Travels of the Bay family and the Yoda Van

Today was our last day in Guatemala. We have been here for over 5 weeks and we have seen more than we are able to comprehend. There are only 2 sites we still would like to see, but I think we can do that on our way home. One site is a famous textile market in Chichicastenango and the other are the ruins of Tikal, the most spectacular Mayan pyramids.
Even though I didn’t like Antigua (the most beautiful city in Guatemala) too much and I was counting days to be done with the language school and head on to warmer climate in El Salvador, I wouldn’t want to miss this week. We had an extremely nice ending to our stay in Guatemala. We went out with a couple from Switzerland and a couple from Austria who we met last Wednesday on the Day of the Dead.

We went to an Austrian restaurant and ate wiener schnitzel, had plenty of beers and just enjoyed each others company. We saw lot of things on our trip and had a lot of experiences, but one of the highlights is talking to other travelers and sharing stories. We have learned so much from other travelers and after 3 months on the road we can finally give back to others what we liked and what we learned. Unfortunately we ran out of diapers for Julian and had to leave the restaurant early, but one of the couples we will probably meet again in Costa Rica. On the way home we took on of the local taxis called Tuctuc. I don’t really know how to describe them. They are part motorcycle part car. They have a 2 stroke engine, three wheels, no steering wheel, but a motorcycle handle and a bench that seats 3 people. We have seen those things all over Guatemala, but never took one. The kids really liked it and I would have probably enjoyed it more if I would have known the address of our family, but instead I had to give the driver directions with my broken Spanish.
November 1^st is the Day of the Dead, a day that is celebrated in all of central America, Mexico and probably many other nations around the world.  I don’t know too much about the history and the traditions about this day, but we have always been curious about it. In Guatemala on of the traditions is to build kites, and write message on them for the friends and relative that passed away. Some people work on those kites for months and they were huge (like 3 story buildings). We were told to go to Santiago de Zacatepequez and watch the kites. We took 3 chicken busses an actually found the place. We had no idea where to go and decided to just follow the crowd. The crowd became bigger and bigger and the street was getting narrower. At times it was almost impossible to move. We saw some kites in the air, but it wasn’t too spectacular, but we kept following the crowd. At one point I looked around and only saw happy faces, people celebrating, enjoying the food and just having a good time. It took me a moment to realize that we were in the midst of a cemetery. People were sitting and standing on tombstones and walking over freshly dug raised piles of dirt where people were buried.  To launch the kites you had to run over this uneven terrain, which was quite difficult at times.  Cemeteries in Europe are sad, somber places, and this place was full of life.  It was also full of colors as every grave was decorated in bright yellow and purple marigolds, and we were all surrounded by the colorful kites and clothing of the indigenous Mayans.
The chicken buses on the way home were packed.  Our whole group got separated and Allison and I had to take separate chicken buses home.  We all came home happy to have met such nice friends and also to have witnessed such a neat holiday.

We just started the last week in Guatemala and we are taking one more week of Spanish classes in Antigua. Antigua is one of the most beautiful cities we have seen on our trip and yet I don’t really like the city. Our Lonely Planet travel guide describes Antigua perfectly.

“Antigua’s profusion of language schools and drinking holes has made it a magnet for half-assed language students and serious cocktail swillers alike, and there is always a sizeable gringo population. Some people love it, some people hate it, but you’d be silly to miss it.”

Before coming to Antigua we were invited by a couple we met in Semuc Champey (the place with all the boring, horny people) to spend a few nights with them in their apartment in Guatemala City. Guatemala City is a place we initially were not interested in, because we heard that it is dangerous and that there is not too much to see. However, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity for a comfortable (free) bed and a lot of modern amenities (e.g. a shower with water pressure, hot AND cold water, carpet, McDonalds, etc.). Besides we really liked Kari and Adam and they had very interesting stories to tell about their teaching assignment in Alaska. We spent one night watching movies they made during their 2 year stay in Alaska on a remote island north of mainland Alaska (in Anwar, the remote place were the republicans want to drill for oil). They showed us movies of the locals catching whales and slaughtering them. It was pretty bloody, but it was a once in a lifetime experience for them, and their stories even made me consider to start teaching and also start foreign assignments. Yet again, we heard great, interesting stories of other travelers traveling in their own way.

