Ya Me Voy!

Alright, well, I'm on the move again. The plan was to stay in Xela for 3 weeks, and I easily could have, but my travel plans changed, and I need to speed this thing up.

It was a great week though. Sunday I went to one of the bigger markets and bought some bootleg reggaeton and salsa cd's. I really need to learn how to salsa. I know the basic steps, but doing that in public would just be embarrassing.

On Monday I continued my Spanish education and we also learned a lot about our school, and the non-profit work that it does. It looks like a really great organization that I could definitely see myself returning to for long-term work. We also learned more about the history of Guatemala, and America's role in it. While in India, I had expected some animosity toward Americans, but in Central America, I am surprised more. I think the only reason that there are American flag burnings here is that there is a poor education system. And the education system that does exist, like ours in America, does not teach the whole story. In America we never are really taught much about Vietnam, as if it is this embarrassing secret that nobody wants to talk about. And I guarantee that no public education system discusses America's role in Central America during the 80's. But isn't this the reason that we learn history? So that we can learn from our mistakes? If we just ignore the controversial times in America, our nation can never improve. I remember asking about the Vietnam war when I was younger. I was told, that we were fighting the communists. Obviously I was too young to understand exactly why we were so threatened by communists, but I didn't understand why a country's system of government was a reason to go to war with them. I also remember watching Desert Storm on TV with my dad when I was five. Why are we at war? Well, because of oil, my dad said. I don't remember if there was a further explanation than that, but it left me very confused.

Anyways, on Tuesday, Juan, Fernando, Tony, Nate and I went to Los Vahos, a steam bath built around geothermally heated rock. It was this big concrete structure, built against the hill/mountainside. Upon entering the first room, yes it was very hot and steamy, but then I opened the curtain to the second room, in which the back wall was the rock that would burn you if you touched it. Just opening the curtain a bit flooded the room with heat that made me cough. We were all pretty sure that going in there was not possible, but slowly, Juan crawled in, on his hands and knees, eyes closed. He stayed in for a few minutes, and eventually stood up, the heat being too much after a few minutes and left. We all took turns going in and coming out to the freezing shower. It was great. Here's the people I was with, all from my school:

John (Juan): A clean-cut Brit, whose Spanish I can't understand because of his British accent. He's traveling from here down through South America. He's probably going to buy a motorcycle here, and may get from Panama to Columbia on a boat that will likely be smuggling something (more likely drug money than drugs, as drugs don't move south.)

Fernando: John's teacher, and guy that lives in my house. A young guy going to school in Xela to be an engineer. He lives in a town closer to the Mexico/Guatemala border. He loves salsa dancing and drives a huge red truck with yellow flames.

Tony: I don't know much about Tony as his English is about as good as his Spanish, but he's French and he did the Everest base camp trek as well.

Nate: Nate is a grad student at UW, but is from Berkley. He won some UW scholarship that basically funds your traveling for nine months. His route, roughly, is Guatemala, Costa Rica, Peru, Venezuela, Brazil, South Africa, Ghana, India, Bhutan, Thailand, Vietnam, China (for the Olympics) and Japan. The rules for the trip include: no educational activity (his week of Spanish class was against the rules), no contact with other recipients of the scholarship (in fact he doesn't even know who won other than him), no purpose or theme to the places you go, this is simply to travel on your own for 9 months. Crazy lucky.

On Thursday I met up with John and Josh (a guy that everyone knows in Xela because he DJ's, works with my school, works with EntreMundos, another organization and newspaper, and stays at the same hostel that I spent my first two nights at, which is very sociable.) We went to the cemetery, which would be much easier to describe with photos. It was a vast colorful area with a mix of leased graves stacked on top of each other 5 or 6 high and elaborate family family graves with intricately constructed structures on top of them. It seemed that even in death the upper class lived better than the the lower class does in life. We eventually got to the top of a hill overlooking the cemetery and I was amazed at how much it looked like a miniature version of any-town Guatemala.

