Tikal Temples and Witches

My new best friend at the hostel is a 3-year-old called Llana. She and her parents are from Buenos Aires, and have been here a few days selling their jewelery. Llana and I became friends two nights ago playing hide and seek swinging in the hammock for hours. Hanging out with her makes me miss Cameron, and sometimes when she finishes giggling about something and starts talking, I find myself startled that it's in Spanish. Of course it's in Spanish because she's from Buenos Aires and that's her language, but sometimes that catches me off guard and I find myself stunned and quickly trying to recover and follow what she's saying. This afternoon, we were playing and enjoying a milkshake, when she turned around and looked at the woman behind us. 

She immediately turned to tell me in a rather loud voice how ugly the woman was, and then started saying, "esta mujer es una bruja" equally loud. Sometimes I confuse my words, and first I thought she was saying broma, which is joke, and I thought that was strange. So she's yelling this, and I'm just repeatedly asking, "what? what?" And then it dawns on me. Bruja is witch. This little 3-year-old is telling the world that the ugly woman sitting in the fire pit is a witch, and every time I ask her what she is saying, she repeats it louder until I finally cover her mouth and distract her wtih a new game. Hopefully the woman didn't understand what was happening, but Llana was right on. And she may have cast a spell on us.

Yesterday morning I took the 4:30am shuttle to visit the ruins of Tikal. Our guide was Caesar, and he was amazing, telling us the history of the site and the many stories and legends of each temple. It was magnificent. It's hard to imagine they could build such grand structures with such heavy and large stone before modern machinery. 

hide and seek

tree

view from the top

steepest stairs of my life

i wanted to get near the edge of the highest temple, but it was kind of scary, resulting in this awkward pose

what is your interpretation of this sign? i don't understand.

chocolate milk shake action

my buddy Llana

Gamble and a win

Remember when I thought I wasn't sick anymore? Turns out I was wrong. And lucky for me I realized it the morning before another long 8-hour bus journey. Yay. I jumped in the shuttle at 8am in the pouring rain, eating Pepto like candy, pleading with my body to get me to Flores without pooping my pants. After a lot of deep breathing, meditating, sleep-ish, and popping various stomach meds, I made it accident free.

When I arrived at Los Amigos, my friend Tina whisked me into the dorm as she had booked and paid for my bed for the night. God bless Tina. I pounded some grape seed oil and laid out on the comfy floor cushions, thankful to have made it.

This morning we had a leisurely breakfast and when I decided my stomach was good, we set out to explore the island of Flores. First stop - ice cream cones. Second stop - not the bathroom.  I'd say the day was off to a good start. Chris was on a mission to buy a Guatemalan hand-made blanket, something I had wanted to do but lacked the desire to carry it around for 10 more months. Luckily for me, he offered to take it back to the States with him and ship it to my parents.

So we set off on Mission Blanket, 5 hours wandering the streets, bargaining, followed by the realization that the ones we wanted were the first ones we had seen. I bargained up a storm with the brother and sister sales team in my best Spanish, and was able to get them from Q1200 each to Q1200 for two. I felt pretty proud, and now have an amazing rememberance of Guatemala and it's colorful culture. The patches of the quilt are pieces of blouses and skirts from the traditional women's dress here. Mara (our savy saleswoman) told me that her grandmother traveled around the country trading fabrics with other Mayan women, and that the craftsmanship took three months to complete. I take that with a grain of salt because I know they will tell you anything to get you to buy their blanket.

This week is a big celebration in Flores, and there are random parades happening all around us. Today we ran into one with a Michael Jackson performer who wowed us with his Smooth Criminal skills. Talk about random impromptu dance parties! Each night the parades end in the town square where the locals cheer on a basketball game before opening the court to a huge dance party with a live band. Guatemalans know how to celebrate life for sure.

our tuk-tuk ride to the bat caves in Lanquin

bats flying out of the cave at sunset in droves of thousands, never touching any of us

surprise street dance party

town square posse on a blanket mission

mission completed...I should start thinking about brushing my hair more often

sunset on the lake - Tina and I reunited

beginnings of the fiesta

Barefoot and Napless in Guatemala

I've spent a lot of time this week with my head in the toilet. 