Guatemala City was exactly how I pictured it to be. It had busy roads, McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut and every other imaginable fast food joint. It even has Taco Bell, Chuck E. Cheese and Hooters. The only thing that’s missing for it to be a real world class city is Starbucks.

Like most big cities in Guatemala, or the rest of the world for that matter, crime is a huge problem. The statistics on crime in Guatemala are mind-boggling. I heard all kinds of crazy numbers. Ever since the civil war ended in 1996, crime moved from the mountains to the cities. Gangs started forming that rival any gang in Los Angeles, Chicago or New York. Tourists are not affected by the violent crime, as long as they following simple rules like don’t go to remote places at night, don’t show your money around etc. Common sense, really. The only idea you get about crime as a tourist are the armed guards protecting businesses. In the parking lot of a mall we went shopping at there were at least 15 armed guards. I was real happy to see that even beer trucks have an armed guard on them. The Guatemalans have their priorities straight.

I also read that a lot of street children live in Guatemala City and they are either sniffing glue or end in prostitution, dead or missing. Although we didn’t see any, they must lead similar lives to the thousands of wild street dogs in Mexico and Guatemala and probably in the rest of Central America. While in the states dogs get to wear Halloween costumes, in Guatemala cars don’t even break for them (no joke). I have seen several almost hits, one dog being hit by a car, and countless dead dogs on the side of the road.

Remember the Wolf? Wolf was the guy in Las Vegas who fixed our car and gave me great advice on how to drive the Yodavan. (Unfortunately I didn’t ask him about a passenger limit for the car.) Anyways, the list of things to fix on the Yodavan was growing and luckily Kari and Adam knew Oliver. Oliver is a 25 year old guy who runs a repair place called “Das Auto” which was just down the road from where we were staying. Oliver changed the oil, replaced the 2 mirrors which were broken in Xela, fixed our trunk door and checked the breaks which were smoking when we were driving to the coast for less than $60 US. So the next time you run into car problems near Las Vegas or Guatemala City let us know and we will hook you up with either the Wolf of Oliver. We still have a leaking gas tank however, so if anyone of you knows a VW mechanic near San Salvador get in touch with us since that is where we’ll be next week.

Our next stop was the Caribbean Coast and the Rio Dulce area.  When we were leaving Semuc Champey we caught a bus with 2 Spanish girls and they had recommended a place called Finca Tatin near Rio Ducle.  Oddly enough, somewhere along the way I had picked up a flyer for Finca Tatin and we decided that is where we wanted to go.  Finca Tatin is only accessible by boat.  When we got to the town of Rio Dulce our first goal was to find a boat that would take us there.  There is no shortage of boats, but we wanted to make sure we got a fair price, so we asked around at a couple of people offering their services.  We finally found one that also had a parking spot for us, so we were set.  Matthias tried to call Finca Tatin to see if they had space for us.  The number on our flyer was out of service, but we decided to risk it anyway and hope they had room.  William found the boat ride too bumpy, but Julian couldn’t have enjoyed it more.  He had a huge smile on his face the entire way and kept pointing to things and chattering excitedly about them.  The water is sparkling green and surrounded on all sides by green jungle.  It is about an hour boat ride to Finca Tatin and we arrived safely and they had plenty of room.  In fact we were the only visitors at all.

We rented a bungalow right along the river for two nights.  William and Julian both squealed with excitement when they saw we would all be sleeping under nets!  Matthias and I weren’t so excited when we saw the spider the size of my outstretched hand on the wall above one of the beds.  When we arrived we were floored at how neat this place was.  This area was very different from what we expected it to be and definitely transcended all our expectations.  Both Matthias and I had a moment where we felt that just the opportunity to spend a few days here was one of those times that makes this whole trip worthwhile.

Finca Tatin is a great spot for relaxing.  There is a main area with hammocks, sofas, books and games for all to share.  The two dinners we ate there were probably the best food we have eaten since we came to Guatemala.  On the dock there is a rope swing you can use to jump out into the river.  You can also rent kayaks, there are nearby hot springs and lots of trails for walking in the jungle.  They only have electricity for about 4 or 5 hours.  The owner has a generator that he turns on when it gets dark, and shuts it off when everyone goes to bed.

We arrived in the early afternoon and went swimming.  Everyone except Julian had so much fun swinging out and jumping into the river.  The river was clean, very warm and a nice way to escape the humidity of the jungle.  That evening we had dinner, played some dominoes and went to bed early.  The rains that night were tremendous and the jungle is an active place at night.  The memory of the spider on the wall left me lots of bad dreams and a very restless sleep.

