due south

Cab Ride Numero Uno:

Our adventures in Panama City started with a little help from an eager Peace Corps volunteer. Apparently, the Peace Corps can place you in a Caribbean archipelago to work on sustainable agriculture even if you have a degree in English! Sign me up. True to form, this peace corps volunteer was helpful and enthusiastic — she offered to help us get into the city, waited for us to get through loooong customs lines, and secured us a cab (which Sarah then bargained down). On the way, we picked up a Pennsylvanian who had recently re-located to Panama to work in real estate who informed us of several things: 1) “people prefer to work with American-trained salesmen…” 2) “I wish they would get a Wal-Mart down here!” and 3) “I go to TGI Fridays every week.” It was a little tense, what with the Peace Corps volunteer in the front seat.

After we dropped off the Pennsylvanian at his swanky apartment, things got complicated. Our peace corps volunteer, still trying to help, informed our cab driver that we were going to the bus terminal with her. Unfortunately, we weren’t. We tried to explain that we wanted to be dropped off in a different neighborhood, which was on the way, but this was too much for the cabbie. They got into a little spat, and the peace corps volunteer told us we should probably just get out and find another cab. In the end, thanks to the peace corps volunteer (who really was very nice), we ended up on the side of an unknown road, at night, with all our gear, in the middle of Panama City, paying for two cabs instead of one. This seems to be an apt metaphor for certain aspects of the peace corps — nice, eager to please volunteers who don’t know that much more than you do, just trying to help, eventually leave you stranded. (Don’t get me wrong, she really was very nice.)

Cab Ride Numero Dos

In between cab rides, we shopped in fancy stores, cheap stores, and lots of air conditioned malls. We also saw the “8th modern marvel of the world” (the Panama Canal), complete with huge boats, smarmy museum exhibits, and a poorly done PR video. We also saw Children of Men. Which (sorry Aja) we found utterly forgettable. But you can’t beat a modern metropolis for air conditioning, movies, and consumerism! Also, it doesn’t suck to end each night sipping $.75 beers in an outdoor cafe watching world class soccer projected onto a giant wall.

Our side trip out of the modern metropolis and into Panama Viejo (the ruins of Old Panama) brings us to our next cab ride. Hungry, exhausted, and too weary to find the bus back into town, we hailed a fancy-looking Ford taxi. This cab ride was much less eventful than the first, but we had to include it because our cab driver moonlighted as a Secret Service Officer for the President. How cool is that? He even showed us his badge.

Cab Ride Numero Tres

Our third and final cab ride in Panama City took us to the Panama City airport. Though this cab ride was in no way interesting, we found it necessary to detail the ways in which the Panama City Airport sucks. Oh, how it sucks. First of all, there is only one, horrendously overpriced restaurant. We’re talking $12 breakfasts. Second of all, out of the HUNDREDS “Duty Free Stores” with designer perfume, liquor, and handbags, there was not a SINGLE book, newspaper, or magazine to be found. What!? My only joy in airports is reading fashion magazines without buying them, while drinking scalding coffee and eating a yeasty bagel. How dare they deny me what is rightfully mine! It was a long, long morning, most of it spent grumbling and trying to think of who we could complain about the airport to. We decided we’d complain to you. Letter-writing campaign, anyone?

Cab Ride Numero Cuatro

This ride took us from the Quito airport to our hotel. And here we are. The best thing about Quito so far? Franziskaner Hefe-Weisse, Spaten Oktoberfest, and Sarmat Porter, found in a random corner store. I’ll give you my tasting notes tomorrow.

-Megan (with help from Sarah)

Our lives for the past two weeks have been centered on a specific Internet cafe. They now know us there and surely, must find it strange that two gringas came all the way to Nicaragua just to spend all day everyday staring at a computer screen. In fact, it is a bit strange. If this is what they’re thinking, then they’re right. But, alas, some things have to get done no matter where you are in the world. Megan just finished applying to grad school. Sarah has now applied to about twenty teaching jobs and programs across the country.

