Before we begin, a note to all those who are reading this via facebook: At the top of the facebook page is a link, on a blue and rectangular background, next to a picture of yours truly. If you click that, you´ll be taken to blogger.com, where this blog actually resides. It´s much easier to read there, and the video in the last entry that wasn´t visible on facebook will function as intended.
And so to business. Firstly, I am happy to report that my darting arm has in fact improved. The following day we went to San Jorge, near Lake Aititlan, and stayed with a family in the town. This was a very different experience to my two week homestay in Antigua, as the family were indigenous Mayans, who of course don´t speak Spanish as their first language. Things are much more basic in San Jorge, and the house I was staying in reminded me of the houses in Santa Maria where I was building stoves not long ago. It wasn´t entirely comfortable, but for two nights we coped.
Lake Aititlan is something special, even though not all the towns around it hold the same interest. Panajachel is captivating enough however. We arrived on Thursday having stopped on the way in a market that was almost as big as the town to which we were travelling. You can literally get lost in there for days, though most of the stalls sell the same type of products; a lot of textiles, a lot of jade jewelery. We chilled out in Panajachel for a bit, but that was pretty much it for Thursday. Just as well, because Friday will surely go down as one of the most surreal days of my life.
It began by climbing a rock high atop a mountain, to be greeted by the most spectacular view of the lake and its surrounding towns and volcanoes. Then we had to travel down to Panajachel to get a boat. This is where the trouble started.
I have explained before the perils of the chicken bus, but if you really want to crank it up a notch you should try a combination of standing up for want of a seat; hurtling down the mountainside, hairpin bends and all; overlooking the most beautiful lake you´ve ever seen; and - this is the clincher - with Vanilla Ice´s ´Ice, Ice, Baby´ being blasted from the radio. Without a doubt, that was the best bus journey one could ever have.
But my friends, it gets better. It´s not uncommon to cross paths with people from Israel whilst travelling. Indeed, there was a group of four Israelis sharing the minivan with us on the way back from Tikal. But what you don´t expect is to go to a remote mountainside town, which isn´t really even a particularly interesting place, and find a Star of David on a commercial building. Closer inspection revealed that this place was in fact an opticians, marvellously called Optica Shalom. I looked bewildered, took a picture and passed it off as a bit of cultural borrowing. Surely there were no Jewish people in this unassuming, basic town?
Well I bet you can all see where this is going, but I certainly didn´t at the time. Our guide took us to a restaurant in the same town, San Pedro. This place is the most chilled out eatery you could hope to find. The tables are low; there are big seating areas with cushions, but no chairs; there are board games to play with; fantastic plants; and animals too. This is easily now my favourite restaurant in the world, and would you believe it, it´s owned by Israelis! Furthermore, the food is Israeli. I had shakshuka, there was falafel as well. The place is called, in English letters, ZooLa, which apparently means ´a place to relax´ in Hebrew. And you really can; people just lie down on the cushions and read a book for hours on end. They even have an adjacent hotel.
If that wasn't enough, on returning to Panajachel I heard some Mayan children conversing with some Israelis in Spanish. The children asked, "como se dice 'como se llama'?" (how do you say 'what's your name?'), to which the Israelis replied, "Mah shem shelcha". Hearing that out of the blue really threw me.
I am aware that most of my loyal readers are Jewish. If that doesn´t convince you to come to Guatemala, then I guess nothing will.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Tikal your fancy
I cannot overstate my joy upon reentering Guatemala. I also cannot stress enough my advice that you all come and visit. Soon I would return to Antigua, but first there were a couple of small landmarks to take care of.
We went straight to Flores after crossing the border into Guatemala. Flores itself has a certain charm, and we resided on an island in the middle of the lake which was very lovely indeed. But despite the vista and the wonderful coffee shop we stumbled across, there was really only one reason we stopped by: Tikal.
A long climb up a large pyramid later, and it was clear that our efforts had been rewarded. And if you need some convincing, here´s the proof.
There are all sorts of things both animal and mineral to be found in Tikal. Monkeys, toucans and Mayan temples to name just a few. You can see a few pictures by clicking here. This monkey however is my personal favourite.