The next day we took a boat to Livingston after breakfast.  Livingston is also only reachable by boat and the stretch of river from Finca Tatin to Livingston was even more spectacular than the ride in.  We spent a few hours walking around this town, which is right on the Caribbean coast and definitely has a Caribbean feel.  Many of the slaves from Africa remained here and there is a large Garifuna population in Livingston.  It has a much different feel than any place we’ve been to in Guatemala.  We went swimming again that afternoon and later the owner offered to take us over to the hot springs.  The hot springs are just a hole in the side of the river wall where hot water comes out.  We pulled up to the dock and jumped right in.  It was very relaxing and we watched the sun set.

That evening we had dinner with the guests that had arrived during the day, a group that consisted of 2 Argentinians, a woman from Uruguay, a woman from the Canary Islands, a Swiss man and a girl from Israel.  It was so interesting to talk to all of them and see where they had been and how they were traveling.  Our friend from Israel has been traveling on her own for over a year.  One couple travels around the world in a catamaran.  The other couple has lived on their sailboat for a number of years and they support themselves by repairing sails on sailboats.  This woman (who grew up in Uruguay) was the daughter of a German woman and grew up speaking German.  She now speaks German with her 5 year old son, her husband who is from Argentina speaks Spanish with their son, and he just picked up English along the way.  Their son is tri-lingual and seen so much more of the world than most Americans.  It really would be interesting to follow everyone’s lives and see where we all are in 20 years.  I left wanting to spend more time with all of the people we had met here.  Luckily, though, we left relaxed and invigorated to continue our travels.

Matthias has put more pictures on the web here.

Our map of Guatemala has a section where it lists the number of kilometers between cities and the anticipated driving times. You could really throw this information in the garbage because it more or less useless. Matthias (being German) wants to know exactly how many kilometers it is between cities, not an approximation. The times listed for certain stretches of road are even rougher estimates. Though even if you had the actual distance, that information is only sort of useful because there is no way to know what shape the roads are in. According to our map it should have taken 5 hours from Lake Atitlan to Cobán. It took us 9. I guess that is just Guatemala.

Seeing as we totally misjudged how much time we would need to get to Cobán it was no surprise when we ended up finishing the drive in the dark. Driving in the dark is something we don’t want to do here. However we were so close and drove the last half an hour in the dark. We found a hotel room relatively fast, and luckily we found a cheap one ($15/night) that is clean and comfortable. I was able to hack the computers they have in the lobby so we could get free internet access as well. That Microsoft education is at least good for something!

Our destination was Semuc Champay. It sounds like it is in Thailand, but it is actually a somewhat remote group of pools near Cobán. We set out in the morning around 10:00 AM. Most of the road was great, but the last 11 kilometers was a really steep, rough gravel road. It wasn’t ideal, but we made it alright. We had a recommendation for a hostel but, of course, it was full. They had a spot for us to park our van and camp. After checking out a few hotels in the town, we decided that camping was the best option.

The toilets were kind of interesting. They were ecological toilets with the purpose of not polluting the river. They were built up like a throne on top of a poop chamber with a trough in front for catching pee. The urine is siphoned off somewhere, and the poop was collected in the chamber below. There was also a tub of lime that you were supposed sprinkle over the poop after going #2. The Americans, Canadians and Europeans that worked there got the cushy jobs like bartending and staffing the internet café. But some poor Guatemalan sap has the unfortunate job of shoveling all our shit.

On the surface this place looked really great. It was quite a ways into the mountain and right next to a river. Matthias took a great 40-minute inner tube ride down the river right to the hostel. They had lots of cabanas on stilts, and a bar where everyone hung out. But it turned out to be a bit weird. We did meet a nice couple of teachers who are spending 2 years in Guatemala City teaching middle school. They were pitching a tent and were looking for a quiet spot to camp. The weirdness we experienced can be summed up in the answer they received when they asked someone if they were in the hang out spot for the hostel. “This isn’t the sex spot if that is what you are asking!” was the snotty reply. That couldn’t be further from what they were asking. They just wanted to know if it was a quiet spot to pitch their tent. Most people were just trying to get laid. I think we all have an honest appreciation for that endeavor, but only to a point. Maybe it was just Matthias and I who felt a bit old traveling with our 2 kids. Just about everywhere we’ve been in Guatemala we’ve met lots of interesting people. Even the republican nurses we met in Xela had a lot of interesting things to say. If you asked people at the hostel what they were doing the answer was “hanging out.” If they gave you any more information they might tell you how long they are planning on hanging out there. The people weren’t interesting, or funny or particularly nice, and almost no one had anything interesting to say.

