It was a relatively quiet week after the all the Independence day celebrations and the travel to Lago Atitlan last weekend. Until last night. It was a chill Friday night, but when we saw the flyer for the Miss Gay National pageant at the gay bar in Xela, our Saturday night plans were set. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t really a national event, since most gay life in Guatemala is in the capital 200 miles away. There were only three girls competing in front of a crowd of maybe 40 people, and our group was 12 of those. I’ve seen a lot of drag in my life and I can be pretty cynical about it, so my expectations were low. But I have to say, those girls brought it. Their outfits were crazy fun, their dancing was fab, and they had great props.
Sorry for the poor quality, but here’s one of the queens being brought into the bar on a motorcycle. They each performed to a couple of different songs and finally last year’s winner crowned the new one. Afterwards, around 1:30 am, the police came knocking on the door because bars are supposed to close at one here. Everyone in the bar had to be quiet for about 10 minutes and apparently the police went away. The party resumed and we were assured that this was normal. Hopefully that’s as close to getting arrested that I’ll encounter in Guatemala.
Some more pictures:
The light reading I’m doing here. It’s challenging vocabulary, so I keep the dictionary close by at all times, but I’m pretty happy with my reading comprehension in general.
My maestra Lily and me sitting on the roof of the school with Santa Maria in the background. She’s awesome and a really great teacher. When you spend four hours a day with someone, you really get to know them. We share a very similar world view and she’s taught me a lot about the culture here too. Of the locals, I’ll miss her the most.
This is the longest set of firecrackers I’ve ever seen and it took about five minutes to finish, filling the entire street with smoke. Fiestas never really end here, so there was yet another celebration at Parque Central that we checked out. Some religious day that again brought out a parade of bands, and of course, firecrackers. This country is obsessed with firecrackers. It’s not unusual for them to go off outside of my bedroom window at six in the morning. Apparently, before that would be rude.
I’m drinking some $.50 freshly-squeezed orange juice. There’s a woman that cleans the school and her kids help out too. Her son Miguel, who is 15 and very sweet, spends most of his day in front of the school making orange juice, so I buy some from him almost every day. He works there in the morning, then takes classes in the afternoon.
I have two weeks left of classes and I’m pretty ready to go home. The rain has started back up and it’s relentless. Still, I can already tell that I’ll treasure this experience, so I’m going to soak up (sorry, bad pun) as much I can for these last two weeks.
The weather’s actually been gorgeous here for the past week. I’m not gonna spend too much time here writing, so here are some pictures and captions of my last week. (Of course, as I'm about to post this, the rain begins...sigh...)
Tuesday night, streets of Xela. The festivities were in full swing for Guatemala’s Independence Day on Wednesday the 15th. Bands were in the streets most of the night.
Tuesday night, Parque Central. The festivities continue. People were everywhere. I left around 1:30 am, being the old guy I am. Reports say the streets didn’t start clearing until 4 am.
I like my name, but I didn’t buy any.
There was a pretty good fireworks show at midnight.
The spirit of my boyfriend was here too.
Wednesday afternoon. No classes and most places were closed, so we cooked out and hung out on the roof of the school all day.
Tuesday afternoon. People are lining up for the parade. They love love love parades here. There were about five of them leading up to Independence Day. They also love beauty pageants and Maria de Xela spent hours watching them on TV.
Thursday night. Finally, the fair! It was miles of vendors selling everything under the sun, cheap games, and tons of food, of course. The rides were pretty much the same as any fair. They didn’t have any livestock or biggest pumpkin contests, but that stuff’s not hard to find.
I still like my name, but I didn’t play.
The Ferris Wheel of Death. Usually, ferris wheels aren’t thrill rides. This is a picture of the ferris wheel in motion. The lack of focus isn’t my camera’s fault this time. Powered by a car engine, this is the fastest ferris wheel I’ve ever seen. It goes forwards and backwards at a ridiculous speed. Of course I had to ride it.