When we haven’t been in the Internet cafe, we’ve mostly been hanging out with Ken, our new Austrian friend, playing trivial pursuit and drinking Toña. We’ve noticed that the French have a particular affinity for trivial pursuit, they often join our games and stay for a few hands. One eavesdropped on Sarah getting a question wrong and chimed in with “oh, that’s an easy question” and then left. Thanks a lot, man. Thanks a lot. Anyway, we’ve played so much trivial pursuit that there is no longer a card in the deck we have not conquered. We’re still unsure about whether we should admit to this in the future, or just use our creepy knowledge of trivia to beat all future competitors.

Today was the first day since ziplining that we’ve done anything besides play board games and work. We took a boat trip around “Las Isletas,” which we thought would be a nice little jaunt through nature, but turned out to be a “lifestyles of the rich and famous” type tour. Las Isletas are a bunch of little islands formed from a volcano eruption many years ago. These days they almost all have gorgeous vacation homes on them all owned by Central American business tycoons and foreign vacationers. We learned that we could, in fact, buy our own private island for a lot less than it would cost to buy any kind of home in San Francisco. Go figure.

We head to San Jose, Costa Rica tomorrow and the day after that we catch a flight to Panama City. We’ve got a lot of travel ahead of us. Wish us luck.

-Sarah (with help from Megan)

Megan’s birthday was spent on the shores of Lago de Apoyo, a crater lake near Granada. We spent the weekend at a lake-side hostel swinging in hammocks, reading, floating in tubes, kayaking, and jumping off docks again and again and again. We stargazed and marveled at the rising of the moon over the crater. We made delicious fruit salads and smoked fine cigars. All in all, a good way to celebrate 25 years.

Today we flew through the air attached to cables and carabineers and ropes. Needless to say, it was slightly less relaxing, but equally as fun.

After following the bumpiest road I have ever been on in my entire life for about an hour, we reached the coffee finca above which our “canopy tour” (basically a ropes course) was to be held. This road is was definitely intense enough to warrant some blog attention. It was as if someone had haphazardly strewn boulders across a rocky beach and then decided to dig trenches between said boulders and then out of spite or malice decided to call his creation a road. It was that bad. It was so bad that it was kind of like another ride that we got to go on before and after our main event. So really, we got more for our money.

The course itself was fab. It was just the two of us — I think because we were supposed to do it yesterday but they forgot us, so they felt like they owed it to us to squeeze us in today even if no one else was signed up. We donned super stylish equipment and dragged ourselves up into the trees where we proceeded to slide on zip lines from one tree platform to another attached to pulleys for about an hour. About halfway through we began discussing how we weren’t scared at all and that even people who harbor a fear of heights would probably be okay since the guides make sure that you are, at all times, attached to a rope or cable. Directly after bragging to each other about our bravery, our guide non-chalantly said “hey look, there’s a gigantic spider!” Oh how we spoke too soon. He wasn’t joking; it was, without a doubt, a gigantic spider. Luckily, we were able to quickly zip away. The course ended with a 60 foot rappel, which you can choose to do kind of like a free fall. I told them I wanted to free fall it and then proceeded to scream bloody murder when I fell. Who knew that free falling out of a tree would be so scary?

-Sarah (with help from Megan who is now a year older)

P.S. In unrelated, but even more fantastic news Brick by Brick: A Civil Rights Story, the latest film by Bill Kavanagh (fabulous father and documentarian) will be airing on prime time in New York on channel Thirteen/WNET February 2 at 9 PM. Right after NOW with David Brancaccio. Remote controls at the ready, my friends.

If I do say so myself, this has been a wonderful start to the new year. To think that one year ago today I was in San Francisco, about to start a new job at Lieff, not even able to conceptualize a long-term travel adventure. And now, here I am in Granada, Nicaragua — we successfully navigated two bus rides without incident, found a beautiful cheap hostel, and had two conversations (not that halting at all) with Nicaraguans on the way. We’ve come quite a long way since stepping off the plane in Cancun all wide-eyed and completely freaked-out.

We spent a good deal of new years eve on the steps to the largest cathedral in Central America (in Leon), watching the night unfold for the countless young Leonesian families that frolicked together in the central square. Seven-year-old boys rode the lion sculpture to our left, a three-year-old girl to our right was treated to cotton candy, which, of course, enthralled her. “Algodone! Algodone!” (“Cotton! Cotton!”) she cried, her face all pink and sticky.

