Home, Sweet, Temporary, Home

I've made it safely out of San Pedro la Laguna without picking up a coke habit, all praise to the Most High.

The boat ride across the lake was remember forever kind of beautiful, until it got so choppy that I got soaked and plastic sheeting had to be put up, blocking my view. Still, it was pretty fucking great.

The chicken bus voyage I went on after the boat ride was equally memorable, for much worse reasons.

Chicken buses get their name from their liberal, bring whatever luggage you want policy, which sometimes includes poultry. There was no livestock on any of the buses I went on, but I did gain some real empathy for cattle. You see, these are old US school buses with awesome paint jobs and seats built for children. The ayudante, the young guy that collects fare and herds people on and off the bus, never has any concept of maximum capacity. So on bench seats built to hold two children, three adults are sitting. Those lucky enough to get the aisle seat have one ass cheek and one leg hanging out in the aisleway. I was one of the fortunate. We also were priveleged enough to become intimately familiar with the exiting passengers and their luggage, as they shoved their way through were the aisleway would be if we weren't.

The ayudante is a hell of a creature. He has to conduct himself up and down and through all this madness, collecting fares and creating space for passengers where none exists. Most importantly, he has to keep the time that the bus stops down to an absurd minimum. He shoves and cajoles people. He climbs out the back of the bus as it is still flying along, up the ladder and on to the roof, shouting the bus' destination to the folks waiting at the next stop while untying luggage to be thrown off. At the stop he hops down and herds people onto the bus, constantly shouting the bus' destination. The driver presses on the accelerator before the ayudante makes it back on, leaving the door open for a running leap back on board. There has to be a massive accident rate in this profession.

But yes, I get to Xela/Quetzaltenango around dusk, do the wandering around looking for a hostel thing, get a bed, get a bite to eat, read, sleep. At first glance, I like this place a lot.

The next day was an epic epic quest to find an atm. For my card, only Credomatic atm's work, whereas this city is filled with B5 atm's. The internet lied to me, by the way, saying that there is one just off the very beautiful Parque Central.

One thing worth knowing about Guatemalan culture is that, when asked for directions, a Guatemalteco will never say 'I don't know,' or 'I'm not sure,' or 'maybe it's that way.' The answers are always very certain. 'Credomatic? Yeah, there's one at 7th and Avenida de las Americas.' No, no there's fucking not. There's nothing there. I followed directions all over the city, constantly to B5 atm's. I started thinking that there were no Credomatic atm's at all here, and that I would need to go all the way back to Antigua, which holds no appeal for me at all. It took, in the end, about 6 hours of walking all over Xela to find what I needed in a mall.

It was the most enjoyable pain in the ass errand I've ever run.

This is a gorgeous city, the exact opposite of the fake fake tourist catering backpacker disneyland that is Antigua. This is a city for the people that live in it. It is dirty and confusing and wonderful. Stone streets, sidewalks 2 feet tall. Warm color buildings. Divey little restaurants. My wanderings took me way out of the city center, to dirt poor sections were gringos never go. Children ran out of houses to happily shout 'hello!' in English at me, and then giggling run back inside. My wanderings also took me past the cemetery, the anti-Arlington, a visual cacophony of handmade gravestones, bright colors, green green grass. From a hill behind and above, it was strangely beautiful and interesting. US graves are less personal, show so much more decorum and so much less love. I would have taken a picture but was afraid it would be very disrespectful, I'll ask around and find out whether or not that's true.

At the mall I watched the new Indiana Jones movie, which I found kinda dissapointing, but it was still a hell of a pleasure to sit in a big theatre and watch an American movie.

I took a colectivo back to the city center, were I was struck with the beauty of the Parque Central at night. Normally, I find neo-classic architecture fake and ugly, but this was great. I decided that I wanted to stick around this city for a while. Three weeks sounded just about right, and so decided to get a little room of my own.

I got up the next morning, dropped my clothes off at the lavanderia, and went around looking for a place to stay. I found one pretty quickly, reached into the pockets of my shorts to pay the man for my first week, felt an absence of dollar bills. Run, jog, sprint like hell back to the lavanderia, plunge my hand into the washing machine, and fish out a bunch of wet 100 Quetzal notes from my pants.

I am a goddamed idiot sometimes. While I was running there I ran into an Australian dude I had met in San Pedro. We got lunch afterwards and laughed at me a lot. He was leaving Xela that day to head up to Mexico City to catch a flight to Turkey, and then on to SE Asia after that. He bought one of those round the world tickets. Madness, it seems like a hell of a lot of fun.

I love my little room.

Note the money drying on my desk. I am dumb as hell.

My nifty little mural.

Ah, yeah! You know what that is? That's a motherfucking bed! And not no crappy little twin bed in a hostel! That's a large bed in a room with a door that locks everybody else out! Now I know you all have the same luxury, but jesus, after just two months of 15 beds in a dorm living, this thing is paradise. A desk, a bed, some shelves, a door. I don't care if the paint is cracking off the walls, that the room looks like it was built by an ambitious 12 year old, that the bed rests on plastic coke bottle crates, this shit is mine for the next three weeks.

Yes, yes, and anyways. I'm going to take Spanish classes nextweek. My Spanish isn't bad, it's coming along well, I just need a little grammatical tune-up, some one to call me out when I misspeak. And tomorrow I'm going to hook up with Entre Mundos and find a short term volunteering opportunity, something I should have started doing back in Mexico. And I'm going to see as much live music as I can. Yep, yep, I'm feeling good. Trip of a lifetime, love it, love it.