Kristyn and I after riding the ferris wheel. Wary, but grateful to be alive.
Naked pictures of women advertising the ride. Gotta love Guatemala.
Friday til Sunday. Lago Atitlan, one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. It’s a lake at an altitude of 5,000 feet, surrounded by mountains over 10,000 feet. We stayed at this awesome place, Mikaso Hotel, owned by some young French-Canadiens. If you visit Guatemala, go there.
You can sorta see the rainbow in the middle of this picture.
Another view from the terrace of the hotel.
Annie and I rented motorcycles Friday afternoon and drove for 2.5 hours around the lake to the hotel instead of taking the 30 minute boat shuttle. We drove through mountains and had to deal with impending darkness, fog with light rain, and horrible roads. We made it safely there. Unfortunately, on the way back, I had some trouble with a road made of loose rocks and laid my bike down. I was fine and the bike was mostly fine, except a big dent in the gas tank that would cost me $350. That supersucked, but it was still worth it.
So, as I mentioned, the roads are awful. Here’s a mudslide we had to traverse. Traffic was stopped and I thought we weren’t going to be allowed through. I forgot that this is Guatemala and everything is at-your-own-risk. Only motorcycles and four-wheel drive trucks were making it through.
That’s my week. It was crazy and fun and awful, all at the same time. I’m feeling quite poor now, so the adventures will have to come cheaply. But that shouldn’t be a problem here.
Vale la pena? Unfortunately, my crappy camera doesn’t quite capture how amazingly gorgeous this view is. It just took every last bit of my willpower to get there. The volcanoes and mountains of Central American offer some of the best hiking around. Much of the terrain is manageable for amateurs and relatively safe. Volcan Tajumulco, at nearly 14,000 feet is the tallest peak in Central America, thus one of the most popular hikes here. A group of 17 people from my school, led by one maestro, decided to make the journey to the top of Central America to see Sunday’s sunrise. Since I love to go to the tops of things, I jumped at the opportunity. The plan was to leave Xela at 10:00 PM Saturday, arrive at the base at 1:00 AM, hike for 4 hours to the top, wait for sunrise, then hike back down and head home.
First, since I failed to bring a winter hat or gloves to the tropics, I had to rent some. There’s a group here in Xela called Quetzaltrekkers that does weekly hikes to various local volcanoes. They have lots of warm clothing to rent. We could have gone with them also. They were leaving Saturday morning and planned to camp on the mountain for the night, then wake up to catch the sunrise. But we planned to hike up Saturday night and avoid carry the camping gear. I tried taking a nap Saturday afternoon, but I guess I was too excited, so that didn’t happen. So off we went at 10 Saturday night. We had a couple of private shuttle vans take us to the base of the mountain. The trip took about two-and-half hours and since we were driving on Guatemalan roads, there would be no sleeping on the way either. I wasn’t worried though, I was feeling great.
We arrived at the base, probably about a mile below the summit altitude-wise and several miles of trails to the top. We all bundled up, gathered our flashlights, water and snacks, and joyfully started our ascent on schedule at 1 in the morning. We were fortunate that it didn’t rain, except for some spitting now and then, as we didn’t have to worry about the cold nearly as much. Our leader had told us to all keep together, so with 17 people of different hiking ability, it made it slow. The first hour was almost entirely a dirt road. Why we couldn’t have driven up that far, I’m not sure, but it was pretty easy. Then we got into a meadow, which switched to a forest, which switched to another meadow, which switched to another forest, which switched to another meadow. We were now about 2.5 hours into the hike and we had a beautiful view of the lights of the surrounding towns below, plus we could see the top of the volcano. It still looked far away, mostly because it was. The temperature had dropped to the 30s, but I was sweating. Still, I started to notice the lack of sleep. My legs were beginning to burn a bit. The altitude was making me feel drunk. And the terrain was getting steeper. There were a couple of people who would have preferred to stop right there, but most of the group maintained a go-get-em attitude.
