Turistas

I have just spent the last ten or so days galavanting about Guatemala with my mother. It all went smoothly, by Guatemalan standards, meaning everything turned out, but not without heaps of stress at times. Lets just says there´s nothing like catching a shuttle to the airport at 4am only to have the shuttle die as soon as it leaves town to head for the airport leaving us sitting in the mountains of Guatemala in the dark not knowing it the damn van is going to start up again or not. Oy, I´m glad we made it that day, barely.

I have never traveled with anyone and it was a different experience. More hectic than I am used to, always being able to take things at my own pace and not on such a tight schedule. However, there was plenty of relaxing to be had, it was the transportation connections that proved to be the most work.

We spent Christmas in Antigua, hanging out in the park on Christmas Eve practically buried underneath little Mayan girls. I asked one of them if I could see her skirt(en español) so I could show my mom how the Mayan ladies wrap them up. Initally she was shy, but before we knew it there was a line of them, ten deep all showing their skirts to my mother and I. Cute as crap doesn´t even begin to describe it. They were all so adorable. Then they proceeded to run laps around the park and when they passed us, one of the tiniest ones would yell "¡¡Feliz Navidad!!", every time she passed, in her little squealy spanish.

For Christmas, the Guatemalans blow up fire works, all day and night and day and night. At midnight on Christmas Eve, every rooftop in town has a show of fireworks. Every direction one looks, fireworks. Fireworks for Jesus, happy birthday Jesus, let´s blow some stuff up.

After Antigua, we spent two days in the jungle to see the most famous Mayan ruins here in Guatemala, called Tikal. It was hot and humid and perfect. The temples of Tikal are some of the grandest of all the Mayan ruins and though I had been before, it was awesome to see again.

We spent the rest of the time at the lake after Tikal, taking it super easy. My mother had expressed her desire to not be running around the entire time, so we didn´t. We chilled. Lago de Atitlán is a perfect place to chill. She got to meet Chema, my tiny love, and she had even brought a giant stuffed animal fish for him, which to say the least, was a hit. He was shy taking the gift, but two seconds later he was attacking his friends with it as though it was a shark. I love him!

New Years Eve in San Pedro was more than nuts, though there was peace to be found. Being somewhat of a party town, San Pedro draws the crowds on the party holidays. Half of Guatemala City was up there, I swear. Not really, but no one has ever heard so many fireworks and fire crackers in their lives. They sell huge bomb fireworks on the street for like 60cents and rolls of fire crackers the size of basketballs. Nothing like buying heaps of fireworks from an 8 year old, no lie. Guatemalans know how to party, blowin´ stuff up.

The woman(mother) left this morning from the airport after a sucessful time here, and I´m sure she will be thrilled to be greeted by freezin´ ass temperatures after days of 70´s and 80´s in the jungles of Guatemala. ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, cold sucks!!!

Now I am spending the night in Guatemala City because one of my best friends arrives tomorrow at the airport after three and a half months in South America. She will be here for three weeks and I´m looking forward to it immensely.

And the plot thickens. The camera cable I ordered and had my mother bring, was the wrong one. Good thing I found mine. sheesh.

P.S.

p.s. I found my camera cable in a box with bike tools. Funny thing too since the bike tools were in the camera´s box. Now after ordering one on amazon for my mom to bring with her, I will have two. Perhaps I can sell one of them on the black market of digital camera crap, since no one in this country already has that cable.

E-mails to brothers

Actually, it is just part of an email to my brother(bwotho). But I could not resist posting it here as it is a brilliant and entirely true paragraph. A bit of a heads up on the subject, a shower can be the best or worst part of the day, you tell me what you want it to be.

here we go:
". . im all moved into my room now and its a bit strange but super awesome to have a casa in san pedro by the lake with roommates and all. its so cool. and the best part is that the shower is one of the best in all of guatemala that i have ever had. the showers here are normally beyond sorry. IF they are hot, you the pressure can be really, really iffy, if not just a drizzle. thats IF they are warm or hot. oh and by the way, the way they get the water hot here is through a electrically plugged in shower head that has heating elements in the head that are heated using electricity. what that means is if there is a metal faucet handle, and you turn it whilst standing in the water, you can feel a slight and mildly painful shock. nuts. as far as i can currently, no shock, but that can always change. i mean i practically saw baby jesus when i felt the temperature and pressure of the water.. one of the best ive had here. its meant to be for me to live in this house."

