Xela

I have been in Xela for the past week or so. Lily left last week, so I am on my own. from 8 to 1 I am studying at the Madre Tierra spanish school. I am staying at a homestay that isnt really a family. Its an older, divorced woman and three young Guatamaltecos who are studying or doing internships here. I passed through all of their home towns at various points, but never stayed in them (two are from Lago Atitlan).
I am the only student at the school, which has both good and bad aspects. For one thing, I have spoken barely any English the whole time I have been here! Luckily most of the afternoon activities are still able to happen. I have spent most of the afternoons going to various places with Vairon, the schools gardener, handyman, and tour guide. Two girls that are interning at the school usually accompany us, Irma and Dominga (Irma also lives in the same house as me). They are really friendly and fun to hang out with.
My teacher, Pedro, is funny and friendly. We mostly just talk, hes not a very organized teacher. Thats fine though, as my classes in San Pedro and San Marcos were mostly just verb conjugating activities and got really boring. Plus, I have studied all the tenses now and I just need to practice them. He is also a musician, and he is teaching me some guitar chords. He taught me all of the chords for the intro to Hotel California, not that I can actually play yet of course.
For the first two afternoon activities we went to musems. The first was a natural history museum, full of mayan artifacts, plants and animals. Lots of random tidbits of information. Included human fetuses in jars, computers from the 80's, and an 8 legged sheep. The next day we tried to go to a museum of traditional outfits of Guatemala, but it was closed so we went to the museum of the ferrocarril de los altos. In the 30's they spent 10 years building a railroad through the highlands from the coast, through Xela, to the capital. 3 years later, due to the rails and bridges constantly being destroyed by earthquakes and volcanic rumblings, it was abandoned. Now it is a museum.
Then we went to a hill called Baul. We meant to go before but its always raining in the afternoons. It still rained this time, but we went anyway. On the way we took a bunch of little pine trees to plant, as Madre Tierra runs its own reforestation project, which I expressed interest in. I should also mention here that Vairon is kind of crazy. We went straight up the hill, as it started to rain, and Vairon made holes with a pickaxe and we planted the arbolitos. We got to the top, where there is a cross and a great view of the city. There is also a big, steep cement slide. There is a sign that clearly says not to slide when it rains, as it is dangerous. Vairon got a piece of plastic and flew down the thing, hitting the wall at the end with alarming speed, but he was fine. Then we went down via some cables. The cables are to hold as you go down, as it is very steep. It was really hard not to fall since it was slippery, and required alot of holding and firm stepping. After a long time we made it down almost to the city, and Vairon hacked a hole through some trees into a farm, which we walked through and made it to the city streets, dirty, wet and tired. This activity was pretty tiring, and my legs were kind of strained from coming down, but I had already decided to hike a volcano, Santa Maria, the next day.
The volcano hike started nice and early at 5 am. It was just me and Vairon. I didn't get very far before I felt sick and started throwing up. Vairon suggested another route, which would have been better regardless since the Volcano would soon become cloudy and it wouldn't be possible to see anything. The other route was too a viewpoint of a smaller volcano, Santiaguito. In my weakened state it was still a hard walk, but well worth it. Within five minutes of getting to the viewpoint, Santiaguito erupted! A small cloud of smoke formed on its peak, and there was some distant rumbling. The cloud slowly expaned into a big mushroom cloud and drifted into the distance. Now, this wasn't unexpected since Santiaguito erupts about once an hour, but it was amazing to see.
For some reason on Monday, I let Vairon talk me into riding bikes to a place called Los Bahos. Los Bahos is a natural sauna created by volcanic vapor. He said it was a bit hard, but doable. Definately not for me! I walked most of the steep way up. The sauna was really hot, I could only stay in for maybe 10 minutes, but it felt really good. The way down was of course easier but still crazy as it was so steep, and the unpaved road was full of holes and rocks. I felt like I was going to fall more than once. We made it alive though, thankfully.
Yesterday I went with Vairon to another town, Salcaja, famous for its church. The church is the oldest in Centroamerica. The fist conquistador guy to come through Guatemala, I think Pedro Alvarrez, decided to build it there. Its maintained by the community and is somewhat independant from the vatican, as it raises its own funds and stuff. You can see alot of indigenous symbolism in its construction, including its wide base that tapers to the top, like the pyramids (also for stability for earthquakes). Salcaja is also famous for its ''caldo de fruta'', an alchoholic drink that is made of aguardiente fermented with many various fruits for 6 months.
Today I had a merengue lesson. These latin american dances are so hard, we north american men do not learn how to move our hips at all!