That night we had dinner at the hostel. It started raining, which was good because it cooled everything off very fast and made it comfortable to sleep. However, the 50 meter walk from the bar to the Yoda Van soaked us to the core. I’ve never experienced rain like this. By the time we made it to the car it felt like I had just walked through a shower with my clothes on. The showers in the cheap hotels we have been staying at have had less water pressure than this rain storm. It was really something else.

In the morning we decided we’d have breakfast in the van. Matthias went to put on some water for coffee and discovered a swarm of thousands of ants in our sink. We knew we had picked up a few ants when we were in Acapulco, but we figured they were all just lone ants living in our car. It turns out they have made home in our water system. When we turned on the water it was just shooting black gunk and ants. We sprayed Raid and boiling water in the area and hopefully got rid of them. Once the situation was under control we headed down to the restaurant for a fast breakfast.

After breakfast we took a shuttle to the pools. The shuttle is a pick-up with scaffolding built up around the bed. We hopped into the back and held on. The road was even rougher and just as spectacular as the road in. When we arrived at the pools we arranged with our driver for him to pick us up at 12:00 to take us back to the hostel. Needless to say, he was no where in sight at 12:00, or 12:30, or 12:45 when we finally hopped another bus back into town. We made it back to town and walked back to our campsite, which had turned into a mud flat after the previous night’s rain. By the time we had finished packing both kids were half covered in mud.

The pools were amazing, the land around us was spectacular, the hostel seemed perfect, but somehow it just didn’t work out for us all that well. The pools were neat, but instead of turquoise water, it was dirt brown from all the rain the night before. Our clothes are still drying from all the rain and they really stink.

Other things that went wrong:
• Matthias forgot his bathing suit and had to wear my hot-pink short in the pools.
• There are great caves here that stretch 3 km into the mountain. After about 3 minutes of slipping on bat poop and muddy stairs, we realized we had to turn around because it was impossible to continue on with 2 kids in tow.
• In the middle of the night the alarm of the car next to us went off. It took the owners about 15 minutes to turn it off and woke us all up.
• Matthias tried to get money from the ATM and it ate his card. He finally went in with a swiss army knife and retrieved it, but he was worried since ATMs are usually monitored by video cameras.
• We went to get gas and discovered that our gas tank is leaking.

In the end, the effort of driving this steep, gravel road, the wear and tear on our car, the resulting mud from the rain storm and the ants were just more effort than it was worth. I remember seeing a picture of Semuc Champay before we left and thinking I’d never see anything that amazing on our trip. But I actually made it, and somehow it just wasn’t what I was expecting. This part of the trip sure wasn’t ideal, but since this is the worst it has been so far, we can still say we’re doing pretty darn well.

In the past week we heard that our good friends Kim and Erik are getting married.  Kim is my best friend from high school.  We are so happy for them and we want to be back in Seattle for the wedding.  The wedding is set for mid-July 2007.  They might have a more specific date in mind, but these days we don´t do more specific than “sometime in July”.  So we´ll be back in Seattle at the begining of July at the latest so we can attend their wedding (pending the invitation which will have to arrive by e-mail since we have no address right now). 

Congratulations Kim!
Congratulations Erik!

The drive to the coast really was something else. Yet again, we put the Yoda Van to the test and he got us where we needed to go. As soon as we had descended from the highlands it became hot and humid again. After all our complaining about the humidity in Mexico, some warmth was a welcome change after the cool nights in Xela. This country feels so different with the warm humid air blowing in through the windows of the car. And sitting along side the ocean side under a palapa drinking sodas out of thick glass bottles is an amazing experience. Those are the moments when I know this trip was worthwhile.