After spending the afternoon relaxing in Flores, the next day we moved on to Rio Dulce. In itself the town is nothing special, but we were staying at a little hotel overlooking the lake. Though it was on the mainland, to get to the hotel a small boat ride was needed. Once there, one can drink cocktails at the restaurant and watch the boats go by, chill out in a hammock or just go upstairs and shoot some pool. I´m telling you, all this relaxation was beginning to get to me by that point. So the next day we took a little boat ride, stopping to watch some birds, take a dip in the hot springs and visit the town of Livingstone with its brightly coloured buildings and stunningly delicious iced coffees made with coconut milk.
You may well be wondering what could top all of that, but as far as I´m concerned it was topped this morning when after a very long bus ride, though mercifully in a very comfortable bus, we arrived in Antigua. I was wondering how I would feel when I gazed upon those cobbled streets once more, and whatever feelings I had manifested themselves in a childlike smile and dizzying excitement. What didn´t help however is that we were travelling whilst back in Europe a very important football game was occurring. Most of you know I am a Man U fan, and as it happens there´s an Australian, named Ben, on the trip who´s living in London and supports Chelsea. The banter between the two of us seemed to get the whole tour interested, and when we made it to our hotel just in time for extra time, almost everyone congregated in Ben´s room to watch the pair of us squirm uncomfortably as the game went to penalties. Fortunately the better team won. John Terry can blame the grass all he likes.
And then the real highlight of my day so far. Everyone at GVI knew I was coming back at some point, but not exactly when. All the volunteers meet at a coffee shop near the town centre after the day is done, and I decided I would show up unannounced and succeeded in provoking quite a few double takes. Seeing everyone again was wonderful, and it really feels like I only just left. Whilst I´m only spending one night here this time, I shall return for the whole of the weekend which pleases me greatly. But as tonight is Wednesday night, that means one thing: it´s darts night. Even back home, you may want to take cover.
We went straight to Flores after crossing the border into Guatemala. Flores itself has a certain charm, and we resided on an island in the middle of the lake which was very lovely indeed. But despite the vista and the wonderful coffee shop we stumbled across, there was really only one reason we stopped by: Tikal.
Tikal is a site of Mayan ruins situated in fairly dense jungle territory. We woke up at 2.30 in the morning to climb the pyramids and watch the sunrise, which was a bit of an intense experience as the sun had already begun to rise when we stepped out of the minivan. What followed was a swift walk through the jungle, in the dark, whilst a howler monkey made some rather aggressive noises that sounded more like a jaguar was about to pounce on us from out of the bushes (of course there are jaguars there too, but they would usually run away from humans). The following video is almost entirely pitch black, but that´s kind of the point. Just turn up your speakers and imagine walking through this at around 5am.
A long climb up a large pyramid later, and it was clear that our efforts had been rewarded. And if you need some convincing, here´s the proof.
There are all sorts of things both animal and mineral to be found in Tikal. Monkeys, toucans and Mayan temples to name just a few. You can see a few pictures by clicking here. This monkey however is my personal favourite.After spending the afternoon relaxing in Flores, the next day we moved on to Rio Dulce. In itself the town is nothing special, but we were staying at a little hotel overlooking the lake. Though it was on the mainland, to get to the hotel a small boat ride was needed. Once there, one can drink cocktails at the restaurant and watch the boats go by, chill out in a hammock or just go upstairs and shoot some pool. I´m telling you, all this relaxation was beginning to get to me by that point. So the next day we took a little boat ride, stopping to watch some birds, take a dip in the hot springs and visit the town of Livingstone with its brightly coloured buildings and stunningly delicious iced coffees made with coconut milk.
You may well be wondering what could top all of that, but as far as I´m concerned it was topped this morning when after a very long bus ride, though mercifully in a very comfortable bus, we arrived in Antigua. I was wondering how I would feel when I gazed upon those cobbled streets once more, and whatever feelings I had manifested themselves in a childlike smile and dizzying excitement. What didn´t help however is that we were travelling whilst back in Europe a very important football game was occurring. Most of you know I am a Man U fan, and as it happens there´s an Australian, named Ben, on the trip who´s living in London and supports Chelsea. The banter between the two of us seemed to get the whole tour interested, and when we made it to our hotel just in time for extra time, almost everyone congregated in Ben´s room to watch the pair of us squirm uncomfortably as the game went to penalties. Fortunately the better team won. John Terry can blame the grass all he likes.