So I have had pretty full, active days. I'm also watching alot of TV in spanish or movies in english with subtitles.

Todos Santos

We ended up staying in San Marcos for a pretty long time. We left the family we were renting a room from and moved into a really nice house. The house is owned by a midwife that works with the clinic that Lily volunteered at, so we go to stay there pretty much for free. Lily met two chilean guys through the clinic, and we chilled with them and their argintinan and urugayan friends a few times. They talk really fast and incomprehensibly, especially the Chileans. One of the Chileans, Martìn, was a great musician and played some awesome victor hara and manu chao songs. They played at the party of this japanese restaurant. I was suprised to see such a full on japanese restaurant in a town as small as San Marcos, but I guess its been around for 2 years. The owner kept coming around with tequila shots, asking ¨quiere teqira¨?
One night the Argintinean, Pablo, set off a ¨globo electrostatico¨ over the lake. It was like a mini hot air balloon, you light something inside it and it floats. It went quite far, before falling into the lake.
The Uruguayan, ¨Cosito¨, took us hiking up a trail behind the town. He has been travelling from country to country in Latin America for 30 years, selling jewelry he makes.
We also hiked the ¨Nariz del Maya¨ , a tall mountain above the lake that looks like the nose of someone lying down, in profile. It was a good hike with great views of the lake (I dont have batteries so I havent been taking pictures). The coffee fields around there look almost like normal forests, as there is a good diversity in shade trees. If you didnt know there was coffee underneath, you would probably think it was natural forest.

Then we left to Fuentes Georginas, a natural volcanic hotspring, for a day. Its in a really misty, steamy jungle and is really hot, you cant stay in for long.

Then we finally made the trip to Todos Santos. We stayed with the family that Lily stayed with 8 years ago. The are incredibly nice, and wouldnt accept money even though they fed us 3 meals a day!
Todos Santos is interesting because the men still wear the traditional traje and actually stand out more than the women. The men everywhere else I have seen wear american style clothes (american, as in from china with typically american brands like Hollister). The traje consists of white and red striped pants, a white striped jacket with a colorfully embroidered collar, and a small round hat with a blue ribbon. The young guys still wear this, but underneath almost all of them had black shirts with icons such as wrestling stars, bob marley, rambo, and jesus.
I spent my 21st birthday in Todos Santos, where it is ironically prohibited to sell alchohol. Before, as lily and the lonely planet mention, there were passed out Todos Santeros in the main street at any hour of the day, especially on market days. Becuase of this problem with alchoholism, it is no longer sold in the town. It was a good day anyway, as the family made a really good lunch and lily bought a huge cake, and they sang and the kids hugged me.

All of these trips involved ¨chicken buses¨which are the normal mode of transport for people here. The first one we got on was a good introduction to how incredibly uncomfortable they are. It was packed, six people in each row, in a bus designed for school children, which is no fun if you are tall! The buses are those ubuiqitous yellow school buses, that somehow make it to Guatemala and are painted incredibly bright.

Now we are back in Xela. Lily is leaving tomorrow. I am planning on studying Spanish more here. It looks like there is alot to do here, and some of the schools look really cool.

