizers living here during WWII apparently. Also the women’s traje is different here than I’ve seen elsewhere in Guatemala with baggier, lighter white cloth and gathered skirts, somewhat inspired by this European influences.) So, we asked for the tour in Spanish, but because 3 more people showed up who understood little to no Spanish except for words like “Gracias” we took the tour in English too. The little farm was rather beautiful and fairly interesting and we got to sample various coffee beans and coffee. We also saw banana trees, avocado trees, pacaya, and sugar cane. We also saw cardamom and allspice. Very nice.

Afterwards we spoke to the New Zealanders and Denmarker. We are officially backpackers I guess, without the giant turtleshell backpacks. We accept our fate. Also we were handed a gorgeous little brochure about the farm which featured three old white people taking a picture of the same dull building on the cover and some botched English (“A maya-kekchi guide will invite you to wear the workers hat and to see the coffee plantation through their eyes, learning gaining from them technical knowledge and explanations.”)

Following the tour we headed down to a big park right in town which was also very scenic. We walked to a little laguna and through some woods where we marveled at the ants carrying leaves on their backs in a little line like tiny migrant workers.

Then we headed up to El Calvario on top of the hill and looked at the mist-soaked mountains and city in the distance as little Mayan altars were filled with offerings and burning candles and a wedding proceeded in the church on top.

Lunch was at a good little comedor and we discovered we can buy water in bags for only 50 cents in quetzals. Wow. New levels of cheapdom. And now we’re relaxing in the hostel. Tomorrow we’re probably catching a microbus up north to the town of Chisec supposedly an hour and half away from where you can get to the Lagunas de Sepalau which are supposed to be really beautiful and swimmable. I am quite looking forward to swimming in this heat. It’s funny how in Xela you really don’t realize you’re in Central America due to the altitude. In less than a week I should be out of this crazy country and in less than a month back in the US of A. Okay, I’m going to take a cold shower. (not like I have a choice in this hostel.)

Ryan’s addendum about the coffee tour:

The New Zealanders were quite the talkative pair, telling us about their current travel plans and about their homeland. The husband, Nick, even brought out a small picture book that he carried around in his large backpack. They told us about their travel plans, and after I realized that they planned to be in Lívingston (a town of only six thousand or so) around the same time we planned to be, I decided to pay more attention to them. They were on a two-and-a-half week trip that involved more or less incessant bussing and the occasional flight. When Nick told me that they had to catch a flight out of Mérida (which in his amusing Kiwi accent was MIH-ree-der; he also pronounced Maya as mayor) on May 4, I told him that I thought it remarkable that they would be so close to spending Cinco de Mayo in Mexico but managed to not join the party. He asked what it was and I told him how it was a big Mexican holiday celebrating an important military victory. He then, in all seriousness and with a straight face asked me when it was.

PUPPY

Tema: Tomar el Taco

2007-04-09T18:17:00.000-06:00

So as you loyal readers know, Ryan and I went to Mexico this past weekend. We return today with pesos, bellies full of sweet, sweet Mexican street food, and an unrenewed visa complete with a new disdain for humanity—but more on that later.

Flashback to last week… Tuesday we went to Salcajá to visit their local market, and to our surprise it was much larger than we expected it to be. I kept asking about prices of cortes (the fabric used for traditional Mayan skirts), but they cost way more than I was prepared to pay. It was a fairly interesting market though, and it was kind of neat (kind of) to stop in a town we always pass through whenever we go anywhere else.

Once we got back into Xela, we decided to check out the Casa de Cultura, assuming it would be open that is. For once it was, and we walked on in. The sign said we were to pay Q6, but there was no one to collect said fee, so we continued on into the museum of sorts. This had to have been the most sad, pathetic, random museum I have ever been to. You walk up the stairs into the first room and are greeted by various Mayan artifacts in display cases (some of which have big cracks taped together with masking tape), which in itself is fairly cool, but what little information cards and labels there are, are printed on small index cards full of typos with what must have been an antique typewriter. Then another room featured plants and Guatemalan beverages, while the prize-winning room next door contained freakish stuffed animals—including a row of giant squirrels, a four-horned goat, a goat with eight legs, cow, pig, fish, human, and dog fetuses in jars, and last but not least, hawks wearing bowties. Yeah, this is Xela’s most well-known museum. Welcome to Guatemala’s second city. And then out of nowhere one of the workers approached us and asked us to pay while we were looking at some exhibit. Other rooms featured a stuffed quetzal and some stuffed peacocks (which had a card that says it would be more attractive if it hadn’t been killed by a shotgun blast!) and a room dedicated to the marimba!

Awesome. I also got my first haircut in Guatemala, and it didn’t turn out too bad. At the same time, the city decided to give me a sneak preview of what the rainy season holds in store for us. It had hardly even drizzled in this town since we’ve been here, but this day the skies opened up, and it poured, poured, poured, until the street was a river and the beauty shop women advised me to wait. It didn’t stop though, and I eventually ran through the streets with my wimpy little umbrella, splashing through the streets, returning home looking like a stowaway who’d been kicked off the boat. That’s when we found out that our bathroom ceiling also has a small leak in it. The gods of fun just keep on giving here.

Even so, come Wednesday morning we were rather ready to embark upon our international Semana Santa adventure. We quite literally woke up with the dawn at 5:30 in the morning and headed to our friendly neighborhood bus terminal (ha).

We got on, what we thought, was a bus headed directly to La Mesilla, the border of Guatemala. We thought this because we paid for a full fare of Q30 to La Mesilla. Hmm, silly us. When the bus pulled into the Huehuetenango bus terminal, we quickly learned that the bus was in fact, not going to La Mesilla, but to Soloma. Cool. But we already paid. Confused and rapidly becoming more frustrated, we ambled about the terminal trying to figure out what was going on, while being hassled by ayudantes trying to convince us to get on their bus to La Mesilla. Ryan exploded at one point which prompted one of these guys to say in cool, cool English, “Hey, don’t get mad.” We went back to the first bus though, where another woman who had also paid was confused and angry. Thankfully the workers told another bus we paid, so we didn’t have to pay twice. We were on our second bus to the border now, proving once again that Huehuetenango just kind of sucks.

Eventually, we reached the border of Guatemala at La Mesilla. You just kind of get out and walk across to Mexico. But then, you have to take some kind of taxi to get to immigration in Ciudad Cuátemoc because there are 4 km between the two places. Remember this later. Also, no one really forces you to walk into customs. Anyone could easily just walk from Guatemala to Mexico or vice versa and no one would stop you. But anyway, part of our reason for going to Mexico was to renew our Guatemalan visa, so we dropped into the Mexican immigration office and got our passport stamped.

We were in Chiapas and on our way to the city of Comitán. The difference in the level of comfort and space between Mexican and Guatemalan transport was already painfully evident. The seats in the little colectivo van that carried us to Comitán were so comfortable. People weren’t hanging out of the door while we were driving, either. If Mexico feels luxurious to us after living in Guatemala, I don’t even know what it’s going to feel like to get back to the US.

Unfortunately it started to rain again, and essentially didn’t stop raining for the rest of the night. Boo. We decided to stay in Comitán for the first night because it was supposed to be a pleasant city that few travelers stopped in, and also so we could visit the Lagos de Montebello the next morning, but mostly because we figured it would break up the trip a little. Thankfully, it ended up fulfilling all of these things.

The city was indeed very pleasant, in spite of the rain. We took to the streets, exploring the center which had a very pretty main plaza. We went into the free museum of archaeology, and were once again amazed at the tremendous difference in quality between the museum and Xela’s Casa de Cultura that we had just visited the previous day. And this one was free and looked like a real museum and stuff.

We later took advantage of a 2x1 pizza deal where I also was reunited with my long lost friend Manzana Lift. Mmhmm.. Viva México.

The next morning we caught another colectivo van and headed out for the Lagos de Montebello, a series of beautiful lakes of varying sizes and hues scattered throughout the forests of Chiapas. As soon as you get to the main parking lot, 4-5 men approach you and ask if you want to rent a horse or a cabin or have a guide, etc. etc. They’re persistent little devils. The main lake we saw was Lago Bosque Azul, and it was really very tranquil and lovely.

We then avoided the horse renting men, (deciding that if they asked us again we would say that Ryan was scared of horses and could you please stop suggesting it) and started on a forest trail that eventually led to two grutas (grottos). The first one was stunning, so massive, with the sound of running water trickling through the rocks.

We hopped across the rocky river to the other grotto which was mostly a very dark cave that we didn’t explore to thoroughly due to not having adequate lighting.

We saw one more little lake while we were at the Lagos, which I believe was Lago Encantado, if I remember correctly. I’m too lazy to look it up. Sorry. It was pretty too, with less people there.

The only other thing we did was order some quesadillas at a little comedor and listen to the sounds of marimba in the air, before catching our transportation back to Comitán, and from there immediately to San Cristóbal de las Casas.

The monotony of the van ride to San Cristóbal was broken up by an animated 14-yearold girl named Dora Heidi. When we stepped inside, she asked us where we were from. When we told her, she asked if she could sit next to us and chat for a bit. I was afraid she worked for some kind of tour company or something, but we soon learned that she was just 14, curious, and very lively. I learned that she is from Tonalá on the coast, that she works with some kind of Christian organization who would be looking for funds in San Cristóbal who apparently rescued her from her messed up family life, that it was her first time to the city, and that she really liked the music of one Anet Moreno, and would tell me to listen everytime one of her songs came on the radio. She wants to study marine biology.

She told us that she always saw these backpackers walking around and was curious what they thought about, so she decided to talk with us. She was tired of everyone being silent on transportation and didn’t understand why people weren’t more open. She asked us many questions, one being what were artesanías (handicrafts) typical of the US. I told her wooden rabbits sitting on swings wearing flower hats, but really nothing. When we parted she introduced us to her comrades and we parted ways.

