Guatemala

After a long, hot trip to Tikal, what better way to cool off than another swim? In the rain?

Nadine, a girl I met from Germany, invited me to hang out with her at the hostile, but because she couldn´t speak English and I don´t know any German, our only common language was Spanish. It actually worked very well, and I was able to recommend a couple places to her. It´s fun talking Spanish with someone who knows as much as I do, and if I understood her correctly, she´s a nurse in Germany who hates ruins but loves the beach.

We went out to the lake to swim, and even after a pouring rain, the water was still so hot. And surprisingly, I see Ragini and Daemon go by on a boat, 2 of the tourists I travelled with in Tikal. They invited me for drinks and ceviche at a nearby bar, a great way to end my time in Flores.

The Restaurant Guatemacaya had the best strawberry daiquiries I´ve ever had, which logically meant I had to have 4 of them. After a beer, and two more drinks, we were having a great time, and they felt totally comfortable making fun of me.

For example, Little C, our tour guide, hit on me all day. It didn´t matter that he was 50, or looked like the exact Guatemalan version of my father. He was an incredibly cool guide, really smart, could speak 3 languages and had been working as a tourguide at Tikal for 16 years.

He was more subtle than a lot of guys here, though, probably because he lived in the states for 26 years.

At the park he invited me to go camping for the night in Tikal, something I was totally tempted to do, but only with a few other people. But then he tells me that he´s been practicing meditation and there are some positions he can show me, and I´m like "uh, what??" And he proceeds to explain how there is this one position where you pretend to be a seed, and after a long hike, you realize how difficult it is to break through the earth. Wow.

So after Little C buys me a cup of coffee, carries my lunch around Tikal, invites me to camp out at Tikal (something that a lot of people do, actually), he buys me a pair of earrings! This was totally crazy, and those of you who read this and have actually toured with him must be laughing your asses off right now.

I tried to resist the gift, but he was pretty adamant. And hell, they´re nice earrings.

So Ragini, Daemon and I pretty much laughed all night about this, and when I told them that the best part was that I have a girlfriend, they were dying.

We pretty much cleared out Restaurant Guatemacaya with our combination of loud political conversation and drunken laughter, and then we moved onto another bar called La Luna. I really don´t understand why the place bought us shots on the house, but we got a couple Rosa de Jamaicas (an awesome drink made from hibiscus) and vanilla ice cream & raspberries.

Daemon is a very wealthy 35 year-old businessman from San Francisco (with tattoo 1/2 sleeves) so he paid for most of the night, which was a very generous offer. Ragini is a 31-year old native Indian who has lived mostly in Australia and New Guinea, and has been doing conservation work in Mexico. It was great talking to them, learning about more great media venues, and since I haven´t talked politics lately, that was nice too.

We met up again for breakfast in the morning, and I brought along a few others, so there were 7 of us total. Later, Colm (Ireland) and Natalie (US) and I played cards at the hostel and drank some ice tea.

I´ve been having fun meeting people from all over the world, but I´ve found that I really miss my students. I know I want to continue travelling to new places, but it would be so cool to return to Santiago and Santiaguito. It was really fulfilling for me to work with kids directly, even for a few weeks, and I´m so grateful for the opportunity.

I leave for Guatemala City tonight, which means this may be my last entry. Thanks for checking out my adventures!

3:30 a.m.

7 of us are on our way to Tikal, and Little C offers to carry my lunch bag in his back pack. We´re all psyched, and then a little confused, when Little C offers guards at the park a bribe to let us in early. Later, I learned that the president of the park is a very corrupt man (squandering resources, not invested in conservation of the grounds or monuments) and bribes are the only way to get into the park in the middle of the night.

4:30 a.m.

We´re hustling through the rain forest in pitch black darkness, moving at an uncomfortable speed because there is no visibility. A hundred leaf cutter ants run directly through our path, and they almost look like a little plot of grass they are carrying so much greenery.

The ladder to Temple IV is steep, muddy and tough to climb in the dark. It takes about 2 minutes to scale up to the actual structure, but it´s well worth it: Little C makes sure that, because we´re there first, we get the best view for the sunrise.