And then the real highlight of my day so far. Everyone at GVI knew I was coming back at some point, but not exactly when. All the volunteers meet at a coffee shop near the town centre after the day is done, and I decided I would show up unannounced and succeeded in provoking quite a few double takes. Seeing everyone again was wonderful, and it really feels like I only just left. Whilst I´m only spending one night here this time, I shall return for the whole of the weekend which pleases me greatly. But as tonight is Wednesday night, that means one thing: it´s darts night. Even back home, you may want to take cover.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
A good trip down the tube
Here on the Intrepid trip, we don't stay in any one place for more than two nights. Some of these places have limited internet access, some have none whatsoever. Furthermore, the days are packed full of stuff to do. Point is: there just isn't much time for a nice, leisurely blog post.
Except tonight, because I've decided, like many others, not to stay out for after-dinner drinks this evening. I think many people - though I hasten to add not including yours truly - learned their lesson this morning when, after a hefty night yesterday which saw almost everyone get some kind of drunk, most of us had to endure the delightful combination of hangover, dirt road and caving. Totally worth it though, I'm sure. The Mayan Actun Tunichil Muknal cave was used as a place of ritual sacrifice and, after wading/swimming/climbing through the maze of rocks and water with nothing but a headlamp and a lot of wet clothes, one eventually meets an entirely intact human skeleton. I studied it carefully, and concluded that it was almost certainly not alive.
The western side of Belize seems to contain much more jungle than the eastern side. Here in San Ignacio one has to trek through the jungle for forty-five minutes before reaching the aforementioned cave, and oh my are there some lovely surprises in there: poisonous snakes, spiders, jaguars. I would have been quite happy to have met a jaguar, but even the guides who do this all year round never see them. Instead, we were reliably informed that all would be within spitting distance of a snake around thirty percent of the time. Can't these tour guides prioritise the animals more effectively?
As it happens however I did not meet a snake on the way to the cave, nor the previous afternoon when we each grabbed a rubber tube and floated down the river. A key piece of advice to all of you: when you go over the rapids, bottoms up. Those rocks are sharp, and whilst one only makes that mistake once, it is preferable not to make it at all. Here's another tip: try to avoid getting stuck with your tube over a protruding rock, like some kind of fairground ring toss game.
I should probably mention the group with whom I am travelling. We started numbering fifteen persons, mostly Australian folk and some English. A small number of people have been on this trip all the way from Mexico City for a couple of weeks beforehand, but most started at the same point I did. However, many people arrived a day early to settle in before we all met up. Of these, three people had serious sunburn before the trip had technically even begun. By day three, we had lost Lee. By the next day, Jools and Rebecca had gone. Then to top it off, a couple of girls decided to stay behind in Caye Caulker, and claim they will catch us up later. This leaves us at a cosy number of ten people, ranging from early twenties to one man somewhere around sixty. All good.
But special mention has to go to our tour guide Sammy, who to my total and utter delight is a Guatemalan. Sammy is lovely, but the joke at the moment is to question how many people will be left by the end of the trip. Coincidentally, a Swiss man named Chris who is the manager of Intrepid tours in this region has been trailing us for the last few days, and whenever he turns up Sammy has to tell him that we've lost a few more. I think Chris has gone now, so the curse may be broken. Though if we continue to drink a cocktail here which has the entirely accurate name of 'Bucket of Death', the numbers may well dwindle further.
This night is our last here in Belize. Tomorrow morning we ride to Guatemala, where we shall stay for nine days and is thus the longest leg of the tour. I can actually hear my heart singing; it's a very special place.