Into San Cristóbal. We arrived at the city slightly tired, and headed towards the center of town and our hostal. We stayed at a place called Rincón de los Camellos which seemed nice at first, mostly because our room was bright and cheery, with flowers in a vase, and pictures of smiling African people on the walls—a welcome contrast to the gloominess of the majority of the places we’ve stayed in. However, we later were to find out that the hostel was inhabited primarily by loud, incosiderate French people who thought it was cool to shout and sing with a guitar until nearly midnight. (Oh we’ve become such morning people, ugh.) Anyway, they were fairly rude and didn’t seem to care that they might be keeping people up. I’m not sure what’s wrong with these people anyway. They never seem to ever leave the hostel, when there were exciting and interesting things going on around them in the city that weekend. No, they’d rather stay in the hostel and be French and annoy people. (end of long rant)

Anyway, on Friday we mostly just got acquainted with our surroundings, eating some wonderful street food, drinking some ponche de piña with little bits of cake in it (as we would do every night). Actually Friday was a bit of a food fest for us. We ate the following: tacos de tinga (chicken tomato combo mix), huaraches con nopal (this was my first time ever hearing of huaraches, but they were good—a oval tortilla bottom topped with refried beans, some cheese and cream, and cactus paddles.), a bean tamal, churros, fried plantain, spicy cut up corn in a cup, and these pastries that looked like cannoli but were filled with melted marshmallow—so good. Man, Mexican food is better than Guatemalan food. At least there’s more variety and we surely took advantage on this trip.

It was so nice to be in a city full of people, out late at night, enjoying themselves. I wish there was more of that here in Xela, but things tend to wrap up fairly early here. It was also more lively being the Semana Santa. The city was full of tourists, both foreign and Mexican. Vendors carrying loads of bracelets, shawls, and belts took to the streets in hopes of making a sale. There were many free events, music, theatre, storytelling, etc. It was a good vibe.

Friday and Saturday we spent entirely within San Cristóbal. We played around with the idea of visiting one of the nearby villages or the ruins of Toniná, but we were kind of tired of travelling and knew that Sunday would be very travel-filled and tiresome. There was thankfully lots to do. We ate lots of great Mexican food (soups like sopa azteca, tlalpeño, chilalingo), more street food, more ponche. We visited the museum of trajes regionales that is really only open by appointment one hour of the day. It’s this man named Sergio’s personal collection which is just vast. He was a very interesting man who was quite knowledgeable. I learned a little and now feel refreshed and inspired to start writing my history of Mayan weaving for Trama.

The artesanías market was also very big and not as obnoxious as Antigua’s. The vendors were far less pushy and there were products I hadn’t seen before, and with different designs. Let’s just say I picked up a fair amount of gits for people. (Yes, you.) There was also a small book fair going on, where we picked up “El Gran Libro de las Tortas” which speaks of sandwiches around the world and how to make them! For a measley 10 pesos. There was also a cool weaving cooperative, but the prices were very expensive, much more than Trama. Eek.

We sat around a lot in plazas and watched people and said “no no no”to the pushy vendors. I think it would be cool to follow around one of these vendors for a day and make a movie about it. Could be a neat concept. Anyway. Friday was also Good Friday and we saw a total of 5 different processions with Jesus and co.

Saturday was Ryan’s birthday. To start the day off, we dropped in on this little paper making group called Taller Leñateros. It was pretty awesome. They make their own paper out of different leaves, fibers, plants, and then sell things in their store. They also publish some books and magazines. I picked up a few more little gifts here for people I think will appreciate them.

We also wandered into the free museum of popular culture where a small little band was starting to play while men and women did a little simple dance while shaking maracas. It was pretty cool but soon got repetitive.

Ryan didn’t want anything fancy for his birthday, of course, but I bought him one of the typical maroon Mexican sweater poncho things he had his eye on, and treated him to a nice simple Mexican meal of huaraches and tacos. The huaraches were huge!

We later ate a tres leches cake outside that we’d picked up in a panadería

.

The highlight of the evening was to come later when the city had its “burning of Judas” celebration. It was much like the Fallas of Valencia, with effigies made of papier machiere, (and firecrackers/fireworks) were made and strung up on a wire. Each one was some kind of criticism about a problem in the world, most either Mexican issues (graffiti, president, gangs, tacos), worldwide issues (drugs, pollution, abortion), or bitching about the US (immigration, Bush, corn).

The little plaza was packed a half hour before the burning was to begin. A highschool marching band wearing leopard print was playing songs, including the Mexican hat dance! Ha. The announcer talked about each little falla and talked about the theme. There would be a contest for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. I still don’t know who won.

Anyway, there was one float thing that featured a person eating a giant taco, making fun of a holiday Mexicans have called day of the taco, and how it’s wrong to celebrate such a thing when a lot of people are starving in the country. But when the announcer mentioned this float, he said, “El taco, tema: tomar el taco” (The taco, theme: eating tacos) It was funny and I think it summed up my theme in Mexico as well. Partly. So, slowly each float was doused in gasoline and lit on fire. Some burst into flames and fireworks would shoot off in various directions—into the air, into the crowd, until the crowd would quickly begin backing up, out of fear of being lit on fire. It was quite a sight.

Afterwards they had a little ceremony for the new queen of the fair which was kind of amusing and strange. Students with guitars sang for her and everyone watched on attentively. And that concluded the night.

Sunday was a day marked with strife. We got up around 6:30, which is 5:30 Xela time with ambitions to head all the way back to Xela. We did this but not without compications. We were informed at the immigration office of Guatemala that we needed an “exit stamp” that we did not receive when we left for Mexico. We were not aware that we had to go through customs of the country we were leaving and the country we were entering. Also there was no sign saying this and Mexico didn’t say anything about this!!! I started to become frustrated and angry. He told us we had to pay a fine of Q300 which was outlandish and we simply didn’t have it. He said our other alternative was to just keep the visa we already had that runs out April 16th, and then we have to pay Q10 for every day we go over that visa. So we decided to do that for the time being… ugh. One of the main reasons we went to Mexico was to renew our visa and that didn’t happen so, needless to say I was pretty bent out of shape about it. We are going to look into all our options to see what the real deal is behind these fines and nonsense. Either way we will be leaving Xela no later then April 21st to begin our trek back home.

THEN, we had to go back 4 km to the Mexican immigration office to get our exit stamp that we didn’t know we needed to avoid trouble with Mexico when we come back. We also learned we had to pay an obnoxious tourist tax of 237 pesos. At least we could pay with credit card. I hate customs people. They’re so robotic and quick with you. Just like people who work in airports. Loads of fun. So we were back in Guatemala, but with a newfound bitterness for everything and everyone around us. Our time here has been great and fulfilling but it’s also starting to wear on us, and we’ll be ready to start heading out of Xela in a little under two weeks (or sooner depending on what we find out about these fines and visas). The bus to Huehue and then Xela was packed and uncomfortable as usual. Our bitterness wore off some as we arrived back home, ready to start this next week. In spite of the shadow that Sunday cast on everything, we still had a great trip.

Like an Indian Toilet

2007-04-03T13:46:00.000-06:00

And now, a guest entry from Ryan, because I’m nice:

In which our heroes mistakenly take the road less traveled and find themselves content and refreshed at journey’s end

It had been a joke for us for some time now. Every weekend that we’ve stayed in town, except of course for that weekend we took the exhaustive and debilitating hike up to Laguna Chicabal—if you speak Mam or think that k’s and apostrophes make words look awesome you could call it Chikab’al I guess—we’ve said the same thing. “Well, we could see if a movie’s playing at la Pradera, maybe buy some non-processed cheese (seriously, our cheese choices in town are queso fresco, queso duro, or the frighteningly plastic queso amarillo) at HiperPaiz, or maybe we could go to los Vahos.”

El vaho is el vapor, but less the idea of something steamy as something with fumes and odors. Los Vahos is a sauna, described by my ever-so-pithy guidebook as “rough and ready”, which capitalizes on the geothermal steam that seeps out of vents on a mountainside rather than on hot embers doused with water (various Maya groups bathe in smaller saunas like this, calling them either chuj or tuj depending on the peculiarities of their language) to produce the hot, humid air.

This Saturday our quickly vanishing time here finally built enough of a fire under us to make us set out early to follow my book’s ambiguous directions to the site, of course after stopping for a desayuno típico (I could write two hundred words on how this place has made me reconsider my previous opinion on all-day breakfast places)to give us the strength we’d need for the climb. One thing we learned from the Chicabal ascent was the disadvantages of hiking while hungry.

Walking south along Trece Avenida we passed the crappy Despensa Familiar grocery that frequently plays loud high-energy reggaeton for its clientele and mechanics’ garages each with their own dog lying languidly in the entrance. In no time the flatland portion of our trip ended and we started climbing up the mountain that looms over the south of town with the CRISTO VIENE sign of Santuario Monte Sinai. We ran in to one of the few mutual acquaintances that Ilene and I have in this city—how many people are interested in both organic gardening and backstrap loom weaving?—and chatted with her for a while. In true Marin county fashion she advised us not to get “sketched out” by los Vahos, since it “looks and smells like an Indian toilet”. Luckily for us, we have no idea of hygiene standards of the subcontinent and we started walking up the switchbacking road up the hill.

The bubble of prosperity and comfort that covers most of the city center quickly faded away and we were hailed on the road by a strange man who felt it important to repeatedly tell us “No se preocupen”, a sure sign that we should preocuparnos. I listened to what he had to say, paying him just enough attention to keep him from getting angry with us while Ilene pointedly stood far away and admired the view. After telling me how he used to live outside Los Angeles and how some dudes threw him off an exit ramp and how all the Super Chivos know who he is, he got bored and moved on, and we stayed gazing on the city below trying to pick out the places we know from the bird’s-eye view we had.

You can easily see the newly-repainted white domes of the cathedral fronting the Parque Centroamérica, the area obscured by the Casa de Cultura and a clump of trees. The yellow building to the left is the Despensa Familiar which I mentioned. Running down the middle of the photograph is Doce Avenida which we walk down to get to the school where we work, located on the block just south of the Esso gas station. A Volkswagon’s parked in front.

Moving on once we figured that the strange man had moved on, we went beyond where the irregular cobblestones of the street gave way to the worndown grass of a path. Already we were outside of Xela, though we wouldn’t know exactly where we’d be for some time. The land on either side of us was grassy hills and forested mountainside, broken by fallow fields and their stone enclosures. This scene reminded me of what my mind paints the landscape of northern California or Normandy to be, though with volcanoes in the background.

Our directions told us to follow the road past a dairy and a school. Well, as you can see, we found the dairy, and following the advice Naomi had given us that we should keep moving uphill we took the road straight past the dairy, leading us on a long walk through the mountain. It was the wrong way, and though the main path we were on looked as though it had been tread by trucks or fourwheelers in the recent past, all of the branches quickly became half-overgrown footpaths leading straight up the mountain.