The beach in Champarico was a black sand beach made from volcanoes. The waves were really amazing and we had such a good time swimming in them. Paul and Matthias discovered that you could wade out really far to just where the big waves where breaking and body surf. It was really fun and I could have stayed out there for hours. I was surprised that Bonnie came out. She’s weighs about 350 pounds and I just didn’t take her for much of a swimmer. Unfortunately she didn’t last too long. I think she was hit by a wave kind of hard and I looked up and saw her standing in the water wiping the salt water off her face. But I could also see the next wave about to break right in back of her and this one totally took her down. I still have this image of the cross-dressing actor Divine in a plus size bathing suit body surfing and being smacked down hard on the sand. When she came up she had lost the upper half of her swimsuit and decided she had had enough swimming for the day. It was still cool because she sat on the beach with William and Julian while Matthias and I went in the water.

That evening we walked through town and then had a nice seafood dinner. The next day we left Champarico. Paul, Bonnie and Mary drove with us to Reu, got off at the junction towards Xela and flagged a chicken bus home. We continued on to Lago de Atitlan and the drive there was spectacular. We drove high up into the mountains again, alongside coffee plantations and other crops up to over 9000 feet. The western highlands of Guatemala is one of the most amazing places I’ve seen so far. So much of this land has been cultivated for agriculture. Not once have I seen a motorized piece of equipment for any of this work such as a tractor or a plow. The plowing, planting and harvesting is all done by hand as far as I can tell, on the side of extremely steep cliffs. We’ve seen so many men walking with a garden hoe slung over his shoulder, or women in traditional clothing (possibly with a child slung on their back) up in the fields tending to the crops, weeding, harvesting, carrying crops down into the towns. It is absolutely amazing what these people achieve.

The clothing continues to amaze me as well. The area around Lago de Atitlan is one of the few in Guatemala where the men also wear traditional clothing. We’ve seen many men in this area wearing brightly colored, embroidered outfits as well. We drove to the nearby town of Sololá on market day and we came to the central plaza which was covered in coleus plants. The whole market and plaza was filled with people wearing deep purple clothes just like the coleus plants. Xela is such a big city that there were people from all over, so you really didn’t get a sense of one particular clothing. But in smaller towns it is obvious that the women are all wearing clothing of a similar color and pattern. In San Antonio on Lake Atitlan the clothing was navy and turquoise, in another town on the lake it was light purple with animals embroidered on their tops. Today we saw another town where all the women were wearing deep maroon tops with stripes.

Lake Atitlan is beautiful. The first day we were there it was overcast, but the second day we had great weather and we went on a boat tour on the lake. There are three volcanoes along the shore and the water is green. It is often called the most beautiful lake in the world, and rightly so. We’ll be leaving on Thursday for Cobán, which is close to the jungle in Guatemala.

Despite being in the same city for over 2 weeks, every day is filled with amazement, new experiences and new things to see.

Saturday was our last day in Xela and we decided to join some of the teachers, Paul and Bonnie (the 2 nurses) and their daughter Mary and drive down to the coast. There was a water park and an amusement park and we wanted to spend the day there and then continue on to the coast and spend the night.

Inspired by the public transportation in Guatemala, I was confident, that 8 or 9 people in the Yoda Van shouldn’t be a problem and I offered to drive them.

The next morning it turned out that we were 11 people, plus we were going to meet Paul at the water park and he would join us for the ride to the coast. I had serious doubts if we would all fit in the van and I was glad that I was the driver and had the most comfortable seat on the trip. In true Guatemalan style we stuffed ourselves into the Yoda Van, two Guatemalans sitting shotgun, 2 kids in the back, Julian on Allison’s lap and the rest sitting or kneeling on the floor.

On the way to the water park we had to stop at an auto parts store. I had picked up the van from our secure parking the day before and decided to park it on the street in front of the school for one more night. The next morning both rear view mirrors were smashed. The one on the passenger side was only slightly damaged, but the one on the driver side needed to be replaced. At the auto parts store they didn’t have a mirror, but we happened to have a small piece of mirror in the car (about 6”x 4”) so I bought a roll of duct tape instead and taped our mirror over the smashed mirror. It worked as good as new. I also asked at the store if they had a new window handle (remember, ours broke right before our off-roading adventure in Mexico) and believe it or not the guy pulled out a cardboard box from under his desk filled with window handles. I only had to try 3 handles before I found one that would work. It’s much bigger than the original one and it scrapes the speaker every time we have to open the window, but it does the job. The only advantage about not having the handle was that at military or police stops, the officials got a good laugh when they asked Allison to open the window and she could only show them the broken handle.

