Rolando, and goodbye to Guatemala

I can’t begin to tell you how much apprehension I had coming back to Quetzaltenango (Xela) to visit with Rolando and his family. So much has happened in his life since Kara and I were there- both his wife and his 33 year old daughter have since passed away. Rolando was fortunate enough to be granted permission to come to the USA legally to visit with Wendy for the last 6 months of her life, and I was fortunate enough to spend Christmas of that same period with them.




But when I saw him in California, I had Wendy and Gustavo to translate. Three years not being around Spanish everyday like in Watsonville, and a couple trips to Asia with different languages infiltrating my brain’s Spanish file made me shy and Spanish words swam around my mouth awkwardly. Having Wendy and Gustavo around to translate made me lazy. I’m glad I had a week of semi-practice with Eva in Livingston and Honduras before I saw Rolando, and particularly glad that I was with someone who knew less than I did during that time, as it forced me to step up and go for it.



The driver of the shuttle from Antigua to Xela, Felipe, was a riot. He had lived in Oklahoma for a while so he knew some English. I sat in the front seat and we talked the entire twisty, unpaved 6 hours. They are paving the entire Highway, and boy is it a mess. The scenery, however, was absolutely gorgeous. We bent and turned through the dense fog in the pine forest, occasionally catching glimpses of waterfalls. We also climbed the highest peak in all of Central America which is appropriately named Alaska. We stopped once to drop the two other passengers at Lake Atitlan, which was a treat for me. I have been here twice before, and it is stunning, a deep blue lake in a cirque, surrounded by three active volcanoes, surrounded by tiny Mayan villages accessible mostly only by boat.





On the way back up the mountain towards Xela, our journey came to a halt. The road had closed for repair for what they told us would be 30 minutes. Our shuttle was nestled between two chicken busses, and everyone from all of the busses and all of the cars stepped outside into the cold, and life went on as usual on the muddy mountain road. People sold juice and water and fried chicken, and some even continued to sell cell phone cards (TIGO is everywhere in Guatemala. You can be driving a tiny mountain barely-paved road with only Mayans walking around in their traditional clothing, carrying baskets of vegetables on their head, and talking on their cell phones).







Once Felipe dropped me directly at Rolando’s, I knew everything would be fine. His street looked different, as there were many more stores than 6 years ago, but his house looked the same. You have to walk beside another, much poorer home occupied by a traditional Mayan family before you get to his quarters. Once in the gate, you are standing in an atrium, with a walkway on three sides. There is the main house on one side with a bedroom, living room, and kitchen. Along the rest of the walls are 5 more bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. One bedroom is his (he hasn’t slept in the main house since his wife Aida died), one is his 18 year old son, Kendall’s, one is Heidi and her daughter Nyeli’s when they come to visit, one is rented to a med student, and one is empty (other than the main house), which became my quarters for the week.



Not being in Spanish school made Xela a less interesting place to be, as really, this is the main reason for foreigners to be here. Guatemala is a great place to learn Spanish, because they speak very slowly in comparison to Mexico, as well as use less slang, and generally, Guatemalans enunciate each syllable. People come from all over the world for this purpose, and Xela is a great choice in the country, as it is a small city that sees fewer tourists than Antigua, so it is true immersion. My lessons remained out of the classroom for the week, as Rolando, Kendall and I explored the area, focusing on hot water sources, as it was bitter cold! I also made a trip to San Francisco del Alto, the largest market in the country, where people sell everything from Levi’s to pigs, watch parts to dried shrimp. In the evenings, Kendall would get bad American movies with Spanish subtitles, and we would all pile on the couch under a load of blankets, listening to the rain, and passing time. Heidi and Nyeli visited while I was there, and it was nice to finally meet them. Nyeli looks exactly like Wendy’s daughter Gabby. It was unreal.








The week ended quickly, and it was sad to say goodbye. Rolando thanked me profusely for lifting his spirits, and reiterated how his home was my home. I think I’ve been to Guatemala enough, but I know that on some other adventure that brings me to or through the region, I will take him up on that, as the probability of him being allowed to travel to the US again is very slim. My Spanish improved drastically, and I was ready for something new and exciting- CHIAPAS!!!!!!

It´s Usually about the Journey

Sitting back in a cafe in Antigua, Guatemala, listening to an 80's mix which is so appropriate. FLew in to Guatemala City a week ago today, and took the first shuttle here to colonial Antigua. It is quite a gorgeous city, and interesting to be here for a third time. This was the first developing country I visited, with my mom, and it's funny to think that when I arrived by myself in the wee hours of early morning on that particular trip, culture shock was at it's pique. And here I am 12 years later, more travel and life experience under my belt, and it's so touristy, I'm almost bored, but not quite.




Originally, I was to stay here a couple days, and move along the same route I've moved along twice before, with the goal this time to meet up with the family that Kara and I stayed with 6 years ago. When I checked into the hostel on Monday morning, I realized that I would be bored if I did that, so I opted for an early morning trip to Copan Ruins, Honduras, and left the next week open to possibility. Fortunately, I met a young woman from Czech Republic, Eva, currently living in London, who was also going to Copan. She and I shared the Copan Ruins together and sat down and mapped out a possible week. The next morning, we were on our way south to Santa Rosa de Copan, and Gracias, Honduras. Neither town was anything to write home about haha, but worth every bit of the experience.