The next 1.5 hours finally produced some casualties. It had been four hours of hiking and we were supposed to be at the summit already, but we still weren’t really close. About seven people couldn’t go on anymore, but that wasn’t going to stop the rest of us. We didn’t manage to stay together, fracturing off into smaller groups. There was a group ahead of me, and a group behind me. I was exhausted, but determined. Eventually, Raji and I were on our own. She was the wind beneath my wings. Around 6 am, the sun started to come up and we were close to the top. Due to the clouds, it wasn’t quite as spectacular as it could have been, but it was amazing. Finally, around 6:15, we joined another group at the top, and the other group was right behind us.
It’s tough to tell, but that’s the horizon meeting the Pacific Ocean behind us, about 150 miles away. It was freakin’ cold up there though, so we didn’t bask in the beauty for too long. We all reconvened just down the mountain and ate some banana/apple/yogurt breakfast. My old legs were not happy that I was still walking on them, but we couldn’t wait to get back to the vans. The hike down took about 2.5 hours and by the end of it, even the young people were exhausted and bitching.
I’d have to say it was the most difficult physical activity I’ve ever done. I had completely underestimated how difficult it would be. Particularly since I had a similar view just two months ago in Hawaii. A volcano that Scott and I drove up. But I’m also proud of myself for doing it. I was so tired when we got back to the vans that I slept most of the way back to Xela. I got home around noon, showered, and only allowed myself to sleep for three hours, before getting up and getting some food. I did nothing but watch the Twilight series in Spanish all day. (I’d kill myself to have to watch them in English, but they’re really good in Spanish because the dialogue is slow and basic And I’m totally on team Jacob!) I still haven’t made it to the fair yet, but tomorrow is Guatemalan Independence Day, so it’ll be spectacular. My legs are still sore, but it’s a good sore, ya know?
Yesterday was my mediotiempo here. Four-and-a-half weeks down, four-and-a-half to go. On one hand, it feels more like it's been four-and-a-half years. On the other hand, I think I was hugging my Boo at the airport, I blinked like Samantha from Bewitched, and time fast-forwarded to now. Conversely, sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever make it back to LA, but I’m sure it’ll feel like just another blink when it’s all done. Also, I took something of a midterm exam, not for a grade or anything, but just to check in on my progress. Alas, I’m still depressed about how much Spanish I don’t know. I think I’m going to vote that the rest of the world should have to learn English for the sake of my brain. Where's that ballot?
One of the pastimes of some maestros here is ping pong. There’s a table at the school and this group of four plays doubles every day. Thus, they’re really good. 
Now, I’m not a great ping pong player, but I can usually hold my own with most people. Not with these guys. They don’t really like playing against me because they’re so bored by it. I haven’t been this beaten down since I’d play against the Chinese kids in my college dorm. (Yes, Daryl/Steve, you usually beat me, but not 21-5!) I think I’m just going to have to live with being a Pepe of all trades, master of none.
Annie de LA and I went to brunch a couple of weeks back. Here’s the menu.
We both ordered a number four, of course. Even though it’s pretty much the same meal I get from Maria de Xela nearly every day. It was yummy and filling, naturally. Speaking of Maria de Xela, I still love her, but I’m not as enamored with her cooking anymore. While I really like all of the food, it’s pretty much the same every single day. Mush with banana or corn flakes, one huevo, frijoles, and tortillas for breakfast. Arroz, pasta, this potato-like vegetable called guisquil, tortillas, and either broccoli or chicken for lunch. Carb heaven! Dinner is more frijoles, tortillas, and platanos. Again, all stuff that I like, but can a gringo get a burger once in a while? I'm kidding. Mostly. It’s a good thing I’m a creature of habit myself. Occasionally, I buy banana bread or other pan to take a break from tortillas and I occasionally hit up different restaurants, like the one from the picture. And in spite of the ingredients, I couldn’t pass up the chapin desayuno.