We were ready to hit the road and head to the coast. It was about a 30 mile trip to the water park and we would descend 7500 feet. It was all downhill and the Yoda Van ran beautifully until we noticed a strange smell and the car wasn’t handling well anymore. I tried to pull off the road which was harder than I would have wanted it to be. I was having a very hard time braking and I knew the brakes were in bad shape. When we looked at them they were smoking and glowing. Awful smell. There was also no time to let them cool off, because we had stopped in a tight curve and we had to move. I decided I would let the engine do the breaking and we kept driving in 1st gear for the next few miles. Driving slow at least got us to the water park and down to sea level.

                                                  
Matthias and Paul                                    View from the front seat
at the amusement park                            of the Yoda Van.

The water park was awesome and so was the amusement park right next to it. Everyone had an awesome time, but at about 5:00 PM I was starting to get a bit nervous, because I was told several times to not drive at night in Mexico or Central America (good advice). The teachers assured me that that this stretch of road was safe so we ended up staying another 2 hours. Despite their assurance I was only worrying about the 1 to 2 hours we had ahead of us. The Guatemalans said it was about an hours drive, an hour and a half maximum. But that was Guatemalan time, and with our brake problems it was not unreasonable to think we might have a 2.5 hour drive ahead of us. Not only was it pitch black outside, we also had one more passenger: Paul, the 250-pound male nurse. We climbed into the Yoda Van again. We loaded the car with roughly 950 pounds of Americans, 200 pounds of German and 550 pounds of Guatemalans. The drive was a nightmare. Streets in Guatemala are not lit, full of potholes, speed bumps (in Guatemala they are called Tumulos) and all kinds of animals. The worst however was that there were also a lot of bicyclists, none of whom had lights or reflectors and were almost impossible to see. The drive was much shorter than expected (only about 45 minutes) and the road was nearly entirely straight without any hills. We made it fine, except one close call with a group of cyclists. When we arrived I decided that I had to decrease the passenger limit from 12 to 7 people. The beers that we had in the hotel made me relax real fast and they were the beginning of 2 great days with Paul, Bonnie and Mary. If Allison lets me use the computer one more time in the next few days, I want to write about the discussions I had with Paul. Our opinions couldn’t have been more different, so I couldn’t have been happier that I was finally able to have endless useless discussions again, with a guy who is even more conservative than Allison’s dad.

Friday was our last day of classes at our school and we decided to go to a market in San Francisco El Alto with our teachers and William and Julian. The market at San Francisco El Alto is supposed to be one of the largest in Central America. We hopped a chicked bus to the town (which is about an hour away from xela) and started off. The market is not set up on a typical grid system, but it spirals its way up the town on the windy streets. This was not a fruit and vegetable marekt. Most of the goods that were being sold were clothing, household wares and Mayan textiles. The pinnacle of the market is the livestock section at the top of the city with a grand overlook of the surrounding valleys. They sold all sorts of animals: chickens, rabbits, turkeys, goats, lambs, cows, pigs, and more. William and Julian loved looking at all the animals. They were more of a spectacle at this market than any of the animals were however. They turned heads yet again.

We only spent about an hour and a half there. As we were leaving the market we walked behind a couple pulling their 2 newly purchased pigs by a piece of rope tied to their necks. One pig refused to follow and she lifted up this squealing pig and carried it under her arm. We flagged down a chicken bus that wad headed back towards Xela. All of the chicken buses have a cargo area on top, usually used for transporting big bags of oranges, textiles, corn husks or other goods. The chicken buses leaving the market at San Francisco also had sheep on top. There was a bus in front of us that had 2 sheep standing on top. Each of the sheep had a rope around its neck and was tied to the bars on top of the bus. If you don´t have a car, this is the way you get your animals home in Guatemala.

This was really quite an experience, and definitely worth a visit if you are in the area. We took a lot of great pictures and we´ve posted them here.

There are 2 large shopping centers in Xela and recently Wal-Mart bought both of them. We’ve been shopping at a small grocery store near our school. I was reminded of Hugo Chavez’s recent speech at the UN when I realized the devil is all around us. The director of our language school is a Guatemalan woman and we had a short discussion about some of the criticism Wal-Mart receives in the US. It was interesting to hear what she had to say about Wal-Mart. I took her point to be that when people in Guatemala barely have enough to eat they don’t worry about things like business practices, the effects on small-businesses or working conditions of the people producing goods sold at Wal-Mart. I’ve never seen it as a real luxury to be able to criticize Wal-Mart and choose to shop elsewhere, but I guess it really is.

