iamajuggernaut

Hasta Luego, Guatemala

2008-08-19T15:35:00.002-05:00

Back in San Cristobal de las Casas, MX.

Happy as hell to be here, but damn I miss you already, Guatemala.

Guatemala, any stretch of it, is some of the most beautiful natureleza I've seen. Green, every inch of it, and rolling, curving. Even the valleys flow like water over rocks in a fast moving creek, threatening, an earthquake away from rising up and joining the surrounding hills. Flat, sparse prairie is beautiful too, but it cannot compare to the wild heaving life of the Guatemalan landscape.

And Guatemaltecos, victims of violence and poverty, war, corrupt politicians, a broken infrastructure, they are collectively the nicest and most hospitable people in the damn world. I was everywhere made to feel welcome, the dangerous neighborhoods could be recognized not by people trying to mug me, but concerned smiling old folks or teenagers leaning in and telling me to be careful, these streets aren't safe. And that's what breaks my heart most of all, that, because of Guatemala's almost non-existent justice system and widespread extreme poverty, an incredibly small percentage of the population is able to cause such misery to such wonderful people.

Violence is rampant, especially against women. Impunity is the word. According to Coordinadora 25 de Noviembre, an umbrella group for women's organizations, in the past seven years only two percent of crimes against women has been solved. In that period there were 6,025 reported cases of rape and 3,281 women have been murdered. Most of these were never even investigated.

It's the wild west down there, police barely exist, order is maintained by private security guards who barely know how to use their shotguns (as evidenced by their terrifying tendency to just let the barrel point wherever, often unintentionally at people walking past, most of whom think nothing of it). This is only effective for guarding stores, not preventing homicides, the rate of which has been climbing steadily for the past decade.

Add this on to broken roads, undrinkable water that many barely have access to, a wildly underfunded and overcrowded school system, a total lack of social mobility, racism against the indigenous majority, and parasitic churches (which everywhere outnumber schools and medical clinics). These people deserve so much better.

Yes, yes, a few little Guatemalan memories I've not previously written about-

I arrived in Comalapa right at the end of feria, the Guate equivalent of county fairs, so I was not there to ride the ferris wheel, but my friends Ben and Veronica were. It wasn't a mammoth London style ferris wheel, but it was a pretty damn big one. They were on it, going round in a big circle, as ferris wheels are wont to do, when something metal falls from the top of the wheel. Short screech to a halt, the operator decides it would be best to tighten the bolts on each of the little carriages. Ben and Veronica are a ways away from it being their turn, and they watch as the guy freely spins the wrench around on the bolts several rotations before he has to actually pull a little to tighten it. Veronica apparently did some screaming.

Walking to the market one day, I start chatting with a farmer walking in the opposite direction. We do all the Guatemalan conversational cliches, do you like my country, can you get me a visa to work in the States, have you had your sins washed away with Jesus' blood? I always say of course to that last one, hoping to avoid a sermon, and it never fucking works, they go on anyways, really pumped to spread the word of God, and I'm almost arguing, no seriously, I'm like, hellsa Christian, don't worry about it, fucking, stop already, Jesus. But this guy does something unique, something special. He segues from his conversion speech straight to do you have any sisters in the States? Uh, yes. Hey, do you wanna, you know, sleep with my sister and I'll sleep with your's? Like, not even a pause in between the subjects, straight from Jesus to sisterswapping. I laugh and say, man, you're terrible, and start to walk away. I hear him chuckling to himself as he walks in his own direction, 'hehe, terible, soy terible,' like he was just given an awesome new nickname.

This isn't even a story, but the bus rides in Guatemala, crowded as all hell, a third of an ass cheek on a seat, kept up only by the pressure of people on both sides of you, the ayudante literally walking on top of the seat backs to get through the bus to collect fares, then he's hopping out the back of the moving bus up the ladder to the top, and you can hear his footsteps on the roof as we fly around mountain roads, flying past other buses on blind curves, and constantly, constantly the most beautiful damn view out of any window ever of all time. Forests barely seen through the mist, and then climbing out of it, looking back and seeing this suspended lake that we all had just swam through, jungles, forests, those mad corn fields on impossibly steep hills. I will never ever forget those views.

But yes, and I've left that behind, back to Mexi Mexi co. I'm in San Cristobal de las Casas again, and it is just as awesome as I remembered it. The cats at my hostel and my favorite restaurant remember me, which is all kinds of pleasant, have a great deal of love for both those institutions. The local dvd theater spot still kicks ass. Watch Lost Highway by David Lynch. I and three other people really annoyed everyone else because we could not stop laughing at this ostensibly serious film. I dunno if y'all have seen it, but don't. It's fucking ridiculous. A parade of every whoa this is trippy cliche ever, but it's just, it's fucking dumb.

Visited Taller Leñateros, took a little tour. This was the place, three months ago where I decided that I wanted my life to be about putting ink on paper, a pretty goddamed big event for me, so it was rather cool to check it out. Also, seeing as how I've been doing a bit of research and a lot of obsession on the subject of paper making silk screening wood block printing, it was awesome to see it in action.

On the subject, read this list of names and tell me which one I should choose for my magazine. To give you some help, the magazine will consist of essays, interviews, criticism, the occasional short story, very rarely a poem or two (very rarely), sports talk, largely focused on the South Bay, with a bit of a fuck you, iconoclastic bent to it. So, yes, the names-

iamajuggernaut
The Triumphant
It's a Bomb Magazine
The Irregular
The Santa Clara County Irregular
Unwieldy Magazine
The Funk
Ink on Paper Magazine
Late Night Magazine
Eventually Magazine
Just Try It Magazine
Unstoppable
Bad News Magazine
Laika Magazine
The Pretender
The Dilettante
The Big Fibber Magazine
The Transient
Jerry Rigged Magazine
Try Harder Magazine
Het Up Magazine
This Will Not Stand

Yeah, get back to me on that one.

I've found some letterpress printing classes at the San Francisco Center for the Book, and found a JC in Santa Clara that teaches prepress and offset, I am so excited and ready to take over the world of printed media in its dying days. William Randolph Hearst ain't got shit on me. And the Metro, that goddamned dirty rag, Y'all are going down. Gary Singh, you're first, I'm a get you for your horrendous crimes against the english language.

Alright, enough trash talk, I'm outta here.

The benefits of not buying a return ticket, Hiking about in Quiché, Adios to Parque Chimiya, Hola to the big big city

2008-08-07T16:30:00.008-05:00

Yep, first things first. I have decided not to do the 6 months volunteering at an orphanage bit, partly because I'm hearing a lot of things about the place that I really don't like. It's hard to criticize people who are delivering a much needed service in a place like this, so I won't go into it, I´ll just say I'm not comfortable working there. Further, dammit, I wanna go back to the bay. I miss you cats, and I've got a lot of things I want to do that I cannot while down here. However, I'm not looking to rush back, there's quite a bit more I wanna see, food I wanna eat, conversations I wanna have. 2 more months should suffice. Yep, yep, so on October 11th I will be back in the yay, hoping to have a bit of a fiesta that night. Anybody wanna provide a venue?

My original travel plans now appear absolutely ridiculous. Within 6 months I was going to visit Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Brazil. Over 4 months through, I have checked off 2 names from that list of 16. And I have decided not to scratch off another one of those names, not on this trip. I'm going back up to Mexico. There was a lot I missed up there, and I've learned a lot about how to travel since then. I'm goddamed excited about it. I'm glad it's turned out this way. I'd much rather really get to know a bit about 2 countries than see the Lonely Planet highlights of16. Also, ohgod, Mexican food and beer. I loved it when I was there, but 3 months of Guatemalan mediocre chow and absolutely awful beer has got me salivating at the thought of enchiladas, proper carne asada, street stall tacos al pastor, Dos Equis, Corona, Negra Modelo. Mexico is spicy gastronomical paradise.

A note, my camera needs fixing, says low batteries when I put in new ones, so once again I've got no pictures, apologies, fixing it is a priority.

Yep, oh and forgot to mention it in the last post, but the last day of working with the Engineers Without Borders group was fucking absolute madness. We were hiking about, checking out natural springs that the community was thinking about buying, the engineers were checking the flow rate and taking water samples. I had absolutely nothing to contribute beyond carrying a bucket for like 5 minutes. So, pretty much I was worthless, did nothing. Still, it was awesome, one of the best days of this trip. The hiking turned into scrambling down hills and climbing up cliffs, a little weed that somehow supported most of my weight saved me from probable paralysis and possible death. Forest turned into jungle, creeks into waterfalls. Crazy fun, but if I had known it was going to be that way I def. would not have been carrying a book, I looked and felt ridiculous. Doesn't really matter though, all that does is that this is clearly the most beautiful country on earth.

A few days before this, I was chilling in the common area at the volunteer house, friend Ben was staring at the huge map of Guatemala on the wall.

'Hey, Sean, look at this. There are like, no cities in this whole area to the north of us.'

'Huh.'

'You wanna go there?'

'Sure.'

So we went.

Saturday we met up in Antigua. He was going to Chichi to see the market, I had already been, so I passed, stayed in Antigua to make some phone calls, write the previous entry on here, so on. Found out that my sister's dog had died, which was pretty damn depressing, loved that little bastard, just adorable he was. I was just finishing talking to her, round 7 pm, when I see young man Greg, who I had said goodbye forever to a few days previous, walk right past my little phone booth. Laughing smile 'holy shit what are you doing here' man huggery. Well, there go my plans of a quiet evening reading maybe seeing a movie. He and his fellow Canadian friends don't seem to be big on the whole quiet evening idea. But yes, go out, have a good time, run into folks I met in Oaxaca (MX) and San Pedro la Laguna. Antigua is a trap, everyone gets sucked into its vortex of saccharine fakery. They all end up here.

Surprise, surprise, I oversleep a bit and a lot, have to meet Ben in Quiché rather than Chichi. Quiché is a great city, dusty, laid back, real tranquilo. The main square is massive, everyone just hanging out on a Sunday afternoon watching each other walk by. Ben and I eat some street food, give some to the chuchos (street dogs), talk shit. One of these chuchos scared the shit out of me, its appearance alone. Jet black dog, pale pale blue eyes that you would swear are luminescent. It was friendly as hell, but I wasn't getting anywhere near that horror movie monster. Looking up at me, tail wagging, smiling, and I'm whispering to myself 'stay away Damien dog, I will fight you...'

In a large hall off the square a big indigenous Quiché Maya event was being held, all weird dancing and fireworks smoking up the place. All the adults stood stock still, never applauding or even smiling, but somehow you could tell they were glad to be there. The kids ran all over, boys shoving girls and girls shoving boys in phase one of their flirting careers, big smiles and mock anger. The dancing was weird, hyper repetitive lower body movements with the upper half held still as possible, Irish folk dancing on heavy drugs.

The event was indicative of the local pride I saw all over Quiché. Most of the municipal signs were bilingual (Spanish and Quiché). Posters shouting 'The Forest is Life!' can be seen on street corners, deforestation can be seen all over Guatemala. And as I would see at the ruins of Gumarkaaj, Mayan religion had not been wholly consumed by the Christian juggernaut.

But that was the next day. After we left the weird dance event, we checked out the next door Catholic church. We walked in as mass was just about to start, so we said what the hell and sat down for a little dose of Jesus. Sitting in the back, we heard the hoarse voiced priest cracking jokes with two teenagers, a charming guy, I liked him immediately. Incense swinging ahead of him, he took the pulpit. The typical hymns were replaced with him throaty shouting along to new agey casiotone music. I enjoyed the service, I hated the kneeling. Firstly, I have a very atheistic (word?) sense of humility, I don't believe that to be humble you need to make yourself small before something large, be it god, nature, what have you. I hate kneeling before anything or anyone. I show respect with a hand shake. Also, my knees were straight fucked up from the hours of chicken bus jostling earlier in the day. So, uh, yeah, kneeling is for suckers.

Left chu'ch, indulged the ice cream addiction, went for a walk about. It was night by this time, and we were thinking along the lines of 'this is pretty dodgey' head back time, but we realized that it just appears to be a rough neighborhood. The tough looking youngsters were smiling nodding wishing us a nice evening. It was warm out. Pleasant feeling, muy bien onda from the city. I like the place a lot. We stepped down some stairs into a little arcade, Ben played Metal Slug, I played Super Mario 3. Side note- Guatemala is clearly technologically superior to the states. They have MARIO on ARCADE. Charming young 8 year old kid was watching me, giving me tips, which is impressive cause I thought that I knew every damn secret in the game. Child was probably a prodigy of some kind.

Head back to our piece of shit hotel room, read by candlelight cause there ain't no electricity, sleep.

In the morning we went looking for a bus to the local ruins. Wander the whole city round only to realize that the micros leave from the square that we started at. Pleasant little stroll though. Pleasant little van ride as well.