Thursday night was what I had been waiting for all week. Some Americans from a local NGO were having a fundraiser in the form of beer-pong at some bar. None of the Europeans that I had talked to about it knew what it was. How they all miss out. And missed out again, as there were almost no Europeans at the event. I brought British John and he loved it. I think our record was 1 and 2, not so great, but we also played a few games of flip-cup. I couldn't believe I was playing beer-pong in Guatemala. I wondered though, if the reason that the Europeans didn't come because they didn't know the game or because they didn't want to associate with Americans. Jonathan, a Canadian, had told us in Kolkata that when he traveled in Central America he always avoided Americans, and that we were the first he had traveled with. Was this a common mentality? Were the Europeans really more narrow-minded about Americans than the locals who had a good reason to dislike our country, but don't show animosity toward us?

On Saturday Justino and I went to Laguna Chicabel. Incidentally his class was going too, so we decided to meet up with them. Justino said they were meeting at 4:45 at the school. We got there at 4:50 and nobody was there. Well, we tried asking around for the bus stop and got sent in so many different directions I don't have any idea where we ended up. It is the same in India, even if people don't know the answer to your question, they will answer as if they do. I wish this didn't happen. So we got on a bus that was going to the right town. We got there just as the sun was rising. From there it was a 2 hour walk up to the volcano with a lake in the cone. Well as we started walking uphill I noticed that a lot of this hike could be driven, which made me annoyed. Eventually we saw a pickup full of gringos zoom past us. They had probably hired someone to take them all from Xela. Justin flagged down the next pickup. It was full of Mayan farmers. We were the tenth and twelfth people crammed in. Their ages seemed to be from 5 to about 80. Seriously Guatemala, get these people some education and some social security. The youngest and the oldest didn't speak Spanish. And they all spoke Mam. This ride saved us about two kilometers of walking up the road. It brought us to the entranced, and from there it was only a 45 minute hike. Justino, who is in much better shape than me was obviously not used to hiking. He's a city boy from SoCal, but he ended up doing alright. There were two stunning views from the top. The one that looked over the lake in a volcano's crater. The other was of three other volcanos: Santa Maria, Zunil, and Santiaguito. Santiaguito, the most active in C. America and in the top five in the world, erupted while we were watching it. Over 500 stairs dropped us right to the edge of the lake. We walked part way around it and saw a large group of Mayans having a ceremony. This is a highly sacred area, and foreigners cannot come during certain times of year. 500 something stairs back up, down the trail and we knew we couldn't catch a truck going back down this early in the morning, so we just walked the whole way down to the road. We both agreed that the exercise would be good for us. Oh, and his class, they were meeting at 5:45, not 4:45, but we were glad we went early to beat the tourist rush.

That night was one of the most epic nights of the trip. Justino and a few people from his class and I went to a soccer game between the Xela Chivos (goats) and the Guatemala City Diablos (Devils). People had told me I would learn new vocabulary, but I just figured they meant people yell a lot of swear words. Well, yes they do, but they also chant them in unison, and the band plays music that everyone sings vulgar songs to. Most of the phrases revolved around the word puta, hijo, and madre, but there were many other colorful phrases. Here's some of my favorites:

Rojos, y Crema, la misma mierda!: Red and white (colors of Guate) the same as s***

Maldito Madero: F***ing gangsters (because Guatemala City is known for its gangs)

Que se muere: I hope you die! (usually yelled when an opposing player is down)

Serrote: S***, or literally you are my s*** (this was a very important one)

Xute: A**

There were many more, but I think you get the idea. Mostly I learned that sportsmanship is not nearly as fun as a soccer game in Latin America.

The atmosphere before the game was awesome. Everyone wearing red, loads of food vendors, no rules about where or how people could sit. People lighting sparklers in the stands, then throwing them over the fence onto the field. Some were even lighting fireworks right there in the stands. It was chaos. There were no rules. Xela's mascot paraded around the field doing naughty things to Guate's mascot. After a pretty respectable firework show just on the other side of the fence from us, which included a 50 foot string of firecrackers, they tied a diablo, Guate's mascot, to the fence, which is seriously like 5 feet from the fans, doused it in gasoline and torched it. A lot of the crowd had to move to avoid getting burned, but the cheering was huge. On the other side of the field they burned a Brazilian flag because a Brazilian that played for Xela left to play for Guate. When did American sports get so lame? Seriously, laser light shows, dances and acrobatics before a game is cool, but this was way radder. radder? yeah, it works. Guate, who was highly favored, came out strong, but the refs, who were on our side, called back two goals due to off-sides. Xela dominated the second half, but in the end, it came out scoreless. I was disappointed that I never got to see the unspeakable madness that I am sure would follow a Xela Goooooooooooooool!