We stayed in this craphole of a hotel near the center of town, that you had to enter via a store that sold bicycles, playgound equipment, ice cream freezers, and who knows what else. At night, we had to slip by a quad to get in the door. But as the saying goes, everything is funny if you wait long enough, and we didn't have to wait long. Eventually we made our way to Gracias, a smaller town known for a hot spring, so off we went. On our way home, we met several local people wanting to practice their English. Later, we bought a bottle of wine and sat in our ´lounge´ with the 16 year old running the hotel and practiced our Spanish.


We arose the next morning to make our way back to Copan ruins, where a shuttle was waiting to take us part way to Rio Dulce, a river port that eventually leads to the Carribean on a very small piece of Guatemalan land between the Honduran and Belizean borders. We first took a taxi down the hill to the main bus station, and from there picked up a collectivo, which is exactly what it sounds like, a vehicle that collects people and takes them from points along the highway. There are costs and benefits to this kind of local travel (it ends up being a little different with tourist collectivos). Time becomes irrelevant, a theme that is clearly on the forefront of this year's entire adventure. If you are in a rush, this is not the way to go, but it being so early, we didn't have time to even think. The benefits, however, were extremely interesting. Between Gracias and La Entrada, about a 2 hours drive, we picked up and dropped off somewhere between 60 and 80 people in our 20 passenger truck/van thingy. I can honestly say that Eva and I were the ONLY nonHondurans. Each Hondureño man that jumped on the bus carried with him a machete, and carefully placed it under the mat when he got on the bus. At one point, the bus was so full, that Eva ended up hanging onto a small baby whose mother didn't look more than 17.


We finally returned to Copan Ruins and took our tourist shuttle onwards to a town in the Guatemalan province'state of Chiquimula. The weather changed rapidly to hot sticky jungle, and after 5 hours of travel, we decided to sit and wait out the next bus, which was supposedly coming in 30 minutes time. Well, this is where I started to learn my lesson AGAIN about bus travel. If there is a bus going to your destination, and you aren't in a city or tourist town, TAKE IT! 3 hours later, we were still waiting for our bus. The second that all travelers were on the bus, the food hawkers jumped aboard selling everything from water to plantain chips to fried chicken. Once they stepped off, and the bus pulled into 1st gear, a well dressed man stood up and started preaching to his present congregation. It was interesting to watch, as we gained speed. The man´s sermon became louder and more dramatic, as did the snoring of the man sitting behind me. Next to me, there was an older man wearing the omnipresent cell phone around his neck, and he gently pulled a well worn pocket bible out of his bag and followed along. Another cell phone rang, and in the middle of the sermon, two teenage girls had their own conversation that was mostly giggles. It went on like this for about 30 minutes. Leaving so late meant that we arrived in Rio Dulce after dark. Nevertheless, we made it, laughing, and checked into this crazy place called Bruno's, which is basically a hangout for yachties from all over the world.You can rent anything out there from a dorm room to a private room w/without bath, to a fancy suite with airconditioning, and of course docking slips. The benefit of staying there was the pool! We spent three times as much on dinner as we did on the dorm room, but it was worth it. Next morning we awoke a little late to get on the right boat to Livingston, 2 hours downstream...which was somewhat ironic, because we both knew better than to not be on the first early morning boat. But as I said, time seems to be the theme. We arrived at the boat dock at 11 and were told there would be a boat at 1:30, and we didnt' leave until after 3, of course, at the beginning of a huge storm.
But the entire boat, a mixture of backpackers and locals, were laughing about it, and we still were able to stop at the hot springs and this weird castle in the middle of the river. Finally we arrived in Livingston, just before sunset.





The second we pulled into this small Carribean port town, I knew we´´d made a good decision. Over 70% of the population here are Garifunas, sometimes called Black Caribs. They are here in this part of the world because of the slave trade from West Africa, and have stayed here, speaking both Spanish and a local dialect that is some spanish, some something else. Garifunas are on the coast between Belize and Nicaragua, and someone was telling us also in Panama but not Costa Rica. I haven't followed up on this yet.

Anyway, right as we all got off the boat, local people were waiting at the dock to bring us to whatever hotel or restaurant that was paying them a finder´s fee. We were 'claimed' by a guy about our age, named Ranier. Yes, like the volcano in Washington State. He was actually raised in Pasadena, California, but moved back home for a woman. There was some baby mama baby daddy drama, but Ranier was harmless and took us to two hotels, of which we chose Hotel King George. This was only slightly better than the craphole we had in Santa Rosa, but there was a screen and fans, and out very own private bathroom that leaked shower water onto our floor. But it was PERFECT. We walked less than two blocks to the sea and ate our hearts out on the amazing food, Tapado, a fish curry made with coconut milk that is their staple. DELICIOUS!

After dinner, we headed to a place called Club Ubafu, a ramshackle place where local music is played.It was heavy percussion with some call and response and sounded like some Brazilian and CUban music I have heard in the past. I preferred this much more than the beachside discoteques, but, alas, that´s where the people were, so Ubafu closed early, and we joined the party at the beach.






Our final morning in Livingston was a little bit sad, as Eva and I would separate, and I would be making the long journey back to Antigua for less than 24 hours, and another journey to Quetzaltenango. But we traveled safe.

More on the next leg.....

Hope you are all well! Talk to you soon.