This place (Gumarkaaj, K'umarkaj, etc. depending on who's doing the spelling) was very much not Tikal, but still, well and awesome. The ruins were ruined, we were the only gringos there, and had been there for days according to the guestbook. Groundskeepers were hacking weeds off temples with machetes. Ben and I climbed to the top of a crumbling pyramid, sat in the warm warm sun, talked about time, imagined costumed priests standing where we were sitting, sending up a tower of incense smoke, chanting, looking at the massed Maya crowds that would have stood in this large square before us.

Walking around, we saw a whole lotta Christian/Maya worship going on. This place is a holy site for the Quiché Maya, a big last stand against the conquistadors. The general pattern seemed to be three people- two muttering chanting all rhythmic and quiet, one person shouting singing, loud loud, asking to be washed clean in the sacrificial blood of Christ. Pretty awesome stuff for an Atheist religion enthusiast to be witness to. Fire and smoke also had strong roles, incense piles, candles, small bonfires were to be found all over the place.

One group had an infant child as their focus. Despite the fire and the shouting, this baby just napped in its mother's arms. At first I thought this was some kind of baptism, seeing as how they were splashing hard alcohol on the baby's face (and still it did not cry). It was only after the lead guy started shouting 'GET OUT!' and 'BUUURN!' the women moaning along, did I realize, holy shit, I'm watching an exorcism. Later, Ben and I ran into this group, asked them for directions, they were all smiles and politeness. It was a little unnerving and a lot awesome.

Another serious highlight was the cave. Manmade, claustrophobic, walls turned black from incense and candle smoke, it was the site of a massacre back in the 1500's, people fleeing the conquistadors, who just went in and cut them all down. The narrowness of the cave leads you to believe that 2 people could have killed hundreds. Further, the place feels like something dark and horrible happened here. Mayans in traditional dress bow and mutter before a flame set at the cave's entrance. You walk in, feeble flashlight barely illuminating the black walls, smoke filled air thick and unpleasant to breathe. Paths cut off to the side, turning and twisting and leading to nothing, or in one case, to a pit that drops at least 20 meters straight down. The main path cuts ahead far enough that no daylight can be seen, thinking about the pit you worry about this little flashlight going out. It's a hellufan experience.

Yep, yep, head back to Quiché town, hop on bus to Chiché, almost accidentally went to Chichi, Ben saved the day on that one. Well, uh, Chiché sucked, everyone was mean-mugging us, Gringo-hating, nothing interesting going on in the town. Tried to go for a walk in the country, ended up talking for way too long to some bolos trying to pass out in the street. One highlight of the town- the local TV programming was hilariously bad. Trying to show a movie, it was clear that some guy had no idea how to work a dvd player. On broadcast television, he kept cutting back to the dvd menu, skipping around chapters trying to find the beginning of the movie, fucking with the language options. Classic.

Next day we go to Chinique, huge improvement. Small town we have to ask around at the tiendas before we find a place to stay, no sign no other guests no running water at night hotel. All the rooms have four beds in them, inexplicably, have to ask a number of times to make sure that this is a private room. The proprietress is crazy awesome, she's extremely old, shuffling around rattling her keys, mumbling to herself. We secretly nickname her Gollum, imagine that she's whispering 'precioso' to herself. Comedor up the street is run by another incredibly nice old woman, though she is much more coherent. Grandma type extra tortilla love, good food, gives us a newspaper with our breakfast.

Chinique's strong suit is its hiking. We stayed here an extra night for this reason alone. Maybe also because of awesome comedor lady. But yes, pine forest mountains with unbelievable views, creeks and rivers all over the place. We spent one afternoon hiking this creek, so rock-strewn that we were able to climb and walk straight down the middle of, occasionaly falling off getting soaked. Waterfalls all throughout the thang. One of the best hikes of my life, beautiful, beautiful.

Chinique we said fondly goodbye to, and started hiking out for Cacabal, the next town to the east on our little 10 cent map. We discovered the hilarious habit of rural Guatemalans to wildly underestimate the distance between places, even while acknowledging that the place was far away. 'Oooh, Cacabal, that's a very long walk, 2 kilometers, maybe 3.' Nope, it's at least 15, maybe 20. Fortunately the local public transit system (hitchiking) was very reliable, and we enjoyed some pretty gorgeous back of the pick up truck rides, got a lesson in the Quiché Maya language from one of the other passengers.

Arrived in Cacabal, turned out to be a village of 12 houses. We stopped at the outdoor tienda, drank gloriously cold sodas, and asked if there was anywhere we could get a room for the night. The 14 year old girl looked at us like we were fucking crazy, but said she would call her sister. No dice there. We ask if we can camp in somebody's milpa (corn field). Now she looked at us as though we were both insanse and possibly criminals. She almost shouted No. Well, let's hit the road. Quickly.

Nice walk, nice bus ride to the next town, more of a city. Forgot to write the damn place's name down in my notebook, and y'all know how bad my memory is, so the name is gone, gone. Cool little town, but it rained the whole time, so we mostly just hid in our hotel room. Walking around the next day before heading into Zacoalpa, we meet Carlos, real nice guy, used to live in the states and was happy to see some estadounidense gringos he could practice his fading english on. He gave us a ride over to Zacoalpa. He was going over to set up a BBQ stand for the upcoming fair. We tried to help him out a bit with the construction, but he clearly did not trust gringos to not fuck his little building up. It was all reused lumber, corrugated roofing, tree branches. It was sad and inspiring, some real american dream type shit. He had a lot of plans, a lot he wanted to do. Open up a restaraut, open up a computer school. But he had no start up money. He wanted to hop up to the states again to do some work, raise some money, but its getting harder and harder all the time. He did the usual hey can you help me out with a visa bit and we did the usual man we have no power with the INS. Sorry.

Walked around the fair grounds, hit up the outdoor arcade, played some Tekken 3 (best button mashing game of all time, esp. if you play as Eddie), talked to the guy who runs the place. He travels around from town fair to town fair, the whole year through, running his little arcade. His son travels with him, which seems sweet, but must be a horrible life for the kid. He's clearly not going to school, and picking up on subtle hints made it sound as though his mom had died or dissapeared. There is a shocking amount of violence against women in Guatemala. An absurdity of unresolved murders and dissapearances.

Yep, yep, but still, pretty cool town, a bit more nice walking around. Then on to Huehuetenango, which was pleasant but really nothing to report, and then back to Comalapa. Some general notes from the trip- We noticed that some towns were very indigenous, some very Hispanic. Ben has since done some researched and emailed me the results. Turns out a president in the 19th century wanted to, uh, 'whiten' the country up a bit, so he moved populations around the country creating towns were none existed. His efforts generally failed, and the two groups mostly kept to themselves.

Also, one day at breakfast, I was nervous cause the off duty security guard at the table next had his shotgun in his lap, unintentionally pointed at me. This shit happens all the time. People seem to forget the metal fucking explodes out of one end of those things. Yes, and Ben asked me if I had ever seen a gun shop in Guatemala. And holy shit, no I had not. I have seen hundreds, probably thousands of shotguns and handguns, but never once have I seen a storefront that actually sells them. Jesus. Bit of a black market somewhere.

And yes, said goodbye to everyone at Parque Chimiya, the most heartbreaking goodbye definitely being Fidelia. Fidelia sold us beer. Also, she is our grandother. She runs the tienda just up the street from the park. Old, missing teeth, friendly and gossipy as hell, she really did serve as a third Grandma. I would stop in to buy some things to cook up for lunch, and leave stuffed, apologizing for being unable to eat another helping of whatever she had cooked that day. You cannot refuse this woman's hospitality. She was unbelievably kind and warm to me during my month there, and when I told her I was leaving she burst out crying, telling me it hurt her heart to see me go. I promised her I would come back in a few years, so looks like I'm coming back to Guatemala within the next half decade. Sad to say bye to that woman.

But yes, on to Guate city, just for a day or two, and here I still am a week later, trying to get this damn package which is somewhere, somewhere in this city.

This is a strange place, massive, unsafe at night, cars and wealth everywhere. Wildy different from the rurality (its a word now, damit) I had gotten used to. The billboards alone blow my mind. Many of the higher end products are advertised in english. Skin whitening creas proise to show the world how beautiful you can be (but aren't, cause yer all dark skinned and stuff). The message here is overwhelmingly- to be succesful, be a gringo. It's pretty damn sad. Also there are some hilariously sexist ones. A laundry washer dryer set is sold with the line 'imagine two new sisters in your home.' Get it!? Cause that's woman's work!

Yeah, yeah, time to go, apologies for no pictures and taking so fucking long in between updates. Next time you read this I'll be in Mexico, heading north. See y'all in about 60 days!

A very very long one that is alternately sad happy weird hopefully a bit funny, and finally just violently depressing

2008-07-26T17:42:00.005-05:00

But first! Pedro's owners are back! And they're feeding him!

If you're confused, read the very end of my previous post. Yes but anyways.

No pictures this time out, because I fail, left it in my backpack, will make up for it, a million promises.

Am finally done with working at Parque Chimiya, a week or two having turned into four. What kept me hanging around for this last week was a survey job, going door to door in Simajuleu, a small community 12 k outside Comalapa, this all being done for Engineers Without Borders so they can install a proper water system. At the moment taps only run every three days, which is, I think, a pretty crappy situation.

I should only be allowed an average one comma per sentence. Shit is out of control.

Yes, but let me rein in the ADD and tell a story before I talk about Simajuleu (which I am probably misspelling).

I went into Comalapa's cemetary to check it out a bit, had been told that it is much safer than they usually are down in Guatemala. On the side, who would think of graveyards as hotspots for armed robbery? But yes, go in, dig the groovy colors, am touched by the no money attempts to honor loved dead (plastic soda bottles painted with the tops cut off to hold flowers), wander around, decide to leave. Walking back to the entrance exit, my path is blocked by two Guatemalan dudes who could best be described as short and mean lookin'. Well fuck, I'm gonna get robbed. But no, they just wanna talk. So happens the grave they're standing next to belongs to a Comalapan politician who refused to be tough talked out of his proposed reform, so he got a few bullets for his integrity. We talk for an hour or so about corruption, international politics, the inevitable can you get me a job in the states, women, so on. Real cool conversation. In a cemetery. But it's getting dark and we decide that it's time for us all to go our different ways, head to the front, and the gate is padlocked shut. We're locked in. Whoever has the key is long gone.

We cannot just hop over the front gate, for reasons of shame alone, so we laughing head to the back. It's four feet up and nine feet down. I channel my 12 year old fence hopping self and jump over easily. These two guys (Miguel and Lionel) look reeeeally impressed, despite the fact that it is not a real impressive feat. But then they try. Now there's no real way to verbally communicate a visual gag. Charlie Chaplin's screen plays would never make you laugh. So y'all are just going to have to trust me that these fellas hanging on to the top of a stucco wall, scraping their feet like riders on invisible bicycles against the wall, cursing each other's mothers in crazy foul language, scared as hell to hop the last few feet, was unbelievable hilarious amazing. I died laughing.

After they finally came down and I came back to life, they demanded I let them buy me a drink. Apparently our shared cemetary escape had bonded us as best friends, and we needed to celebrate. I try to shake them off, my traveler's paranoia is kicking in even though they just had all the opportunity in the world to rob me. I make up an excuse, but they're not buying it. Just one drink, they insist. I have to give in. Refusing the hospitality of a Guatemalteco is a task Hercules would fail at. So they lead me off into the Comalapan near-night, me wondering what kind of bar is in this ghetto ass neighborhood they seem to be taking me to.

It is definitely not a bar. It is closer to an opium den. This is where the homeless alcoholics come to get their fix: a barely lit courtyard with Bolos (local term for street drunks) draped like rugs on the cement stairs and benches, and the sober proprietress doling out cupfuls of Koosha from a huge plastic bucket at 15 cents a cupful. My new friends hand me a glass of this foul moonshine, smiling. We say salud, clink the plastic cups together, and they toss back this three to four shots worth as though glass only held one. Well shit, I think, when in Guatemala, and start to pound. NO NONO they shout, they've been doing this for years, they say. Ah, my response, you're professionals. This is hilarious and offensive to them. So I start sipping, and the Bolos start trying to crowd in on me, so fucked up they're talking to me in Kaqchikel instead of Spanish. My buddies elbow them away, like he's with me. The woman in charge starts hissing in Kaqchikel to get the gringo out of here, he's causing a scene, my friends are telling me not to worry about it, take my time with the hooch. So I try to drink as quickly as possible while looking like I'm drinking slowly and most of all trying not to smell this foul shit I'm putting in my body.

Get outta there and Miguel and Lionel decide they need to see me home safely, making a mockery of my earlier worries that they would rob me. They ask me why I'm down here, and I mention amongst other things that I am writing a blog. I try to explain that it is just for my friends and family, but they are having none of it, I have the ear of the US public, and they are going to make sure I live up to that responsibility. They deliver this great harangue, both comic and inspiring, talking all over each other, demanding that I tell the American people the truth about Guatemala, me promising yes, yes I will.