IMAP

On monday I went to IMAP, the mesoamerican permaculture institute. Just getting there was fun, it was like an assignment to get to this random spot that almost no other foreigners get to. It was completely random that I even found out about them. My Mom told me she looked at someones blog who was travelling in Guatemala and they went to IMAP. After doing some internet searches I didnt find any website but found an email which led me to another email of the volunteer coordinator, who sent me directions. The directions included things like ¨walk a kilometer through the avocado trees¨and ¨turn left at the cyclone fence¨
I took the boat from San Pedro to Santiago Atitlan, which was a much better ride than normal as it was a big boat and you can get on the roof. Once in Santiago I was accosted by guys wanting to show me where Maximon is. Maximon is a pagan god born out of a mixture of Mayan gods and conquistadors. He is an evil spirit, and must be appeased with offerings of rum and cigars. He is always housed with a different family (I think every year). It would be interesting to see him, but I didnt. Just the fact that seeing him is the only reason why people go to Santiago and because I didnt want to risk getting ripped off by the guides turned me off. Besides you can just look at pictures online!
Anyway, following my directions like a treasure map, I went up the hill to the road, turned left and walked a block, and found a pick up truck headed for San Lucas Toliman. I told the driver to take me to Pachitulul. These trucks are awesome, they drive around and pick up anyone anywhere and drop them off when they slap the truck or whistle, and you just pay them a bit when you get off. Hitchhiking is incredibly easy here.
Anyway I made it to Pachitulul and walked through the avocado orchard to IMAP. No one was expecting me (unfortunately I went when the volunteer coordinator who I had been e-mailing was gone) but I went up to the office. They found a guy who appeared to be the head honcho, and he explained to me about permaculture and what they do there. Its mostly for education, but they do go out into communities and teach them things. Most people wont adopt permaculture methods, whether for economic or other reasons. It started in central america when bill mollisons books, in spanish, made it here ten years ago. 5 years ago IMAP was founded. Its good to know that its a local initiative, although of course foreign permaculture experts have come and helped. I couldnt understand alot of what he said, but I got the jist. There was a Spanish couple that had been there for a month, doing various projects on a daily basis. There were three French girls that had just gotten there and were weeding. I decided not to stay and volunteer as the main guy said it would be best for me to work in the communities, but nobody could tell me what I would do with the communities. Its based on your own initiative and skills. Besides you have to pay 8 dollars a night without food!! I do wish I had gone when the girl I was emailing had been there, as she speaks english and probably could have given me a better picture of what I could do. Regardless it was very cool and inspiring to see a place like this, and to know that there are places like this all over the world that are showing people sustainable methods and how to live better.
Look at my flickr for pics of what they had there.

So I came back to San Marcos and I am staying with the family that lily has been staying with since we got here. They are a cool family, with a little yard with dogs, chickens, and fruit trees. We can cook in their kitchen. Yesterday we made them french toast with eggs from their chickens. I did another 5 days of spanish class, and whew, I am tired of learning verbs. I have re-learned all the tenses I learned before plus more, all in 2 weeks. Speaking them is another matter, which will take review and practice.

Food notes:
Coffee is a big part of the culture here. Alot of people drink coffee all the time, especially after dinner. I exclaimed that if I do that, I cant sleep. But it doesnt do anything to them, as Daniel, the father of the house explained. It actually calms him after a long day of construction work and lets him sleep better, he said as he downed his 3rd cup at 8 pm. This confused me until I heard how the mothers believe that drinking coffee alot while breastfeeding produces better milk. As they explained this, a child who couldnt have even been 2 years old was greedily drinking down a cup. Needless to say, I have started drinking at least one cup a day.

Chipilín is a leguminous shrub that grows alot around here, in gardens and amongst milpas. Im pretty sure it is the snow pea thing that permaculturists suggest for a N-fixer. Here they use it in seafood soups. My teacher in San Pedro told me about it and I mentioned it to my host family. The next day We had chipilín with shrimp soup. It is a natural sedative, and I took a good nap afterwards.

They eat unripe, green mangos here because as soon as they ripen they get worms. They are actually pretty good with salt.

So now I am staying in San Marcos, thinking about going to WWOOF in Chiapas at the end of august.

Me gusta la piña, me gustas tu. Me gusta Guatemala, me gustas tu

My teacher reminded me of these fitting Manu Chao lines as we ate pineapple during the snack hour at my spanish school.

The past week I have had class from 8-12 and have been living with a homestay. The homestay has been interesting, although I´m not that into it. The father is a painter, he paints simple, colorful pictures of the lake and some other sunjects for tourists. They belt out alot of them, they have the method down pretty well. There are two daughters in the family, one is middle school age and the other is 4. The 4 year old, Helen, is adorable. Since I dont really have a door on my room, just a curtain, she often comes in and talks to me. The adults speak tzutujil mayan dialect to eachother, and the kids mostly speak spanish. This kind of generational change is how languages die, and I wonder if these kids will teach tzutujil to eachother. The food is almost all carbs and meat, I think we had a small portion of vegetables twice. Yesterday I had meat, beans, salsa and tortillas for breakfast lunch and dinner. There are always tortillas, even with spaghetti.

During my classes, my teacher nicolas took me to a couple interesting places. The first day we went to a medicinal herb garden in a nearby town, San Juan. They had alot of herbs that I learned about last spring in santa cruz like yarrow, rosemary, horehound, etc. They use them in the community to make medicine and sell teas, soaps etc.
Yesterday we went to a chocolate factory. They make these little cigar shaped chocolates, and have 16 flavors. Some of the ingredients come from their own gardens. I tasted the batch that they are going to make into bars on monday.