Maria de Xela likes having a man around and I try to help out where I can. I removed a big rock from her garden. I change the agua pura bottle in the house. I kill gigantic flying insects in the house. I removed the old TV from the shelf and put up her new one. One little problem with that--when I reconnected the old cable wire, the connector was messed up and the TV wasn’t very clear. She thought the problem was with her cable company, but the TV just needed a new a cable. So I bought her one, thinking it’d be an easy fix. The cable from the TV goes outside to a connector. Problem one: I couldn’t unscrew the rusted connector and I needed a wrench. Which she doesn’t have. The next day, she had borrowed a wrench and I proceeded to switch out the cables. Problem two: the cable connector wouldn’t fit through the hole in the wall. So I had to cut the connector to remove the old cable, cut the connector on the new cable to put it through the wall, and reattach the connector inside the house. Finally, one day and one hour later, I got them connected and gracias a dios it worked. Unfortunately, now she thinks I’m some kind of handyman, which should be making you laugh right now. Her phone wasn’t working last week and she dragged me up to the terrace to look at the phone wires there. I didn’t see any problems. Fortunately the phone started working soon thereafter. Then the other day, she pointed out to me how her faucet is leaking. Since this is clearly out of my league, I just shrugged and returned to eating my tortilla and frijoles.
I’m not sure if anyone is watching world news, but all that rain I was complaining about last week is killing people. The big highway from Guatemala City to Xela, that’s less than five years old, is washed out in various places. Basically, I think they didn’t really have the money to properly build a highway on the side of a rainy mountain region in the the first place, and now they’re paying for it all over again, but now with lives. The school was supposed to receive about 10 new students on Sunday, but most of them were stuck in Guatemala City. Eventually, they all made it here, taking alternate routes that lasted 12 hours instead of the normal four via the highway. Oh, and it’s still the rainy season here for two more months.
On a brighter note, September 15th is, along with the cumpleaños de mi hermana, Guatemala’s Independence Day. The big event here in Xela is a week-long fair. I’m super-excited about this, and I hope the weather will cooperate a bit. Having grown up with the Ionia Free Fair, me gusta mucho fairs. Plus, I missed the Orange County and LA County fairs this year. I’m terribly curious about it and I’ll make sure to recap and post some pictures next week.
Besos y’all.
The main mercado here takes up several city blocks. One city block is the entire indoor area, then there are sidewalk vendors around it and many other streets. It’s like a super-duper-giant Walmart, but cheaper. It’s a shoppers paradise. New stuff, used stuff, hanging meat, fresh fruits and veggies, cooked foods, knockoff designer clothing, shoes (lots of shoes!), toilet paper toothpaste...name it, it’s there. What amazes me is that since there’s no place to store this stuff (for the street vendors anyhow) they pack all of this stuff up every single evening and haul it home with them. 
I’m not much of a shopper, so the only thing I’ve actually bought from there are bootleg DVDs. A buck twenty-five for a three pack. Sorry for not fattening your pockets, Hollywood friends. I’ve been watching tons of movies in Spanish. I understand the gist of the movies, but mostly because I have eyes, not because I’m understanding the majority of the dialogue. But it’s good exposure for me. The DVDs are of various quality. On one DVD, in Shrek 4 you could hear audience members talking and the camera kept going in-and-out of focus. Then How to Train Your Dragon was regular DVD quality, but in English. Then, Toy Story 3 had poor video, but the audio was fine. On another DVD, all three movies were perfect quality. It’s a bit of a crapshoot, but it’s tough to complain for the price.
I know I’ve talked about this before, but now they’re telling me that September is the rainiest month of the year. Help, I’m drowning! It has rained every single day that I’ve been here. And nothing dries out, so the mildew tends to stink my room. However, usually there’s a few hours of morning or afternoon sun, which I relish. Yesterday, there was no sun. The rain (and cold) were relentless, even in the south, at the ocean.