But yes, on to Semajuleu and the water survey. First day out, we all pile into the back of the apparently no shocks pick up truck for a violent and beautiful early morning ride. I'm almost glad I wasn't rocking my camera, I am nowhere near enough photographer to do those views justice. It is clear in the morning, and from up on these mountains we can see row of hills after row of hills creating individual beautiful verdant valleys. In one direction we can see a huge volcano with clouds crowning the top like Mount Olympus. The further away one looks the more it all appears to be a perfect oil painting. This all in sharp contrast to the fucked up rutted potholed dirt road that sends us up into the air, bruising our asses as we hit our 'seats' again.

And we get to Semajuleu. Roll into the town hall slash market slash school. Chairs are set up and we sit in them, along with a local contingent. Speeches are to come, but first, the national anthem. Now I rarely stand for my own anthem, but there's no way in hell I'm going to disrespect these red carpet rolling out folks, so I stand and put my hand on my heart and try to rock a facial expression that shows recognition of the gravity of the scene. And they start singing. Two minutes later they're still singing. I'm kinda surprised most of these type a songs are pretty short. Two more minutes and I start finding it funny, cept I can't laugh, which makes it even funnier. When the song finally ends near (no joke) the eight minute mark, I am considering faking a coughing fit to cover up my laughter.

After some impassioned speech making on the part of the Guatemalans, and a pudlle of nervous stuttering on the part of the lead engineer, they serve us rum and coke (it's about 8 in the morning), break us into groups, and assign us guides. My friend Greg, who I'm paired with, is not real strong in the Spanish department, so I'm to do the interviewing. First house and the situation is already horrible, not because of my linguistic abilities, but because of everything else. There are no adults at this house, just a dirt smudged three year old kid, shy and small on his dirt floor, who my guide tells me I am supposed to be interviewing. I feel ridiculous, but I work my way through, this shy kid telling me how poor he is in response, and we get to the last, really stupid fucking question: If you could make one change in your lifestyle to improve your life, what would it be? This kid is living in a one room shack, his parents can't afford to have him taken care of while they work so he's home alone, their stove has no chimney so the odds are shockingly good that he will get a respiratory illness if he doesn't already have one, and school is not offered beyond 13 years of age in this area. So whaddaya think, child, what would the one change be? Jesus.

He thinks, umming, and then concludes 'I want a real floor.' My heart breaks.

My guide speaks to him rapidly in Kaqchikel, and then the kid says no wait, I meant water and drainage. Sure, sure.

The coaching pattern continues for the rest of the day, as I ask embarassing questions, mostly of women, forcing them to reveal their poverty, show us their awful little outhouses, tell us that they never went to school beyond the second grade. The guides make sure everyone stresses the importance of water and drainage. I feel awful. The view is much less inspiring on the pickup ride back.

Next day I don't go out, run some errands, but the day after that I talk to Matteo, the fella in charge of my organization, ask if I can go with him, find out how better to do this. Much better this time, partially cause Matteo thoroughly explains why we're conducting the survey, gives treats to the kids, is generally pretty charming, but largely because of his local guide, Rolando. Rolando is the big man in town, real nice guy, crazy impressive person. His father was assasinated by the army for community organizing during the civil war, and Rolando has stepped right into his shoes. He also runs a farm and has gone completely organic, mostly so that he can show his compañeros how to do it.

After we finish up a chunk of surveys (including the saddest story ever, which I will get to later) we go visit Rolando's farm. He proudly says 'this is my land' while we eat blackberries off the vine. I won't go into it to much, I'm sure y'all aren't into agriculture like I am, but he was planting complimentary plants next to each other, setting up wind breaks with fruit trees, practicing really solid soil coservation, growing nitrogen fixing crops, I'm boring the hell out of you and I'll stop.

Then we visit some natural hot springs. Matteo takes a dip while I laze in the sun and do some writing. This is followed by a visit to Rolando's buddy, the local bootlegger. He makes a really high quality version of the koosha I drank in my cemetary adventure. The two drinks were worlds apart, this stuff was tasty and weird and wonderful. The bootlegger wears a dirty tank top, sits in a hammock surrounded by loving children, and looks out at a view that if it existed in the Bay Area would cost millions. He went up to the states, worked construction in New Jersey, said fuck it, and came back to this wildly superior life.

This was a hellofa day.

Okay this has gone on absurdly long, let me tell you the depressing story of that last survey and get out of this internet cafe.

Teenaged girl, seventeen years old, living in a one room house with her infant child, no running water and no kitchen. Speaking, she was melancholy personified. We knew something was wrong, and Rolando told us her story on the way to his farm.

Her brother went to the states about half a decade back to find work. He had no money so he had to promise the coyote a much larger amount than normal, payable in installments upon his arrival. Trouble hits. He can't lay off the sauce and loses his job. His drinking gets worse and he can't find a new employer. He gets picked up by the cops for something or other, spends a few months in jail, and gets deported back to Guatemala, his 7500 dollar debt unpaid. Now that is a hellofa lot of money to pay to get a one way ticket to the states, but it is a shamefully low price to have to sell your 14 year old sister for. This is the girl we interviewed, the mistress of the coyote. The coyote lives about 6 miles away with his wife and family, she lives in this one room shack in the same deeply religious small town as her family, who are powerless to change the situation. It was the coyote's child that she held in her arms while we talked to her. Her brother, the child's uncle, lives just down the road.

Playing with dirt in San Juan Comalapa

2008-07-12T17:53:00.026-05:00

This oh this yes this is my lovely home in Comalapa. What it lacks in square footage and amenities it definitely makes up for in location. It has one hell of a view. Here's another picture of the view, cause I love it so much (right click for bigger version)-

I'm working at P---, a park, garden, reforestation project, and school-to-be. My work is largely dirt-based. I shovel it, pile it, mix it with other kinds of dirt to achieve a good dirt consistency, I pound it into tires to make walls, I mix it with sawdust and other such and coat those same walls to form a hippy kind of stucco, and mostly I unintentionally cover myself and my clothing in it. I've been rocking a Pigpen from Peanuts look these past two weeks.

I've been wanting to see the rural/agricultural side of Guatemala, and this is pretty definitely it. And it's fucking great. I'm living just outside of San Juan Comalapa, somewhat in the village (aldea) of Cojol. The surrounding countryside is silly beautiful. It's one part lush agricultural fields, one part forest, and one part the Shire from the Lord of the Rings. I never really understood the cliche 'gently sloping hills' until now.

When I walk to the store to by my eggs in the morning, I meet men on horseback driving cattle to pasture, they always greet me with a smiling 'buenos dias.' It's all kinds of pleasant.

Oh but there is some real damn darkness here. Comalapa was the sight of some serious atrocities during Guatemala's civil war. Two long walls leading into town show murals of the town's recent past. Helicopters strafe villages. Soldiers execute unarmed citizens. Mothers Fathers Children weep for what they have lost.

Just outside of town, anonymous behind a blank black wall, is a mass grave.

And while most of the people I meet are cheery as hell, I also see broken broken men and women. Men, alcoholics, sleeping in uncomfortable positions half on and half off the sidewalk in the middle of the day. They drink the local moonshine, fouler even than Quetzalteca. Women, shoeless, shuffling along dirt roads, their eyes focused not any object, but some point way off. One of these women approached me on my first walk into town, teeth yellow and brown, dry spit built up on the corners of her mouth. She stuck out the palm of her hand, and burst out in tears, moaning out broken Spanish and incomprehensible Kakchiquel.

I put a few Quetzals in her hand and hurried away, feeling guilty and feeling unsure why. All I knew was that I wanted the folks who had worked in my government, the people, hell, the presidents who had supported the Guatemalan army while it was committing these atrocities to come face to face with this woman, hand her those same few quetzals, and see if it eases their conscience any.

Well, shit, this post got dark real quick. Everything else I got to say is gonna seem real cheap in comparison, but let's go anyways.

This is the road into Comalapa. Note the ten thousand potholes. Now imagine that shit when it rains, the ability of these holes to hold water and turn this whole mother into muck is amazing. A lot of money was given to municipal governments at the end of the war to rebuild areas hit hardest, but there is so much ignorance of these programs, and so much corruption by city officials, that badly needed repairs just never happen.

Further along on the road to Comalapa. I just really like old falling down churches, I think they pretty. On the right you can see a bit of the previously mentioned murals.

This is Suzie, a street dog adopted by Matteo, the gent that runs this organization.

This bull, who I have named Daisy, is my nearest neighbor. An elderly Guatemalan man who Matteo hired to maintain the park keeps him on the property. Daisy is as sweet as hell, and never makes a fuss.

Daisy stands in sharp contrast to the three chickens my fellow volunteer Greg bought. I have named them Shut the Fuck Up, I Hate You, and Fried Chicken. You know that cartoon image of the rooster that hops up on the fence post at dawn, does the cock a doodle doo thing once, and then quietly walks away? That's a goddamned lie. These things never ever shut up, screaming like victims of unspeakable cruelty at all hours of the night and day.

Oh god. This is Pedro, the saddest damn thing you've ever seen in your life. His owners moved away about a month ago, leaving him to fend for himself on them cold Comalapa streets. You see that front leg, all tucked under? He's not mid-stride, his leg is just really fucked up. And instead of hopping along like a regular three legged dog, he bobs up and down, trying to walk on it. He makes me think of a street urchin with a peg leg, smiling asking if he can shine your shoes for a penny.

Chimiya has already adopted a small army of dogs, they can't take anymore, and as a result, when Pedro comes hobbling out of the bushes with the saddest little eyes, tail wagging hopefully, we are forbidden to feed it or show it any love. And it breaks our fucking hearts. Even the other dogs in Chimiya, who will loudly or even violently chase away other street dogs, show obvious pity for Pedro, and just try to pretend like he's not there, maybe hoping he'll go away so we can all not feel so bad for the fella, get back to enjoying ourselves.

A few landscape shots so we can all try to forget poor Pedro-

This is Adam, resident dirt expert. He's the construction guru who is supervising the construction of the rammed earth buildings. For these type of buildings, you need just the right kind of dirt for the walls, different stuff for the floors, the foundation, etc. So he is constantly playing with the stuff, throwing it and seeing how it falls, getting it wet and rolling it into balls or little snakes, breaking it apart again. I have never seen anyone contemplate mud so seriously. There's not even any competition in the category. He also speaks with the softest voice you've ever heard. Trying to get your attention across a noisy job site, he won't yell, he'll just cup his hands around his mouth as though he were, and then talk in a voice barely above a whisper. Hellofa nice guy, he's been living and working down here for years, starting in the Peace Corps. The construction of the school is under his care.

Oh and by the way. When the property for the school was bought, local tradition was followed, and four chickens were sacrificed, one on each corner. And they weren't killed nice, neither. Their necks weren't broken, or slit, or chopped clean in half. They had their heads sawed off with fucking machetes. Jesus.

I leave you with that thought, and a picture of the nearby natural spring I took while on a walk yesterday.

Love and miss you all. After this week, I'm going to the Atlantic coast of Guatemala, hopefully to work as a bartender at Hotel Backpackers. You know, for a good cause or something.

Chichi, Pana, adios a Xela

2008-06-24T15:12:00.002-05:00

Left Xela about a week ago. It was very weird packing up my room into my little backpack, saying goodbye to my three-week home. Xela is a hell of a town, I'll be coming back some day.

A few random Xela memories-

Down the street from my hostel was the randomest stone bridge crossing over an intersection. My theory is that it was built by some optimistic city designer for traffic that never came to that sleepy bit of town. One night, after drinking rum and coke with a friend, I walk up on to the bridge to look out at Xela, listen to music, feel nostalgic about home. But not all of my music is slow sentimental business. Some of it has some funk, some rhythm to it. And without thinking about it, without really realizing what I'm doing, I am fucking dancing on this bridge. I mean, I'm getting down, son. The song ends, I look up, and there's a guy on the bridge with me, smiling. I bust out laughing from embarrasment, turn bright red for the same reason. He laughs too. He's a young Guatemalan dude, gelled up hair. He sighs 'ah, bueno,' and he's kinda gesturing at my, er, uh, my junk. I'm confused. After a bit of weird conversation, it turns out that dancing on this bridge is kinda like that congressman tap dancing on the bathroom floor, a gay hookup signal. When he realizes that I am not interested in him going down on me, he gets kinda angry, switches from Spanish to broken, frustrated English: 'Why you dance up here then?!' Me: 'Uh, I like music?'

One morning, eating breakfast in the kitchen, a board from the ceiling fell directly onto my bowl of cereal soaking me in milk, dirt, and fruity-o's. That was a shitty start to the day.