Little C lights 2 candles, one for him and one for me (?), and we watch the mist evaporate in waves as the sun rises. Howler monkeys greet us, sounding more like jaguars than monkeys. Birds-- Toucans and Falcons-- wake the kingdom.

6:00 a.m.

We track back to the ground and Little C talks as we search for the Lost World. Apparently, the howler monkeys eat acidic fruits in the trees and need to climb down to the ground to chew on limestone, which counteracts the acid. Guatemaltecos, too, use limestone when they are preparing corn tortillas, even today, and this aids digestion. Limestone, when bound with a resin from the tree Copa, is able to repel water. This is how so many of the structures are still preserved today, after 2,000 years.

The Acropolis is huge, with the ruins of nobility, a basketball court, and two huge faces of the raingod.

8:00 a.m.

The pyramids tower, and we scale one up. It´s a great view over the canopy. Twenty or so butterflies greet us, touching our arms and backpacks. We climb down-- a little more unnerving than climbing up.

10:30 a.m.

Spider monkeys and lizards peek out at us. At the edge of the park, sitting on a couple of wooden trunks, Little C and I watch as 40 or so coatis sprint out of a great big tree(family of the racoon, but smaller, browner, cuter and with longer tails). There is a loud snap, and we rush over to the edge of the trees. A jaguar has dropped his prey and scampered off, ever-elusive.

Coffee

Coffee is one of Guatemala's most important exports. How psyched was I when I realized, "Hey, I'm going to Guatemala! I can have bangin' coffee!" Alas, ther is no decent coffee in Guatemala. It's all exported to the U.S. or Europe, and all the locals drink Nescafe.

{By the way, I have introduced the word bangin' to a number of foreign vocabularies.}

Cabs

My favorite people in the last 2 days have been taxi drivers. Last night, Mauricio {albeit for a lot of money} took us around Guatemala City so that I could drop off my luggage before leaving for Tikal & so that we could get something to eat. Unfortunately, because our shuttle bus was late, Mauricio had to take us to Little Caesars {groan} but bad pizza was better than no cena.

And today, from the airport in Santa Elena, I met Enrique, a really cool guy who goes by Qui Qui. When I asked him to take me to my hostel, Los Amigos, he joked that I had just made another new friend in Guatemala. How cute is that! One of the best parts about the taxi drivers is that they speak solely in Spanish, and it forces me to practice! {does that make up for cheating, Sara}

Cafe Uk@

After the hostel, the first place I checked out for bangin' french toast and O.K. coffee. I heart breakfast.

Couch

Walking into Los Alamos is like walking into the 1970s. There are tons of hippies, including the guy on the couch, who's been there for like 2 months and works at a local restaurant. He's German, though, and previously voluntered at an orphanage on the east coast. The people are really cool at Los Amigos, and the price is unbeatable. $3 a night for a dorm and a chill spot, including hammocks and a restaurant. The showers are cold, but that's a godsend right now.

Chicken {+ ham}

There are animal residents at Los Amigos, including 2 big dogs and some birds. There is also a turtle pond, and today, for the first time in my life, I watched a couple of pond turtles eat ham and raw chicken!

Cuevas {Caves}

I toured Grutas Actun Can today, the Serpent Cave. Although there are no serpents at all in the caves, there are a couple of tiny bats. My tour guide was a really great guy, and he spoke entirely in Spanish. There are really interesting formations, and I learned that a stalagtite {or mite} will grow an inch every thirty years. Ther are even some places where the stalagtite and stalagmite meet, which means they're thousands of years old! P.S. I would never go into a cave without a guide, because I'd end up getting stuck in a hole. It wasn't too expensive anyway, about 50 Q {less than $10}.

Calor!

It's really hot here in Flores, much hotter than in Santiago, and sweat is a part of daily life. I got a tuk tuk out to the caves, costing about a dollar, and walked part of the way back to the pick/up, and by the time I was back I was ready to jump in the lake with my pants on. Luckily, Jose from next door was going swimming, so we checked out a dock on the lake and jumped in with the {teeny} fish!