This was the monte. We saw no one for a long time. We heard no one. All the noise that was around was the cracking of the dry leaves under our feet, the occasional rustling of a critter quickly getting out of our way, and the constant whoosh of the air through the tall pine trees that dotted the mountainside. We kept going uphill, until the path started to head downhill. Then we noticed that we were on the other side of the mountain, our view now showing the valleys and plains around what Ilene and I believed was Almolonga, the first town we visited during our stay here.

Since the path was now dropping considerably, we retraced our steps. Ilene expressed her amazement over the sauna’s owner’s failure to adequately mark the path to the establishment. At this point, you might think that we’d’ve been quite annoyed with not finding the vahos, but we felt so rewarded by the views that we actually didn’t care if we just walked back down into the city center sweaty and unsteamed. I even mentioned aloud that we should go on more hikes and such when we return to the States.

Once we got back to the dairy, we noticed the other branch of the path heading across fields and looking rather obviously like the correct path. Hindsight being twenty-twenty and everything.

The walk across the fields was pleasant, watching cows rest in the surprisingly cool breeze and chickens squawk and fuss about. Then Ilene stopped to take a picture of some dogs playing by a house and an opportunistic young boy ran out to meet us from behind a house and greeted us with “¿Un quetzal?”.

The rest of the path went by quickly with our knowledge that we were definitely on the right path and the knowledge that we were in a place that was populated enough to have a name, Cantón Xetuj. Ilene said that she believed more gringos see this part of the city’s periphery than quetzaltecos. She’s right I bet.

Eucalyptus trees guarded the road leading up to los vahos. Two dogs also guarded the road. At first, Ilene was wary of the dogs, since they barked as we approached, and since she had been lunged at rather surprisingly by the dog accompanying a group of teenagers heading downhill with loads of firewood. These dogs were actually among the most inquisitive and playful and just the happiest dogs I’ve seen in a long time. They quickly upgraded themselves in our book from mean dogs to friendly chuchos. They even stood guard while I used the bathroom at the sauna.

Well, we had arrived. We paid for our hour of sauna use to the proprietor, a man in a baseball cap and teeshirt who infuriatingly spoke to us in pidgin Spanish the entire time. We went down to the rooms below to change into our swimsuits and enter the very hot sauna.

Neither one of us had been in a sauna before, and we enjoyed the experience. I didn’t enjoy hitting my head on the low concrete lintel of the doorway, and Ilene didn’t enjoy seeing a pair of roaches, but all in all, we’re glad we got to experience it. The sauna wasn’t just plain steam either as the owner had placed eucalyptus leaves, perhaps leaves from the trees we had passed on our way up, over the vents, making the sauna feel like a cross between a hot shower ad vaporub. Our lungs which have been plagued by the smog and dust of Xela felt cleared out and simply wonderful. Naomi said that she found the vahos cleansing, and we had chalked her choice of words up to her being more than a bit of a hippie, but I think she spoke accurately.

Our hour up, the proprietor came to the door tapping his watch and saying “Tiempo, tiempo”. No Spanish speaker would use that word to say that our time was up, they’d instead tap their watches and say “la hora”. Then as we finished getting dressed, reluctantly putting our dusty socks over our clean feet, he stood in the doorway being creepy.

The chuchos came along with us as we walked back down the road, the air feeling comparatively cold and the breeze drying us off. Then they stood at attention in the road and then happily ran after the SUV driven by who we can only assume was their owner that came up the hill.

Once back in town, our tired legs demanded to be relieved of our weight, but first we stopped to buy some wine for our attempt at making charoset, and some beer for good measure. The wine was cheap and suitably oversweetened, and by the clerk’s inability to do math, we got four bottles of Brahva for the price of one. We also followed up on our boss Marilu’s suggestion that we pick up some paches from the Hotel Americano. Given the name of the place, we’d never have gone their by ourselves, and befitting their name, they actually had Budweiser on the menu, making it the only place that I’ve seen an American beer offered in Guatemala. They don’t even have a reliable selection of Mexican beers, even in Tilapa which is a handful of miles from the border.

The paches were big tamales made with rice to which raisins, olives, and what we think are dates added to the mix. And there was also a sizeable piece of chicken which had been steamed in the corn-leaf wrapped tamal. We were so surprised that this only cost us Q7.50 each. Between this and the cashier’s failing to note that four beers should cost much more than Q7.75, the Gods of Cheap Food were smiling upon us. Too bad we probably won’t have any more Saturday nights in this town, because this could easily have become a tradition of ours.

Then we went home and made some charoset for dessert and listened to some Beatles while our Lutheran landlords sat in their small room below us and sang hymns. What a day.

Okay, this is Ilene again. I would just like to add that
1. the cockroaches were huge!
2. I have finished weaving my scarf:

It is pretty.
3.There is a fruit here called the zapote. The inside is orange and doesn’t look unlike pumpkin.
4.The week’s work is pretty much over since the Holy Week is upon us. We’re headed to the little town of Salcajá tomorrow for a day trip.
5.Wednesday we’re headed north of the border to Mexico (crazy that it’s north and not south, huh? I’ll say.)—staying the first night in Comitán and then onward to San Cristóbal de las Casas, all in Chiapas. Ay de mí.
6.Happy Passover… and April!

¿Que busca?

2007-03-26T17:20:00.000-06:00

Well another two weeks have flown by, and we’ve somehow been in Guatemala for just over two months now according to authorities and the stamp on my passport. Last week was a bit hectic.. Ola, the volunteer coordinator at Trama was away traveling with visiting friends, so I was sort of pretending to be her. It would have been fine, but around 4-5 different girls came in asking me what they could do to help out with volunteering, and I didn’t really know what to say, but I think it ended up fine. Maybe I’ll actually be able to finish weaving my scarf this week—we’ll see.

Last week was also a slow week for English students. Both Alicia and Karin told me they wouldn’t be able to come to due to other responsibilitie, and Vinicio, the slow 8-yearold only showed up one day the whole week. (Not that I’m complaining about that.) Seriously though, how am I supposed to make this kid learn anything whatsoever? Ugh.

Also, one day we went to this coffeehouse called El Cuartito (which has good coffee but is a kind of a place for pretentious foreigners to hang out and feel like they’re in New York City instead of you know, Central America,) to see this movie they were showing called Estrellas de la Linea. It’s about these prostitues in Guatemala City who formed a soccer team and were trying to gain respect for themselves with all the violence that had been shown to them throughout the years. It was really pretty good and interesting, and some of the people involved with the film were in attendance, including this elderyly woman named Marina who was by far my favorite. She sang a few songs for us, and I was glad to see that she had a new prosthetic eye.

So this weekend, we cancelled our Friday duties and reluctantly escaped to the tourist haven known as Antigua. We still hadn’t been and we figured it was something we had to see, no matter our reservations. Parts of the trip were really fun, and parts of it honestly were just.. obnoxious. The bus rides were so-so. The ride to Chimaltenango was filled with construction, but despite that was not so rough. From Chimal to Antigua we were in a packed little bus, and as the bus neared Antigua, I could immediately detect the change in the air.

To put things into perspective, Antigua is like the Disneyland of Guatemala. There are tourists everywhere.. nearly everyone there is a tourist who isn’t working. Lots of old fat tourists with their camcorders and sweaters tied around their necks speaking in loud English about the jade store on the corner. And then there are “language students.” And I would think it’s hard to learn Spanish in Xela with the amount of foreigners around them, but in Antigua it would be even worse. I’m not sure you’d learn anything. So, the good things I can say about Antigua: amazing restaurants and beautiful buildings. Also, garbage cans! I think there are maybe two garbage cans outside in all of Xela, but hot damn, Antigua had garbage cans everywhere.. and maybe just one street dog. It also resembled the French quarter in New Orleans or a small city in Spain—both for good reasons I suppose. But it did remind me a lot of the French Quarter (except safer), with the small streets and tourists and horses and buggies. Yes.

So speaking of the restaurants, this is what we dined on in Antigua!: Schnitzel sandwich at a supposed Austrian restaurant, Greek food at … a Greek restaurant, Peruvian food (yeah Cindy, have you heard of causa?) and Korean food (yeah, Sarah.) which was really authentic actually since there were only Korean people in there! Yeah.
We got kimbab which is kind of like sushi and oh so tasty after months of not having sushi.

Man. Anyway.. Most of these restaurants looked fairly fancy as well. And in the Peruvian restaurant the waiter even brought us our bottled water and unscrewed the caps for us!! Like it was a fancy bottle of wine or something! Ha, it was funny. I tried not to laugh.

We also explored some of the old church and monestery ruins sites which were really gorgeous and interesting and we got some fantastic pictures. At times I felt like I was back in the Alhambra in Granada or in Segovia.

The room we stayed at in Antigua was really cheap though. It cost us a combined $5/night, and we actually ran into Ola from Trama, her husband, their traveling companions, and their 2-month old puppy there. Random.

We went into a store or two. One was really cool even though it was over-priced, because it was like a Mayan weaving warehouse, and had tons of huipiles from various towns throughout the country, which was awesome for me. Ryan was also able to dress up as a todosantero, since he really wants one of these hats:

We also decided to see what the Artesanías market was like. And wow, was it ever awful. Essentially every stall consisted of the same items, and everytime you passed, a woman would say “Hola…que busca?” occasionally followed by someone saying in English, “What are you looking for?” Nothing, seriously. It left a really bad taste in my mouth and we didn’t stick around long. Needless to say, we didn’t buy anything in Antigua besides food and accommodation. Hmph. We were pretty much ready to leave early Sunday morning. Our impression of Antigua was soured even further when we wandered into the “real” market to buy some fruit, and I was looking through the little oranges to pick 5, since we were told they were 5 for 3 quetzales, and the woman eventually made some noise and said we weren’t allowed to choose! Uh, so we just left. She was really rude.

With that, we hopped on the bus for Chimaltenango, ready to leave Antigua in the dust. We decided that instead of going straight back to Xela, we would make a detour in the town of Tecpán and see the Kaqchikel ruins of Iximché. I was actually kind of curious to see Tecpán, as I’d just recently read a book about Mayan weaving, and the woman who wrote it, had done all her research in the town. It was cool to see the people walking around in what I recognized as Tecpán traje. It also happened to be their market day, so we checked that out for a bit, buying some bananas from a much friendlier man. There was a band playing, and it had a good vibe. We eventually found a microbus to hop in that would take us to the ruinas. We were supposed to be 25 quetzales each to enter since we were foreigners, but since he couldn’t break 100 quetzal bill, he let us in for the price of only one.. which was pretty awesome.