One night, I was at my favorite little cantina, La Roca Negra, nursing a beer and writing in my travel journal. This is a cool little spot, the elderly bartender owns the place, lives in the back, he's mostly blind and tells vulgar, vulgar jokes. There are two alcoholics asleep on one of the tables, but beyond them and the bartender, I've got the place to myself, until these two fellas walk in. They're drunk, clearly, but they're smiling, in good spirits, seem like good guys. A skinny guy in a sweater, and a brick wall in an Oakland Raiders' shirt. They immediately sit down at the table with me, marking me as a soft touch, a gringo who might buy them drinks. They see that I'm writing, and declare that I must clearly be a great poet. No, I try to explain, I don't really write poetry, but they're having none of my protests. I'm a figure for the ages. They go on in this way for a bit, before asking me to buy them some queztalteca, a strong cheap ugly drink that no one relishes for the flavor. I decide their performance was worth the buck and a half it
costs, so I say sure, I got you. Grinning, the Raiders fan goes up to the bartender, who being mostly blind hadn't recognized him until he came up close, but now looks kinda panicked. He refuses to sell him any booze, saying that this a 'tranquilo' place, and that he doesn't want any problems. After a bit of hushed conversation, Raiders fan decides it's not worth it to press his luck, and comes back to me to ask me for money instead. I've picked up on the bartender's vibe, so I feel it's best to politely refuse. He smiles, says of course, the great poet needs his money, not sarcastic at all, he even bows to me on his way out the door with skinny sweater guy. The bartender comes over and tells me that Raiders fan is a local celebrity, he recently beat a man to death with his fists, over a joke. Apparently someone made the mistake of calling him fat. Jesus, I say, didn't the police do anything? The bartender raises an eyebrow, asks me if I want to be the one to tell them.

Yep, yep, Xela was weird, but a lot of fun. Lounging out in the Parque Central on sunny days, eating churrasquitos in the open air market, singing 'We Are the Champions' with a bunch of Guatemalantecos, who were, for some reason, die-hard Boston Celtics fans. But three weeks was well long enough, and I hit the road for Chichicastenango.

But of course, nobody calls it by its full name. They say Chichi, like they say Xela instead of Quetzaltenango, Guate instead of Ciudad de Guatemala, Huehue instead of Huehuetenango, and so on.

Chichi is a market town, and it gets massive on Thursdays and Sundays. I came in late on Thursday, the beams of empty stalls all throughout the main plaza made me think of the skeleton of some giant ancient beast. I checked into my hotel, and was given a variety of empty rooms to choose from. I went with the room on the top floor that had a view of the awesome technicolor cemetary. The tombs down here are madness, man.

The next day I went to the Museo Regional, which had a small but cool exhibit on the Quiche Maya, from Pre-classic sculpture all the way through modern textiles (which rule, by the way, I want one of these gold and orange blankets very badly). Honestly, the highlight of the day was my discovery of the word poli-lobular, describing some pottery. This is clearly the best word ever. Say it out loud, and try not to smile from the sheer joy of speaking such awesome syllables (polly-lob-you-lur).

I ate at one of the comedors in the little bit of the permanent market, a fantastic veggie soup. Also, strangely enough, I had corn cider, called Pinole, which was warm and sweet and delicious. It was during this meal thatI vowed never to eat in a restaurant when I had access to an open air food stall.

On Saturday, the following day, I went on a long walk, checked out some of the naturaleza. Chichi is set up in the highlands of Guatemala, and it is dramatic country, consisting of mountains, ravines, cliffs, and canyons, all of it green and growing. Cornfields are set up on plateaus, sheer drops more than football field long, and the farmers plough them right to the edge. Tragically, the municipal dump seems to consist of random stretches of mountainside, marring paradise.

When I got back into town, I went into the church, about which I had heard some pretty awesome things. It's an example of the Catholic church approving of the oppressed locals following their old religion, as long as the names are changed and a cross is involved. My guidebook has a local story featuring the two Jesus brothers getting into an argument, with older Jesus killing the younger, forcing Mary to punish him by turning him into the sun. Awesome.

A large pile of incense was burning on the front steps. I went in through the side entrance, where a wisecracking middle aged man sold candles and holy books in a variety of languages. Inside, the church is very dark, all of the paintings of icons have been turned near black from smoke. There are photocopied signs advertising the Church's priest: 'Padre Axel, an example of humility.' There are very few pews, and they seem to be designed to make kneeling prayer as painful as possible. I sit down, and watch the faithful walk on their knees, muttering prayer, from midway through the church to the front, many of them doing this repeatedly. In the center aisle, low wooden platforms are set up. A man comes in with a plastic bag and kneels before one of these. He makes a square of four lit candles, and fills the square with flower petals. All this time he's muttering, his eyes barely open. He then pulls out a small bottle of Quetzalteca, the cheap booze I mentioned earlier. This he splashes at his offering of flame and flowers as though it were holy water. He repeats this process on another platform, before knee-walking up to the front of the church, to splash the hooch on a statue of Jesus, and one of Mary. His religious fervor, written all over his face, strikes me as both crazy and rad as hell.

Eat read sleep.

Sunday is one of the two major market days. It was madness. I thought the market would just take over the plaza, which would make it large enough, but it consumed the entire city. Every blank piece of sidewalk saw a stall built over it. And all of a sudden, this place was fucking packed with tourists, most of them doing unconvincing walking away acts to try and get a better price for a mask or a pot holder or some such. It took me a while to find a way through all the madness to the food stalls in the center of the square, but good god it was rewarding. Yes, yes, hyperbole, I know, but I cannot believe that I have ever eaten better fried chicken than I did that day. Giant, moist as hell, crunchy skin, perfect. Worth going to Chichi for that meal alone.

After wandering about the market for quite a bit, I boarded a chicken bus for Panajachel, which of course gets shortened to the name Pana. Pana is on Lake Atitlan, and I had been there briefly while fleeing the madness of San Pedro, but it seemed worth a second look. Besides, it's always worthwile going to Atitlan just to look at the gorgeousness. It was not a good idea to get on a bus leaving Chichi on a market day. The thing was packed to the point of absurdity. Fortunately, the crowd thinned quite a bit at Solola, so I was able to enjoy an unbelievably beautiful ride. The road switched back and forth down a mountain, always leaving the massive volcano and its reflection in the lake open for view. It was a sunny day, clear skies. I counted 7 series of waterfalls appearing suddenly by the roadside, spraying out of the forest. I could ride that bus every damn day for the rest of my life.

Got into town, which was hot and sweaty, but full of happy hippy energy. I ducked into Mukta'b, a restaurant set in a garden courtyard with a thatched roof bar, a large brick wood-burning pizza oven, and a thousand tv's all set on the Spain/Italy soccer match. I grinned. My kind of place. After a good meal and a lot of groaning and jubilant shouting from the fanatics all around me, Spain won on penalty kicks and I walked back into the street. I walked out of town, across a bridge, and out to my camp site run by an old Texan hippy by the name of Michael.

Holy shit, the crazy comes fast and unceasing from this man. He's going to predict your future, make guesses about your past, inform you that aliens obviously built the Egyptian pyramids and that they're coming back in 2012 (maybe 2013), let you in on his numerology theories, talk about electro-magnetic auras (which he can see), and end most of his sentences with a loud 'OR... NOT!' and smile contentedly with his zen lunacy. He had been rambling at me for almost an hour when he leaned in and let me know that he was a little psychic, and asked me what my biggest strength was. I said 'patience,' before realizing that maybe that was a bit too mean of a joke, but fortunately he didn't get it, he just went off again talking about the wonders of patience. I smiled.

Michael has been living in Guatemala for a bit over two decades, running his little camp site, and renting out rooms to other old hippies fleeing Babylon. He had a stroke recently, and his wild view of the world is a real comfort to him as he approaches his time to go. He 'knows' that he is just going to move onto a higher consciousness, somewhere out in the cosmos. During one monologue about the ugliness of the world, one could infer easily that he had dealt with some serious depression, some suicidal thoughts.

'And I asked my flowers (gesturing at some tropical plants), why do you keep coming back every year? This is such an ugly place, why do you keep coming back? And they said to me, Michael, that's for us to decide. What's important is that you don't give up! You don't go anywhere until we stop coming back! When we decide this world is too bad, then you can give up. But not until then! Not until then, Michael!'

After that he leaned back in his chair a bit, looking exhausted and happy and sad. I was touched by his savage performance. I do hope he finds some measure of peace.

Yes, yes, and anyways. Tomorrow or the next day I begin a 2-3 week stretch of volunteering at Long Way Home, a non-profit in the small town of San Juan Comalapa, near Chimaltenango. They do all sorts a good thangs, reforestation, teaching kids, distributing drinkable water, so on and what not. I'm pretty pumped to work with them, even though I will probably just be doing grunt work on account of my short stay.

Wow, I make a lot of tense errors. Yes, but, oh well. Love you all, miss you all very much.

Xela rules, as does travelling

2008-06-10T14:07:00.003-05:00

That being said, rain is pretty lame, and it is definitely the rainy season in Central America. It has rained at least once every day for almost three weeks. And I still haven't bought an umbrella.

I check the tropical storm advisories online, and find myself routinely dissapointed. Why I would want to have to hustle the hell away from a hurricane, I do not know. No hurricanes, but it is predicting that the once a day rain will continue to June 19th, where it stops making predictions. Meh, small price to pay for paradise.

I just finished up a week of Spanish lessons, five hours a day, one on one tutoring. My brain still pains me. I've had lecture classes last almost that long, where one can space out for a second or two, but good lord, five hours has never lasted so long. However, very glad I did it, a linguistic tune up, now all my pors and paras are in the right places.

And my Spanish teacher, by the name of Gabi, got me hip to the Bakeshop. (Hyperblole coming) These Mennonites make the best damn cookies and breads of all time ever. EVER. And the traveller that stole the last of my peanut butter cookies will surely burn forever in the white hot flames of hell. Yes, anyways.

Xela is the friendliest city on earth. Guatemala in general is crazy out of the way nice, but Xela is tops in the category. You remember high school, where most people didn't want fuck all to do with you unless you were already a part of their group of friends? Okay, now picture the total opposite, a city full of people eager to make new friends, and introduce them to the friends they already have. That city is Xela.

Xela also has, to its further credit, a great guitar slinger folk music scene. They refer to their particular brand as Trova. A block away from my little room is La Fonda del Che, a cool little cramped live music spot specializing in Trova. The owner operator plays on Friday nights, and is supposed to be something special, but I keep missing him. I can, however, safely surmise that this guy is pretty into Mr. Guevara. Apart from the name of his cantina, there are 31 (I counted) images of Che on the four walls of this tiny place, ranging from small photos to three huge black and white murals, a flag, Cuban currency bearing his image, etc. Just about the only thing on those blue walls besides Che is an excerpt from a poem by Antonio Machado-

Caminante
No hay camino
Se hace el camino al andar

In english, my poor translation would read as

Walk
There is no road
The road is made by walking

I like this very much, very much, yes. It makes me very happy to be on the road, to have this ridiculous privilege. My life is full to bursting at the monment, and I like that very much, yes.

However, extremely however, I would not reccomend independent travel for everybody. It is a weird personality that can enjoy this sort of thing for more than a brief period. You need to find uncomfortable situations hilarious, otherwise you will feel uncomfortable very often. You need to be a strange mix, a gregarious introvert, otherwise you will become very lonely indeed. And patience, oh lord patience is needed. If I drove, if I hadn't spent way too much of the past decade waiting for VTA's slow ass buses, or waiting on their slow ass buses, I would have become a raging asshole on the road. And I have seen other travellers fall apart, throw their backpacks, act real rude to a mesero who is completely not responsible for the food taking so long, bitch at bus station ticket vendors who have no control over the bus being so late.

And be REAL wary of travelling with significant others, that shit falls apart on the road.

Again, again, all that being said, if you can handle these slight frustrations, can laugh at mildly tough stuff, do it baby, do it. Get on a boat bus plane bicycle, head east north south or west.

I've only been gone two months and I've seen waves running sideways smashing into each other, throwing spray straight up, and I saw it from a hammock on the porch of my beach front hut in Mazunte, on the Oaxacan coast of Mexico.

I've eaten the best chocolate cake in the whole damn world, and I bought it from a Mayan woman balancing a basketful of the stuff on her head. It was around midnight and I was playing poker with some new friends in San Pedro la Laguna. I watched her go out with her basket, took a bite, looked to my left, to the lake at night, and thought about what a rough life she must have, to be selling cake to drunken gringoes in the middle of the night, and then I felt spoiled and a bit guilty, but the cake was good and the lake was beautiful and the other card players were bitching at me to take my turn and I felt very happy.