The other day as I was walking along the path around the lake, a farmer greeted me and introduced himself. He then showed me his little plot, and what he is growing. He had a big plot of corn and beans, and then a bunch of flowers, lettuce and cilantro that he sells at markets. He had some small papaya trees, and when I pointed that out he straight up just gave me the only small papaya on them. Of course, he did have a motive for this niceness, which was selling me coffee (he also grows coffee). I couldn´t refuse, plus I wanted to buy some coffee anyway.

Also yesterday there was a school activity, which was supposed to be a hike up this mountain to a view point of the lake, but since the chicken bus wasnt going to the right place we ended up just walking along a road into the hills. The school, casa rosario, is owned by brothers Samuel and Vicente. Both of them are easygoing and easy to laugh. Samuel took us on the walk, and told us many jokes and stories in his slow, easy to understand spanish. He told us alot about the years of the civil war in San Pedro. San Pedro had alot of problems until 1985, when two miltary agents were killed by the townspeople and the problems mostly ended (we even passed the spot were they were killed, marked by two graves). Samuel and Vicente had friends in the Guerillas and although they never participated, they had read their pamphlets, talked to them, and sympathized with their aims. The military knew this, and thus Samuel and Vicente were on thier list. Vicente was tipped off three days before the door to his house was kicked in and they searched high and low for him. He escaped to the capital. Samuel was studying in another town, and was also informed to change his address and lie low. He met his brother in the capital were they stayed in a hotel room. He said how boring it was, staying in the hotel all day everyday, avoiding the police. After a while their mother payed somebody a few hundred quetzals and was assured that this would ensure her sons safety. She sent someone to tell the brothers. Samuel wanted to come back, Vicente feared it was a trap. Sure enough, when Samuel made it back to San Pedro, someone came to his house asking for him, saying that he was back, but his mother acted clueless. So Samuel went back to the hotel in the capital. After a while, their money ran out. They decided to sell vegetables in the perimeter of the capital, buying them from one market and selling them for a bit more at others, and made enough to live. Finally, the situation in San Pedro calmed down and they returned. In 1992 they started their school, with 2 students.
Pretty crazy to hear a first hand account of just how insane it got here in the eighties. At the end of the day both the military and guerrillas were just like mafias, both interested in money and power at the expense of the common people.

Lago Atitlan

I am now in San Pedro la laguna.

In Antigua we hiked up to an active volcano, Pacaya. As soon as we got off we were mobbed by children calling ¨STICKS! STICKS! STICKS!¨ They were trying to sell us walking sticks for the hike. I always feel like its pretty fucked up when kids are trying to sell tourists stuff, and I wondered what the north american kids thought of kids their own age selling them sticks. On the other hand these kids know alot of practical things I am often resentful of modern society that I dont know. For example, one kid was riding a horse adeptly totally by himself. Plus they probably learn how to farm. It reminded me of Laos, where packs of kids run around unsupervised and basically raise themselves. At least they trying to figure out how to get a few quetzals out of the gringos, and arent watching TV!

The last day we were in Antigua was a festival day. There were fireworks and street food. I was excited to find that you can get tostadas with guacamole, salsa, onions and cheese for 50 cents or less in Guatemala! There were parades and dancing as well. The streets are so much more alive here than in the US.

Next we came to San Marcos, on the beautiful lago atitlan. We jumped off a rock into the water, awesome. San Marcos has alot of holistic healing, yoga, and other more absurd hippy new agey stuff like crystal healing. Its pretty small and has three sisters corn fields, coffee, etc. Lily found a room with a view of the lake for about 25$ a week. Today I made my way to San Pedro and found the Casa Rosario spanish school where I will be studying and living with a homestay family this next week. San Pedro is pretty nice too, especially down by the lake where the school is. The classes are outside in their garden, right by the lake. San Pedro has the reputation of being a magnet for drugs, hippies, and partying but I have yet to see this at all.

The locals here dont speak spanish to eachtoher. Mayan is a strange, gutteral language full of clicks and glottal stops. Probably because spanish is a second language for them, they all speak really slowly which is great. I happy that even though I forgot alot of my spanish I can pretty much understand everything people say. Speaking is much harder for me, but after a week or two of classes that will change.