The ruins site of Iximché was very peaceful. It had beautiful scenery in the mountains and was fairly large. A gentle breeze was in the air, and it was so nice to see lots of trees again. I realize that is one thing I really miss her in Xela—a park with lots of trees. So we climbed a few small structures, saw a Mayan ritual site, and walked down part of a trail in a forest. It was all quite gorgeous. You will also be happy to learn that while our enlightened leader George W. was visiting this fine country for a whole 23 hours, he visited these same ruins. I guess because of its proximity to the capital, and that he couldn’t stay an extra day to see Tikal. Interesting.

After leaving Iximché, we ate an amazingly filling lunch of sausages which included rice, soup, half an avocado!, and some tomatoes and onions. It was tasty. We were ready to hop on another bus that would take us back to Xelaland. We had to wait by the side of the road for 25 minutes for a bus that was Xela-bound. One finally came, and we had no idea as we stepped aboard that it would be the bus ride from hell! Well, we should have had some idea when we got on and there were no seats and we were forced to stand at the very front of the bus, where Ryan’s shirt actually got caught in the door for a second. We were able to move back a little further soon. The driver asked for our fare and said things to us in English which infuriated us to no end.. ! First of all, we hadn’t said anything in English the whole time, secondly, we only spoke in Spanish and never indicated that we didn’t understand and that he should please deliver us some broken English that is about on par with my 8 year old student’s. Thanks. Third, how does he even know we’re English-speaking. We could be Spaniards of French or German or hell even really light skinned Guatemalans. Have you SEEN a picture of their president Berger? (Go take a look). We only responded to him in Spanish and at one point after I finally found a seat to squish into, he said to Ryan in English, “please, sir, could you move back”? To which Ryan responded really angrily in fast Spanish. The guy thought he was mad at being asked to move back, but really it was the English. Later he apologized to him, but again, in English. Ha. Ridiculous.

My situation wasn’t much better, with my back smushed against a really overweight man, and sitting next to a father and his small child who threw up not once, but twice next to me. Awesome. Thank goodness the ride only lasted a quick two hours. We arrived home exhausted but happy to be back in Xela.

I apologize for the overwhelmingly bitter tone of this entry, but it’s good to get out. Even though it may not seem like it, I’m still glad we went on the trip so that we could have the experience and perspective. We might just stay in Xela next weekend, though. To be continued…

Todo lo que hago, lo hago por ti

2007-03-12T09:46:00.000-06:00

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.

¡Pase adelante!

2007-02-27T14:33:00.000-06:00

I’ve been slacking in the writing a bit, but only because before I felt there wasn’t enough information to fill a whole entry (an interesting entry at least), but now I think I have collected enough juicy tidbits to keep you reading.

So the weekend before this last one, not much was really done as we were tired and Ryan was kind of sick. We stuck around Xela for the most part. I went to two poetry readings with a girl named Sofie from Quebec who lives in the house as well. (Maybe I’ll get to practice my French too.) It was pretty fun. The poets weren’t half-bad either, and really rather friendly. I hope similar events are on the horizon.

Last week was another fairly typical week: volunteering for Trama, teaching the three students English who sometimes show up and sometimes don’t, and translating here and there. My last student of each day, Alicia, makes me laugh. She thinks her English is really bad, but in reality, hers is the best of all three of my students. She let me borrow a CD of music she likes in a style she calls “bachata.” Anyway, it’s pretty lousy, and maybe I can make her see the error of her ways? Doubtful, but worth a shot. Maybe I’ll make her a CD under the guise of “this will help you learn English”, when really it will help her music tastes… ha.

The last week also contained Carnaval on Tuesday, what in New Orleans would be called “Mardi Gras”. It’s kind of sad that I lived in New Orleans for a while but never even got to experience a Mardi Gras, but oh well. This fair has been set up next to el Parque Calvario in my neighborhood for the past two weeks or so, for Catholic-fueled party purposes, I think. So we went down last Tuesday to see what all the fuss was about. It was full of people and seemed like it would really be quite fun. Music in the air, street food, homemade traditional candies, even a ferris wheel! But of course, it couldn’t be that fun that easily. No. Soon we started seeing groups of adolescent boys going around throwing handfuls of flour at nervous passerbys. And of course I was lucky enough to be on the receiving end of said flour attacks at least three times. My sweater and head were splattered with white (yes, even moreso than my hair usually is), and needless to say, I didn’t want to stay long. I just have this hang-up where I don’t enjoy things being thrown in my face.. call me crazy. It felt like escaping from a war, as we hurried through the crowds to get back onto the street towards the house. On a happier note, some of the homemade candies are quite tasty. In fact, I think I’ll eat one now. Mmm.

With the week behind us, Ryan and I decided it was high time to take off again, our destination this time being Lake Atitlán. I had wanted to visit the Lake for quite some time, so I was pretty excited. It’s supposed to be one of the most beautiful lakes in the world, and it definitely lived up to its reputation. We took off Friday morning, having to take several buses to get close to the lake, as I’m guessing a direct one wasn’t available at the time we left (there is not bus schedule posted anywhere…). Since the bus stopped off in the traditional town of Sololá, and as it was their market day, we decided to check it out a little. It was huge and quite a sight. If we had been feeling more up to it, we would have spent more time there, but as we were anxious to get to the Lake, we hopped on another bus,--this time for Panajachel. This is where I caught my first glimpse of the lake, on our descent down the hills into town. I had seen plenty of pictures of it before, but still its beauty took me by surprise. Pictures don’t do it justice.

We soon arrived in Pana, a city we had been warned to avoid spending much time in by at least several people due to its strong touristy vibe, but still came to anyway. For one thing, buses from Xela get to the lake either through Panajachel or San Pedro La Laguna, and we figured the western side of the lake would be for our next visit. So while Pana was much more touristy than most parts of Guatemala we’ve seen so far and even rather obnoxious at times, it was still something to be seen, occasionally amusing, and overlooking the most beautiful body of water I have ever seen, so for now it’s forgiven.

We ambled through the streets of Panajachel, eventually finding a place to eat lunch. One of the nice things about Pana, was that there was a fair amount of good places to eat. We happily took advantage of this, eating at a Uruguayan restaurant, a little crepe place, and a place that had good pita sandwiches (not all at the same time of course). We joked that going to the lake was our vacation away from Guatemala. Many tourists walked around wearing their big khaki floppy hats and cameras around their necks. This was the first time I saw a fair amount of families on vacation in this country, wearing their Mayan-woven scarves and Tikal Petén t-shirts they picked up from street vendors.

The next day we woke up fairly early to catch a lancha (little boat) across the lake to the town of Santiago Atitlán. I’d read a fair amount about Santiago, so I was all geared up. While Santiago is a much more traditional town than Panajachel, there were also many tourists, and lamentably a fair amount of the villagers play to this. We got into town around 8 AM, and we did not go unnoticed, as a man wearing the traditional Santiago shorts sauntered up to us and badgered us about staying at some hotel, and proceeded to follow us for several minutes after we’d said, “No, Gracias” and other discouraging things at least 10 times. Some of these people would make fantastic telemarketers, I’m telling you. I think he was particularly persistent because we must have been the first gringos of the day. Hah.

We wandered around the town, eventually finding the old church. Inside were statues of saints wearing various gowns and really gaudy scarves. We had read in my guidebook that if you go down to dock you could rent a canoe and go out to this nature reserve close by. We decided to investigate this. The second you get even close to the dock various workers approach you and say, “Pana? San Pedro?” thinking you want to catch a lancha to one of those towns. But, no. This other really eager man in a cowboy hat, purple shirt, and traditional Santiago shorts kept asking us things in broken Spanish, saying he would take us in his canoe to some place we couldn’t understand. He was more persistent than the first guy, if that’s believable. We finally told him we wanted to rent a canoe, and that we wanted to go alone. He agreed on my lowered price and we lightly stepped into the reed-strewn wooden boat. With one paddle in each of our hands, we set out, away from the dock, or at least we tried. I think I’d only been in a canoe once before, when I was maybe 11 on a school field trip in 5th grade, so I was a bit out of sorts. We finally got the hang of it, and awkwardly maneuvered further from the shore. Many strange looks were shot our way from villagers in other canoes, and one man looked at me and laughed, “lanchera!” meaning it was funny to see a woman rowing. The old woman in the canoe then pointed and laughed and said something in what I’m guessing was Tz’utujil.

Then as we curved around the bend, our friendly Santiago Atitlán helper appeared amongst some reeds. He shouted something intelligible that sounded like “Ixca!” I have no idea. We paddled closer to figure out what he was talking about. We had wanted to see this weaving museum earlier, and it had been closed, so I think he was talking about there being a museum and it was open now, but I don’t think it was the same one. Basically, I think he was trying to get his canoe back early.. not so fast, buddy. So we just thanked him for telling us and said we wanted to stay in the canoe more, though. He skipped away towards the dock again, hunting for more gringos.

We eventually got a handle on the rowing, but still the canoe would occasionally turn in circles. Tourists passing in lanchas took our pictures as we struggled towards what we thought was the little nature reserve. By the time we got close to it, nearly two hours had already passed, and there didn’t really seem to be much to see, so we began our trip back to the dock. The scenery was absolutely stunning: crystal blue water, volcanoes looming immediately ahead of us, surrounded by mountains on all sides.

The trip back was also difficult because by now our muscles were starting to get quite sore. My butt hurt from sitting on a coke crate, my arms from constantly shoving a paddle into the water. In between moans I would shout, “left!” “right!” “no, left!” And we felt like shipwrecked sailors disbelievingly rowing with frantic energy when the dock appeared in sight again. The wind and constant presence of the lanchas skimming across the water made it more of a fight, but doggonit if we didn’t make it back alive. Quite shaky and sore—but alive.

The crazy guide popped out of nowhere again and helped us steady the canoe onto land as we hobbled out. He then got in the canoe immediately with a little boy and they began rowing away to who knows where.