I once awoke on a bus trip to possibly the most beautiful sight of my life. The bus was weaving around the top of a very tall mountain range, and the clouds were incredibly low. When I fell asleep it had been a gloomy overcast day, but now we were above the cloud cover, looking at the sunlight bouncing back up off of it, at the verdant peaks poking out of the fluffy white.

I've jumped over humongous puddles that have grown in old cobble stone streets.

I've gone late night warm water lake swimming with Polish archeologists.

I've haggled over taco prices at a street stall, and then gone back and given the original inflated asking price because I had been unaware tacos could be half that good.

I've met mimes and musicians, a half arab half jew autistic/aspergers child genius who had recieved his doctorate in mathematics from MIT at 18, a group of Swedish MMA practitioners, sad drunken alcoholic shells, doctors doing unbelievable good work, missionaries doing questionable work, teenaged kids drinking Quetzalteca at a terrifying rate, well-intentioned coke fiends, a kind dutchman who gave up a succesful life to open a hostel in Guatemala, a charming French college kid who picked Mexico to do his course work in because none of his professors spoke Spanish and would therefore be unable to check his work, a Scotsman who decided to open up a pub thousands of miles from home, a million proud and friendly small restaurant proprietors, drunk assholes, sober sweethearts, yeah, so on, and I can't wait to meet the rest of the world. I really can't.

Yes, yes, if you decide to travel, no matter what you do, do not steal somebody else's peanut butter cookies. That shit is unforgivable.

It's a rainy day super self indulgent post!

2008-05-31T16:21:00.004-05:00

Yep, this is me being a total pretentious ass.

You see, I have come up with the best travel playlist of all time ever. My ebook reader plays mp3s, but it has a very small memory, I'm limited to about thirty songs, so I've had to come up with a group of songs that I would want to listen to over and over again. And I have. And for some reason, maybe because I've got a lot of energy and it's raining like mad so I feel the need to take it out on a keyboard, I'm going to share it with you all. I apologize if you were expecting something more interesting. Or less boring and long.

Because of the shitty u.i. on my ebook reader, I can't choose the order of my songs, they go in alphabetical order, and I don't know how to change the name of the songs without iTunes. Yep, yep, here we go-

Alone Again Or
by Love

'' I heard a funny thing/ Somebody said to me/ You know that I could be in love/ With almost everyone/ I think that people are the greatest fun.''

I was introduced to this band, this album, this song by a young fella when I was at school in Ohio. He was a pseudo- neo-hippie, hitchiking across the states, crashing in the common area of my dorm. We stayed up late playing music for each other and drinking wine. Good guy, good memory, unbelievable amazing song.

Can I Kick It?
by A Tribe Called Quest

''Can I kick it? Yes you can! Well I'm gon'. Go on then!''

I will never get sick of listening to Q-Tip rapping, especially not with this beat. It's laid back, and samples the bass line from Lou Reed's 'Walk on the Wild Side.' It was watching the video for this song that I fell in love with ATCQ, about a year or two ago. It's ridiculous that it took me til my 20's to get hip to this group, but it is a pretty exciting reminder that there is so much more great music waiting for me to discover.

Cherry
by Ratatat

(instrumental)

Beautiful, beautiful song. Solid album. They're coming out with a new one that I have on good authority is really 'ill.' It took me a while to appreciate this song, I would skip over it for the more up tempo tracks. It wasn't until I was listening to all music shuffle on my ipod on a late night drunk bicycle ride that this song just destroyed me. I stopped, got off the bike, lay down on a stranger's lawn, and stared up at the sky. The guitar and whatever the hell makes that pretty squeaky noise dropped out for a few bars, and when they kicked back in, at double their previous energy and intensity, my muscles tightened up, I felt a warmth flow through my veins like heroine users describe, and the aesthetic of this one song made the whole world more beautiful. My face hurt from smiling. Some folks would call this experience 'the Sublime.'

Doo Rags
by Nas

''The drinkers stay drinkin'/ or puffin' they herb/ and I'm still enjoyin life's ride/ one mo' time.''

Sometimes I feel like this is the soft rock equivalent of rap, the light piano on the beat, but mostly I don't care. This is a great laid back hip hop track, smile on your face guaranteed. And Nas is Nas, deservedly a living legend.

Forest Whitiker
by Brother Ali

''If you would please turn in your bible, to beauty tips according to Forrest Whitaker, in the third chapter of the third verse. Brother Ali, would you please read to the choir...''

I don't think I'm a real good lookin' guy, but at the same time I don't get real upset about it. I cite the title of my blog as evidence that I don't have a lot of self esteem issues. If I did, this song would probably be life changing. As it is, this is just a crazy infectious happy track, a wonderful thing to hear, this one inevitably goes on if I start feeling lonely blue on my solo travels.

Grey Ice Water
by Sun Kil Moon

''Got yourself a crazy lover/ become unfrozen/ trying hard to forget her.''

This is just a real pretty song, excellent cover. The futility of escape. Sad, beautiful, makes me wonder what the hell I'm doing down here.

Hateful
by The Clash

''What you got/ I need it oh so badly.''

Excellent follow up to the slow melancholy of the previous song. Bouncy, pep for real, flash back to my teenage 'punk' years. I was starting to fall off on the Clash, but I'm coming back around again. London Calling is just a perfect album.

The House that Jack Built
by Aretha Franklin

''This is the house that Jack built, y'all!''

Damn, this woman could BELT. The plot of the song, she plays with the heart of an honest man, who leaves her, which is a funny lead-in to...

I Never Loved a Man (The Way that I Love You)
by Aretha Franklin

...A song about an honest woman who is being played something awful by a cruel man, and is unable to leave. Both really solid, classic tracks.

Juicy
by The Notorious B.I.G.

''It was all a dream/ I used to read Word Up magazine/ Salt n Pepper and Heavy D up in the limousine''

If this song doesn't make you happy, you are dead inside. If you can't rap along for the entire song, you are either over 27 or are dead inside. Best, most joyous, hip hop song ever recorded. When I was in Mexico City, before I got my ebook reader working, I was feeling pretty shit one night. I called my sister, Miara, and had her put the phone next to her speakers while she played this song. I was restored, blissful, ready to go. You can't not love this song. Unless, of course, you're dead inside. This track almost makes up for P. Diddy's musical crimes, if only he didn't 'ungh, yeah,' and mutter all over the background.

Laugh, Love, Fuck (And Drink Liquor)
by The Coup

''Quarter century later/ I'm still not sleepin'/ If I'm not involved I feel I ain't breathin'.''

And the happy hip hop train keeps rolling. This song gets bonus points for doing the old cheap intellectual leftist male trick of convincing a woman that drinking and sleeping with a fella are somehow going to 'make the revolution come quicker,' which is horrible and hilarious. I've seen it attempted a million times, and succeed all too often. Also, this beat is funky and wonderful.

Let's Stay Together
by Al Greene

''Lovin' you forever/ Is all I need.''

Not much to say, 'cept this may be the best R&B track ever. God bless Quentin Tarantino for introducing me to Mr. Greene in my early teenage years.

The Letter
by The Box Tops

''I don't care how much money I gotta spend/ I gotta get back to my baby again/ Lonely days are gone/ I'ma going home/ My baby just wrote me a letter.''

Another song that on occasion makes me wonder why the hell I'm down here. Would be sad if not for the memory built in to it. I discovered this song while on vacation with John Collins and his family. A hellofa good time. Running from The Bomb, rolling down hills, battling non-existent mosquitoes, contemplating our impending doom from tsunami... Hellofa good time.

Mississippi Goddamn!
by Nina Simone

''You don't have to live next to me/ Just give me my equality!''

One of the angriest songs ever recorded. Ms. Simone wrote this after the murder of four little girls in Mississippi, and the entire state deciding not to give a shit. This woman sings with unbelievable passion and rage. Unfortunately, I have the studio version, the live one is much much better. If anyone emailed me the live version I would be in their debt fu'ever.

Little Red Book
by Love

''I took out every pretty girl in town/ They danced with me/ And as I held them/ All I did was talk about ya!''

Classic angry take me back break up song. God bless that smelly hitchiker for introducing me to this band. I don't know why their self titled album isn't much more famous, it's one of the classics of the 60's.

Ooh Child (Things are Gonna Get Easier)
by The Five Stairsteps

''Someday, yeah/ We'll put it together and we'll get it undone''

No joke, this song, intended to make black Americans more optimisitic about their plight, I use as a pick-up when my cushy little white boy travels get kinda rough. I'm a terrible person.

Peach, Plum, Pear
by Joanna Newsom

''This is unlike the story/ It was written to be.''

I have always been attracted to great songwriters with really weird voices. And god, Joanna Newsom has a weird weird wonderful voice. And what the hell is she playing in this song? A harpsichord? And what's with the chorus of children? Fuck it, this song is amazing. I could listen to it once or twice a day for the rest of my life.

The Purple Bottle
by Animal Collective

''I got a big big big heart beat/ And I think you are the sweetest thing''
''I think we are the right age/ To start our own peculiar ways''
''I like it when I bump you/ Accidents are truthgates''
''Sometimes I'm naked/ And thank god/ Sometimes you're naked/ Can I tell you that you are the purple in me?''

I put in all the extra quotes because I fucking love the lyrics to this song, maybe my favorite love song ever, and I'm pretty dam emo. I know my love songs. The Animal Collective always did cool wonderful things with drums and howling, and on this album, they decided to do the same for words. The song meanders a bit towards the mid to end, with references to the William Tell Overture, and then later a bit of screaming, but damn I love it all anyways.

Soulful
by Kanye West

''I am a sinner slash winner slash soul inventor''

He doesn't lie. He brings some real soul. I love it. Hellofa producer.

Staring at the Sun
by TV on the Radio

''You're staring at the sun/ You're standing in the sea/ You're body's over me''

I know I have a tendency to hyperbole, you've seen it in this post. But hell, this is real close to a perfect song. Really, really close. The album that this is on is nowhere near as good as Return to Cookie Mountain, but this song carries it like Kobe does the Lakers.

Summertime
by Miles Davis

(instrumental)

Not Miles' best stuff, anything off Birth of the Cool is gonna kill this, but this is a perfect wind down after a crazy day of hundreds of miles and new friends and loud music and bad Guatemalan beer song. A small smile on the face, relaxing kinda song.

Trailer Trash
by Modest Mouse

''Eating snowflakes with plastic forks/ And a paper plate/ Of course/ You think of everything''

You remember that 'struck by a perfect song at the perfect time' feeling I described about Ratatat's' Cherry? Yeah, I get that feeling everytime I hear this song. This song fills the spot in my heart left blank when I stopped loving 'Today' by the Smashing Pumpkins. It even has an epic guitar intro like 'Today' does. Just, this is a way better song.

Verses from the Abstract
by A Tribe Called Quest

''I still understand the oomph/ Cause that's what I met 'er for''

Classic, classic. Another real funky beat, another solid performance by Q-Tip.

W.A.L.E.D.A.N.C.E.
by Wale

''Acquire more broads than Zachary Morris...''

Rapping over P.Y.T. by Justice, this is the only rapper I ever heard of from the District of Columbia. And he is fucking ill. Towards the end he does get kinda weak, kinda repetitive, but that aside, he rides this beat, clever, funny, original. Solid song on top of a solid song. You can't not like it.

What Do I Get?
by The Buzzcocks

''I just want a lover like any other/ What do I get?''

The Buzzcocks may be the best thing to come out of my teenage infatuation with punk rock. I should probably replace this with 'Ever Fallen In Love?' Not that this isn't a fantastic song, the other one is just a bit better.

Wolf Like Me
by TV on the Radio

''Show you what all the howlings for...''

The middle section of Return to Cookie Mountain (the album this song comes from) is untouchably beautiful. You can't touch it. You can't come close. I remember a night time car ride with John Caty Caitlin Robert, we were coming back from a hike, this album was on the stereo, nobody said a word, watched the forest go past. It's one of my favorite musical memories, and it comes back to me every time I listen to this album, or any song from it.

-----
I just want to quickly thank John Collins, Mike Vu, all the other cats with much musical love who have put cds in car stereos for me, saying 'you gotta check this out.' My life is incredibly richer for y'all.

Home, Sweet, Temporary, Home

2008-05-29T17:18:00.007-05:00

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.

And by post again soon I apparently meant in a week or two. . .

2008-05-25T16:05:00.002-05:00

My bad.

I'm in San Pedro la Laguna, a very weird little town beside the very gorgeous Lake Atitlan. There are a lot of drugs here. A LOT of drugs. As one young Guatemalteco proudly told me- 'Amsterdam de Guatemala, super-bien onda.' And then he burst out laughing. He also later went on to freestyle rap in the local Mayan language, which, while incomprehensible to me, was way awesome. The language is all consonants crashing like waves on rocks, it has a gorgeous sound.