If that description doesn´t do these Guatemalan showers justice, nothing ever will. God bless this place.

Other than Guatemalan showering ecstacy, I´m about to travel with my mother for the next ten days. I´m currently in Antigua again, awaiting her arrival later tonight to the capital city, Guatemala City. I am dying to post about San Pedro, my new hometown, however I could write for a week and still not cover everything. So if you stay tuned, you will be the winner of many posts, free for you, each descrbing in detail various subjects about crazy and awesome San Pedro La Laguna en Guatemala. You won´t want miss this stuff..

I´m in love

It happened so fast I don´t know what to think. I mean I thought I´d come here and just stay to myself, and now I´m in love.

His name is Chema and he turns 3 years old on Christmas Eve. He is the son of one of the brothers that runs the hotel where I have been staying. He is seriously so cute that I have to control myself and not scream about how cute he is everytime I see him. For a child that is not even 3 yet, he is amazingly smart. Obviously he speaks better spanish than me, however we are still able to communicate. But his little brown eyes and his little buzz cut have stolen my heart. He also is able to whistle unbelievably well for such a small child. The Mayan men whistle to signal each other and communicate and this kid has it down. I can´t even whistle as well as he can.

Last night the family had a huge pre-Christmas party and one of the games was a gift exchange game. Well Chema didn´t want to wait to open his, so he snuck off and came back holding up a shirt and was all happy and giddy. His dad and I had a good laugh over it. The anticipation of waiting to open gifts was seeming to kill everyone, but Chema, well no bother, he´ll just take the reins and open presents at his convenience.

I move into a room tomorrow in a casa with some other gringos. Fortunately this does not mean that Chema and I are breaking up. The casa where I am going to be living is directly behind the hotel, and I also know where the family lives in the village too. But it´s not like I´m stalking him or anything . . . .

Lago de Atitlán

Maybe you know, or maybe you don´t know, but I was driven to return to Guatemala for a lake. My first experience at this lake was an anticipated three or four days, turning into three and a half weeks. I just didn´t want to leave, it felt so good to be there, I couldn´t drag myself away. When I eventually mustered up the willingness to do so, it was only because I swore I was going to do everything in my power to return. Thus the hardest working and most focused summer and fall of my life.

Let me go into a bit more detail. This lake, Lago de Atitlán, is a huge lake in the western highlands of Guatamala in the small state of Solola. Atitlán is rimmed with the most dramatic scenery. There are three huge volcanos, round about 11,000 to 12,000 feet on the southwestern side of the lake. The rest of the lake is surrounded by equally dramatic scenery; cliffs dropping directly into the water, huge rock outcroppings, farmers´ fields that are on mountain sides so steep its a wonder they don´t fall off, etc. The daily temperatures here hover around 73 or 78 and at night it might cool off to about 60 or 55, good stuff. All of this is an environment of highland jungle, meaning it´s totally jungle, but a bit more of a mountainous jungle. If one has ever been to Hawaii or any other volcanicly built landscape, the comparison is unaviodable.

Sure the scenery is stunning, but really it´s just the feeling of this place that is so hard to shake. There´s not really many words to describe this "feeling" except magic. This damn lake is magic, okay I´ve said it. However, I know I´m not crazy, because many other visitors seem to say the same thing. This is Maya country, and the indegenous Maya have a way about themselves. Not only is their physical look so striking, but the culture, the Mayan languages, the traditions. And the tortillas . . . nuff said. This is another world! You don´t hear much spanish on the streets here in San Pedro, when the natives speak to each other, they speak native language, Mayan language. Ancient landscape, ancient culture, what more does a gringa need to escape the rat race of the states?!

I arrived at the lake, to the town of San Pedro La Laguna, on Tuesday afternoon followed shortly by a three hour nap. When I woke up, I started strolling around town and saw, within two minutes, two people whom I had met last time I was here. Being off such a long nap, I felt like I was dreaming, however, this is a dream come true. Everyday I decompress a little more from the hectic day to day of life in that USA. I love it here, like I´ve never loved a place, I am at home here.