Feeling like conquering heroes, Ryan and I followed the road back into town where we stopped in the tiny weaving museum that was now open. It was pretty tiny but interesting nonetheless. Further up the road, all the stalls were set up with the folks from Santiago Atitlán getting ready to sell things to hordes of tourists, who had finally arrived. Every little stall you pass by you are tempted with the phrase, “Pase adelante!” (Come in!) as if it’s some sort of spell they cast to will people into their stores. Meanwhile young men stroll past you playing the same few notes on a wooden flute before saying, “flauuuuta.” (flute)

We decided that we finally needed to start buying gifts for people, and maybe some wall hangings for ourselves?—knowing that we can’t buy anything too bulky since we have to think about bag space. I’ll probably be getting rid of lots of unecessary possessions to make room for my new purchases. So after a while of climbing up and down a hill, being tourists, and figuring out what we were interested in, I bartered with a woman for a pretty woven wall hanging. (Ryan later put on a great show and bought one from San Catarina for a good price in Panajachel.) Satisfied, we caught the next lancha back to Pana, as there was more assortment of lodging over there. (our room for the night ended up costing us only 25 quetzales each—that’s about $3.00!)

We watched the sun set over the lake and ate some pie in the street. At 5 AM we were woken up by what sounded like 34 roosters practicing for their choir ensemble recital later that day. God bless them. Every one.

So-the next day, we got up pretty early (remember, the roosters), and headed down to lake one last time. We finally found the public beach of sorts. I was surprised to not really see any foreign tourists around, but instead many Guatemalans, and even a class practicing swimming. Close to the shore was a group of people singing songs about Jesus while a band played. The water was too icy cold for my liking, so I just sat and watched Ryan shiver in the water for a bit. There were really only two other boys swimming. Maybe it got warmer later.

We then soaked up our remaining few hours in Panajachel with a desayuno típico and more window shopping. The bus back to Xela was rather painless and fast considering others we’ve taken… And that about wraps it up. Next time we go to the lake (and there will be a next time) I think we’ll hit up the western side more around San Pedro, San Juan, and San Marcos. Yes.

Until next time.

Diversiones con volcanes y otros cuentos

2007-02-13T14:48:00.000-06:00

This past weekend Ryan and I decided that we would just stay in Xela and take a day trip or two. So on Saturday we set out for destination Laguna Chicabal, which is a lake inside of a crater of an old volcano. Interesting, eh? It’s also a very spiritual place for the Maya people, and there are often altars and ceremonies taking place on the shores of the laguna. It wasn’t until we would attempt the hike itself that I would realize how painfully out of shape I am. The hike also reminded that me that I do in fact have asthma.

First things first, we made our way to the ole Minerva bus terminal and were ushered to a bus that would supposedly take us to San Martín Sacetepéquez. This bus didn’t seem right from the beginning. It was already practically full by the time we got on it, and people were saving seats for other people, which I’ve never seen happen before. Then the bus sat for at least half an hour, when these buses claim to leave every 15 minutes.. hmm.. We finally got on the road, already sitting three to a seat with people standing in the aisles. This didn’t bode well. On account of our hardly being able to see out of the windows and the simple fact that the driver never announced stops or where we were, we missed our stop in San Martín. I began to get suspicious when I had seen some sign saying “Laguna Chicabal” and the vegetation greeting my gazes through the windows was becoming increasingly more tropical in appearance. If we hadn’t gotten off we would have probably ended up at the Pacific coast in several hours. And I didn’t have my bug spray.

We asked our seat neighbors and they verified that we had in fact missed our stop and told us to get off the bus and catch one going the other way. They helped us shout to the driver to stop. So with everyone on the bus staring at us, we squeezed past them all (and I mean squeezed) and waited by the side of the road bordering a family’s small house and farm (where roosters were crowing and chickens were clucking) to wait for the next bus.

When the next bus picked us up, the money collector told us it was 10Q each to the laguna which didn’t make much sense cause we’d only paid 5Q from Xela and it was probably the same distance. I was too annoyed and confused to argue though, so the scoundrel wrangled an extra 10Q from us. I hope he feels proud.

This time we didn’t miss our stop and got off at the sign I had originally seen. We started our trek through a village within San Martín. A little child holding a ball looked at me and said very deliberately “Tu tienes gafas!” (You have glasses) I just said “Sí.” There wasn’t much else to say.

We continued on past women doing their weekly wash, more chickens, and watermelons. The views of the mountainous countryside were quite breathtaking at times, but unfortunately the clouds later obscured them. We had to stop and sit down several times so I could catch my breath. The hike was much steeper than I thought it would be for some reason… you would think that the word “volcano” would have triggered some kind of clue, but I guess not. I’m thinking I won’t be lining up to climb Volcán Santa María anytime soon.

After an hour and a half or so, (I couldn’t keep track of the time), we reached the actual entrance to the park where we had to pay our entrance fee. There were bathrooms, some little cabins, a soccer field, and what we thought was a comedor. It turns out it was just some little kitchen that a bunch of Australians were using, though. Go figure. There are many Australians in Guatemala. I find this interesting.

Anyway, now we began the actual hike towards the laguna—cause it was only make-believe before. We later realized that a microbus would take you from San Martín up to this entrance, but oh well. As we began the second leg of our hike, a little puppy started to follow us, which of course gave me great joy. I fed it two of my little tortino limón chips so he would be my friend forever, but alas, he eventually dashed off the trail into the woods. I guess he had better things to do.

We struggled up the path, (well I was doing most of the struggling), the steep, steep dirth path, past hikers on their way back down and little boys herding sheep and carrying wood on their backs. In spite of the beautiful lush plant life surrounding us, I was beginning to make my own pacts with the Mayan gods, if they would only find it in their hearts to make the path level off, just a little. Somehow, eventually, it did just that—before I even had to do any sacrifical bloodletting.

The rest of the hike was actually steeply downhill, which I knew would not be too fun on the return trip. As we finally saw the lake in the distance, and then landed upon the shores, it felt like some bad scene in a movie when the wanderer in the desert finally finds an oasis. I’m glad it wasn’t a mirage. We basked in the beauty and tranquility of the lake, finding ourselves a little picnic table near its shores where we could finally enjoy our little lunch. Since it was already about 3:00 pm at this point, there weren’t many people at the lake anymore. It was eerily quiet except for the sound of birds.

Here you can see a few pictures of the laguna, the mist settling over it from time to time, Mayan religious offerings in the form of flowers:

Unfortunately, we couldn’t linger at the lake long, because the park would be closing soon, and we had to catch us a bus back to Xela. As expected, the return hike began painfully as well, since what was downhill the first way, was now uphill. That soon passed, though, and the remainder of the trip was overwhelmingly downhill. We got back to the road in nearly half the time, but not before a little boy turned to us and said “Hola”, an then looked at Ryan and said, “Jari Póter.” Yes, even small isolated Guatemalan indigenous children think Ryan looks like Harry Potter. Ugh.

We waited by the side of the road for the damn bus again. When we saw it coming down the road towards us, we hailed it, but the driver just waved and kept driving! It was that same company as the other two buses we’d had problems with earlier in the day. We didn’t have too long to be annoyed or frustrated, however, because immediately after the bus left us in the dust, quite literally, a toyoto pick-up truck, (or picop as the Guatemalans would say), pulled over and asked us if we needed a ride to Xela. !!! The woman looked pretty trustworthy, so without allowing ourselves too much time to think it over, we hopped in the back of the picop, next to a strange plant and two other men trying to get somewhere—and that’s how I hitchhiked for the first time in my life. I felt just like Jack Kerouac, except in Guatemala and without the drinking problem… or maybe like Sissie Hankshaw but without the oversized thumbs and a love of cowgirls. Right, you get the idea.

It was amazing how much more visibility of our surroundings we had, sitting in the open air of the truck, flying down the road. It wasn’t too uncomfortable, and it was even better when the first two men left and we were able to take their spots.

We were back to Xela in no time. We hopped out of the truck, and asked the woman how much we owed her, to which she replied, nothing. Dumbstruck, we relayed our thanks, and they zoomed back down the road. It was reaffirming to encounter such kind folks after the rudeness we were met with from the likes of the Xelaju bus company.

After the long, strenuous day, we decided to indulge in a pizza. Ryan had found some coupon that claimed to give you one free medium pizza at pizza hut. We tried it out, but the employee informed us that all it was good for was one specialty pizza, and instead of the regular 104Q price it would be 94Q… We didn’t see how that made any sense, so we just left, and got a cheaper pizza at the Dominoes in the mall. Take that. It even came with free brownies.

And that concludes the story of how for the first time in my life I climbed a volcano, hitchhiked, and ate lime flavored tortino corn chips in the same day. (Okay that last thing isn’t that important, but I needed a third thing.)

Everything else has been going fine, for the most part. We have been meeting a few other people who live in this house, one who is a girl from Quebec who is pretty nice and has her own juicer, and the other is a guy from Toronto who has been for a year, making enough to live on by playing online poker for a few hours a day. Incredible.

On Sunday we were going to take another day trip but we too worn out from the hike to do much. We instead saw El ultimo rey de Escocia (The last king of Scotland) It was good but sad.

For Trama, I’m doing more research and I might start interviewing women in some of the villages that make up the cooperative, which I’m excited about.

I teach three English classes a day now from 4-7, and I’m hoping to pick up another one at 3. We’ll see. My level one student didn’t show up yesterday, and I wouldn’t be too sad if he didn’t come back, as teaching him is quite a struggle. He’s either not trying or just really slow. I like my other two students, though.

I’m missing everyone a lot, as is inevitable, and I hope everyone is doing well. Come visit me?

My legs still hurt from the hike.

Dos Quetzalitos no es Caro

2007-02-07T09:45:00.000-06:00

Well, things are on a roll down here in the Guatemala. Ryan and I moved into a new room last Thursday within the same guesthouse. While this one is a little more expensive, it has a private bathroom, which is much nicer. The water in the shower was actually almost too hot last night. How things change…

When we first moved in, however, the toilet wasn’t flushing, there was no shower curtain, and I woke up with what I assume were tiny bug bites on my arms, thumb, and legs. Since then, all of these things have been remedied for the most part. We have been washing our clothes by hand here. And it’s not so bad, but the cold water is piercing to my hands in the morning. I’m not sure how thoroughly clean everything is getting... I’ll have to look up washing clothes by hand on the internet, I suppose. How funny.

Oh also, this special picture hangs on our wall:

As far as our daily tasks, teaching English has been getting a little easier, although I still feel slightly inept. The students don’t seem to notice or at least don’t demonstrate noticing thus far. Starting today we have four different classes (all consisting of one student), so we’re going to see what splitting up the classes is like. Ryan will take the ones in the morning, and I’ll take the afternoon ones for now. More classes might be on the way, as well.