Every day our school has special activities. We’ve been to a weaving cooperative run by Guatemalan women, yesterday we had a cooking class and today we took a trip to a small town about an hour away from Xela.

We first took a city bus, and then took 2 chicken buses up to the town. This time we actually did have chickens in the bus. I kept hearing this squeaking noise when I finally saw the small beaks of little chickens poking out through the holes in a cardboard box stored above Matthias and William. At times the bus was absolutely packed. When these buses are on the road in the States I think they only allow 2 kids per seat. There were 6 of us on my seat for a while. There was a woman at the window, I was in the middle with William on my lap and at the isle was a Mayan woman with a little girl on her lap and a baby wrapped on her back. We went to a small town with an interesting church. It was bright yellow with lots of colors. There is a picture of Matthias and his Spanish teacher here. There wasn’t a lot to do in the city so while we were waiting for the bus back Matthias’ teacher started to tell him about another nearby church they wanted to take us to. It is high up in the mountains and they perform all sorts of witchcraft. They decided that we shouldn’t actually go there because they sacrifice chickens and other animals and that might not be good for the kids.

Matthias is really enjoying his Spanish teacher this week. They sit and chat the entire time and he’s getting good at bull-shitting in Spanish. I knew he could do it. She ended up telling him how much money she makes as a teacher. At the school we are attending we each pay $100 for private language classes (5 hours of lessons for 5 days). Our teachers take half of what we pay, which means she earns $50/ week. Sometimes she works at other schools, where she is paid less. Right now she lives on $200/month. The same work in the US draws a salary 8-10 times higher wages. Matthias asked her if she wants to travel around with us for the next week or two since she doesn’t have any students lined up for next week. We’d pay for her food and accommodation and pay her her current salary. We want to continue learning Spanish, she knows a lot about Guatemala and she has a really good sense of humor. It could be a lot of fun for all of us. We’ll see what she says, but there might be 5 of us in the Yoda Van for the next couple of weeks. Plus we might finally see an end to all the “Gringo Prices” we’ve getting getting at the stores if we let her do a bit of the negotiating.

Somehow our blog has deteriorated into more information about the people we are living with than what we are up to. All that is definitely a part of what we are experiencing, but I thought we should try to tell a bit more about Guatemala. On a side note, our guest house is almost empty. Most of the people we have been writing about have left and we honestly miss them. Despite all their peculiarites (like the fact that Paul sleeps with a headband on – and please don’t ask me how I know this) we have really enjoyed the last week with them. In addition to this I believe that Matthias and I are probably just as good fodder for all of their blogs as they have been for ours.

Travel around Xela is mostly done in little mini-busses. In Mexico the comperable mode of transportation was called a “collectivo” but we never actually rode in one in Mexico. Xela is the second largest city in Guatemala and it is necessary to use them to get around and see some of the sights in this city. There are some corners with official bus stop signs, but often there are none and, really, they’ll stop for you just about any where you can hail their attention. These vehicles are the size of an average American mini van and they have one driver plus an assistant. The assistant’s job is to hang out the side window and call out the major destinations of the bus. For example when we were headed to the Zoo we took the bus that was headed towards “terminal” (the main bus terminal which is right next to the zoo). When the bus arrives at a stop the assistant opens the side door, jumps out, collects the fare of everyone exiting (1 Quetzal = 15 cents, and kids ride free if they are on your lap) and loudly broadcasts the major stops on the route. The assistant gives the driver the ok to continue, the driver continues on and the assistant hops into the van (as it is moving) and may or may not close the side door. The thing that makes these buses so neat is that there really is no official capacity, there are only practical limitations to the amount of people who will fit in one. A van of this type in the US would be rated for 8 passengers, but the van we were in had 23. There are also no timetables or schedules. If you want a ride in one, you just have to stand on the side of the road and hope that the next one that comes along stops for you, and if it does, you hope that it is going to direction you want to travel, and if that is also true, you just have to hope it have enough room left for you to stuff your small Guatemalen self into it.