Except tonight, because I've decided, like many others, not to stay out for after-dinner drinks this evening. I think many people - though I hasten to add not including yours truly - learned their lesson this morning when, after a hefty night yesterday which saw almost everyone get some kind of drunk, most of us had to endure the delightful combination of hangover, dirt road and caving. Totally worth it though, I'm sure. The Mayan Actun Tunichil Muknal cave was used as a place of ritual sacrifice and, after wading/swimming/climbing through the maze of rocks and water with nothing but a headlamp and a lot of wet clothes, one eventually meets an entirely intact human skeleton. I studied it carefully, and concluded that it was almost certainly not alive.
The western side of Belize seems to contain much more jungle than the eastern side. Here in San Ignacio one has to trek through the jungle for forty-five minutes before reaching the aforementioned cave, and oh my are there some lovely surprises in there: poisonous snakes, spiders, jaguars. I would have been quite happy to have met a jaguar, but even the guides who do this all year round never see them. Instead, we were reliably informed that all would be within spitting distance of a snake around thirty percent of the time. Can't these tour guides prioritise the animals more effectively?
As it happens however I did not meet a snake on the way to the cave, nor the previous afternoon when we each grabbed a rubber tube and floated down the river. A key piece of advice to all of you: when you go over the rapids, bottoms up. Those rocks are sharp, and whilst one only makes that mistake once, it is preferable not to make it at all. Here's another tip: try to avoid getting stuck with your tube over a protruding rock, like some kind of fairground ring toss game.
I should probably mention the group with whom I am travelling. We started numbering fifteen persons, mostly Australian folk and some English. A small number of people have been on this trip all the way from Mexico City for a couple of weeks beforehand, but most started at the same point I did. However, many people arrived a day early to settle in before we all met up. Of these, three people had serious sunburn before the trip had technically even begun. By day three, we had lost Lee. By the next day, Jools and Rebecca had gone. Then to top it off, a couple of girls decided to stay behind in Caye Caulker, and claim they will catch us up later. This leaves us at a cosy number of ten people, ranging from early twenties to one man somewhere around sixty. All good.
But special mention has to go to our tour guide Sammy, who to my total and utter delight is a Guatemalan. Sammy is lovely, but the joke at the moment is to question how many people will be left by the end of the trip. Coincidentally, a Swiss man named Chris who is the manager of Intrepid tours in this region has been trailing us for the last few days, and whenever he turns up Sammy has to tell him that we've lost a few more. I think Chris has gone now, so the curse may be broken. Though if we continue to drink a cocktail here which has the entirely accurate name of 'Bucket of Death', the numbers may well dwindle further.
This night is our last here in Belize. Tomorrow morning we ride to Guatemala, where we shall stay for nine days and is thus the longest leg of the tour. I can actually hear my heart singing; it's a very special place.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
I'm going to make a recommendation: all archaeological sites should be moved next to a beach
So, I left. Friday night saw my last GVI BBQ. So with a trip to the airport booked for 4am, what else was I to do but to dance all night? Sleep simply wasn't an option. I want to say thank you at this point to Debra and Alison for commenting on my blog. Everyone else should follow their example! Guys, I miss you loads. And Debra, your stupid riddle has been driving me insane during my journey. I will solve it by the time I see you next!
So after going to a good bar, the decor for which is apparently based on a Pink Floyd album (I would never have noticed, but I do see it now), we ended up crashing a wedding party with a difference. The difference being that the bride to be was no longer actually getting married but decided to party anyhow. A good night, but a small dance floor.
Debra coincidentally joined me for the trip to the airport - she was getting an internal flight to Tikal for the weekend. But after I got dropped off at the terminal, it was goodbye. I would have been slightly more concerned at the time were it not for the fact that I knew I would be going back to Antigua soon, and for the need to concentrate on getting two flights to Mexico in time to meet my Intrepid tour group. I'd like to tell you about the journey, but you need know only this: it was long, I slept a lot.