I have spent the last few days getting settled, I even rode my bike yesterday. Being that this town is built on a volcano, the riding is either up or down. So basically I ride up the volcano(not the entire way folks, that would take forever), and I ride down the volcano. I am going to need to relearn how to mountain bike because the cobble streets in this town are rough, to say the least. It can get a bit bumpy. The natives look at me like I´m insane, which is true, but they look with a smile because they can obviously see that I´m in heaven.

Next week, I begin another whack at spanish lessons and considering what I learned and built on the first time I took lessons, I should be darn near fluent by the end of another week. yay!

I am looking forward to settling down after a bit of traveling with some family and friends this next month or so. For now, I´m going to drink tea on the roof of my hotel and be blown away at the scenery before me, whilst thinking in the spanish/english hybrid that is taking over my head.

Picture this . . .

Wouldn´t it be nice if I posted photos and videos? Yes, yes, it would be nice.

What would be even nicer is if I had brought the correct USB cable with me to make such luxuries possible. In fact, I have pulled this blonde of a move. To make matters worse. I have scoured the entire city of Antigua to try to purchase the correct one, but they don´t seem to have Olympus cameras here. Every other brand, but not this one. It goes something like this:

Sarah: "Estoy buscando por el cable por eso(I´m looking for the cable for this)." (then I show the camera cable connection)

Sales attendant: (looking)"Oh. No."(translates the same)

Fruitful.

The only hope we all have here folks is that my mother will find it somewhere in the mess of things I have in her place and will bring it when she comes to visit in two weeks. God speed mother. Buena suerte, you´ll need it.

So, god willing, she finds it and we can all enjoy a flood of the views and culture here in Guatemala.

Until then picture this. . . pictures.

Sakes!!

First and foremost, a huge thanks to everyone whom helped me out before I left, my family, my friends, my coworkers, my clients. The generosity of time and cash and love and support(not to mention food and candy) has not gone unappreciated by me and I wish I could take the time to thank everyone individually.

I guess I have to start this somehow. I´m in Guatemala, I´m in Antigua, a small colonial city in the mountains that I never cared for before, but is growing on me quickly. I shall explain why.

Upon arrival to Guatemala City, following an unbelievable travel experience that was seemingly endless, my "friend" who was supposed to pick me up pulled a no show. Long story short, he totally flaked because he was with a girl. As previously mentioned to some of you, this means he has conveniently weeded himself and his bullshit out of my life. I was nearly unaffected by the surprise of him not showing, and honestly wasn´t that surprised in the first place. My life is a series of changed plans anyways, so hey, what´s the problem with being abandoned at the Guatemala City airport? None, I am completely able of taking care of myself, and that´s what I proceeded to do.

Whilst standing at the airport with my bike box, and two pieces of luggage besides, being stared down by no less than 60 taxi drivers, I decided it was best to just get in a taxi and come to Antigua. I checked into a small hotel a half block away from the city center. I was exhausted and homesick, and hungry. I went across the street and had my first and favorite Guatemalan meal of fried plantains, black beans, queso, and tortillas, with coffee. When I tasted the first bite of food, it all came rushing back; the sheer emotion I have for this place, the reasons I was so driven to come back. Not simply from food satisfaction, but what those flavors represent in my life. I ate my meal, my spirit in the process of mending.

Being jazzed from a bit of late night coffee(the first I had had in a while and amongst insane exhaustion), I followed the sounds in the street to a Spanish band(as in from Spain) playing a free show in front of a hundreds year old church. They were really talented, maybe it was the exhaustion. I´m not one for live music, but this stuff was really, really good. I stood there for the duration of the show, with a smile on my face, knowing wholeheartedly that this was all meant to be. I was not meant to be picked up at the airport by that loser, I was meant to be doing all of this, and totally living in every moment of it.

I slept 13 hours that night and enjoyed Antigua again yesterday, reconnecting with an older American friend, Daniel. I met Daniel when I was here earlier in the year and we have kept in touch. He´s been living in Centro America for 15 years and encouraged me to return with every email. Get this, I called him and we met up, to find out we are staying in the very same hotel. Of all the hotels in Antigua, he was just upstairs. I could swear I heard his voice my first night here, but I was also convinced it was all in my head. Not so! We walked around a bunch yesterday and he showed me some places in town.

I am intending to go on to Lake Atitlán on Monday, a plan that has changed already. I just don´t know if I´m ready to travel with that bike yet.

Until then, I´ll be enjoying Antigua, for the first time in my life, and gratefully solo.