Today we went on our first real outing outside of Xela since we’ve been here. We didn’t travel far, but we decided we’d go to the hot springs in the next larger town, Zunil. The entire country of Guatemala is honestly littered with volcanoes, hot springs and ruins. There are 3 major hot springs just south of Xela and we decided to visit the ones our friends recommended. Jason had given us a good description of how to get there: “Get on the chicken bus at the gas station about 3 blocks from our school towards Zunil, don’t get off at the first major stop, but get off at the stop next to the river and the bridge. Once you get off the bus, hail a pick-up driver and he’ll take you up the mountain to the entrance of Georginas (the hot springs).” We found the bus stop fine, and the first chicken bus that stopped was going towards Zunil. Chicken buses are old American school buses that are no longer considered street worthy in the US. They are often painted vibrant colors and can take you just about anywhere in Guatemala that you want to go. We waited out the first stop and continued along. Our directions were to get off when the bus stopped next to a bridge and a river. We’re beginners at navigating Guatemala, so we were a little unsure where we were supposed to get off. We saw a river, but not a bridge. When we finally ended at the stop in Zunil it was obvious that it was the stop to get off at. I asked an older man on the bus and he pointed up the mountain towards the hotsprings and we knew we were right.

The next obstaclce was to hail a pick-up. We weren’t really sure how that worked either, but it turned out to be quite easy. Pick-ups seem to be the second mode of transportation in Guatemala and one stopped for us right after we got off the bus. We were told they would want to charge us 75 Quetzales (10 US dollars) to get up to the hotsprings, but we should talk them down to 40. The first person who stopped wanted 40 so we didn’t even try to bargain. Matthias, William, Julian and I all climb into the back of this pick-up and we set off. But the driver stays on the main route and we’re heading down the mountain. The old man in the bus pointed way up into the hills towards Georgina. Matthias makes his way to the front of the truck bed, yells out “Senor? Vamos a Georgina?” He stops the truck so he could hear us better and we realize that he is headed to the hot springs further down the mountain. He says he wants 10 Quetzales more to take us to Georginas, which we figured was fair since we were halfway to the other hotsprings already. We turned around and headed up into the hills. It reminded us both of the Alps, but it is also a bit more misty and jungle-like. In addition the mountains look like a patchwork of fields where they are growing all sorts of vegetables: cabbage, carrots, radishes, corn, lettuce, onions,… The indigenous Mayan women working in the fields really stand out in their bright clothing against the green of their agriculture. When walking through town they often have a basket or cloth package on top their head, and/or a baby strapped to their back.

As we were approaching the hot springs we saw 2 women (who happened to be from Germany) who were jogging up the mountain. Matthias overheard one of them say “If you are going to enter paradise, you might as well take it slow and enjoy it.” What a great description that was. The hotsprings (at nearly 10,0000 feet) are located in a quiet, narrow crevice high up in the hills. There is not a lot of sun that shines there, but they have channeled the water (warmed by volcanoes) into natural stone pools. It is above the clouds, surrounded by steep mountains, covered in greenery and the steam lifts off the green, sulfurous water. We swam for a few hours in all the different pools, had lunch, swam some more, and then headed back toward Xela (in another pick-up, chicken bus ride home).

On Monday we start another week of Spanish classes. We’ve decided to both take classes in the morning and our school has arranged a babysitter to come and play with William and Julian while we are in class. We wanted to both take classes in the morning so we can do more exploring in the afternoon together. It’s amazing how much Spanish William and Julian are picking up by just listening to the people around them. The babysitter apparently doesn’t speak much English so I’m sure our kids will be ordering our food in restauraunts soon better than we can. Maybe we can even get one of them a job in the mini-buses once they learn to make change.

We’re planning on taking Spanish classes for at least another week, maybe two. We put our car in a secure parking lot (which in Guatemala means the backyard of a friend of a friend of a friend of the girlfriend of the director of the school’s backyard). We had to give him the key to the car “in case he has to move it.” If (when we’re ready to leave) we can actually find this guy’s house, and if he hasn’t sold our car off for parts while we’ve been learning to hablar espanol, we’ll be headed out of Xela in about a week or two. If our car and the guy who has our key is nowhere to be found, we’ll be backpacking through the rest of central America and back to Seattle. Honestly, it has been nice not driving for a while. We’ve already driven over 6,000 miles (10,000 km) since we’ve left Seattle. There have been a lot of military checks in Mexico (and a few in Guatemala). Pulling up to a dozen people with rifles with limited Spanish skills looses its luster pretty quickly.