So after two planes and a taxi, I arrived in Playa del Carmen, just south of Cancun. And goddamn it's hot over there. After meeting everyone, going out for dinner and staying out for a drink or two, I decided to go and sit down outside the hotel before going to bed. To be completely honest, the transition from Antigua to Playa del Carmen was hard, and I wasn't entirely happy. I moved from volunteering in a beautiful town surrounded by volcanoes to sitting in a hot beach-side resort which frankly I've seen a million times in Spain before. The following morning, with the internet cafe shut, I did what any sensible traveller feeling like they were on a soulless, pointless journey would do: I went to Starbucks. And I must say, that was the best decision I could have made; Starbucks knows how to treat its customers well, and in Mexico that means a large dose of air conditioning.
Fortunately we moved on from Playa del Carmen quite quickly, and the next day we found ourselves in Tulum. From this point on things got a lot better. Once again, I have no pictures. But I want you all to know that we stayed in beach-side huts, in a sparsely populated piece of Mexican paradise. The Caribbean sea, a good bar and the sound of the ocean as you fall asleep were also quite welcome indeed. Oh and the following day we went caving. You know how it is: a snorkel, swimming around some luminescent caves, water with crystal clear visibility and some tropical fish. Just your average day really. And after such hardship, followed by wandering around some Mayan ruins beside yet another paradisical beach, what you really want is a suspended mattress-hammock right at your hotel. Damn good thing too, or else I might have left.
So a couple of nights spent in Tulum, then a very long journey to Caye Caulker, an island in Belize. This journey was about 8 hours long and involved a 1st class Mexican bus, a boat, and in between those two a Belizian chicken bus - for four hours! Now the Belizian chicken buses are not as bad as the Guatemalan ones - they're slightly bigger - but to all those GVI folk that complained about the ride to Santa Maria, and Alison I'm looking at you here, you have the right to grumble no more!
So here I am in Caye Caulker as I write this entry. Belize is a very Caribbean, very happy place. All of a sudden, I feel compelled to drink Lilt. It's totally tropical. Everyone here speaks English, but a lot of them do so with such a strong Caribbean accent I find myself thinking that I may very well understand Spanish better. The island itself is relatively small, and populated with three major facilities repeated multiple times down a single stretch of road: bars, restaurants, and diving tours.
So after having the cold from hell, and being bitten by the dog from hell, what does a man do? My solution was to swim with some sharks. Now they were only nurse sharks, but damn they looked vicious. It didn't help that our crew on the boat decided to feed these creatures before we got in. I assure you all, these things have quite a snap. Plus of course I have an open dog wound, and can't sharks smell blood?
But it wasn't all sharks and Elliots for lunch. There were all sorts of fantastically tropical fish that I'm sure I've seen on TV but would never have expected to meet in real life. It's taking a while for me to comprehend what I've just seen, because it really is another world. In total there were three snorkelling opportunities in three different reefs, and the rest of the time was spent lounging on top of a sailboat eating sandwiches and drinking rum. All in all, not bad. And my personal highlight: the stingrays.
It's simply terrible what one has to do just to populate a blog nowadays.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Hot dogs
This week, I have mostly been building stoves.
Explaining this process without pictures is going to be difficult. I have pictures of course, but apparently the concept of a card reader is an alien one here in Antigua. You´ll just have to imagine a very large table, about waist height, with three hobs and a chimney. There is a hollow section underneath where wood is burned, and a small table on the side for making tortillas. That´s pretty much the essence of it.
I have built two stoves this week, as each one only takes a couple of days to build, which I was quite impressed with. By the end of day one, the actual stove part is essentially complete. Day two sees myself and Alberto - the mason - cover the whole thing with cement and building the mini table next to it. During the process both families - who were already helping - bring you food and drink, which is just awful and entirely unnecessary. These people really do have very little.
To make it worse they both also gave me a gift at the end! I´ve forgotten the name for this, but both gave me a traditional cloth of the indigenous people in Guatemala. I actually saw the mother in the second family making one - which on reflection was probably mine - and it´s quite a lot of work. Apparently some volunteers manage to be here and not get anything, which personally I would have preferred as it really is a little embarrassing. I am touched nonetheless.