Chris, Bryan, Femke (my travel partners for the week), and I arrived in Lanquin on Sunday night, me plastered to the floor of the shuttle, trying to find sleep. My digestive system lost another battle with something I ate this week, and I spent the whole 14-hour journey incredibly nauseous and running for the toilet every time the bus stopped for a break. Unable to function or be nice to anyone when we arrived, I immediately put myself to bed and was sad to hear on Monday that I missed an epic dance party. So it goes.

I awoke refreshed the next morning, promising my body I would take it easy, eating only bread until I felt 100%. I soon broke that promise, sweating it out at Semuc Champey, with some hiking and natural pool jumping. I paid for that decision later in the afternoon, finding myself unable to move from the hammock, nauseous again. I was so hungry having not eaten for two days, that I stuffed myself full of carbohydrates at the dinner buffet which felt really good for a minute. But when I tried to join that night's dance party, it only ended in me barfing up my dinner and in bed early again. 

Yesterday was better, but every time someone asked me if I wanted to do something, anything, my only reply was, "I'm so lazy, I can't even take a nap." It was beautiful, and after trying for several hours to take a nap unsuccessfully I joined in some of the wood-burning sauna fun. I basically spent the whole day jumping from the sweaty heat of the sauna into the cool river water hoping to shock my body back into shape. I kept dinner down last night and am still going strong this morning so here's hoping tomorrow's bus ride will be better. 

This place is amazing. Everything is green. All the buildings are thatched roofs and open air. At different times during my attempted nap a cow, chicken, and frog almost entered my room. There is great music, bare feet, dancing, and hammocks. If I didn't have a flight out of here next week I would get lost here. 

And I'm learning all sorts of interesting and important cultural things. Like, have you ever wondered why elephant's ears are so big? I never did, aside from questioning the overly large ears of poor Dumbo when I was a kid. But last night, in a round of tenacious storytelling by candlelight I found out. Now, this is one of those things I choose not to confirm with a Google search because honestly, if this isn't the truth, I don't want to know it.

An elephant's balls are inside the body, and the ears are used as cooling mechanisms to keep the testicles at a lower temperature. It's much more detailed than that, but when our gregarious Aussie friend Nate (who is quite possibly the best storyteller ever) relayed this information with such vigor last night I thought I was going to fall out of my chair laughing. He knows more about animal penis than anyone I ever met and wanted us all to be informed. So now you know. And if you find it necessary to debunk this possible myth and it turns out to be false, I don't want to know.

Also does it make me a loser that I was excited it rained today so I could wear my rain jacket? I love my rain jacket. 

Don't go chasing waterfalls...

Semuc Champey

Femke and I

El Mirador - overlooking the crystal clear pools (Nate said I look constipated in this pic)

El Retiro Hostel - view from the hammock

Bryan traded his bed for a hammock pass out

Nate's version of gangsta dancing

Sunshine on My Shoulders Makes Me Happy

After 3 bus rides and a boat across the lake, I finally reached San Pedro de Atitlan. In a last-minute decision I decided to skip the beach in favor of the lake, and I couldn't be happier about it.

I arrived Tuesday afternoon, and immediately took up space by the new pool overlooking the lake. I spent the rest of that day, and all day Wednesday doing pretty much absolutely nothing, moving from the pool to the hammock to the lounge. I almost felt guilty about it, but only for a fleeting second. I definitely don't want to spend my whole year at an insulated hostel where there's not a lot of interaction with the Spanish culture part of Guatemala, but for now after 6 weeks of classes I'm enjoying it.