After dinner, we wandered the streets, crowded with revelers, and stopped into a few different bars to toast to the New Year. We decided to stop by our hostel for a bathroom break around 11:30 and immediately got sucked in to celebrate. A few hostel mates and the family that runs the place were clustered around a stack of cohetes (fireworks) on the sidewalk — and soon, so were we.

As soon as we sat down, the matriarch of the hostel leaned over to Sarah and me and informed us that the old man (“viejcito”) in the room next to ours was dying. “Surely you must know by now…” Now, Nicaraguan Spanish is nearly incomprehensible to me now that I’ve finally become accustomed to slow, clear, Guatemalan Spanish. In Nicaragua, they pronounce neither “s” or “d” sounds, preferring to slightly aspirate an “h” instead; they also frequently swap the “ie” dipthong for the simpler “e”, which doesn’t make understanding verb conjugations much easier. “El vehito ehta murendo…” However, I was pretty sure I knew exactly what words she was using. Unfortunately, in this case, understanding the words did me little good. Why would an old man be dying next door? Why would she tell us, her guests, on New Year’s Eve? I laughed nervously, thinking that the old man that she spoke of must be the year 2006, like those silly political cartoons with the old man year being replaced by the baby. I remained vaguely concerned after I said, “oh, you mean the old year…” and she replied “no, the old man.” I hoped that this was one of those lost-in-translation moments.

We settled down with the cohetes and had a load of fun throwing them in front of cars and scaring ourselves when they exploded. Sarah screamed each time. In between screams, I noticed that she was whispering with the mother, laughing often so that I knew she might be understanding their conversation. After exhausting our supply of fireworks (and watching one particularly short-fused cohete explode a foot away from the youngest daughter), we said our goodnights. Sarah, having successfully navigated a whispered conversation in Spanish, whispered to me that the talk about the old man was a trick on the youngest daughter, who was visibly concerned about the dying old man. The mother and two daughters solemnly approached the door behind which there (supposedly) lay a dying old man. When they reached the door, the youngest daughter paused and crossed herself before entering… only to find an empty room. She was duly laughed at by her (older and wiser) family members. We both felt a little bad for her.

So, that’s how the New Year was rung in — with big bangs, mean pranks, and of course, some really watery Nicaraguan beer. It was perfect.

Happy New Year,
-Megan (with help from Sarah)

flower

Originally uploaded by skavanagh.

There is a short snippet, easily missed, in our Lonely Planet Central America guidebook. It reads: “El Fortin was the Guardia National`s last holdout in Leòn. El Fortin can be reached by the dirt road that begins on the west side of Guadalupe cemetery. Follow this road 2.5km until you reach the abandoned hilltop fort, which affords a panoramic view of Leòn.”

This is how it should read (Amy Todd, if you`re reading this, I hope you´re taking notes):

“El Fortin was the Guardia National`s last holdout in Leòn. El Fortin cannot be easily reached. If you wish to attempt the journey anyway, please read the following instructions carefully:

Walk around near Guadalupe cemetery until you see a dirt road that forks off in two directions. Flip a coin to figure out which one to take. Inevitably, choose the wrong one. Walk along this dirt road until there are no longer any other people. Think that perhaps you`ve gone the wrong way. Ask local boys for directions and have them point you back in the direction you came and towards another dirt road that forks off of the one you were following. Walk along this road until you are quite sure that you have no idea where you are. Ask more local boys for directions. Have them tell you that they are headed to the fort anyway. Follow them. Watch as one boy kicks off his sandals and puts on some high heeled pumps that are sitting next to the road in a trash heap. Smile as he wobbles along in them. Realize that there are more and more trash heaps on the side of the road. Look ahead of you and notice that you are walking directly into a dump. Smell something nasty and notice that all of the trash you are walking into is on fire. Tell local boys that you`re really not all that interested in walking through burning piles of trash. Have them tell you that the fort is just up the hill and that you can`t give up now. Agree with them against your better judgement. Have local boys show you how to put your shirt over your face, hold your breath, and run through burning trash. Do it. Feel like you want to throw up. Reach the other side where there is an old abandoned fort. Be unimpressed with it. Then be unimpressed with the panoramic view of Leòn that the hillside provides.

