Guatemala

Wow, Guatemala is amazing. The trip there from El Salvador was not though, took 10 plus hours and by the time we arrived in Antigua we were hot, sweaty and tired. The next day was spent wandering around the town, taking the obligatory pictures of architecture and scenery and getting the lay of the land. Antigua definitely lives up to its reputation as a Gringo town and with the party scene, proximity to the capital, and tons of language schools, English seems about as commonly overheard on the streets as Spanish. One thing, in my defense, that seems a bit different about Guatemala is that people get even more so pissy than in other country's if you try and take their picture without permission. Permission inevitably costs money. Guess I´ll just have to try and be more sneaky.

An enjoyable side-effect of all the tourism is the profusion of delicious food that does not include as a main portion either rice or beans. Forgot what that was like I think. So, can easily go out and get a great falafel sandwich or some Thai inspired curry dishes. Lovely. I met up again with the girl, Ashley, whom I´d been traveling with in Nicaragua and El Salvador. Her equally cool friend, Jessica, is living in an amazing apartment in Antigua and was kind enough to let Ashley and I stay there a few nights with her and her Australian boyfriend Jaime. She also cooked me an awesome dinner with wine included. There´s a lot going on in Antigua, plenty of bars (an Irish one even!) and nightlife. Had a couple good nights out on the town and I generally enjoyed myself hanging out with a good group of cool people. So sad, Ashley had to leave, said our goodbyes and planned a last day trip to the nearby Volcano of Pacaya for some lava watching.

Lava is easily in the top three for cool things I´ve seen this trip. The movies don´t do it justice. The closest you can get is about a walking stick distance away, which is good because human nature demands we try and poke things like that with a stick. Even from that distance the heat is intense and the wind can blow the full force of it at you, seeming to suck the oxygen from your lungs and singe your leg hair. We went on the sunset tour and watching the lava just kept getting better. It was a bit scary up their though, the wind was pretty intense and the thought of being blown into the lava, though unlikely, was at the back of my mind as a horrific way to go. Marshmallows were roasted and pictures snapped and as it got darker our increasingly anxious guides began to herd us out of there and lead the pretty steep and dangerous descent down slippery volcanic shale with lots of big, extremely sharp volcanic rocks on all sides.

It´s been fun and gratifying that, as my Spanish improves, I feel at times like a bit more of an insider. For instance, while our big lava tour group struggled up the mountain, stopping often to let the slower among us catch up, I got to listen in as the guides proceeded to laugh and tell jokes about fat and slow gringos and speculate on which one of the people at the back would be first to give up and hire a horse from one of the nearby locals who followed the group up the mountain waiting for just that scenario. I´m also generally able to understand and chat with them, so often get the benefit of them pointing out cool local plants, like one that doubles as a sweat rag or T.P. The local kids who meet the buses selling walking sticks are funny too, with their dire warnings of how necessary it is to have a stick and the catastrophic results of not buying one. I didn´t, but wish I had for the way down alone. Those rocks are sharp and every time you had to catch yourself with a hand led to at least minor cuts or scratches. Surprisingly, the entire trip was casualty free, god knows such a hike in the U.S. would involve watching the lava from a half mile away behind glass screens and only after signing away your right to lawsuits. It´s kind of nice not to have the sterilizing influences that the constant threat of lawsuit leads to in the States.

After that perfect last day in Antigua, it was time to head for a more peaceful setting. We, Chris, Mike, Nicole, a group of Aussies, and I headed out to Lake Atitlan in the west. Guatemala just keeps getting better. The lake is dramatic and breathtaking. This is the kind of place I can readily understand wanting to come live, or retire at. Ringed with volcanoes, crystal clear and clean, the place was sacred to the Maya and is now worshiped with similar fervor by hippies, modern pagans, Transcendental Meditators, and various other incarnations of that general movement of New Ageism. I´m sure the locals are rather fond of it also, many are descended from the Maya and still speak indigenous languages. Guatemala has 22 official languages. Mayan is a very pretty and interesting language to listen to, but dammit I´ve been learning Spanish this whole time and now I can´t understand people again! Love the colorful local clothes, though I must say they look better on the locals than they do on ageing hippies.

There are various little villages and towns dotting the shores of the lake and we took a boat across to the popular town of San Marcos. Really cool and laid back atmosphere in this town, but it apparently has quite the reputation as a backpacker party and recreation town. Consequently I couldn´t help but wonder what the locals think of a tourist industry that leads to so many inexplicably giggling, stumbling, incoherent, or dazed people wandering around their town high on acid, mushrooms, ¨space¨cookies or any of the other various drugs that seemed to be on constant offer. I suppose there are worse things to build tourism on...I of course was quite content with the wonderful natural high of traveling in such a stunning environment.