{Little} Caesar

Little Caesar has been mentioned by almost every person I've encounterd who has toured Tikal. He is apparently an eccentric, well/informed guide who does early/early morning tours. It's been hysterical ... everyone says, go to Tikal and ask for Little Caesar. He's not in Lonely Planet.

I've booked a 3 a.m. tour to Tikal, which means we'll get there around 5 a.m. Early, but wise, since it's hard to be outside once it's noon. It'll be awesome, touring the ruins in the early morning, with the birds and howler monkeys!!!

i´m back in antigua, at the yellow house, where there´s free internet but the shift button doesn´t always work (for capital letters). sarah and i have been all over the city in the last day or 2, and it´s been great fun!

There was an awesome parade with the Gigantes (big heads), bulls and (i think) conquistadors. the guys carrying the heads are amazing, and they´ve got to stop every hundred feet or so because they´re so heavy!

last night, as part of the celebration, they let out a few fire balloons. i´ve never seen a fire balloon, and assumed that the balloon might eventually catch on fire, but i suppose it´s similar to a hot air balloon. Only the balloons are much much smaller, and i have no idea where the flame is contained. Cool, though!

We had lunch at a little cafe called Condessa (thanks for the tip Judy!), which apparently used to be a house owned by the elite. One of the counts who lived there, it´s said, came home to find his wife cheating with the butler. He buried the butler alive, they say, and when work was done years later on the house, they found a man buried in its walls, in standing position! Creepy! But the cafe itself is beautiful with gardens and open rooms.

There was a lot of live music in the streets yesterday and last night. One of the primary instruments here is the xylophone, and it´s amazing how calming an effect it can have. I´ve seen the xylophone used in almost every musical venue, from the school competition in Santiago to an expensive restaurant called Fonda de la Calle Real.

Last night, to show appreciation to tourists (local and foreign), Gallo beer passed out thousands of coupons for free beer. Not surprising, since Gallo advertises in every little tienda, on every billboard, and is consumed more often than water.

I´ll say goodbye to some friends I´ve made here, including Sara who works at Yellow House (and gave me some tips) and Marco, the cool old man who works at the school. Even if the tourists are rude here, the locals have been cool.

In terms of work with Santiaguito, I will continue to update the website. You´re welcome to check it out and give a little feedback, if you´re interested. it may not look like much, but we had to work on translations, too, and uploading photos here takes about 5 times longer than in the States. Nonetheless, the address is http://www.freewebs.com/santiago_atitlan

We aren´t headed to Chichi today, for financial reasons and the fact that it would throw us in the wrong direction for another 3 hours. Tomorrow, though, Í´ll take a plane to Flores and check out Tikal.

A tour group came to visit Santiaguito today, on their visit to the city, and they took loads of pictures and sang songs with the kids. This kind of event occurs pretty frequently. I think the school tries to attract tourists and foreignors for sponsorship, and it works. Santiaguito is the most successful school in all of Santiago.

It´s troubling, nonetheless. It´s pretty evident that girls have less access to consistent education (although both boys and girls engage in service work for the school). The girls are less frequently in class, and there seems to be more focus on the boys. Certainly, the boys more often participate or have a better understanding of the material.

Teaching English is difficult, as students rarely have a chance to use it. At home, they speak T´zu tu jil. With their friends, they speak T´zu tu jil. While working, they speak T´zu tu jil. Spanish is spoken at school and with foreignors or while conducting business.

Volunteers have great luck teaching basic vocabulary because the kids don´t retain it. So every time a new volunteer comes, they teach DIRECTIONS, they teach FOOD, they teach CLOTHES, and a few kids have a sense of the words, but most have no idea about pronounciation or spelling.

We´ve tried to do things like flashcards in the beginning of class, to encourage retention, and that seems to help slightly. For our major project, we´re hosting a Tienda, a little store in class. We bought the kids fake Guatemalan money (in the way of Monopoly $) and will have items for sale. The students have to take a look at the money they´ve got, determine what products to buy, and interact with us as the "store owners." I´m looking forward to it!