Thursday a few of us went kayaking over to San Marcos to jump off the platform that everyone has been raving about. After an hour paddle across, we were greeted by four local boys who were all too eager to help us dock our kayaks, lead us to the jump spot, and watch our watercrafts. As we were pulling in, they were stripping off clothes, shoes, socks, pulling us in one by one. We took our paddles and life jackets up to the jump spot to deter any chance of returning to missing kayaks. 

The platform is maybe 1200 meters off a wooden deck. Just as we were about to throw ourselves off, some guys there told us a nice story about the guy who tripped the day before, and broke his leg after hitting it on a rock. Sweet confidence booster. There was no way I wasn't going. What a rush. I took a running start, jumped, tried to stay as straight as possible, keeping my eyes open to...boom, I'm in the water before I know what's happening. The more scary thing was after the climb back up when I had to cross the wooden ladder foot bridge hanging over the rocks. I went for a second jump, then hit the deck for some sun bathing before Emily reminded me we still had to paddle all the way back to San Pedro. We payed our dock friends, who were not too pleased with our offer, and kept requesting more. These kids know what they're doing.

My arms almost fell off on the way back from exhaustion, and because I didn't think ahead and bring any food, I thought about eating my own arms. We climbed out of the kayaks and up the stairs, exhausted from the physical activity after days of doing nothing. I came back and lounged in the "jacuzzi", which is a circular hut with ground pillows for nothing but lounging (and apparently for rolling or smoking Js). 

I went out for tacos and tequilla with some American guys, and we pretty much bought out the taco stand. Yesterday I took a long 8-hour journey to and from Guatemala City to pick up my visa, but now I have visa in hand, and no more admin worries before I leave for South America. All I have to do today is walk the 100 yards to the pool party. Life is good.

view from the lancha boat before heading across the lake to san pedro

Church in center of town

Nothing says you're serious about god like a pink church

view from san marcos

checking out the jump

straight as a pencil

kayaking back - taking a break

this is the life

we discovered the cemetery on the outskirts of town 

which looks like a mini apartment complex at disney land

Mission (Im)possible

Not very Ethan Hunt-like, huh?

I am Tom Cruise inside the Drake Hotel in Mission Impossible.

Thank God, I am not couch-jumping Tom Cruise, and no offense Chicago, but right now thank God I am not in Chicago.

And really, I suppose I should be comparing myself more in this situation to Che Guevera, only not.

I am in Guatemala City. And I am ready to get out.

Tania and I left Xela yesterday after bidding our crew goodbye. We took the chicken bus, rather uneventful for a chicken bus experience. Not totally uneventful, as there were several times our bags almost flew out the back door when the bus slowed in small towns and the locals jumped on to sell their wares. But Tania rescued them every time and promised she would jump out after them if they met the earth.

Once here, we spent a considerable amount of time sitting on a median/bus drop-off near by the highway waiting for our trusted cab driver to pick us up. We beat off the rest of the hungry cabbies with a stick, even when one of them tried to tell us he was our man. Once we met up, we shortly arrived at our destination, a safe house in Zone 1 of Guate. Now, I surely won’t tell you the name or location of this place, but I will tell you there is a sign just inside the door telling all guests we should open the door to no one under no circumstances. Gulp.

I’m being a bit dramatic. I’m safe. But I would never have had this experience on my own. The house is affiliated somehow with the network of human rights workers in Guatemala. I can’t really go into detail because really, I’m figuring the less I know, the better, and plus it maybe makes this post really interesting.  But it’s essentially a guest house we share with other visitors and a family (just like a hostel). The woman who runs it is amazing, and I’m glad to have another day with Tania before she starts doing world and life-changing work.

We went in search of internet and ice cream, bought some groceries, then laid around in sugar comas, wondering how we were so tired, until we fell asleep. I made pancakes this morning before we headed off on separate missions, I to the Brazilian Embassy with all my fingers and toes crossed, and T to her new job training.