Notice that next to the old fort there is a long line of local people waiting to receive food from a couple who look like American missionaries (white and chubby). Wonder why said American missionaries would choose to give out free food in a spot that everyone would have to walk through burning trash to get to. Come up with no satisfactory answer to question. Suddenly realize that in order to get back to your hostel, you will have to walk back through the burning trash. Psych yourself up and do it. Reach the other side and begin to get whiffs of something just as nasty as the dump that you just walked through. Realize that you are smelling yourself, saturated with garbage smoke. Think to yourself that you have never smelled worse in your entire life. Ask two local women how to get back to the city. Have them tell you that the road ahead of you will take you directly back to the city, but not to listen to anyone along the way. Then watch them make that scary “cut your head off, you`re gonna die” gesture. Hope that the gesture was a cultural reference that you didn`t understand. Keep walking. Notice another local boy walking next to you. Have him walk next to you and stare at you without saying anything all the way back to the city. Feel alternately comforted and weirded out by this. Turn down several cab rides even though you are sun burnt and exhausted because you are so embarrassed by your rancid smell. Arrive back at your hostel and take the most welcome shower of your life.”

-Sarah (with help from Megan)
p.s. To see more pictures click on the photo of the flower to the right of this post

If anyone besides my father has been following our route on a map, they will be surprised to learn that we´re now in León, Nicaragua. It seems like only two days ago that we were two countries away in Guatemala. It seems this way because it´s true. We arrived in León last night after two full days of bus, boat, truck, and colectivo-ing our way through Honduras — which we skipped altogether. And here we are.

Though we had planned to summarize our experience in Guatemala into a neat top ten list of some sort, we realize that our time there was unsummarizable. Well, that and the fact that we´ve already written about all our most interesting Guatemalan experiences. (Except for this: Ricardo Arjona, Guatemala´s favorite son, has a new hit single entitled “Ayúdame Freud” (“Help Me Freud”) — it is a song about his mother.)

Time to move on.

Today we went to the Museum of Legends and Traditions in León. Museums are a great way to re-introduce yourself to travel, since they offer a nice, encapsulated slice of knowledge about a new place and almost immediately make you feel more connected.

Nothing could have made us feel more connected to León than the fable of the “Toma Tu Teta” woman. Loosely translated, this means, “Take Your Tit.” Once upon a time in León there lived a woman who had the large arms of a man and gigantic breasts. (This was illustrated in the museum by a life-sized woman wearing a black dress and exposing her right breast. She and her giant breast were made of paper mache.) Being formed in this way made her unmarriagable, a fact that drove her to insanity. Her insanity manifested itself in nocturnal ramblings through the streets of León in search of nice-looking men. Making use of her surprising stature (the very stature that made her life so difficult), she would catch these men, throw them to the ground, and shout “¡Toma tu teta!” while forcing her victim to suckle her massive boobage. When she was “satisfied” she would let the man up and go in search of new prey.

How weird is that?

Well, now we know. Thank you León.

-Both of Us. Equally.

We have just finished a very fast-paced week of travel which we will now attempt to recap. At the moment we-re in Livingston, a community reachable only by boat… but how we got here is the real story.

SEMUC CHAMPEY

We left Antigua on Tuesday morning at 4am. This meant that we had to wake up at 3:30am. We did this willingly, I know not why. Thus began the long trip to Semuc Champey: six hours by minibus to Coban, two hours to Lanquin (an hour of which is on a long bumpy dirt road), and then half an hour in the back of a pickup truck to the one hotel that sits on the banks of the Cohabon River. Semuc Champey is a Guatemalan national park, one of the few natural rock bridges in the world (I assume, since I´ve never heard of another). I want to attempt to explain exactly what it is, but since I read a lot about it beforehand and completely didn´t understand any of it, I assume that my attempt will be feeble. But here it goes: A raging whitewater river encounters the rock bridge and goes underneath it into a cave. However, on top of the bridge some water remains and creates unbelievably beautiful turquoise pools perfect for swimming. Or, as it turns out, perfect for slipping and falling and almost breaking your arm, in the case of Zil. Ow.

