3/14- Slept late after our epic day of travel and by noon were up, fed and showered. Went to the travel agency downstairs and reserved tickets on the 4AM bus to Copan Ruinas, Honduras, which turned out to be a mistake. Maryse wasn’t feeling so great, and both of us had some sort of sore throats and general malaise. Travel stress, I guess. We’d peen pushing pretty hard to make our deadline of getting to Trujillo by the 18th- a really big mistake.
Gillian fixed some fresh tortillas with butter and honey and we went off to hit the market. The girls spied a nice Guatemalan button-up shortsleeve shirt that they thought I just had to have. I must admit, it is a pretty nice shirt. The guy wanted 350 Q for it, an outrageous price, of course. I set to work bargaining, and he started giving me some total bullshit line in English about me having to buy the shirt so he could keep his shop, while actually turning his pockets inside out to show me his utter poverty. Yeah, right! I was having none of it, and drove such a hard bargain that both of my female companions got pissed at me for taking advantage of the poor guy. Jumpin Jesus on a pogo stick! Ladies, the man is not going to sell the shirt for less than a reasonable amount. I am certainly not going to be able to take advantage of him; the best I can hope for is to not get royally screwed. I accomplished this by repeatedly offering very low sums and not raising my price. After he flatly refused to go one single quetzal lower, I started walking away. Finally, he offered to knock off five quetzals, and I got it for 75Q- about nine dollars. The guy was grabbing his elbow and repeating, “codo, codo” as I left, which probably means I got the best deal possible.
Next, Maryse saw a pair of pants in a color of purple she just couldn’t live without, but the snotty little kid running the booth was asking a stupendous amount for them. Gillian pointed out that they were the exact same as a pair she’d gotten for 75Q but the kid insisted that these were somehow magically superior. I told the women to forget it, the guy was delusional, and we’d move on. I actually laughed and said “fuck that!” when he gave me his “precio final”- he wanted like thirty bucks! Walking off, he said, “okay, how much you pay?” I told him 60Q and he finally settled for 75. Damn, what a hassle! The lesson here is, you’d better really want something before investing the psychic labor and time of negotiating for it.
We then went to another stall with a much cooler guy, and Maryse found a nice blue wraparound skirt. After much negotiation, we had gotten the price within reason, when Gillian found something she couldn’t pass up. Of course, at this point, the thing to do would be to start negotiations over again, on the basis of our buying two things, but instead, after the guy made his first offer, Gillian screams, “That’s a great price!” and starts frantically digging for her money. Gillian, I love you baby, but _damn_! Even the kid looked disappointed.
All over Mexico and especially in San Cristobal, we’d been hearing this song everywhere, the Gasolina song. If you’ve heard it, you know the one I mean. It was pulsing in my head, so I set out in search of a copy. One minute later I had a pirated CD-R of Reggaton’s greatest hits in my hot little hands, including the bumpin Gasolina. Cost about a buck.
Shopped out, we went for a burrito and chicken beer (Gallo) in a little cheap hole-in-the-wall. Decent food, cheap beer, but the picture of Maryse chugging the liter of chicken beer- priceless! Talked about Gillian’s new job volunteering for a nonprofit, and the various absurdities therein, like her lack of much Spanish for one thing… Her first day on the job, they were distributing donated clothing, so before washing it she had to catalogue every piece… Typical bureaucratic NGO inefficiency.
On the way out, the proprietor, apparently sensing my desire to smoke, gave me a Cuban Cohiba cigarette. Like a little cigar, really; I could barely inhale it at all. Very flavourful, but almost a little too much.
Gillian had a salsa class to get to, (as well as the hots for the muy suave dance instructor) so we moved to our new hotel around the corner, our room at Casa de Leon being reserved. There really were few rooms in town, but we scored one at Posada del Viajero for about $10, not bad.
On the way to meet Gillian for a movie, we stopped at a cigar and wine shop run by a Quebecoise/German couple and had an interesting conversation about doing business in Guatemala. Maryse got to speak some more French and bought some little chocolates they made in the shop from Swiss chocolate, while I bought a pack of Drum. I smoke only occasionally at home, but for some reason I like to smoke when travelling.
Got to the movie a bit late, as did Gillian, which was just as well because not only was the movie not subtitled as advertised, but it was the wrong movie as well. Whatever, we went back to our hotel and drank up our stash of Oaxacan flavoured mezcal cordials on ice, and talked until fairly late about globalization, progress, spiritual development, and all the rest. I broke out my habitual position that all the suffering and bullshit in the world, despite all appearances, is actually leading us to something that will ultimately justify the entire trip. Everyone thinks I’m simultaneously too pessimistic and too optimistic, which is not easy to be, but we’ll see… After a few rounds of intellectual armwrestling, we agreed that life is pretty fucking amazing, and then Gillian went home and we went to bed.