I’m enjoying the volunteering with Trama Textiles. Ola, the volunteer coordinator, gave me a giant coffee table-like book to read called The Maya Textile Tradition. It’s full of gorgeous photographs and has been really interesting so far. The more I read about Mayan history, and the history of this country in general, the more disgusted I am to read how the people have been treated, exploited, etc. for centuries, basically since the arrival of the Spanish up to the CIA-backed coup, the civil war that followed, and the present-day situation where indigenous people are generally poor and the majority of the land is owned by a wealthy 2% of the country. Then again, I’m also fascinated and reassured by the fact that their traditions and ways of life have stood up against all that for so long; that they haven’t gone out the same way that most Native Americans in the US have. Their weavings are a great example of this, and I’m really eager to learn more about it all.

And as a bonus, here you can see the view from the Trama balcony:

Last weekend Ryan and I decided to take a trip up north. It looks like on most weekends we’ll be doing some kind of traveling, whether leaving altogether or just taking little daytrips. So this time we headed up to the Cuchumatanes mountains. We mainly wanted to go to Todos Santos Cuchumatán, but in order to that, you first have to take a bus from Xela to Huehuetenango, (called simple Huehue by most), which is a good 2.5 hour ride. The ride to Todos Santos is an additional 2-2.5 hours. And since we couldn’t leave til around 1 pm due to an English class at 11 am, we decided to just stay the night in Huehuetenango and then head out to Todos Santos in the morning. Mistake.

The bus ride was mostly unmemorable compared to other rides we’ve had. I fell asleep through part of it, and this little brat wearing a Barney hat, (yes), sat down next to us for a while, taking up the majority of the seat.

We found Huehue fairly unlikeable. It made me appreciate Xela that much more and thank the high heavens that we are not living in Huehue. It was unbelievably traffic-filled with the sound of car horns ever-present. The one redeeming part of the city was its semi-attractive main plaza/park/church. We ate in a restaurant that was not half-bad either. They specialized in steaks and Chinese food. I was sold by the fact that they had ceviche, which I had not yet formally tried. It was quite tasty and you can see a picture of it below.. mmm.. along with the “café con leche” that Ryan and I ordered, which was really more like milk with a slight coffee flavor added.. ?

The hotel really just topped the evening off. Granted, it was dirt cheap, (around US $4 each), but the room was the size of a tiny cubicle, with only a little more space allotted in addition to that used for the bed itself. And the bed felt like sleeping on a wooden panel with an irregular bump in the middle… Needless to say, we were ready to wake up early and catch a bus to Todos Santos.

We were unsure of the bus times, so we woke up around 6 and first tried to find a bus or microbus that would take us to the crazy Huehue bus terminal. After waiting for 10 minutes on a corner and realizing we were in fact waiting for a bus to come the other way down a one-way street, we found where the buses actually pass and hopped on. Once we got to the bus station, we were dismayed to learn that the next bus to Todos Santos didn’t leave until 10:30 AM. At this point it wasn’t even quite 7. So…we took yet another bus back to the city and wandered about, eventually getting quite the large breakfast at a little restaurant called El Jardin. Eventually, we took another bus back to the good ole bus terminal, purchased our bus ticket, and just sat on the bus. Todos Santos really isn’t that far from Huehue, but it takes several hours due to the unpaved-ness of the road that leads up into the Cuchumatanes. This time we thankfully had one seat to ourselves, and were amused/embarrassed by an older American couple sitting in a seat one row up. The man somehow didn’t even realize where they were headed. He exclaimed, “So, we headed to the border today?” To which his wife responded, “No, that’s tomorrow! Today we’re going to To-dos Saaantos. It’s in the book. It must be important.” Unbelievable. She also put her hands over her ears towards the end of trip for who knows what reason and stared back at several children on the bus, giving them big goofy over the top grins. God bless America indeed.

After several hours we found ourselves in the lovely little Mam-speaking town of Todos Santos. The scenery was gorgeous. As the day went on, the weather got rather chilly, which was most unfortunate as the day before I had accidentally left my sweater in a bus. Oops. We started to explore the city, stopping in a little weaving co-op where I bought a lovely woven purse on sale. It was a nice shop as all the money from sales went directly to the women who made the weavings. I liked how each item had a little sticker on it with the name of the women who had made it.

We then wandered around some more, catching the tail end of the market, and strolling into the plaza where the inevitable church sat, a friendly reminder of Spanish colonization. We watched the men and women in their traditional dress, while many stray dogs ran around searching for food. The men all wore jackets with stripes with differently woven collars adorning each. Their pants were striped vertically with red and white, and atop their heads sat hats with brims, with a studded band around the middle, covered with strips of blue felt. It was interesting to see men all wearing traditional dress for once, since nowadays in the majority of Guatemala, that is quite rare. It is very common for women, but I have read that men often receive harassment if they were the traditional dress in certain areas. Todos Santos is unique in some ways however, as it was more or less isolated until the 1960s, and thus the people of the village have been able to retain their traditions easier.

Deciding to take the book’s advice, we followed this one cobblestone road up, past women washing their clothes and roosters and turkeys, and kids kicking soccer balls in the street. At the end of the road, was an old site where some Mayan rituals are still performed. There were several grass mounds, crosses, and fires burning. Once we reached the top, it really started to dawn on me how much I was enjoying the town of Todos Santos. It had such a tranquil feel to it. From up at the top of this hill, we could look across and see the entire town sitting down below in the valley, surrounded by the Cuchumatanes.

We began our descent down a smaller path, passing more turkeys on the way.

We decided to get a little snack of street food, before getting dinner later, as we hadn’t eaten since our giant breakfast. We went up to a stand that said Huehueburger and ordered one “hot dog pequeño.” Little did we know what this would entail. We were in for the surprise of a lifetime! The good man proceeded to split a hot dog in two and throw it on the grill. Then! He took out some tomatoes and onions and threw them in as well. Wow. But wait, there’s more. To our befuddled amazement, he then laid a hot dog bun on the grill to toast it. And and and! Then!—he spread something that we think was like 1000 island dressing on the bun itself! Following this, hot dog, tomatoes, and onions were all scooped into said bun in a single swoop. That’s it, you ask? No, I’m not done. The good sir then squirted something resembling ketchup, a green chile sauce, and mayonnaise on this smothered piece of meat. Ok, now I’m done. The verdict? Delicious—no, life-changing. Get yourself one of these succulent little babies today.

Whoo, ok. Now that I got that out, Ryan and I wandered into this Spanish school across from the little hotel we were staying at, to see if they had any information about bus times for the following morning. Well they didn’t really. But the girl who worked at the school was quite nice and American as well, and ended up showing us a documentary made partly in the late 70s and then the 80s about Todos Santos. It was most informative and at times quite startling and depressing to watch—mostly the second part which dealt more with the situation in the town during the Civil War years when the guerillas and army would both come into the town and tear them apart. It’s really sad, and though this essentially over now, the fear still remains somewhat. To this day it seems like people do not want to talk about what or express an opinion about what happened, out of a fear that they will be killed.

After watching the documentary, we were again hungry. (Though the hot dog pequeño was in fact delicious, it did not fill us up completely.) We stopped in the comedor Martita nearby, and sat at a table with some Todosanteños. We ordered some pollo frito and were soon joined by another couple who had just watched the documentary as well. We had an enjoyable enough conversation and then went back to the hotel.

And that about sums it up for our time in Todos Santos. The hotel room was much nicer than the night before… we did spend 10 quetzales more on it, though.. (about a $1.00) so maybe that has something to do with it.

The next day we again woke up early and caught a bus right away back to the dreaded Huehuetenango. This time however, we prepared. (Actually I don’t know what I mean by that. It sounded like the thing to say, though.) Before catching a bus back to Xela, we decided we might as well see these so-called Mayan ruins nearby called Zaculeu. We first picked up some slices of pizza from a stand called Pizza Movil so that we could have a little picnic at the ruins. Well, we caught the bus that we thought went to the ruins. (You know, when you hear someone shouting “Zaculeu, ruinas” you think they’re going to the ruins… huh) We told the driver that we were going to “las ruinas” so eventually the driver just stopped the bus and shouted “ruinas” which was our clue to get off. As we were getting off the bus, various passengers just sort of stared at us and we were not sure why. Well, we soon realized that we were not at the ruins. We followed the road up and asked a woman where they were. She said we just had to follow the road. So… we walked for about 10 minutes and realized we had just gotten the lazy bus or something because other buses went right up to the ruins. Eventually we reached our destination.

We were greeted by a man in uniform who asked us what country we were from. We later realized that this was because that on Sundays, Guatemalans get in for free. This would also explain why there was a fair amount of people visiting the ruins that day. While apparently Zaculeu are not some of the most impressive of the Mayan ruins comparatively, they were the first ones I’ve ever seen, so I was an easy sell. Plus, we figure it’s best to start at the bottom and work our way up to Copan (maybe), Tikal, and Chichen Itzá (maybe). Zaculeu was partially restored by the United Fruit Company some years ago, which means they went through and basically covered the ruins with plaster. So, this isn’t so cool since you can no longer see any original engravings on the ruins, but I guess it does give you more of the exact shape the ruins would have originally have had. Anyway, below you can see a picture of the ruins:

After the Zaculeu trip, we went back to the Huehue bus terminal for the last time and caught a bus back to Xela. The same man boarded the bus twice to try and sell people the newspaper “Nuestro Diairo.” We was very insistent and said things like “Dos quetzalitos no es caro!” (2 little quetzals aren’t expensive.) It was funny. Just me? Ok. This bus ride was strange in that the bus driver began by driving very very slowly. We still don’t know why. Then after maybe 10-15 minutes, his energy drink must have kicked in, because he began zooming down the road, going faster than I’ve ever seen a bus go before. It was a bit frightening. I just tried not to look at the road and stared into the Su Doku puzzle in my lap. He would also just lean on the horn as he spun around the curves of the road—I guess warning everyone who might be coming around the bend that he was on the way, and insane. Somehow we made it back alive. And in record time! Hey.

That’s the gist for now. Time is going by fast as expected. I’ve also begun doing some translating work from English to Spanish for another volunteer organization called AMA (Asociacion de las Mujeres del Altiplano). I’m not sure if I’m going to keep up with it or not though.

Teaching English is still going okay. One of my students is very young and doesn’t know any English though, so I’m basically teaching him from scratch, which is a bit of a challenge. Maybe he’s not as young as I thought though, cause his cell phone has gone off in class.. hmm.

Also—Thai food in Guatemala: not bad.