Maria lives here, the matriarch of a drug dealing family. She's famous all throughout Guatemala. Apparently her kind propinas are the reason that there's such a lack of police here. And it really is a family business. Two nights ago I was playing poker with a guy who told the table that he went to Maria's place to make some purchases and he saw one of her small children weighing out grams of coke.

The bartender, who was playing with us, said 'That's fucked up man, that's real fucked up. That's why, after four months of living here, I've never bought from Maria once.' Later that night, when his other leads dried up, he sent someone out to get him a gram of yay from her without a second thought. He's a real nice guy, but he is an addict. He came here all that time ago planning on just staying for a week or two, and then he was going to continue backpacking through Central America, and then back home to San Diego. Two weeks after his arrival in San Pedro, two weeks of playing the role of Santa Claus de Cocaína, two weeks of acid and grass and mdma, after all that, he had blown through the five grand that was his vacation and his plane ticket home. He went to the bank expecting 1500 dollars, he had less than a hundred. He bartends at the Amadeus now. Nice guy, good card player, pretty good Beirut player, and a tough luck cautionary tale of a fellow. There are a lot of stories like his around here.

I'm giving an overly negative impression of this town, which is unfair. There's a lot of happiness here, bad jokes that get more than their fair share of laughter, a great little pub that plays American sports, charitable hostel owners, and more friendly interaction between US expats and locals than I have yet seen on my few travels. And a lot of people drink deep from the drug scene and come away happy and healthy with some really crazy stories to tell.

The guy that runs the hostel I'm staying at goes by the name of Seth, is a sweetheart and a half, lives most of the time in Seattle, comes down here every once in a while to check up on business (or as he put it, make sure everybody is happy), and consumes a massive amount of intoxicants only to go back home and be sober for a while. You'll see him tripping out on mushrooms during the day, come back that night to see him snorting a few lines of coke and talking about his plans to do E the next day. In a few years or less he's probably going to give completely into this wild excess or into his Seattle-based sobriety, with serious ramifications for his life, but right now he walks that crazy tight rope expertly. And he runs a nice little hostel.

Oh, goddamit, except for the other night, sonuvabitch, argh. I left that poker game, feeling ecstatic about winning almost three dollars (that's the nice thing about foreign currency, winning twenty quetzales sounds much more impressive than a little under three bucks, the night before I lost two dollars, and it was completely crushing), get back to my hostel, and it is shut tight. Knock, knock, wait. Maaaan, I just wanna go to bed. Knock again, no answer again. They've gone. The whole staff is out, no one is opening the one door which would lead me to sleep sleep sleep. It's pretty late, but these cats are very capable of partying past dawn. I walked back to the main area of town, lights out everywhere, knocking on hostel and hotel doors, no luck, no luck.

It's somewhere around two in the morning. A small group of Argentinians are drinking and talking in an abandoned construction site, invite me to join them, explain they're talking philosophy. Pura filosofia. I explain that sounds real nice but that I'm stuck out of doors, tell them my story. Most of them insist that drinking can only help my situation, which I politely disagree with, but one of them tells me he's a hostel owner, but his place is completely full up. Hell, I ask, you got a place where I can throw up my tent? Sure he does, and he leads me to his place, points out his courtyard and gives me a dirty blanket and a worse pillow. I don't want to sound ungrateful, he was very nice and didn't charge me for the space, but I was really wishing that I happened to have my sleeping bag and pad in addition to the tent. Eh and oh well, I pitch it, climb in, use my jacket as a pillow case and wrap the blanket around me, start fading into sleep. And then a group of happy youngsters pile into the courtyard with wine and loud conversation, a few feet from me. They talk for hours. I finally pass out for what feels like thirty seconds, and then it's morning, and it's really really loud. Turns out there's a youth marching band that practices next door, and they make up for their inexperience with volume and gusto. I now know the meaning of cacophony in my bones. Suffice it to say that I slept very well the next night.

Wah wah wah, anyways.

Hey, you folks remember my plan, dashing through Central America and all over the Southern one in only 6 months? Something in the neighborhood of 14 countries, an average of just over two a month? Yeah, not so much. Turns out, I travel really slowly. Also, it turns out, I'm very okay with that. I've been gone just about two months and this is my second country, and I plan on staying in this one for about a month more, if not longer. I like really exploring a city or town. Meeting a local cat in a bar and then running into him/her at a little concert a few days later. Finding a favorite restaurant and patronizing it a few times, trying out the menu. Getting a real feel for why and in what way this place is what it is. My next stop is Xela (pronounced Shay-Lah), also known as Quetzaltenango (good luck), and based on the good things I'm hearing about it, I think I'm going to get a room there for a month. I'll check it out for a day or two first, but if it is what they say it is, I'm really into the idea. Do some volunteering, some writing, make some friends that I'm not saying goodbye to a day or two after meeting them.

And a few kind words about the Alegre Pub. They have a wide variety of beer, drink specials every night, basketball baseball soccer on the many televisions, classic pub food at good prices, friendly Scottish English and Guatemalan bartenders, a terrace above where they show movies and where you can look across the lake to fog and forest covered mountains and volcanoes, and tonight they are going to have trivia. I fucking like this pub.

Oh, and a few words about stray dogs. There are a lot of them all over Guatemala. I've definitely learned the importance of the seemingly cruel practice of castration (I hate the word 'neuter'). They're hungry and unloved and covered in fleas. Last night while walking back to my hostel, past curled up dogs sleeping in the street, I came across three baby baby little puppies. They were goddamed adorable. I put my hand out for one to smell me. He darted forward, sniffed, and tripping rolled over on his side trying to run away. I scratched their bellies and felt very sad about their future, the diseases they will contract, they garbage they will eat. Walking away, they followed me for a while, whining. They will get used to a lack of a love, but that didn't really comfort me or them very much.

Apologies for the lack of photos. I keep taking pictures of the countryside, which is crazy gorgeous, but the fog and the rain, which looks so beautiful on the mountains and lake and jungle, looks totally crap on camera. And the very photogenic Mayans tend to get real pissed when you take pictures of them as though they were artifacts in a museum, which makes sense to me. To prove that this place is as stunning as I say, here's what Aldous Huxley wrote about it-

Lake Como, it seems to me, touches on the limit of permissibly picturesque, but Atitlán is Como with additional embellishments of several immense volcanoes. It really is too much of a good thing.

Love you miss you all.

Now, in TECHNICOLOR

2008-05-13T15:12:00.004-05:00

Hell yes, I'm taking photographs.

Like this one. 1970's era US school bus, you have officially been pimped. We call these chicken buses. The name comes from the tendency of some Guatemalans to carry livestock on board. You can also get a good impromptu sermon on board here.

I'm in Antigua now, down in southern Guatemala. Very touristy, but very pretty little city. Colonial architecture, old churches ruined by old earthquakes, yellow buildings, cobble-stone streets. The bus ride down here from Flores was madness. We started driving at 11 pm, everybody on board planning to sleep the ride thru, everybody on board ending up real dissapointed. The driver was on some kind of speedy meth type drug, flicking the lights on and of off randomly, high pitched humming to himself, eyes huge open, overtaking other buses on a tiny road, speeding speeding way to fast. For a while I watched the road nervously, then decided, fuck it. I'd rather not see my doom.

I've spent the past two days walking around. This is a hell of a good city for walking. The out doors market is a labyrinth of stalls selling everything, EVERYTHING, clothes food electronics 'documents' music black market dvds plumbing equipment etcetera like mad. Hilariously enough, I saw a pair of white shirt tie backpack young Mormon missionaries perusing the pirated dvds. There are little Mayan kids working at the fruit stands, which is adorable and depressing. And terrifying, I saw a 4 year old girl hacking at a coconut with a machete, and in my mind I saw her cutting off a thumb, over and over again for the rest of the day. Also, a big ol' meat market, chicken beef pork, and no refrigeration in sight.

Hell, everything in this country is interesting and frightening. Home improvement stores with armed guards in front, bullet proof vest and combat style shotguns, glaring. Burger Kings in 300 year old colonial style buildings. Poverty and wealth like crazy. Little girls in full Mayan dress in groups, talking to each other with the seriousness of adults, all having experienced hardships I could only imagine.

Okay, the person in line for this computer is getting impatient, I should run, yes, but I'll post again soon.

Hell yeah, I'm in Guatemala

2008-05-06T18:27:00.002-05:00

And it's really hot here. Really really hot.

I feel pretty lame about not having updated in a very long time, but I have been real boring. I was stuck in San Cristobal, waiting for a package that was a week and a half overdue. I wasted a lot of time mindlessly surfing the internet, watching soccer on tv, and reading. Not much to write about.

Then the package finally showed up, and I booked it the hell on out of there (which isn't to say I didn't love the place, it was just way past time to go). I hopped on a bus to Palenque, and stayed in nearby El Panchan.

El Panchan was the jungle home of Don Moises, one of the first anthropologists to study Palenque, and is now a hippy backpacker haven, all hostels and bars and restaurants, live music and smelly people. I got myself a little cabaña (hut), put my feet up, listened to and watched the jungle craziness, and got a few mosquito bites.

The next day I went on a very long and disgustingly sweaty walk to the ancient Mayan ruins of Palenque. Despite the overwhelming heat and humidity, I had an amazing time crawling all over the 1500 year old stone architecture, looking at bas reliefs, staring out from the top of pyramids, and imagining what this place looked like so long ago, when it was an artistic and scientific mecca, a military powerhouse, a renaissance under the 78 year reign of Pacal the Great. The thick thick green jungle full of howling monkeys and shy birds and tower tall trees crept in wherever it was given the chance, creating a beautiful view from the temples and palaces.

That was Cinco de Mayo, I was expecting a proper fiesta back in El Panchan and was rather disappointed. To make up for it I ate a huge dinner and drank a liter of beer and went to bed with a very good book.

5 30 the next morning saw me up and at 'em, to catch a 6 am ride to Flores, Guatemala. Apparently, very early in the morning in the jungle, these big brown bugs that look like obese cockroaches get very thirsty. There were around ten of them on the floor of the shower. I was sweaty gross enough from the jungle humidity that a shower was rather necessary, especially if I was to be in crowded vans and boats all day. I ripped off a piece of plastic from my toiletries bag to use as a glove, and then chucked each one of those nasty bastards out into the selva. The jungle is kinda gross.

The van ride was beautiful, as would be any ride through Southern Mexico. I always pull out a book and end up reading the road instead. This was followed by a short boat ride down the river that creates the northwestern border of Guatemala, poor Mayan families washing their clothes and themselves on either side. The Guatemalan bus ride went through some real rural territory, poverty and subsistence farming seemed to be the rule. It must be said that the land did appear real healthy, steep hillsides were being successfully cultivated without any obvious signs of erosion, fattened pigs wandered freely through these pueblas, and hilariously floppy eared cattle were out to pasture almost everywhere you looked. I did see what appeared to be a strip mine, cutting an ugly chunk out of the tropical greenery. Already Guatemala presented a confusing picture- rich land with poor people. Judging by all the kids I saw working in the middle of what would be a school day this didn't seem real likely to change soon. Hard to blame the parents, what would you do if you had to choose between feeding your children and educating them?

Anyways, anyways. I'm in Flores now, a tiny island of red-roofed white-walled buildings in the middle of a turquoise lake. Cute, touristy. Tomorrow I plan on walking around, seeing whether or not Guatemalans hate US citizens as much as I would guess. After that, the ruins of the ancient Mayan city-state of Tikal. After that? I don't know. I'm trying to avoid making too many plans.

A brief one...

2008-04-25T19:09:00.002-05:00

Yep, still in San Cristobal de las Casas, where I will one day rent an apartment for a year two. And you will all have to come visit me, and you will understand why I have to live here. Every concert has been unforgettable, every meal absurdly delicious (lies, I had this one burger. . . shit was wafer thin and slathered in mustard), every person friendly and warm and full of good conversation.

All that said, I'm leaving tomorrow for Palenque, these gorgeous Mayan ruins, and then a spot of camping at Aguas Azules after that. And then! Terribly excited, I'm a hop on a river boat and cross into Guatemala, which I am ridiculous excited about. I've met a few million travellers coming north, and all of them have said that Guatemala was life changing amazing beautiful unforgettable etc. ALL of them.

I will miss Mexico very much, in just a month it has altered me profoundly as a person. I will forever be happier for what I have seen heard and done in this country.

Walking about San Cristobal today, I saw a little white church atop a hill, a ridiculous huge stone stairwell both allowing and preventing access. It was such a hell of a hike up that I felt as though the stairs were challenging me. Well, I thought, if I have to, and started climbing. I got to the top and the pretty li'l church was locked up, closed. I bust up laughing, which then prompted a fit of coughing, seeing as how I was way winded from the climb. A waste, I thought, of time and energy. When I turned around to climb back down, I was blown away by the view of this city that I've so quickly come to love. Red tile roofs, plazas, narrow streets, all of them rolling down the valley and then up the hills on the opposite side, all of it surrounded by thick green forest. I stayed up there for at least half an hour, staring, thinking 10 years? 5? What is an appropriate time to wait, before coming back to this place, getting an apartment and a regular table at Cafe Revolución?