ONE MONTH TRAVELING!

The next morning I was off. Got up at 4:45 to get to the bus station. Plan for the day, begin my ascent of Volcan Tajamulco, the highest point of Central America at 13,845 feet. Most people take a guide, which costs about $40, but ten minutes of research on the internet gave me the info to do it on my own. I got the first bus just before six, and it took me to San Marcos. I found a cheap hotel to rent a room so I could ditch all but the essentials for a night on the volcano. I was glad I didn't have to stay in that place. I mean, it seemed nice, but the bloody hand print on the door gave me some reservations. I grabbed the next bus to a small Mayan village higher up in the mountains. So here, I had to look for some sort of trail head. I eventually came to a sign that had the volcano's name on it and two roads, one going down and one going up. Now, it would seem obvious which to take, but I asked a passing truck just to be sure. I asked a person in the truck, not the truck itself, sorry. To my surprise, Tajumulco, was on the downhill road. I hopped in the back of the truck and we were off. After five minutes of driving we picked up another passenger. His second language was also Spanish, so communicating was difficult. He told me that he lives in the village of Tajumulco. I asked if that is where you go to climb the volcano. No, he told me. I banged on the side of the truck to signal I wanted to stop. I told the guy I wanted to climb the volcano, not go to the town of Tajumulco. He told me to get back in and that the trail was there from the town. He started to speak in English which took me by surprise. He explained that the trail was down there. I remained skeptical, but took the truck all the way down to the town of Tajamulco, a trip of 30 minutes on a winding dirt road. The guy in the back explained that there was a trail to the volcano, but it was much longer and very complicated. I told this to the driver and he told me he would take me to the trail just outside of town. His speaking such good English really sketched me out. One does not learn that kind of English in rural Guatemala. Most likely he was deported from the States, most likely for committing a crime. No, this did not seem right at all, and I got out to the frustration of the driver. I watched the other passenger pay 5Q for the ride. "Twenty Quetzales", the guy told me. I was glad we were speaking in English so I could tell him off properly. "He only paid five!" "Yeah, well he got on after you" My trip was 30 minutes, his was 25, I did not think this justified a 15Q increases. "I shouldn't even pay you at all, you knew you weren't taking me to the right place, now I have to pay to get back where I started!" He drove off quickly, and I almost didn't grab my bag in time. It really seemed like he wanted take me past this town off some rural road and rob me. I don't know for sure, but I don't get bad feelings about people very often, but I definitely did about this guy. Maybe he just wanted to overcharge me and that's it, no way to know for sure, but I am glad I did what I did.

Well, now I am at the deepest depths of this valley in the tiny Mayan village of Tajamulco. I would have hung out here for a while, if I wasn't already an hour behind schedule. This was definitely a very off-the-beaten track place where they are definitely not used to seeing foreigners. It made it a bit more reminiscent of India with all the stares. I caught a ride in the back of a truck with about a dozen Mayan women and all their wares. It was super-uncomfortable, but it was fun.

So I got started up this mountain finally. I had heard it is about 4-5 hours to the camp, which is only 200 vertical meters from the top. I wanted to get there with plenty of time to set u camp though. It was probably 11:30 when I got started. There were a few houses I passed by at the beginning. The kids ran out. "Buenos Dias" I said. "Buenos Dias, regalame una galleta" Good morning, give me a cookie! they said. Wow, this was a rerun of the second half of the Everest trek, indicating an area heavily touristed. I don't have have any cookies, I told them. Give me a quetzal! Why? I asked. They didn't really know what to say. Perhaps because they only knew a bit of Spanish, but I don't know. It's tough. These kids are poor, their families are poor. They're farmers, and are living hand to mouth. Would a quetzal, about 12 cents, hurt? But then again will it really help? Will it teach them to rely on handouts, and hinder their future, or will it at least ensure beans on their plates tonight?

About 3 and a half hours of moderately difficult hiking and I reached the base camp. I had gained about a thousand vertical meters and I was feeling it. In the day I had gained almost two thousand vertical meters after leaving Xela. My head hurt, and catching my breath was more difficult than normal. I pitched my tent, and gathered some sticks for my fire. Most of the firewood had been taken by the Mayans selling it around their villages and other trekkers. There was a lot of green wood laying about, but nothing old enough to make a good fire. I had enough moss, pinecones, twigs, and sticks to get a little fire going enough to make my can of beans kind of warm. I ate them with some tortillas I had bought in Xela. I also followed the trail past the camp to figure out where to go the next morning. There were a few trails going in the same direction, and they were all kind of vague, but since they all seemed to go the same way I figured it would be fine. to take any of them.