Antigua

I made it to Guatemala!
I got in pretty late, so I was a little nervous about the hotel where I had agreed to meet lily being closed, and being stuck outside. Guatemala city is NOT a city where you want to be stuck outside. But it was open and I met lily, at the Pension Meza. Almost immediately a very talkative Colombian guy offered me a drink of his big bottle of gallo beer with a ¨salud¨. I felt appropriately welcomed. Che apparently once stayed at the Pension Meza, and the room he stayed in is almost like a little shrine, with pictures of him and revolutionary slogans scrawled on the walls.
Guatemala is big, dirty, and all around unpleasant so we came to Antigua in the morning. Antigua is very touristy and full of gringos. But its awesome, it´s surrounded by 3 volcanoes and has the very nice quality of a restored colonial city. The buildings are painted with soft pastel colors and there are various churches scattered round the city that have been wrecked by histories earthquakes.
We are staying at lily´s friend rachels homestay house, which is really fancy and nice. Rachels school has big avacado trees with citrus and loquats underneath and then chile plants at the bottom. There is lots of coffee under some kind of jacaranda looking tree.
We went to a show with the lead singer of buena vista social club. It was awesome to hear live cuban music. Most of the people dancing were short, stocky lation guys with gorgeous, tall gringas. I might have to learn salsa since its kinda the thing here.

Check my flickr for pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/13958737@N03/
(let me know if that doesn´t work)

Guatmala

New trip, new blog. I am going to Guatemala the day after tomorrow, to meet my sister and have adventures.

I will write about my recent trip to Yosemite, my other trip this Summer, in this first post. I don't have any pictures since I forgot my camera but hopefully that won't be the case in Guatemala. You can just image search the names I mention.

I took the Amtrak to Merced. Its wierd going through the central valley. Extensive continuous monoculture is really the only way to describe it. And some kids got arrested on the train as we were getting off. So then I was in Merced, waiting for Kevin ( my Irish friend from Santa Cruz), hoping that he would in fact arrive as I couldn't call him. He miraculously showed up only 20 minutes after me, off a ride from a bounty hunter from Fresno. We got to see downtown Merced, which was actually kind of nice. It was the first time that I have shown up in a new town in this country with a big backpack totally clueless, asking where stuff is, not knowing where I would spend the night etc. As we were a waiting for the bus into Yosemite a guy told us to stay at this day use area by the Merced river. We camped out and got the next bus into the valley.
Then we hitchhiked to Tuolumne meadows. It was the first time I hitchhiked since one time in highschool when I had to walk all the way home. After almost immediately getting picked up we made it to a spot where a large RV broken down and taking up almost the whole turnout. After uselessly sticking our thumbs out for a while it was clear that nobody would pick us up there. So we walked to the next turn out, which was also really small. We were there for a long time. Alot of cars would slow down upon seeing us, as if thinking about it, and then speed up and pass us. Finally a guy stopped and took us to a better pull out, where almost immediately two girls picked us up. They pulled up and asked,
"you aren't going to murdur us, are you?"
They took us almost the whole way (I didn't realize how far this drive was!) So we made it to Tuolumne meadows at around 2 and started hiking, in pretty good spirits. We made it about 4 miles when we came across a ranger. He asked to see our "wilderness permits". Of course we didn't have any. A very awkward moment passed as he explained that they are required and that we would have to go back and get them. He seriously made us go all the way back, and said that we could just camp at Tuolumne meadows backpacker camp and start the next day. Of course by the time we got back the camp was closed, and there was no option but to camp illegally (the whole ordeal was totally absurd, but what really got me is that by enforcing one rule he made us break another, as well as totally fucking with our plans).
Anyway the next day we made the 15 mile hike to Merced lake high sierra camp, where my friend Michael works. Definately one of the most beautiful hikes of my life. Absolutely idyllic scenery. Glacier carved mountains, green meadows with sparkling streams meandering through them... awe inspring to say the least.
So then we spent a few days at Michaels camp. We fnished the better part of a 1.75 liter bottle of whiskey Kevin hiked up and took baths in the camp's big kitchen sinks. We also hiked to another lake and fished, almost every cast got a bite from small fish called brookies (first time I ever caught a fish).
Then I had a 13 mile hike back down to the valley. The first 10 miles or so were fine. Then there were two epic waterfalls, which involved steep descents, basically just stone steps, and it was totally crowded as seeing the waterfalls is a popular day hike. It was pretty strenuous but rewarding.
Good times.