Yes, well, and anyways. The Sharks are playing the Dallas Stars at home tonight, opening up the second round of the playoffs. For those of you who have tickets, fuck you. I am crazy jealous. As it is, I will be watching on the computer at my hostel, which has this unfortunate green tint to the monitor. Scream for 'em, bay area people.

This shit is ridiculous

2008-04-20T18:45:00.005-05:00

I am so ready to roll into a new town and be bored, disappointed. I don't want it to happen, I'm just accepting it as an inevitability. But a month in, and Mexico is yet to offer up this frustration.

I'm in San Cristobal de las Casas, in Chiapas, Mexico's southernmost state. This town is goddamned amazing. I came in Friday morning, having failed utterly to sleep on my overnight bus. The city is pretty, colonial architecture sitting in a valley surrounded by very densely forested green hills. I chased bad hostel leads for a few hours, gave up, went in to the Cafe Katrina and had, without a doubt, the best pineapple juice of my life. As a juice connoisseur, this was a serious event for me. Walking around a bit, I finally found a proper hostel, the Plaza Central, and quickly passed the hell out, tired, tired.

I woke up, hungry, energetic, and curious. I walked to the zocalo, the main square. In the zocalo, a youth organization was putting on a youth concert. The band played 'black metal,' which was actually pretty awesome. The bass player got real funky and primus like at times, and the drummer had serious abilities. I was impressed by the group, JULE, jovenes unidos por libre expresion, and their sincerity in promoting the art of these kids. And once again, I loved the tendency of Mexicans of all ages and whatever other stratifications to stop and give their attention and consideration to people who are artistically putting themsleves out there, even when it's something as difficult to get into as metal.

After that show, I walked a block away to the cafe/bar Revolucion, which I never ever want to leave. Live music every night with no cover, a happening downstairs, a relaxed upstairs, bartenders who know what they're doing, and cooks in the back making some serious goddamn oven toasted sandwiches. When I got there the band Fractal had just finished warming up. The singer thanked us all for being there, and they then proceeded to kick unbelievable musical ass. Acoustic guitar, five-string bass, accordion, cello, and a variety of djimbe type drums from around the world. It was a weird kind of fusion folk, Celtic, Zydeco, Mexican, Triplets of Belleville style French Craziness, but at the same time didn't sound like crap 'world' music, it felt like they were just playing what made sense to them, and they sure as hell did it with passion and talent. The singer's vocal abilities were absurd, and he wasn't the least bit timid about yelping and shrieking. He reminded me of Tom Waits at times, Frank Black at others, with a bit of Rahzel when he felt like it. We, the audience, were dancing, shouting, losing our damn minds. One of the best shows I've ever seen, only for the price of a bottle of beer.

Taking the scenic route back to my hostel, I passed the Dada Club, where, what do you know, there was another free show going on, real funky jazz, amazingly talented musicians. Went to bed smiling. Live music has a wonderful healing effect on me. If you're counting, that's three concerts in one night, my first night in town.

The next day, Saturday, I went to Na Bolom, the former house of the Blooms, European expats who lived unbelievable amazing lives here in Mexico. Frans Blom was a cartographer for oil companies, which involved loading up mules and wandering blind into the jungles. After falling in love with the jungles and the Mayan ruins they held, he quit working for the oil companies who would only destroy the selva, and became an archeologist. He was amongst the first to excavate the old Mayan city of Palenque, my next stop. He met his wife, Gertrude, in the jungle. This woman LIVED. She was an anti-fascist journalist and organizer during WW2, jailed by Mussolini. After she was freed she went to Mexico City. After reading the work of anthropologist Jaques Soustelle, she decided, hell, why not be a jungle explorer. In 1943 she convinced a government official to let her join an expedition to find the Lacandon Maya, the only Maya group not conquered by the Spanish, having hid deep in the jungle. The elusive, camera shy (understatement) Lacondons immediately warmed to her. They revered her, she went on to do great things for them, agitating for their rights, helping them recieve medical treatment, much more. They called her queen. She ended up writing a book about her experiences with them, and took over 50,000 black and white photographs of their lives, even of their religious ceremonies. If I tried to photograph one of their ceremonies, I would be airmailed back to the states as a red chunky substance. She later became one of the first environmental activists, protesting the deforestation of the Selva Lacondona, and growing trees to reforest it. The UN awarded her in the early 90's for this effort.

The two of them founded Na Bolom, their house, cultural center, library, residence for visiting friends, including Lacandonans. Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo used to pound mezcal with Frans. Gertrude yelled at the Swiss ambassador for putting his elbows on the dinner table and forced him to finish his dinner at another table. She died just before the Zapatistas took over this city in 1994. The EZLN torched a lot of hotels and government buildings, but Na Bolom they would not touch. Subcomandante Marcos sent Na Bolom a fax saying that they were not terrorists, they were Maya, and that they would not harm the home of 'the great lady for us, Dona Gertrudis.' It still attracts anthropologists from around the world, as well as functioning as a hotel.

Pretty inspiring shit, for me, as far as living one hell of a life.

That night I went out to a cool little theater that plays pirated dvds of indie movies, then another really good free concert. I love this city, this country.

Paradise has a lot of bugs.

2008-04-15T19:03:00.003-05:00

I'm in Mazunte, a very quiet beachfront town on Oaxaca's Pacific coast. Before this I spent two days in Zipolite, a very quiet beachfront town on Oaxaca's Pacific coast. I like it here.

This shit is real rural. Pickup trucks are the local public transportation system. I saw a herd of small goats being followed by a man on horseback block traffic on the highway. Every other person seems to be carrying a machete, which strikes me as particularly funny and scary when it's an elderly woman wielding one. What's really interesting about this is that tourism is this town's main industry. The rural/tourist combination produces some weird results.

My hotel room in Zipolite was a raised hut on the beach whose staff was a large matriarchal family, who were much more interested in their livestock than their guests. The hut seemed to be in constant danger of collapsing, it shook with the wind, its floor sloped randomly, and its stairs were set at wild angles. However, the view from the hammock hung up on the front porch was wild. Huge waves crashed onto gorgeous rock formations, daredevil kids bogeyboarding in spite of the fierce currents and undertow. And a million elderly, Dutch penises shuffled along the beach. Unknown to me before checking in here, Zipolite is one of Mexico's very few, maybe only, nude beaches. The fella in the hut next to mine wore nothing but a ridiculous knit hat the entire time I was there. Our very few, brief conversations were much more awkward for me than for him.

I later saw knit hat guy succesfully chat up one of the few naked young women on the beach. They went off and had a drink together. This was wild fucking weird for me. To begin the courtship process already naked struck me as hilarious and confusing.

Actually the naked guy bit wasn't too bad, as the beach was really sparsely populated. Tourist season just ended, apparently. I mostly had my chunk all to myself, and I was happy to ADD out, staring at the waves from my hammock.

I've sinced moved to nearby Mazunte, another beautiful beach and quiet, tourism-centered town. I'm staying in a cool little hostel in the jungle. Last night, late, as I was throwing on a shirt and pants to go to the bathroom, I saw a scorpion ambling my way. He seemed more curious than hostile, but I still didn't feel bad about beating him to death with my shoe. I started to walk outside to the bathroom, barefoot, before pausing and asking myself why in hell what had just happened didn't make me feel a need to put on my shoes. I put them on.

Today I ate what may have been the best enchiladas of my life, at least a close competitor to Cafe Tacuba in DF. What really made them, besides the beautiful home-made sauce, was the quesillo, Oaxaca's string cheese. This stuff is amazing. I already discussed it in my last post, but it merits mentioning again. God bless you, Oaxaca, and your wonderful cheese.

Also, fuck you Oaxaca, and your Micheladas. And fuck you, Mallika Bhandarkar for suggesting I try them. A michelada is beer poured over ice, lemon, salt, and a spicy sauce. I thought, hey, I like all those ingredients, I'm sure I'll like them altogether. Besides, Mallika said they're great. No. They're fucking awful. The texture is like milk gone bad, and it tastes like diluted hot sauce. As an Irishman, I consider it a mortal sin not to drink a beer I asked for, but a few obligatory sips were as far as I could go. So, hey, Bhandarkar, you owe me a beer when I get back.

And yes, an appeal- If you're thinking about a Mexican by the beach sort of vacation, please really consider Mazunte, or Zipolite if you feel like getting naked in public. The beach is gorgeous, the people are warm and inviting, the food is great, and the prices are cheap. If you feel like spending a few more pesos than I have, you can get a really plush, scorpion free bungalow on the beach. The important thing is that, besides you getting a much more interesting experience than a package to Cancun, all your money goes directly to the families working and living here, as opposed to the big foreign owned hotels and resorts that pay their employees dirt wages. And this place really is paradise.

Adventure found

2008-04-10T01:58:00.006-05:00

I'm writing this at two in the morning, with the night's beer and events still bailando in my mind, and so I apologize for any confusing or incorrect spelling prose etc.

Yes, so, I've gone to my favorite Oaxacan convenience store, this is much earlier, dusk, and bought my buck fitty tlayuda and my sol, sol es cerveza, and have consumed both. A tlayuda, by the by, for those not lucky enough to be in the know, is a beautifully crispy quesadilla with various fillings. This particular joint makes vegetarian tlayudas, filled with tomatoes peppers of various kinds beans and the local wonder- quesillo. Quesillo translates as string cheese, but what us Californians recognize as string cheese and quesillo are nowhere near the same things. One could bungee jump with quesillo as rope, but at the same time it is not tough at all. Tender and mildly extremely flavorful, quesillo is Oaxaca's pride. It makes for an amazing tlayuda.

So I have happiness in my stomach, and my new mime friend, yes a fucking MIME, puts a fish called wanda on the television. If you have not seen this movie, you are probably a shambles of a human being who has missed out on most of life's great wonders: friendship well told stories sex happy buzzed watching the sun come up a moment in a family reunion where everyone is laughing your team winning the championship etc. Yes, watch the damn movie. Feel bad about yourself.

Apologies for the unnecessary rant. The point is, beautiful movie food drink and company. I feel wonderfully content. John Cleese and Jamie Lee Curtis are on their plane to south america, and my hostel friends are searching for the next dvd. The problem is, my contedness requires more than just watching one more movie, I cannot just sit in this courtyard, amiable though it may be. I hop out the front gate.

I ask the first fella I see ¨where are they still selling cerveza around here,¨ thinking beer might be, hell often is, the easiest way to find life on a miercoles night. He gives me directions that are long and complicated, very far walk, and I can tell that I would pass twenty cantinas if I were to follow these directions, that he just wants to fuck with a guero, and I don't blame him, completely understand the impulse. I remember Kurt Vonnegut, remember Bokonon, that travel suggestions are dancing lessons from god, and decide to follow his directions as close as possible.

I end up far from my hostel, desolate street, but lo, I hear pink floyd. I follow the sound and climb some stairs. I'm in a Mexican rock and roll bar, filled entirely with fellows, the only xx chromosones are the one's working there. But the music is cheesy and good, and I shout the metallica lyrics along with everybody else. The cover band is terrible and wonderful all at once. They finish their set, I meet some new friends who dub me Juanito, the sh in sean is hard to pronounce for spanish speakers, we raise our glasses, say salud, drink, I hop back down the stairs and into the street.

Walking, walking, the night is beautifully warm, perfect humidity, the architecture, yes, all the pastel colors these buildings are painted look beautiful under the orange street lights, I feel good and curious. I walk a big loop, pass the same bar, the bouncer and I familiar nod n smile, I keep walking. Hey now, that's a well played acoustic guitar, and that singer sounds like he means it. I step up and down into the cantina, grab a dos equis and a chair near the man with the microphone. It's just him and his guitar but it feels like a symphony. Wonderful, none of his words of love and loneliness ring hollow, he means all of them. I clap, holler, clap. I notice a chess game by candlelight in the corner, leer like a pervert watching a couple kissing in the park, totally interested in the game.

In my defense, it was an interesting one. Black was playing a completely by the book game, control the center, move out pawns, then knights, then bishops, then castles. White on the other hand, bust out the queen like he could care less about it, somehow ran a pawn all the way to a square away from the baseline, and slid like a scalpel down his left side, reducing poor white's lovely defense to a Maginot line. His king ended up running all the way to the opposite side of the board, tempo totally surrendered. White, being played by the bartender/waiter/janitor, didn't wait for checkmate, he jokingly knocked over the black king with his own, and gestured to me that it was my turn to play. I argued, no no no has perdido, puedes seguir jugando, but he was hearing none of it. He brought me a complimentary beer and offered up his seat.