After circling some faraway block for 20 minutes, Giovanni, my cab driver, dropped me at the embassy. For some reason I figured the embassy was going to be this big fancy high rise building where I would have to take a number to wait for one of twenty tellers for three hours in the expensively overdone lobby. My imagination is very far from reality. It was a much smaller building with one desk, two men, and white walls. Once  everything was in order, I went on a 3-hour nervous wild goose chase for US dollars to pay the fee. It wasn’t really that hard, just creative. Finally, at 12pm, my visa application was submitted, and I was told to come back on Thursday. 

My luck continued when I asked if it was safe for me to walk back. The looks on the men’s faces gave me the answer that no, it was not safe. As I was contemplating calling a cab or trying my hand at the bus, and nice man about my dad’s age who was also applying for a visa said he was going that way and would save me the trouble and give me a ride. I took my chances, trusting my instincts, my kung-fu abilities, and my faith in humanity. Julio was like my father for the day. We chatted about Brazil and our families, and he schooled me on the lay of the land in Guate. When we neared the address on the folded paper I had handed him, he reminded me not to carry too much money, to leave my passport in the house, and most importantly, to call him or his family if I should need anything or get into trouble here. I told him my parents would thank him if they were there, and I did the same, taking his number for safe keeping. My instincts are good.

This message will self destruct in 10 seconds…

(outro to Mission Impossible theme song)

Skin the Cat

So the bummer of New Year's was that Kristen and Steve's flight and vacation to Guatemala was cancelled. I was sad not to get to see them. But, that meant that I could join the PLQ posse back in Xela to ring in 2011. It's possible it was the best New Year's Eve ever.

We started the night with dinner at the Indian restaurant, returning home for a little after-dinner celebrating, complete with roasting marshmallows over candle sticks in the kitchen. Very NYE. We then spent much time sitting in the dark as one of the more interesting hostel-stayers has a "thing against florescent lights". Needless to say he ended up sitting in the dark kitchen by himself while we continued our party in the girls' room, which felt like being back in the dorms in college.

At 11 we headed outside to start the celebration in true Guatemalan style with some fireworks, firecrackers, sparklers, etc. With 15 minutes to go before the "ball drop" Tina and I passed out champagne, and Tania equipped everyone with sparklers, and we waited excitedly. At about 3 minutes to 12, more pirotecnics than I have ever seen in my life (including at Sky Concert or 4th of July) started going off in every direction. Explosions of color in the sky and frightening firecrackers like sonic booms that made your ears ring. It was amazing. We were just running up and down the street yelling and screaming and carrying on.

Once things settled down a bit, we brought out the music and had a 2-hour dance party in the street. we were joined by a drunken Guatemalan man who kept trying to freak with all the ladies in the middle of the street. It was like a game of tag, and we may have egged him on a bit, and when it got to be too much we went inside. At about 1:30 we headed out for the night to La Rumba, which was the funniest dance party I've ever had.

While there a gang-bang-looking Guatemalteco who was raised in California, but now lives here assumed that because he could communicate with me in English that I wanted to "get it on" as he put it. He hollered to his friends that he needed help with "these pretty white ladies that I just met", and as if his fate hadn't been sealed before that, that was it. Once back inside I used Ethan as my shield, and he in return taught me how to "skin the cat" on the dance floor. Basically it was me in hysterical laughter on the floor after he dropped me on the dip at the end of the sequence.

We finished the night at another reggae bar, and made it home before the sun came up. We've been hanging out today, and are having one last family dinner together before we all go our separate ways. It's been so nice coming back to Xela, a place I know, with a posse I love. I'm going to miss these faces.

Surprise visit at the Mountain School last week - TANIA!!

Tania and I at graduation in Xela on Friday

NYE Dinner Crew

Quetzalteca Especial

What I had to bartend with.

The launching corner 

Countdown

Sparkler face

Pre-dance party smiles

firecracker excitement = loudest sound ever

Let the dance party begin.

Creeper.

Tina and I, the "white girls"

Skinning the cat

Ethan and I

aftermath

New Years Day