Had a fun night in San Pedro partying and the next day ferried over to some nearby cliffs for some swimming and jumping. Really is a beautiful setting, and happily spent the day playing in the water and hanging out. We returned to San Pedro in the evening and made arrangements to hot tub at a little compound, seemingly deep in the jungle, with multiple stone pools that are apparently solar heated somehow. Pretty good way to end the day, soaking in some hot pools, drinking a beer, and occasionally taking a quick dip in the cold one.

Liked the town of San Marcos, from which you walk to the area for cliff jumping, so much that we decided to move their for a few nights. Was a nice change of pace, instead of young backpackers wandering around high there were older people wandering around contemplating their inner zen, aligning chakras and polishing their auras. It´s interesting how similar the dazed and slightly lost expressions of the two groups can be... Really is like paradise here, excepting the periodic earthquakes, mudslides and devastating hurricanes. Can think of worse places to grow up or retire at though. I like too the small town feel, the town drunk (whose day job seems to be flute salesman extrordanaire) feels like an old friend after a day, and there´s only him instead of the multiple ones in the bigger cities. He got in some good dancing with the girls we were with and seemed to be enjoying himself immensely until he dropped his bottle, which is apparently the signal for the bar staff to forcibly eject him. Things you don´t see in Seattle: two dogs stuck together in the street, ass to ass, and unable to separate despite their best efforts...The local reaction to our reaction, especially the giggling and squealing of the girls with us, was extreme merriment and general catcalling. No picture, sorry.

Did some more cliff-jumping (we even went up there at midnight) and the ever important general relaxing that the atmosphere of San Marcos promoted. As an added bonus, who else but a French girl decided the swimming hole was top optional. It was funny, of the middle-aged couples that came to the cliff and hemmed and hawed about whether they were brave enough to jump or if those days were over, it was the women who seemed to muster the courage while their husbands bowed out with some excuse or another. Really a cool little town, with shaded and narrow winding paths that cut through the jungle and connected the various houses, hostels and retreats.

Batteries are all recharged and I´m ready to see more of Guatemala, though it was kind of sad to leave such a beautiful place. The big group we were in is broken up now too, which has its upsides, as 9 people makes getting accomadations, splitting food tabs, and generally making any decision extremely difficult. Back in Antigua for the night and leaving for Semuc Champey tomorrow morning. It´s supposed to be great, with swimming, innertubing down the river and cave exploration galore. Can´t wait. Talk to everyone soon enough, miss you all! Azi

El Salvador

Hi everybody, been a hectic couple of weeks here, but all is well now. Traveled from Granada up to Leon in the NW of Nicaragua.


A fairly pleasant little town, but made less so by a nasty new infection. Developed a huge pus filled lesion on my elbow (no pictures in case anyone is eating while reading this). Spent the following day sleeping for 15 hours with an intense fever. It´s a bit disconcerting to be shivering cold when you know it´s ungodly hot outside. Went to a pharmacist but as I later learned my condition was misdiagnosed and the infection eventually started to spread to my face. Not cool.

In between bouts of self-pity and borderline depression at my deteriorating medical condition I did get out a little bit. The town of Leon was celebrating the anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution that defeated the Somoza government forces in their corner of Nicaragua. Was a big demonstration and celebration with lots of ex-guerrillas in attendance, martial music, and what I´m sure must have been rousing speeches. The culmination was a march up to an old hillside fort and a strange re-enactment type thing where all the townspeople charged the fort yelling. Very interesting.




Oh, funny hostel roommate story from Leon. This older British guy was staying in our room and got completely smashed one night. So, he stumbles into the room, and ends up stripping buck naked before climbing into bed. At some point he then begins thrashing around and moaning at full volume. It´s hard to describe, but it was incredibly loud, and seemed to alternate between horrific nightmare noises and disgustingly orgasmic sounding noises. It was so loud someone from another room came by to see what in god´s name was happening. To top it all off the moaning was punctuated by regular intervals by him farting. And his feet stank. The entire room was laughing uncontrollably for a couple minutes. Needless to say, not the best roommate all in all. The malaria prevention pills I´ve been taking have messed up dreams as a reputed possible side effect and I have noticed they´ve been especially bizzare and vivid, but no moaning to speak of luckily.