As beautiful as the pools were, they did not hold a candle to the spelunking that one can undertake in the nearby caves. Unfortunately, I was the only participant of our small crew, as Zil´s arm was still in recovery from her slip and fall, and Megan´s back was angry with her after our days long journey. Yes, I spelunked. I spelunked with three Israelis just out of the army, a Spaniard who was afraid of heights, a young man from Brighton, and our guide, Luis. We were given candles and commenced swimming through water filled caves with one arm while holding the other above our heads to light our way. We swam, walked, climbed, and shimmied two kilometers into the cave before heading back out again. I only got lost once. In a little room with water up to my chin and seemingly no way out. But fear not, there was a way out, and I found it. Thank god.

TIKAL

The next morning we let ourselves sleep late… until 4:30am, and left for Tikal: two and a half hours to Coban, four hours to Flores, and fourty five minutes to El Remate, a little lakeside town just outside of the Tikal national park. There we slept, sleeping even a little later, until 5am. We arrived in the main plaza of the ancient Mayan ruins slightly after the sunrise, before the tourists flooded in. We sat on the old stone steps and watched the mist drift over the two thousand year old buildings accompanied in our meditation only by peacocks rooting around for breakfast. Pretty rad.

Later we hired a guide (which was TOTALLY worth the ten American dollars that it cost us) named Miguel. He was an ornthologist by trade and can recognize over five hundred bird species. We put his training to use and saw several toucans, woodpeckers, countless other birds that I can´t remember, spider monkeys, howler monkeys, and coates (funny anteater type furry rooting creatures). This is all in addition to the human engineering marvel that is Tikal: 65 meter high pyramids peak out over the immense expanse of jungle, which is always threatening to envelop the city. Truly breathtaking and awe-inspiring.

Now we are in Livingston, planning to rest and relax over the Christmas holiday. It´s not hard to do when it´s about 80 degrees in the shade.

Happy Holidays to all.

-Sarah (and Megan who wrote the last three paragraphs.)

Lago Atitlan is beautiful. Sarah´s pictures do not do it justice. The volcanoes are imposing towers of green overlooking the clearest water I have had the privilege to swim in. We spent a wonderful weekend eating at different restaurants around town, sipping Chilean wine while watching the sunset, and sleeping in a room with an impossible view (and the best shower and bed combo we´ve encountered in Guatemala). Paradise.

However, all the beauty and relaxation comes at a price.

I was warned about the first hidden cost of Lago beauty, and was therefore somewhat prepared. The spiders were weirdly flat creatures, so they sometimes seemed to blend into the wall. This made coming across them that much more frightening. Also, they stand still for days on end, until, for some unknown reason, they disappear. WHERE DO THEY GO? They´re absence is much more frightening than their presence, since one never knows where they might be lurking.

We had prepped for the spider eventuality, however, and Sarah was even brave enough to shoo a particularly large flat one out of our window last night. Bravo, Sarah, bravo.

This morning, for some reason, neither of us were prepared to face down the beast. A HUGE spider was waiting for us on our chair when we returned from the shower. Sarah said “oh look, it´s a spider.” I screamed. Then I looked at it and saw that it had 6 legs. What kind of spider has 6 legs? A fucking tough spider, that´s what kind. It had obviously survived several previous human attacks and had been left bitter and hungry for human blood.

We had to get Zil to come shoo it out the door for us. She is so tough. In the process, it lost ANOTHER leg. The severed leg is still on the door stop to the room, slowly decomposing.

We were both still coming down from our spider adrenaline rush while trying to pack our bags. Sarah was shaking out our clothes, God bless her. She approached the infamous chair, upon which our quick-dry towels were draped. She reached for the towel. She screamed. I screamed louder. She ran to the bed clutching her right hand. “Something stung me,” she cried.

I decided to be tough. “It was a bee,” I said. “I know because I heard it buzzing.”

A little white lie in a crisis never hurt anyone.

We took a few deep breaths huddled together on the bed. Everything was fine. I got Sarah some sting relief and started packing. I was now in charge of the quick-dry towels. I gingerly threw the top towel to the floor. Then I stomped on it. A lot. Nothing was crushed. I moved to the bottom towel and threw it to the ground. Before I could stomp on it,

A HUGE BLACK SCORPION WITH TWO PINCHERS SCURRIED BEHIND THE TRASH CAN.