The first family had a little dog that often thought it fun to run underneath the stove. I should have seen the signs. On Wednesday night I was walking towards the kitchen and found Lucky, the house dog, on the floor, looking very contented. I bent down, stroked her head ...*CHOMP*. Yes that´s right, the dog bit me! But you all can turn off the alarm bells, it´s actually not a bad injury at all. There was no blood loss, my hand is still attached. Nonetheless, I have something on my wrist that looks distinctly like a bite from something bigger than a house cat. I was beginning to like Lucky, too. We were bonding. Now though I feel like testing out those stoves by making a famously sausage-and-roll type dish, only with a little more truth to the name. I would also like to send a message to Kira at this point: I miss you, you´re a good dog. Woof.
Sadly today is my last day with GVI. At around 4.00am tomorrow morning I shall begin my journey to Mexico. GVI are great people, so if any of you have the urge to do some volunteer work then I suggest you check out the extremely varied selection of programs on their website. Today being Friday I shall probably go to the BBQ, go out with everyone for the evening and forgo sleep for the night. I am very sorry to be leaving and am already thinking about coming back for longer, possibly to teach - two weeks here just isn´t enough. On the plus side however, I will actually be coming back through Antigua on the next leg of my trip in a couple of weeks, so I am hoping to catch up with everyone then. For now, that is all.
Explaining this process without pictures is going to be difficult. I have pictures of course, but apparently the concept of a card reader is an alien one here in Antigua. You´ll just have to imagine a very large table, about waist height, with three hobs and a chimney. There is a hollow section underneath where wood is burned, and a small table on the side for making tortillas. That´s pretty much the essence of it.
I have built two stoves this week, as each one only takes a couple of days to build, which I was quite impressed with. By the end of day one, the actual stove part is essentially complete. Day two sees myself and Alberto - the mason - cover the whole thing with cement and building the mini table next to it. During the process both families - who were already helping - bring you food and drink, which is just awful and entirely unnecessary. These people really do have very little.
To make it worse they both also gave me a gift at the end! I´ve forgotten the name for this, but both gave me a traditional cloth of the indigenous people in Guatemala. I actually saw the mother in the second family making one - which on reflection was probably mine - and it´s quite a lot of work. Apparently some volunteers manage to be here and not get anything, which personally I would have preferred as it really is a little embarrassing. I am touched nonetheless.
The first family had a little dog that often thought it fun to run underneath the stove. I should have seen the signs. On Wednesday night I was walking towards the kitchen and found Lucky, the house dog, on the floor, looking very contented. I bent down, stroked her head ...*CHOMP*. Yes that´s right, the dog bit me! But you all can turn off the alarm bells, it´s actually not a bad injury at all. There was no blood loss, my hand is still attached. Nonetheless, I have something on my wrist that looks distinctly like a bite from something bigger than a house cat. I was beginning to like Lucky, too. We were bonding. Now though I feel like testing out those stoves by making a famously sausage-and-roll type dish, only with a little more truth to the name. I would also like to send a message to Kira at this point: I miss you, you´re a good dog. Woof.
Sadly today is my last day with GVI. At around 4.00am tomorrow morning I shall begin my journey to Mexico. GVI are great people, so if any of you have the urge to do some volunteer work then I suggest you check out the extremely varied selection of programs on their website. Today being Friday I shall probably go to the BBQ, go out with everyone for the evening and forgo sleep for the night. I am very sorry to be leaving and am already thinking about coming back for longer, possibly to teach - two weeks here just isn´t enough. On the plus side however, I will actually be coming back through Antigua on the next leg of my trip in a couple of weeks, so I am hoping to catch up with everyone then. For now, that is all.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Take one active volcano, twice a day
Before we begin, I´d like to make a special request. A number of you have been emailing me to say you´re reading the blog and so on, but you know, there´s a comments button at the bottom! Not that I mind the emails at all, but if you leave a comment on the blog I look more popular. Mum, please don´t say anything embarrassing (and that includes the assertion that you wouldn´t say anything embarrassing).
And so, to business. I am still sick, though my illness is constantly changing. Friday was pretty bad, and Saturday wasn´t great either. And what does one do when they´re feverish and unable to sleep? Why, they climb a volcano of course!