I leave you with that.

Chichicastenango y la Lucha Interminable

2007-01-29T15:38:00.001-06:00

There is already much too much to write. To start with, Ryan and I have started “teaching.” One day last week, we went into the school for what we were told would be our orientation. I asked a few questions and we began looking at one of the textbooks when in walked a guy named Alejandro. Marilu, our boss of sorts, then subtly asked if we could teach him right then, and she shuffled Ryan and I into a tiny room connected to an Italian restaurant where we were to attempt to teach this man “3rd level” English (which is more difficult than you think when you haven’t had time to look through the book, haven’t been trained at all, and aren’t quite sure of how much English this fella knows.) Ay. So we did our best to teach Alejandro the difference between “this”, “that”, “those” and “these” while getting him to use his new vocabulary (he had a really difficult time pronouncing the word “vegetable”). English is weird. So I guess we’re teachers.

We will probably teach our own classes soon, but for the first two, we worked together since our schedule has been so random and last-minute. Our next student was Guillermo. He is a 6th level student, so we were able to teach using mostly English. It was a little easier the second time, except that none of the dry-erase markers worked. Try explaining the present perfect tense without any kind of a diagram or board. I think he gets it, though.

It also looks like I’ll be volunteering for this organization called Trama Textiles which is an association of women backstrap-loom weavers, representing 400 women from 17 groups in Guatemala. The women send their textiles to the store and sell them at the prices they want. To supplement costs, there is also a weaving school. It’s pretty cool. The main thing I’ll be working on right now is researching the history of Mayan weaving and then writing out what I feel is relevant so that the organization will have that information to pass onto the weaving students. It should be interesting. I already find myself staring at the designs on the huipiles and cortes (blouses and skirts) of the women in traje. And! I might get to learn how to weave!

A few days ago, I went through my first bout of inevitable indigestion problems, but I think the worst is behind me now. It was probably just my stomach and body getting used to the changes in diet and such. Needless to say, the weekend was pretty laid back for the most part.

Yesterday, however, Ryan and I woke up with the rising of the sun (so much has changed), and set out for Chichicastenango, home of the huge, famous market. To get there we had to hop a ride in our old friend, the microbus. It’s unbelievable how many people they pack into these things. The same goes for the “chicken buses” or 2nd class buses, but I’ll tell that story a little later on. Anyway, I’ve never sympathized so much with canned sardines until using the transportation in Guatemala. But seriously, what happened in the microbus (or the chicken bus) could easily be the set-up for a skit on any bad sketch comedy show. Picture a van. Every seat is already taken, and the door is hanging partially open, and the driver keeps stopping to let more people in. People are sitting 3 to a seat, 4 to a seat, standing, crouching, sprawled out across your lap. I’m sure someone would laugh at this. In this reality though, no one is laughing. They just have places to go.
We arrived at the bus terminal for the first time, trying to find the bus to take us to Chichicastenango. Some men ushered us to a bus at the end of the line and we hopped on. We soon found out that we’d have to get off the bus a few hours away at Los Encuentros and catch a second bus to Chichi. Fine. This was one of the more comfortable rides we had that day. I made faces at a cute little girl in the seat in front of me and was amused at a man who hopped on the bus and started to make a sales pitch. At first it sounded like he was going to start preaching about his religion and saving ourselves from our sinful ways, (like a man on the bus to Almolonga did), but he instead started talking about how the human brain works. He was equipped with visual aids and everything. This was all a platform so he could dive into what he really wanted to talk about: selling brain vitamins. Sadly no one was interested and he wished us all a “buen viaje.”

As planned, we got off the bus at Los Encuentros and jumped on our bus headed towards Chichi. We found seats in the back of the bus, which we later regretted as the bus driver drove insanely. At every bump in the road we were airborne. Thankfully, the ride wasn’t too long and we soon arrived in Chichi. I knew this because we began to see tons of white middle-aged tourists wearing wide-brimmed hats with cameras dangling from their necks unloading out of their shuttle buses. This shocked me for some reason, since I hadn’t seen so many tourists in one place in the country thus far, and especially not these kinds of tourists. I should have expected it though, as my trusty guidebook said to expect just that. With this in mind, we got out of the bus, ready to explore the market.

This was definitely by far, the biggest market we’ve seen in the country yet, but we have only been to the ones in the city and Almolonga. Things for sale included tapestries, blankets, jewelry, ceramics, masks, etc. and then the typical vegetables, fruits, shoes, and clothing (things the locals were interested in). I was excited to see the beaded bracelets I love so much everywhere—and at low prices I hadn’t encountered since Mexico. This was a blessing as my other beaded bracelets are lost or broken. So… I bought two! And I got to bargain with children twice, getting a great deal for a little beaded quetzal keychain. Oh yeah. This little girl said it was worth “15” (quetzales of course), and I said, “mmm, 7”, and she said, “8!” So I agreed. That’s like a dollar. Just then a woman who I can only assume was her mother came back and in Spanish reprimanded the girl for selling it to me so cheaply. But it was too late, I’d won! Ha! (Ok, maybe cheating a poor family out of a few quetzales isn’t a feat to be proud of… but the girl agreed.)

We wandered past stalls, still in a slight state of shock from the amount of gringos amongst us. It was sad to realize that to the vendors and people of the town, we were just like the rest of them. “But we’re different!” I wanted to shout. Being the minority in another country where they judge you immediately and write you off as dumb tourist who buys everything really makes you realize how rough it is to be in that position. I wish every ignorant, racist American was forced to leave the country and see what this is like, but for some reason I’m not sure they would all see it the same way.

It’s a terrible paradox, you see. I love to travel, but I hate tourists. I go somewhere and see other visitors and think “oh no”, but I myself am not unlike them. I guess it’s true that an American abroad is the biggest critic of other Americans. I just try to be the best open-minded visitor I can be, which is all that you can really do. So to be an American critic again, I do not think of some of these people were trying to be anything but obnoxious. They walked around videotaping the proceedings of the market, local people walking by, without even asking permission. And vendors constantly approached us, pushing their goods on us, hardly taking no for an answer. It makes you feel kind of bad, because you realize how poor they are, and this is probably how they make a lot of their money, but we did not want little dolls that “bring you good luck” or blankets at the moment. I tell you, the traders at Chichicastenango would make great telemarketers. They always do their second (third, fourth, and fifth) attempts. The most appalling case of awful tourists at their finest came when Ryan and I were asking a woman about the price of some blankets. There were two other older American women looking at some purses. In English we heard the younger woman ask the vendor in English how much the purse was. The vendor replied, “setenta.” (70). She then asked, “best price?” several times to which the vendor did not answer. How rude. I mean, this woman’s first language isn’t even Spanish, and you’re expecting her to know what “best price” in English even means. So Ryan stepped in and started interpreting for them. The vendor said her best price would be 60 quetzales, to which the dumb American broad replied, “try 55”.. the vendor wouldn’t budge. I mean, you already asked best price, and she said 60, what more do you want? Oh, and the difference between 55 and 60 quetzales is a whole 65 cents. I bet that would really set her back. And then she didn’t even thank us for helping her. Ugh, people. At least these people are giving some of their money to this country, I guess. That’s the best I can really say.

Anyway. Expectedly, we had to dodge the crowds a few times, and turn onto a side street away from all of the clamor. It always amazes me in very touristy congested areas, how sometimes you can just turn onto a side street and it’s suddenly perfectly calm. You wouldn’t know you were just a block away. I took a few clandestine pictures of the church and the smaller church whose steps we were sitting on.

Around 2:00 or so we started to head back. Even though I had mostly negative things to say, I’m glad that we went, if nothing else, just so that we could see what it was like and have more perspective. The bus ride back to Los Encuentros was on of the most excruciating, surreal experiences. Everyone was already sitting three to a seat in this old North American school bus. Ryan, myself, and some other folks had to stand in the aisle where there was already hardly any room. Somehow, more people still kept climbing into the bus. My arms were gripping onto the metal bars above me as we soared down the mountains, my legs sandwiched between one man’s leg and a little girl’s sleeping body. I couldn’t believe it when the fare-collector walked out the door (while the bus was in motion), climbed on top of the bus, walked to the back, and opened the back door and started asking for money, pushing through all of us where no space was thought to have existed.

Somehow we survived, and the bus ride back to Xela was comparatively uneventful. We walked all the way back home from the bus terminal, which really didn’t take too long. The sun was just beginning to set and I took a few pictures of the empty Sunday streets and the lovely sky.

Back to Xela life, things at the apartment have been interesting. I have thankfully discovered how to take warm showers, which makes me happier than I would have thought possible. Apparently, all you have to do is turn the knob ever so slightly to the left until the water makes a “harder” sound when it hits the tile. That means it’s warm! Haha, of course. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that on my own. There are women here cleaning almost everyday so far, sometimes with little children, sometimes not. We aren’t sure if they live here, but we learned two of their names. Here you can see our room:

That’s about all for now. I should also mention that Ryan has been posting has pictures (which so far have all been of things I’ve been at as well) at http://www.flickr.com/photos/iamsullivant if you’d care to take a looksee.

Una semana entera

2007-01-25T10:31:00.000-06:00

It’s hard to believe that I’ve already been in Guatemala for a week. The passage of time is always slightly difficult to grasp when thought about too hard—it’s the kind of thing where on one hand it feels like less time has passed, but then when you think about it the other way, it feels like it’s been like that forever. It’s something that for whatever reason always surprises me and will probably always surprise me.

Well to kick off the one weekversary of this Central American extravaganza, (and the fact that neither Ryan nor myself has started working yet, and thus have nowhere we have to be, we sauntered down the road to hop on another chicken bus—the same one we took to Almolonga, but this time we took it to the end of the line: the town of Zunil. While Zunil was fairly similar to Almolonga, it was much sleepier due to the fact that it was not market day. We wandered down to the main plaza which contained, what else, a big white church (and taco carts). We went inside where little Mayan women were lighting candles and praying in what I can only assume was K'iche.

There wasn’t much else to do in Zunil, and we weren’t quite bold enough to find out where San Simon, the evil saint was located (an evil saint named Maximon who supposedly is stationed in a different house in Zunil every year. People come to this idol to pray while making offerings such as cigarettes and rum, or so I read.) In a rather capricious moment, we decided to go to the Fuentes Georginas, which is a bit of a resort consisting of a hot natural spa heated by the volcano. To get to these Fuentes from Zunil, you simply say, “Si” to one of the many determined, hopeful men in pick-up trucks who look at you and inquire “Fuentes, fuentes??”

