Dropping out.

Yesterday finished three weeks of traveling and hanging with my best friend, she is now back in the United States. And where I was three weeks ago is very different than where I am now. Not so much in the physical sense, but in my heart and mind. This is the first time in more than a week that I have seen a computer screen and I have not yet checked my email, nor will I. I only sit here to write on this blog.

When planning all of this, I told myself that the first few months of being here would be relaxing, traveling with friends and family and basically something resembling settling in, adjusting to the culture again. I worked a lot last summer to make this happen and I did not want the pressure of coming here with intentions to work or be serious right away.

The past month of traveling has been great, mostly. But it was really this past week that the huge disconnect became totally noticable. The further I get from my life in the United States, the further I get from it in every sense, not to sound too cliche. I don't think I need to describe it in too much detail, I'm not sure I could make sense of it. But I can sit here and say that something happened to me this last week of hiding in the jungle by a river and partying with my friend in Antigua for her last nights of a 5 month international trip that makes me know my life from here on out will have an even more enlightened perspective.

Over the past week as I have thought about all of my life in the United States, and my new life I am building here, the differences in my daily concerns while living in each place are really showing stark contrasts. Letting go of the life I can no longer live in the United States feels really fucking good. Plain and simple.

Tomorrow I leave Antigua again to return to the lake to really start my life this time. I have had only short and sporadic periods of time there up til now due to visitors and traveling. But tomorrow, I leave to go home to the lake and this time, I will not be leaving for a while. I am going to start, really start my new life here. Begin to look for work, build relationships and become part of the community. And after a month of traveling, I am so ready. Even more, after this past week of some of the most unbelievable times of my life traveling with Emily, I know I am here to stay. Sorry folks, America has lost this American.

Perhaps I will indulge more on these topics in the future, but tonight, I am feeling a particular sentiment for the feelings I have in my heart crying out that I am perfectly placed on the planet right now and I better just stay.

Rainy day

Hola all from Livingston, Izabal, Guatemala. It´s raining and there´s not much else to do, so I figured I´d update the folks.

Livingston is on the Carribean coast of Guatemala, and is very different than anywhere else I´ve been in this country. I´m currently traveling with one of my best friends who came here for three weeks on her way home to California after three and a half months in South America. Livingston is very funky, and a unique mix of African slave descendents and indegenous Maya. I have finally found a place where the Guatemalans are as tall or taller than me. I guess that´s typical of African descendent folks though. But I´m eating it up. I will admit it´s a bit strange to hear the black folks here speaking spanish, since I´m used to hearing Carribean residents speaking Creole or something of the like. I like it here a lot, feels like I´m on a vacation from the rest of Guatemala with out leaving Guatemala, whoop!

We arrived here via a two hour boat tour down the Rio Dulce, a beautiful, jungle lined river in southeastern Guatemala in the state of Izabal. And we are leaving tomorrow to take a boat to Puerto Barrios and then catch a bus up to Flores, where the ruins of Tikal are(Tikal is like the Pyramids of Egypt, one does not come to Guatemala and skip Tikal). My friend wants to see the ruins, naturally, but I am not going again as I was just there with the mom and have been before that another time.

I wish I could be more witty and entertaining, however, the rain has dulled my luster. Too bad, so sad. Guess I´ll dig deeper for my awesome writing skills when mi amiga is at the ruins and I´m resting my weary travelers feet in the internet cafés of Flores.

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.