After a journey lasting over an hour through a tropical storm, and an elevation of altitude that made me of the opinion that to sever my ears would probably be the least painful option, we reached Pacaya. Fortunately it had stopped raining, though we still had an hour long trek up a very, very steep hill. I can assure you all though that it´s actually not that difficult, and entirely worth it. And let me reiterate the fact that this is an ACTIVE volcano; there was lava, we toasted marshmallows over it. Unfortunately due to technical difficulties, I am unable to upload my pictures, but you can see some, including one featuring yours truly, on my housemate Debra´s blog. If you ever come to Guatemala, and you really should, then I recommend two things: Firstly, climb Pacaya; and secondly, when the locals at the foot of the mountain offer you a walking stick for 5Q, ignore the voice in your head that says it´s probably just a gimmick, and just buy the damn stick. Trust me, you´ll be thankful later.
Sunday brought with it a couple of firsts for yours truly in Antigua. It was my first opportunity to go up to the community in Santa Maria, where I have been building stoves this week (more on that in a later edition). We went up there in the morning to celebrate the birthday of Santiago´s daughter (Santiago being one of the project directors up in Santa Maria). The act of going there brings me to the other first: the chicken bus. If you haven´t clicked on that link yet, do so now. Done? Yes, you read that right: live animals, often chickens. Now, I´ve not shared one of these buses with a chicken yet, but the experience is frankly enough as it is. These vehicles are like bottomless bags; there is always room for more people, animals, ice cream salesmen. The salesmen are a particularly interesting sight, for it takes a lot of skill to sell anything, particularly ice cream, on a bus that is overcrowded; old and rickety; and then rickety some more due to Antigua´s policy of having exclusively cobbled streets.
Riding the chicken bus is an experience I´m glad to have had, but I´m very happy that when commuting this week I am blessed with the luxury of a minivan. One gets hurled around all the same, but the likelihood of that culminating in a face-off with live poultry is less.
And so, to business. I am still sick, though my illness is constantly changing. Friday was pretty bad, and Saturday wasn´t great either. And what does one do when they´re feverish and unable to sleep? Why, they climb a volcano of course!
After a journey lasting over an hour through a tropical storm, and an elevation of altitude that made me of the opinion that to sever my ears would probably be the least painful option, we reached Pacaya. Fortunately it had stopped raining, though we still had an hour long trek up a very, very steep hill. I can assure you all though that it´s actually not that difficult, and entirely worth it. And let me reiterate the fact that this is an ACTIVE volcano; there was lava, we toasted marshmallows over it. Unfortunately due to technical difficulties, I am unable to upload my pictures, but you can see some, including one featuring yours truly, on my housemate Debra´s blog. If you ever come to Guatemala, and you really should, then I recommend two things: Firstly, climb Pacaya; and secondly, when the locals at the foot of the mountain offer you a walking stick for 5Q, ignore the voice in your head that says it´s probably just a gimmick, and just buy the damn stick. Trust me, you´ll be thankful later.
Sunday brought with it a couple of firsts for yours truly in Antigua. It was my first opportunity to go up to the community in Santa Maria, where I have been building stoves this week (more on that in a later edition). We went up there in the morning to celebrate the birthday of Santiago´s daughter (Santiago being one of the project directors up in Santa Maria). The act of going there brings me to the other first: the chicken bus. If you haven´t clicked on that link yet, do so now. Done? Yes, you read that right: live animals, often chickens. Now, I´ve not shared one of these buses with a chicken yet, but the experience is frankly enough as it is. These vehicles are like bottomless bags; there is always room for more people, animals, ice cream salesmen. The salesmen are a particularly interesting sight, for it takes a lot of skill to sell anything, particularly ice cream, on a bus that is overcrowded; old and rickety; and then rickety some more due to Antigua´s policy of having exclusively cobbled streets.
Riding the chicken bus is an experience I´m glad to have had, but I´m very happy that when commuting this week I am blessed with the luxury of a minivan. One gets hurled around all the same, but the likelihood of that culminating in a face-off with live poultry is less.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Edwin van der Sar drinks seven lemons
It´s been a few days, and the inevitable has happened: I´ve got the sniffles. Spanish today was thus particularly gruelling as I desperately tried to keep my head from spinning long enough to complete even the most basic of sentences. In the morning it was especially difficult, but come one o´clock it was time for Miguel.