I also decided I had to try and enjoy the one of a kind experience of sledding down the slope of a volcano. Yes, that´s right, the wonderful new sport of ¨volcano boarding.¨ Climbed the slopes of an imposing black volcano carrying a makeshift toboggan type contraption.




Was actually pretty daunting up at the top due to massive, gale force winds that buffeted the board in my hands and seemed on the verge of blowing me off the rim of the volcano. The tour company helpfully provided a giant hazmat suit thing to lessen abrasions from when you, I assumed, go flying off the sled and tumble down the mountain through sharp volcanic rock. Oh, and goggles.




After some sightseeing from the crater rim we were given some fairly cursory instructions, ¨try not to fall, use your feet to brake,¨ and sent on our way in pairs. Fairly exhilarating ride, and you can get going fast as all hell. There´s a spot where you seem to just drop off and I even caught a little air. Thank god for the goggles, I had pieces of volcanic rock between my teeth and was picking them out of my hair for 2 days afterwards. Eventually hit a bad bump and took a little spill but the suit did it´s job well. They also have a guy with a radar gun who clocks you at the fast part. I hit 46 kilometers an hour, which is a bit less than 30 miles an hour. Good fun, and helped distract me from my infection for awhile.




Met a cool girl, Ashley from California, in Leon, and must have triggered some feminine sympathy instinct in her, as I moped around depressed in a hammock reading to distract myself, because we struck up a friendship and made plans to travel to El Salvador together. Spent the night in Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, and bought tickets to El Salvador for the next morning. Ashley had previously traveled in C. America and speaks almost fluent Spanish. She knew a local from Managua, an amazingly cool and nice guy who took us around the town, found a hospital for me to go to and then sat in the consulting room with me and the doctor and translated. Doctor told me I had a staph infection, it wasn´t the antibiotic resistant kind, and that no I wasn´t going to die or be permanently disfigured for life. Proscribed the correct antibiotics and topical cream and sent me on my way feeling way better than I had in a week. Price of walk-in doctor visit on a Sunday at the hospital and prescriptions: 40$. Peace of mind: Priceless.

Trip to San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador, through still troubled Honduras was fairly smooth and uneventful. The bus driver played us a pirated copy of ¨Twilight.¨There was one interesting travel roadbump though. The bus was full of a huge group of Evangelical Christians on their way to save the children of El Salvador, and one of the flock violated the strict ¨liquids only¨ rule for the on-board toilet, leading to an angry bus driver and a slight delay at the border as the issue was somehow resolved. Luckily I slept through the immediate olfactory offense, which I was assured was horrific. Shit happens, eh?

San Salvador was actually really nice and modern compared to all the other capital cities I´d been in. Takes some getting used to the huge amount of well-armed private security guards in evidence everywhere. Come home to the hostel at night and there´s a guy with a submachine gun who answers the door. Used to seeing guys with shotguns at banks now, but El Salvador takes it to a new level. Despite, or maybe because of, that I felt safe in San Salvador, which was not the case in Managua. I´m pissed I didn´t get a picture of this, but there´s an interesting ad campaign they have in San Salvador. Did a double-tale first time I saw Osama Bin Ladin staring at me from the large standing advertisement things that line the medians in the city. It´s an ad for the ¨lo-jack¨device which is put in cars and used to locate them if they´re stolen. The ad copy translated to, ¨If they´d been using this device, they´d have found him by now.¨ Tasteless, no?

Checked out the city a bit and went out for drinks with a couple guys Ashley knew from Guatemala that were traveling there on business. Went and saw the church where Archbishop Romero was assassinated. Kind of creepy and morbid but very cool. They have his bloodstained robes on display. As was explained by an adorably tiny nun who knew him, he had been speaking out against the atrocities committed by the then government and his death made him a martyr for the resistance and kind of the face of the revolution. Also checked out the University, they´re still very into Communist imagery and slogans, took an interesting pic of a banner they had up addressing the Honduras situation.






Sweet relief, antibiotics and cream worked like a charm and killed the infection. Elbow´s going to have a nasty scar, but my face is fine and you can´t even tell now. We celebrated by going to El Zonte, a beach on El Salvador´s Southern Coast. Very small and remote little village, comprised of lots of shacks. Amazingly good and cheap food to be found though. Can eat like a king for less than 3 dollars down here. Chicken burrito and 3 pupusas for 3 dollars. Pupusas are kind of the national dish, beans and cheese packed in the center of dough and grilled up, they´re awesome and filling, covered in a cabbage salad thingie and slathered with salsa. Tried my hand at surfing again, swam, enjoyed the black sand beach and generally took it easy and relaxed. Was a nice hostel too.




