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A little more on Antigua

Thursday, October 20th, 2005

Mayan culture
After the disappointing attempt to help the mud-stricken, I decided to participate in some of the local activities. On Thursday, I went with a group of students from my school to this Mayan village called San Francisco Agua Calientes. We went to this little cooperative whose taught us about the Mayan culture. We ate this typical mayan dish, which was chicken and rice, with a very different sauce…it was really great. We also got a shot at making tortillas. This little old lady did it with such ease – just take a little ball of maiz dough, dip your hands in water, and pat-pat-pat-pat-pat-pat it into shape. Then, put it onto this metal plate over the fire (like a campfire). Well, it looks a lot easier than it looks. My pat-pat-pat’ing ain’t so good. I ended up with too much water on mine because it kept sticking to my hands, and then it took forever to cook. It still tasted like a tortilla, though, but that’s probably because they made the dough. [read on]

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Knee deep in mud (you think that’s bad?)

Wednesday, October 19th, 2005

As I hope you’ve heard, Guatemala has recently been slammed by flooding and mudslides throughout the entire southwestern part of the country. I first heard about this in terms of the road from Guatemala City to Antigua being out due to a mudslide and thinking, damn, I really wanted to go over there. Well, that road was nothing and I did make it to Antigua. As time went on, I learned more information and that the situation was was graver than just a few roads out. Thousands lost their homes, their families, everything they had to raging rivers and mud. Most of their homes were nothing more than one room shelters, where the whole family ate, slept, lived…it seems as if the smaller the loss, the bigger it really is. [read on]

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Living in a Guatemalan home

Friday, October 14th, 2005

Hey y’all.

So, I signed up for this Spanish class to help with my understaning of what the hell people are saying to me and to avoid asking old women if they’re lactating when I just want coffee for my milk (yes, that did happen). I signed up for one week, and I also had the option to live with a family, which I totally jumped on. I moved in with my family on Sunday morning. The lady of the house is Sanda, who is a Guatemalan woman about 60 years old, and she is really sweet. Her son and daughter also live there, but I’ve hardly met them. Another Guatemalan guy named Augustin lives there, and two other girls who are students…Christine from Norway and I couldn’t remember the other girls name if my life depended on it, but she’s from Israel. [read on]

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Guatemala City, Guatemala to Antigua

Friday, October 14th, 2005

It was a long ride to Guatemala City, supposedly 8-10 hours. We would stop at little towns along the way, and tons of people would get on the bus, offering all sorts of different goodies, calling out their names, back and forth through the bus. It was kinda funny. “Empanadas! Agua pura! Dos quetzales! Tomales, Tomales! Empanadas, empanadas, dos quetzales!” Sometimes the bus would continue with these vendors still on, so they would yell to the bus driver to stop, and everyone on the bus would laugh. There was one other ‘gringo’ (in general, foreigner) on the bus, and I think he must have had the shits, because we almost left him behind at one stop, and not too long later he asked the bus driver to stop for ‘el baño’. [read on]

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Deeper into the Jungle – Tikal, Guatemala

Tuesday, October 11th, 2005

I got to the border of Guatemala and crossed without issue. I was absolutely innundated with people offering to change my currency (from Belize dollars to Guatemalan Quetzales) or for rides to pretty much anywhere I wanted to go. I decided to follow the advice of John (the owner of the guest house in San Ignacio) to get to Tikal. I took a cab from the border into the town, where I was dropped off with some uniformed-type men. They put me on a minibus (a van stuffed with people, bags piled on the roof), which I took to what’s called El Crucero, where the road forks. The first half of the road was unpaved and in very poor condition – we couldn’t have gone faster than 20 miles an hour. I guess the rule of the road there is ‘drive wherever you can to avoid the big holes as much as possible’, which was much appreciated. The scenery was beautiful through the northern hills of Guatemala. After a little while, the road improved and we started cruising, so I took this opportunity to hang my boots out the window to start drying them. At El Crucero, the guy dropped me off – they were going south, and I was going north. So, there I was, at some crossroads in the middle of Guatemala, backpack strapped on, just standing there. I felt like the devil should appear any second, offering to buy my soul or something. So, as I was instructed, I just started walking to the next town, where I was told I could find a bus or some sort of transportation to get to Tikal. Some little kid on a bike came and talked to me, asking if I needed a hotel. Not long after, another minibus headed for Tikal came and picked me up, and so I was back on my way. [read on]

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