The water was warmer than the air. Notice all that white, frothy water? That’s because those are some loud, angry waves. You can’t go out very far, as there’s a very strong riptide that’s known to sweep people away often. It’s all black, coarse sand, since this land was made from volcanoes. In spite of the crappy weather, we had a nice time, and the other folks said the fish, which is tough to find in Xela, was really good.
Along with the weather, the many bus drivers here are still ridiculous. The ocean is about a 3.5 hour bus ride away from Xela. Of course, many of the roads are awful, but that didn’t stop our driver on the way home from practicing for the Indy 500. He should know that they don’t run that race when it’s raining (or on bumpy dirt roads) for a reason. The only time he slowed down was when the road had turned into a river, causing us to detour through a one-lane jungle road for a couple of miles. He was also ridiculously cute (what’s with cute guys being dangerous anyhow?), so I forgave him a bit. Still, I was glad we had to change buses at the halfway point.
On Thursday, teachers and students from the school were invited to a corn feast. There’s a tiny pueblo of indigenous people the school built stoves for many years ago. This place is literally in the middle of huge corn fields. (Oh, and our driver had to give pay some a group of men to pass on “their” crappy dirt road to get to the pueblo--my first extortion!) So now the indigenous group holds an annual gathering for the school, with a big serving of corn-on-the-cob, and a variety of condiments to choose from: lime, salt, queso, ketchup (salsa dulce), salsa verde, mayonaise. 
About 15 students and teachers made the trip, and I don’t think there are many more than that in the pueblo. At the beginning, the host guy talked for a while, thanking us for coming and other stuff in Spanish I couldn’t quite understand. Then a maestro from the school stood up and said thanks and more stuff I didn’t quite get. Then the host guy asked for a student to say a little something. In spite of ducking for cover, I got chosen. I’m not afraid of public speaking, but I did get a little tongue tied with the Spanish. I meant to say “Thank you for inviting us to eat corn with you.” But it came out more like “I like ice cream.” Oh well. I do love me some corn, but I could only manage to eat three pieces. A couple of people had a little competition and managed seven pieces each. I’m sure they paid for it later. Afterwards, there was some awkward seventh-grade type dancing with the locals, then the rain told us it was time to go home. Overall, one of my favorite experiences of this trip so far.
Wednesday was my day of fútbol. First, some students and a maestro rented a small roof-covered field for an hour. I’m not much of a soccer player, but it was fun to run around. Perhaps I’m seriously out of shape, but I’m choosing to blame my wind-sucking on the altitude. We’re going to try to make it a weekly thing, so I may be a fútbol superstar by the time I get back to the States. But it’s tough to not use my hands. I mean, whose idea was this stupid game? So then I went and watched the local club team, Xelaju, for $5. Tom, a Brit, says they’re awful, but I suspect they’re about as good as most US college teams. It was actually my first in-person soccer match. But seriously, whose idea was this stupid game? I liked the excitement of the World Cup, but I don't get it. I might as well watch some long-distance track-and-field, just a bunch of guys running around for a couple of hours.
But everyone else in the crowd sure did have a good time. The stadium probably holds about 5000 people, and it was a little over half-full. There was a big group of people at one end, shirts off, singing songs the whole time. At the other end, there was a band and another group of people chanting and setting off fireworks. As you can see from the picture, there are tall fences with barbed wire separating the fans from the field. Fans yell profanities at the other team constantly. Fortunately, there’s no alcohol allowed inside the stadium. I can’t even imagine. Also, there are no bathrooms, so guys would go to the corners and piss on the walls. I guess the poor girls just have to hold it. Anyhow, there was no score for the first 40 minutes and I was so bored that I was practicing conjugating verbs. Then, quickly Xela scored and the place erupted, of course. A minute later, the other team scored and it erupted again, this time with anger. Then it was halftime, and in spite of the late excitement, I was cold and tired, so I left. I heard the next day that Xela won 3-2 in a barnburner. I’d rather watch a barn burning.
I’ve got more, but dinner calls and I want to make it home before the $@!# rain starts again! Abrazos y’all.