Saw the strangest thing one day from a local boy that lived nearby to the hostel and liked to ride his bicycle naked around the area. A puppy he was playing with ran off, the boy gave chase, captured the puppy and returned to his previous spot. He then suddenly pulled his shirt up, squatted on the side of the road where he was standing and started pooping while vigorously petting the puppy. It was a bit shocking I must say, but who am I to judge I suppose. Anyways, it´s cool, the locals go out with boogie boards and spearguns and you can see them coming to shore with these huge fishes hung from a rope on their back, which they then proceed to clean in the river.




Pretty scary event happened while we were at the beach. This particular day their was an amazingly strong cross-current at the beach where we were swimming. Had been perfectly fine the previous days. I noticed it and went quickly back to shallower water, but could still barely walk sideways down the beach against the current even when I was waist deep. Turned around and noticed that Ashley was past where she could touch and rapidly floating and being pushed by waves and the current towards a huge rock that was one border of the swimming area. Watched in horror as she was swept into the rock, tried to climb up it, slipped and fell a ways down and then finally, agonizingly made it to relative safety up on the rock. Really scary and shitty feeling standing there watching, knowing there´s not a damn thing you can do to help. So, she was stranded on this rock basically, no way to walk back to safety. Luckily there were two locals around and they attempted an amazing and daring rescue. One guy took his surfboard between the rocks, climbed up next to Ashley, threw and then threw his surfboard out to his buddy treading water a ways out. After awhile he convinced Ashley that she had to jump off the rock, back out into the water when he told her, overriding her objection that she´d prefer to be stranded for two hours until low tide by mentioning that the wrong wave could sweep her off the rock still. They jumped holding hands between waves and he managed to swim out and under huge waves with Ashley clinging to his back, over to where his buddy was waiting with the surfboard and safety.

Really was an amazing rescue and she´s very lucky not to have died or gotten worse than the few scrapes and bruises she did. Her rescuers even then bought HER a beer to help with her nerves. They came by the hostel later and were treated to rounds though. She was basically unharmed but very shaken up and I can´t blame her. Scary.


After a few great days on the beach, split up with Ashley (gonna meet up in Antigua) and am now travelling with a fellow Washingtonian girl, and a Californian and Israeli guy. All very cool, of course. We headed to the city of Santa Ana, and as our first hostel choice was full, ended up in the ghetto. It´s never a good sign when the place your staying offers rooms by the hour and there´s no seat on the toilet. The guy driving by who very seriously warned us to ¨be careful!¨wasn´t very encouraging either. Went and checked out the town a little, there was a nice festival and a church of course, had some dinner and called it a night.




Decided to get out of there the next day and made the great choice of travelling to the small mountain town of Juayua. It´s amazingly beautiful and great here. Super nice people, awesome vibe, and only a couple town drunks instead of an entire neighborhood full. Plus, the hostel we´re at has proper hot showers! It´s been over two months since I had a real hot shower, had forgotten how great it is. Also, got a haircut and my face was sufficiently healed enough to shave. Spent a couple days checking out the town, wandering nearby trails and hiked up to a lake for a swim. Good times.





Fields of delicious smelling coffee fields, separated by trees acting
as wind breaks

Today was a great day. Went on the ¨7 Waterfalls Tour.¨Our guide was funny and cool and full of local lore and knowledge and the tour was breathtaking. Got to the top of the first waterfall, our guides attached ropes and told us to use them to get down. Was kind of like rappelling, only you were just clinging to the rope for dear life and trying to find good footholds. Very scary actually, but cool as all hell.




Checked out a few more waterfalls, hiked through the jungle, got bitten by gigantic ants, and generally just had a great time. Ended up at the final waterfall, the guides made us a great lunch and we swam in the cool clean waters and I did some jumping off the final, huge waterfall. The guide also took us through these crazy small, dark and narrow tunnels in the mountain that connected some waterfalls. Only me and one other guy were brave enough to go. There was only a half foot of air between the water and the ceiling and it was pitch black and claustrophobic but fun.














All in all, staph infection excepted, things are going well and I´m having a great time. Can´t wait to check out Guatemala, which we are travelling to tomorrow. Love hearing from everyone, stay in touch! -Azi