We found our soon-to-be pick-up truck chauffeur near the bridge where we first came into town. He told us it would be 80 quetzales for there and back (around $10) which isn’t really so bad, but much more than he would charge a Guatemalan, as we later saw. I felt like the trip was never going to end. We kept driving up higher and higher, up the mountains, into the clouds, as our driver Jose Maria sang along to his tape of marimba music and asking us all sorts of questions, while I prayed to all my gods that we wouldn’t fly off the mountainous road without a guardrail. Finally and thankfully, we reached the Fuentes. We paid Jose Maria. He said that he would return in two hours and we could do nothing but hope that he would keep his word.

The Fuentes were much more beautiful than I would have thought, and I’m glad we decided to go. The clouds were low so they partially obscured parts of the mountains, making everything look fairly misty. There were mostly other English tourists here, along with some Spanish-speaking tourists. It thankfully wasn’t that crowded and I was shocked at how warm the water actually was (since all of my showers have been lukewarm at best so far). It was really a rather relaxing experience, and now I can say I’ve been in waters heated by a volcano, hey.

The time had come to leave and for Jose Maria to return in his pick-up truck, and sure enough he did, this time with a little girl wearing her traditional Mayan dress. We soon learned that this was his daughter. We squeezed into the front while quiet little Rosa Maria stood smashed in between her father’s shoulder and the open window, poking her head out the window the whole way down. The ride back was the most amusing, as Jose Maria sang loudly along with his religious music, sometimes in Spanish, sometimes in Quiche, translating for us as he saw fit. As we glided down the mountain, he would stop to pick up random people on the side of the road and they would pile in the back. He got us back to Zunil safely, and we caught our same chicken bus back to Xela. I can now officially say that I have been serenaded to in a pick-up truck by a Guatemalan in the mountains. Thank goodness-- I had really been waiting to check that one off the list.

------------------------

Yesterday Ryan and I moved into the new place, Casa Concordia. Its fine so far except for the fact that the showers are a little too cold for my liking, but um maybe we're not doing something right? to be continued...

I believe this is the address at which I can receive mail--

Ilene Blumberg
Casa Concordia
6ta. Calle D11-29 zona 1
Quetzaltenango
Guatemala

Try it! It might work.

Still havent started working.. im waiting to hear back from the english school. but today is the volunteer fair so at least i should have something to do soon. We tried to go to two museums but the first was closed because it was 'on vacation' and the other seemed to be being worked on.. C'est la vie.

Una gringa en Guatemala

2007-01-22T13:39:00.000-06:00

On January 16th I began my Guatemalan adventure, waking up at 4:30 in the morning and saying goodbye to a tired mother and dog. My backpack and duffel bag were stuffed, and to imagine that this is the lightest that I’ve ever packed for a trip of this duration. I guess this is the closest I get to achieving backpacker or “mochilera” status. I guess I can deal with that. My father sweetly took me to the airport before he went off to work.

After a short delay, which frankly made me nervous,--my flight took off for Charlotte where I was reunited with Ryan after our month-long separation. We landed in Guatemala City with little troubles, after trying to avert eyes from the in-flight movie Flicka, which I’m sure is even funnier with sound. The Guatemalan airport was tinier than I expected for some reason, even though now I recall it being not too unlike the airport in Leon, Mexico I landed in several years ago. We walked about confused, looking for an ATM, but finding none. I was surprised to see that ATMs were so difficult to find in a city of 3 million people. Anyway, more on that later. We were hustled toward a taxi which would take us toward the Hotel Colonial where we were staying that night. Our taxi driver, Oscar, gave us his card and welcomed us to his country.
Guatemala City, or at least the part of it that I saw (zona 1), left me feeling intimidated and defensive. It was pretty much as everything I read had described it, and I’m glad that we did not spend more time than we did there. Before dinner, we trekked out in search of an ATM. We finally found one in this weird mall-like place but lo and behold it wasn’t working. So there was another one on the fifth floor. We walked past strange arcades with teenagers playing games, idle bumper cars, and pizza stands to receive our first quetzales. In our small hotel with thin walls, women congregated in the halls several times throughout the night laughing and clapping their hands loudly. I’m not sure what was so funny, but I surely wasn’t in the mood to laugh along with them at 4’oclock in the morning.

Onto Xela.. (the cute little nickname of the city where we shall be living, pronounced Shay-la, and much easier to remember than Quetzaltenango )…

I was quite eager to get out of Guatemala City. We took a 4-hour bus to Xela which actually was a little longer than 4 hours because of some road construction. The bus plopped us down in the zona 3 of the city, and studying my map, I knew the direction to walk in to get to our hostel. We ambitiously dragged our bags half-way across the city, past children in school uniforms and Mayan women wearing their traditional dresses.
Since we’ve arrived we’ve mostly been trying to acclimate ourselves to our surroundings, find a place to live, eat some good cheap food, and find jobs. Most of these have been accomplished. We will most likely move into a new guest house of sorts this coming Wednesday which is apparently somehow connected to the Lutheran church and that is why it is so darn cheap. (Imagine paying $50/month in the nice central part of the 2nd largest city in the country, cause it looks like that’s what we’re getting’.) Ryan and I were both offered jobs teaching English in the mornings by the school that calls itself the “Best English School.” I could start as early as Tuesday. It sounds like I will have no more than 4-5 students per class and that they should be at least 14 or 15 years old. I think I can deal with that. I’ll just pretend like I know what I’m doing and hope that people believe me. It doesn’t pay much money, but we don’t spend much money here either, and it will be a way to at least balance expenses a bit, while keeping busy all the while.
I’m going to try to look for some kind of volunteer position here as well since NGOs abound in this city, and I think it would be a good experience. Apparently there is a volunteer fair here this coming Thursday, so I should be able to get some ideas from that.

Yesterday Ryan and I took a “chicken bus” as they’re endearingly called, to the nearby town of Almolonga, because we read that it was their market day. While this was quite a sight, I must say that I have never felt so much like an outsider in all of my life. It was a little overwhelming to the say the least. Once we found the center of town, we were treated to the display of crowds of Mayans, most in traditional dress, bargaining and exchanging their vegetables.

A little girl came up to us and in Spanish asked us if we’d like to take her picture, (for money I’m assuming). We said no. I mean, she wasn’t even dressed up. Silly girl. The chicken bus experience on the way back to Xela was interesting as well. I should also mention that these chicken buses are old American school buses that are painted and decorated brightly. So on the way back, I was sitting three to a seat, sandwiched between to Mayan women. Something started moving under the blanket draped on the back of the girl on my right and I quickly realized it was a crying baby. I’m constantly surprised here.

Other outings included a trip on a “microbus” which is basically a van where someone shouts out “Parque parque parque!” or whatever the destination is out the window. In our case the shouter was a very young child who was really quite the businessman. They pack more people than they can fit into these vehicles, and you really get to know your neighbor. We took this microbus out to the mall which was new and nice, if you like malls. I normally don’t like malls, AT ALL, but this is where ATMs that supposedly work were located, so it was my friend. It also contained a Wal-Mart-like store called Hiper-Paiz which lets one use a credit card—also nice. Well, it’s a wal-mart whose aisle signs are written in both Spanish and K’iche. A little bit different, I suppose.
We wandered down to the Minerva zoo since it was nearby. It’s a tiny little free zoo within the city and it is quite unlike any other zoo I’ve ever been to. For one thing they featured such animals as doves!, rabbits! (I guess they were pretty big, but still), raccoons!, and deer!

There were also a few more typical zoo animals like monkeys. It was cute to watch the little children point at the animals shouting “Mira, mira! Un mono!” My guidebook mentioned that the zoo was supposed to have one solitary miserable-looking lion, but we sadly did not see him.
We caught an equally insane microbus back to our side of town after walking past the Minerva temple, and snapping some photos of that.

Since I’m quite the thrifty spender, I have been most satisfied thus far with the cheapness of this country. There are little comedores located throughout town that offer lunches, often with an entrée, some sides, a drink, maybe a dessert, (although the dessert at the place yesterday was yellow jello with a bug leg sticking out of it…) for around $2-3. Amazing. We have also taken to eating food from little carts around the main Parque CentroAmerica. Men and women there sell such delicacies as pupusas, tacos, paches (tamales with potato), buñuelos, and fried plantains for under a dollar, usually. This means I’m probably going to be even cheaper when I get back to the states, than I was before... if such a thing is possible. There are lots of good restaurants around, including even Thai, Indian, Taiwanese, French, Mexican, Italian, and of course Guatemalan.. I trust we’ll try them all in time. Things seem to shut down pretty early around here at night, which is quite the contrast to Madrid nightlife. I’m okay with that though. Each morning when I wake up, I am also treated to a rooster crowin’ at the break of dawn. (as Dylan would say.) Since I’ve been here, memories of my time in San Luis and Guanajuato, Mexico have really been returning, more vivid than ever. The sounds, the smell of tortillas in the air, the constant honking of the car horns, the small broken sidewalks and bright colors. It’s curious, the way the senses behave.
I already miss people, but that’s to be expected. I shan’t be gone long and hopefully I’ll meet some interesting folk being down here. In the hostel there is an interesting mix of foreigners, mostly English-speaking. It seems that most of the foreigners staying in Xela are usually backpacking, hippie, free-spirit types, trying to learn Spanish, which is a little bit different than the typical traveler you’d find somewhere else. I’m not sure I exactly fall into that category, but I guess it’s not so bad.. unless you’re like that pretentious girl we met the other day in the kitchen who uninterestedly snapped, “so where you from, where you going?” like she asks that questions 50 million times a day. She is the type of person who asks you about yourself merely to tell you all about herself, because she taught in English in San Cristóbal, Mexico and has traveled down here to (pay people to) work on a coffee plantation. Well good for you, missy. Do you want a prize? Ok, end bitter diatribe. It’s all about tone. I’ll be nice.

Anyway, I’m thinking things will get more settled everyday. This week should bring routine, a new place to live, and hopefully a phone. I’ll be posting pictures at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/71068596@N00/
Please, please send me e-mails cause I like keeping in touch: ileneb@gmail.com and if you haven’t already, give me your address if you’d like a postcard. And if you read all this, I’ll send you a super special secret prize, maybe. I am also the proud recipient of a cell phone now, so if you want the number, let me know. Hopefully, more coming soon. Stay tuned.