I was done being tough. We both lost it. In fact, we lost it so hard core that two Mayan women who worked for the hotel came running to our door to see what was the matter. In the back of my head, I was thinking that if the scorpion had been dangerous, it´s sting would have hurt more. But that was far, far in the back of my head. The front of my head was inconsolable. Thankfully, the Mayan women were much calmer. They assured us that the scorpions on the lake were not dangerous and that the sting would hurt for only about 1/2 an hour. I was so glad we spoke Spanish in that moment. Sarah was quite fluent as well, repeating the phrase: “In the U.S. they’re really dangerous, really.” We were both trying to find an excuse for the fact that we were screaming like children. Then they scoured the room for the beast, matter of factly looking in every nook and cranny. They never found it. WHERE ON EARTH DO THEY GO!?

One of the women brought Sarah some alcohol (to help soothe the sting) and some sugar to eat (we’re not really sure why). The rest of the packing was done very carefully. I did a lot more shaking and a lot more stomping.

Anyway, to make a long story short (too late for that, eh?), we survived. We’re in Antigua, where man-eating spiders and scorpions would not dare rear their heads.

-Megan (with help from Sarah, who shooed a spider and was stung by a scorpion. What a gal.)

Xela Flags

Originally uploaded by skavanagh.

So, I woke up on the morning of my birthday to cake, a birthday song on repeat from the stereo, and many hugs from my host family. They even set off some fireworks in my honor right outside the house before I set off for school. They are so fab.

Then Megan sent me on the aforementioned scavenger hunt, Zil made me a cake, and finally the three of us ate ENORMOUS amounts of Indian food before retiring to a cafe for Mango Mojitos. It doesn´t get much better than that.

Except that on Saturday, it did. In the preceding weeks, all of the students at our school had bought hundreds of toys to give to children in a small pueblo about forty five minutes outside of Xela. Saturday was our day to play Santa. Our school´s director explained to us that these kids had probably never had toys before nor had they probably received presents for Christmas. And so, our little Santa Parade into the Pueblo would be much appreciated. And it was. When we arrived, literally hundreds of kids descended on our vans. We proceeded to break a few pinatas, play a few games of something similar to Simon Says, and pass out a seemingly endless stream of presents. Oh, and get sun burnt.

Although it was hard to top a morning like that, we managed to do it by attending a Guatemalan Futbol game. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. We had to get there two and a half hours before the game began in order to get seats. Sparklers were passed around the stands, as were giant Pepsi balloons, confetti, and intense amounts of team spirit. In the moments before the game, so many fireworks were going off that the entire stadium was filled with smoke, paper mache mocks up of the other teams players were burnt in effigy while fireworks flew out of their heads. Everyone chanted “Vamos Equipo” until their voices were completely gone.

We were smart, however, to leave a little bit early before Xela supporters started throwing rocks at the supporters of the other team and the riot police who had been standing watch throughout the game began to tear gas everyone. As I always say, it´s all fun and games until somebody gets tear gassed.

Anyway. All´s well these days. We´re finishing up our last few days of Spanish School before heading out on our travels again. I´ll definitely be sad to leave Xela. It has been very good to me. Oh, tear.

-Sarah
(To see a lot more pictures, click on the photo at the top of this post)

I am in the middle of hunting for my birthday present. Megan has constructed a scavenger hunt through the city of Xela and I just figured out that I had to visit the blog in order to get one of my clues. I got it. It was sitting in the unpublished section of our blog — don´t you wish you knew how to get there. This is the one that led me here:

Soy un sitio muy popular con la gente familiar. Tu, Megan, y todas me visitan para charlar. (Pero solo con personas lejanas, no con las que pueden tocar).

Yes. The whole thing is in Spanish. And it rhymes. She is letting me use a dictionary. Thank god. Here it is in English:

I am a very popular site with familial folks. You, Megan, and everybody visit me to chat. (But only with people far away, not with those you can touch).

Anyway. Thanks to all of you for being a part of my birthday experience. I think Megan knew that there would be some happy birthday wishes up on the blog for me to see. Here´s the next clue, wish me luck:

Puedo ser el hogar de arañas, pero no espero que sí. Soy oscuro, húmedo, y frío, pero te duermes justo encima de mí.

In english: I might be a home to spiders, but I hope not. I am dark, damp, and cold, but you sleep right on top of me.

I hope she doesn´t mean my bed… because I´m not going to be able to sleep tonight thinking about how it might be a home for spiders. ew.

-Sarah