I grabbed pawns black and white, hid them in my fists, let my new friend tap one. He chose white, which was good for me. I play better as black, which moves second. I react better than I initiate. He standard moved out his king's pawn two squares, immediately confessed that he was just learning. I found this fascinating, having just watched him unorthodox destroy a solid player. I set up a right side flanchetto, a bishop with a pawn on either side and in front, and we began warring. A good game, very interesting and weird opening, until he blundered. He let his queen die, I tried to get him to take the move back, arguing that I don't like to play with blunders, take it back, take it back, but he wasn't hearing it. I slowly, cause I'm not that good, took him apart. The queen advantage was just too great. We shook hands, I won.

By now, the singer was watching, we shook hands as well, I recommended that he listen to Elliott Smith. The mesero, the fellow who had played the previous game, was putting up the chairs, lights on, etc. My opponent bought us all one last round, and cigarettes for everybody, we toasted to our collective health, I was invited to come back the next night.

I stepped out into the gorgeous desert night, happy very content, thinking how I had imagined adventure gorgeous mexican girls barely avoiding an ass kicking running shots of mezcal when I walked out of my hostel, heady with the idea of it, and here adventure found was an intimate concert, good drink, a good game of chess. Oi, a good night, exactly what I didn't know I wanted.

When I got back to god's own Banana Magic Hostel, my roommates were very relieved to see me. They had been worried, looked all up and down the street, "you just disappeared!" I was already feeling good, and to have very new friends show real concern for me, while guilt-causin', was nice nice nice. I'm smiling as I type this. I think back on my life long friends back in the states expressing their concern about my trip before I left, and me just feeling good about their paranoia, that people who knew me very well wanted me to stay alive and conversational. I miss you guys, and I promise to limit my adventures to chess games and new friends and small concerts, so that in 49 and one half weeks we'll be talking and joking and I will be all in one piece.

Shalom DF! Shalom Oaxaca!

2008-04-07T17:49:00.003-05:00

Sunday morning early very early I said goodbye to Tia y Abuelo Gallo, two of the warmest nicest most hospitable people I've ever met. They told me I always had a home in DF, that I can turn around on my trip and go back and a bed will be waiting, and that no matter what the most important thing is to do what I want. I miss them already, two days later.

Hopped on an express bus to Oaxaca city, fell asleep before we reached the city limits. It was early. When I woke up I looked out the window. I was rapt. Forests of cacti- Hills of stone red white grey terra-cotta, spaces where nothing grew or could- miniature churches with space only for one, miles from any other building- stunted weird little alien trees- middle of nowhere hotels that looked like they were designed by acid freaks- rivers that produced abundant green life for 50 feet on both sides, desert beyond that. Hours passed as I stared out my window.

I arrived in Oaxaca in a beautiful mood. Walking to the Banana Magic Hostel, my home for the next few days, I was pretty smitten by the town. All the buildings painted warm colors, nice architecture, parks full of families and young lovers old lovers, everything real slow paced, very opposite of DF. I got to my hostel and couldn't get in. I knocked. I waited. I walked away. I wandered around, ate a sandwich, felt my backpack get heavier on my shoulders. It was very hot and getting hotter.

Mood soured intensely. I consulted my guidebook, found another hostel- luz de la luna. Got a bed, smelly, no sheets. Hung out in the common area, played a card game that made no sense with some German folk and an American. The American described it as the card equivalent of calvinball. Everyone there seemed like they were waiting for a bus. I couldn't get a proper conversation going with anybody. I wandered around town feeling extremely bummed out lonely dissapointed, trying to bring back my mood from earlier in the day. Stopping off at an internet cafe I saw that the Warriors had just lost to the Hornets, which, paired with Denver playing Seattle the next day (Denver had previously beat Seattle by 52 points) and only five games left in the season, was crushing for my Golden State playoff hopes. I went to bed early, sleeping with my nose in my armpit. My deodorant smelled infinitely better than that disgusting matress.

Woke up the next day, showered, walked back to the Banana Magic Hostel with low hopes. Yep, the same solid black metal gate, closed and locked, no one answered my knocks. The place was shut down. I banged my fist on the gate real loud, frustrated. Started walking away and the gate opened. Here was the proprietor, nicest guy in the world, rented me a bed, the place was clean and beautiful, couches everywhere. Real happy, I checked out of the Luz de la Luna and brought my shit over. Since then I've walked around Oaxaca much happier, ate some good food, drank a beer in an open air cafe in the main square, AND DENVER LOST TO SEATTLE. The Warriors are tied for the last seed in the playoffs, hope still alive. If you are reading this in the bay, it is your official duty to go to the Oracle and watch Golden State savage Sacramento tomorrow night. Yell loudly. Stay on your feet the whole game. I'll be watching on the computer in the courtyard of the Banana Magic, gracias a dios. Fuck Luz de la Luna, and all the depressing saps that are staying there.

They have a different sun here, and it is fucking hot

2008-04-04T19:17:00.002-06:00

Yes, so Friday, and still in DF. Went to Teotihuacán today, which wikipedia claims was the America's largest pre-columbian city. There's a lot of debate between anthropoligists as to who the original founders of the city were, but we can certainly say that those motherfuckers LOVED STAIRS. My legs are straight jello, son. Climbed to the top of the aptly named Pyramid of the Sun, was concerned about passing out from heat exhaustion on the way down, which on those steep ass tiny steps of sharp rocks meant paralysis or death.

It was unbelievably odd walking around on structures built almost two millenia ago.

I was accompanied by Tia Gallo, who was mostly excited to go at the prospect of buying silver bracelets, which, for some reason, are the thing at Teotihuacán. A good deal of fun watching her haggling skills in action, and depressing infuriating made me wanna punch people in the face watching gueros attempt to haggle. One gent was outright cruel. He wanted to buy a t-shirt, and refused to pay more than 2 bux fitty. The woman trying to sell him the shirt kept telling him that she refused to go lower than 3 dollars, that, really, 3 dollars is a very good price for a shirt. This red faced jackass, who reeked of a ten thousand dollar travel package, become a beast over 50 cents, shoving money in her face, almost yelling '25 pesos! TWENTY FIVE PESOS!' She looked scared, shook her head no, and he stormed off to whine to his sunburned shapeless wife about how unreasonable these people can be. I wanted to thank him, on behalf of gueros everywhere, for making international travel much more difficult for us, for helping to build ugly stereotypes of us. Shoulda, di'nt.

Walking along the avenue of the dead, it struck me how much more impressive these pyramids must have been in 150 CE. How terrifying, even. To visit Teotihuacán for the first time, having not seen a city, nor even stone buildings . . . and then there's a goddamn pyramid 75 meters high, 200,000 people living around it.

After a bit I realized that these structures were almost certainly built with slave labor, and I was completely uncertain how I felt about the site after that.

Oh! Yes! Two days ago I visited the national anthropolgy museum . . . Holy hell. I saw maybe a third of it, all crazy fascinating, and I was there all day. Beautiful complex Zapotec sculpture, Mixtec codices (accordion style books), all illustration, no written language, and good lord, everything the Maya did was gorgeous interesting gorgeous. They did have a written language, and it consisted of dense interesting crazy glyphs. Can't wait to go further south, Maya country, see Tikal, etc.

The anthro museum is straight mandatory if you ever find yourself in DF.

Yes, now I think its time for a splash of tequila with Abuelo Gallo, who may be the best storyteller ever, even though I dunno wha' the fuck he's saying half the time.

Maria- Virgen de Guadalupe

2008-04-01T18:19:00.002-06:00

Yes, so much for leaving for Oaxaca yesterday. That's starting to seem like much more of a Friday plan. I could stay in this town (Mexico City) for months and not run out of interesting shit to do see read watch covet. Today it was the Basilica where ol' Juan Diego saw the brown skinned Mother of God, who commanded him to cut some flowers and build a temple.

I was convinced to go last night by my hosts, the Gallo family. Light headed on their lime juice and tequila, poured out of a giant plastic no label jug, I knew I knew for sure I had to go. So deeply tied to Mexican culture/identity, the Virgin of Guadalupe is a perfect Mestiza symbol. The religion of Europe, brought over with disease and horses and guns and perfectly evil greedy men, made truly Mexican. It cannot be stressed enough the importance of Mary´s appearance HERE, dressed in Mexican garb, with dark hair and dark skin, speaking Nahuatl. She is usually referred to as 'Nuestra (our) Virgen de Guadalupe.' It was her image that the early revolutionary armies carried as their banner against the occupying forces. Not going to see where she appeared, where she is celebrated, I would have missed seeing the heart of Mexico.

So I went, and was underwhelmed. Beautiful architecture, especially the New Basilica, built by Mexican architect Pedro Ramírez Vásquez in the mid '70s, but I felt none of the passion and interest that I had last night, tequila fired up, in the Gallo's kitchen. It was chingado hot, and they had the usual pro-life propaganda, the Catholic give us some money christmart stylee, and everyone looked bored. EXCEPT- in the Basilica, a young girl walked on her knees to the altar, carrying a bouquet of roses (important in the Virgen myth), Christ's love visible on her face. Despite my agnosticism, my feeling that faith is dangerous, it was beautiful to see.

Yep, yep, time to go back to the Gallo's before they get nervous. 'There's problems in this neighborhood, all these kids doing the marijuana,' they warned me. Tomorrow the Anthro Museum and a castle, some more greasy ass delicious street stall food, and amateur soccer. Love ya miss ya all very much.

Rainy evening in DF

2008-03-29T18:36:00.002-06:00

Earlier today I went to Xochimilco, 'the Venice of Latin America,' where I was clearly a rich guero (sp?) ass, being paddled around on this big ol boat solo while all the other boats were full of big Mexican families pounding beer and singing. It was beautiful but way too expensive and made me feel real anxious anxious nerves.

Much better now. Came back to the city center, ate caldo de cameron, tomé un pacifo claro, healthy drizzle goin' on. Contentment sigh. I'm in the same old convenience store/internet cafe that I love so dearly, only now there is a huge group of 17 year olds huddled under the awning pounding beers, singing, flirting. These kids are so much cooler than I ever was at that age, cooler than I am now. Honest very honest laughter. Also, I'm extremely enamored of the senior citizen proprietor who sells them beer and doesn't hassle them for loitering. I really hope I love the rest of Mexico as much as I love this town. These chilangos are so warm and proud and inviting, their buildings crumbling just so, orange paint revealing warm brick underneath. Another thing- where there are paintings/sculpture/etc. put up on public walls, people STOP and LOOK at them. Talk about it with their friends, not showing off, but interested. This shit does not happen in the states.

Tomorrow is probably my last full day in DF, then it's say goodbye to the Gallos on lunes and hop on an express bus to Oaxaca.

I somehow foolishly bought an absurd surplus of envelopes, which is clearly capitalist jesus' way of saying I should write a lot of letters. Email me an address and I'll write you something lovely and demand that you return the favor.

O, the awesome shit I´ve seen

2008-03-28T15:54:00.002-06:00

And no camera to record it all. Or, rather, I have a dead camera, and no charger to revive it with. Cuz I'm an idiot who does not know how to pack. So I have no pictures of the magnificent buildings of UNAM, nor of cadavers stacked up like cordwood, no two headed stillborn baby, none of the humungous Estadio Azteca or the almost as huge Nomadic Museum set up in the main square, and no pictures of the unbelievable awesome, child killing (I assume) park across the street from where I'm staying. Seriously, this jungle gym is 4 stories tall.

Oh well.

I'm gawdamned in love with Mexico city. Everything is grand and kinda sad and beautiful. The Chilangos are all extremely proud of their city, and extremely welcoming. I've been staying with the Gallos, family members of my former boss. I'm eating home cooked Mexican meals, being shown around the city, and having my Spanish skills mocked savagely.

Time is moving much more slowly now that every day is exciting and different. The past week feels like a month. My California life seems like a boring malaise of indeterminate time, which it wasn't. Life is just a good deal more exciting now.

I'm going to leave this internet cafe now for some tacos al pastor y cerveza. Then it's the national museum of art, followed by a minor minor minor league soccer game and more badass food. I miss y'all much, and am real glad I'm down here instead of hanging out with ya. Although, if any of you folks wanted to quit your jobs, drop out of school, and come down here, I'd be real glad to show you around.

Hello, world.

2008-03-24T13:14:00.003-06:00

I´m starting this thing up in a convenience store/internet cafe on la calle Republica de Cuba in Mexico City. This is my third day in D.F., although it feels like my first. I spent the past two days in a coma at the Hotel Republica. As a result, I have very little to say here, except that the travel gods will fucking punish you if you miss a flight, that Cafe Tacuba makes the best enchiladas I´ve eaten in my life, that the Hotel Republica and its surrounding neighborhood is stunningly beautiful in a run down sort a way, and that I miss the hell out of you all already. I´m a do my best to represent the yay, and I promise to have pictures up in a day or two.