My lessons with Miguel are as brilliant as the morning sessions are overwhelming. We just sit and chat, and learn in the process, rather than doing the sort of exercises and rote learning that made school so woeful. I have more to say to Miguel, and when he talks I´m more likely to understand. And boy, does he have a lot to say.
I appear to have met one of the 5% (that figure according to Miguel) of liberal Guatemalans. This is a man who is not afraid to cook at home, for which he assures me most Guatemalan folk would think him to be gay. He is 46 years old, and has been teaching Spanish for as long as I have been alive. Most of the topics we discuss revolve around life in Antigua, but we branch out occasionally. Today, we were talking about the upcoming Manchester United versus Chelsea Champions League final. He asked what the name was of the Man U goalkeeper, and where he was from. It took a lot of dictionary checking on both sides for us to agree on the Spanish for Holland, but it was when he referred to the team as the ´naranja mecanica´ that I was certain we were talking about the same thing.
In the second half of our sessions, Miguel becomes a walking tour guide. All in Spanish, of course. Today we visited Hotel Santa Domingo de Cerro, which is a five star hotel with a museum and a hell of a lot of parrots flying around in the garden. If you want to pay $200 a night, I thoroughly recommend it. During the break between talking in the school and going walkies, a young man name Profirio came up to me in the park and, in SpanGlish, asked me if I liked Led Zeppelin and offered me drugs. The answers I gave were yes and no respectively. I assure you though that this guy was actually extremely pleasant, and has a great name.
The days are pretty long at the moment. I wake up at 6.00 every morning to eat breakfast and go to school, though when one wakes up to pancakes with maple syrup, bananas and watermelon, you can´t really complain.
I´m going to end this post with one of Miguel´s many pearls of wisdom. In Latin America, if a man has a cold he drinks seven lemons squeezed into a single shot glass. But in Guatemala, he drinks seven shots and one lemon. Tomorrow is the traditional end of week BBQ at the GVI house, and if I´m still ill I know which method I´ll be using. When in Rome, as they say.
My lessons with Miguel are as brilliant as the morning sessions are overwhelming. We just sit and chat, and learn in the process, rather than doing the sort of exercises and rote learning that made school so woeful. I have more to say to Miguel, and when he talks I´m more likely to understand. And boy, does he have a lot to say.
I appear to have met one of the 5% (that figure according to Miguel) of liberal Guatemalans. This is a man who is not afraid to cook at home, for which he assures me most Guatemalan folk would think him to be gay. He is 46 years old, and has been teaching Spanish for as long as I have been alive. Most of the topics we discuss revolve around life in Antigua, but we branch out occasionally. Today, we were talking about the upcoming Manchester United versus Chelsea Champions League final. He asked what the name was of the Man U goalkeeper, and where he was from. It took a lot of dictionary checking on both sides for us to agree on the Spanish for Holland, but it was when he referred to the team as the ´naranja mecanica´ that I was certain we were talking about the same thing.
In the second half of our sessions, Miguel becomes a walking tour guide. All in Spanish, of course. Today we visited Hotel Santa Domingo de Cerro, which is a five star hotel with a museum and a hell of a lot of parrots flying around in the garden. If you want to pay $200 a night, I thoroughly recommend it. During the break between talking in the school and going walkies, a young man name Profirio came up to me in the park and, in SpanGlish, asked me if I liked Led Zeppelin and offered me drugs. The answers I gave were yes and no respectively. I assure you though that this guy was actually extremely pleasant, and has a great name.
The days are pretty long at the moment. I wake up at 6.00 every morning to eat breakfast and go to school, though when one wakes up to pancakes with maple syrup, bananas and watermelon, you can´t really complain.
I´m going to end this post with one of Miguel´s many pearls of wisdom. In Latin America, if a man has a cold he drinks seven lemons squeezed into a single shot glass. But in Guatemala, he drinks seven shots and one lemon. Tomorrow is the traditional end of week BBQ at the GVI house, and if I´m still ill I know which method I´ll be using. When in Rome, as they say.
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