The wind was brutal and it was getting freezing as the sun dipped below the mountain. I was in my tent just after four o'clock. I thought how I could probably climb this thing before sunset, make it back down to the road in a couple of hours in the dark, catch a bus back to my hotel room and be warm for the night. But the reason that I had heard that this is usually a two-day hike is that watching the sunrise from the top of the mountain is an amazing experience.

I listened to some music on my iPod until the hearing in my right ear quit working. It was a bizarre feeling, not really pain, just awkwardness, and I didn't know if this was an affect of the elevation or what. A couple hours later when it got dark, the wind really picked up, shaking my tent all through the night making it loud and cold. I had known the whole time that I had not brought enough for warm clothing, but I have made it through some cold nights (notably San Juan Islands in February and Pheriche in the base camp trek) and didn't want to buy more clothes and lug them around. In fact, this night wasn't one of the coldest, though it was one of the most miserable. Sleep came in bursts of 10-20 minutes, and the deafness in my right ear became pain and deafness. I was very thirsty, but only had half a liter of water left that I needed for the climb tomorrow morning. I was stuffed up and couldn't breathe. Then my nose started to run all over the place and I had nothing to wipe it with but my shirt or sleeping bag. Any snot or drooling on my bag not only made it gross, but colder as well.

4:45 finally rolled around. I figured I needed to get to the top by 6 to watch the sunrise and make it down to the road in time to catch buses all the way to my next destination and check out of my room in time.

I stumbled out of my tent with my headlamp and a vague idea of where to go. I found one of those trails that seemed to skirt the summit. I lost the trail a couple times, but managed to find it. After about ten of walking I realized that I had really lost the trail and should probably start over. I found another trail, but it did not seem to lead me to my tent. I lost that trail again and realized I had no idea where I was. I wandered around in a panic for about five minutes and found a trail much more beaten than any of the others. I could not see my tent, but I had figured out where I was, roughly, in relation to it. This must have been the correct trail, and it seems to be a much more direct route up this thing. It started out just straight up the side of this volcano's cone, fairly strenuous. All I carried was my water bottle and my camera, which was getting bumped up pretty bad as the terrain got more difficult. It just got steeper and steeper, as I was basically crawling up a scree field with loose rocks. Everything I grabbed, even the largest rocks, were pretty loose. I looked down. I was probably half way up this thing, but it was only getting more vertical above, and getting down from here seemed like it would be a difficult task without losing the life of me or my camera. What's more, the trail above me seemed less like a trail, and more like the general route of rocks tumbling from the top of the volcano. I sat down and rested for a while, waiting for a bit of sunlight to show me the way. I probably only had another 20 minutes from the top if this was indeed the correct trail. My head hurt and my ear throbbed. The wind whipped my bear hands. I lasted about 15 minutes waiting for the sun, but I had to go down. This couldn't possibly be the way, as the hike had been described as moderate, and I was definitely in the very difficult category. I slowly made my way down with my tail between my legs. I fell several times, though luckily did not hurt my camera. My Keane sandals were fine for the moderate hiking, but did not have the support for this. I tried one more trail veering off in what seemed like the right direction. It quickly faded and I figured that I should get back to my tent while I still knew where it was. I started to take down my tent. I felt super lame. I mean, I had come within about a hundred vertical meters and didn't make it. And this isn't even a mountain mountain. This is a tough day hike. I could have waited for light to explore the correct trails, but I didn't have the time, plus I had drank all my water, my head was in pain, and I simply did not have the energy for it. Well, this just gives me a reason to come back to Guatemala then.

A couple hours later I was back at the side of the road, feeling dehydrated and beat down. I bought some peanuts and orange pop from a little store just before the bus came. When I got on, I realized this was going to be a super lame bus ride, probably a punishment from the trekking gods for being so lame. Jam-packed on windy mountain road for an hour. Constantly picking up more people, all going to the same place. I was among probably thirty people standing in the aisle, clinging to the bar above us. It was a rough workout to not slam into everyone around me at ever curve, stop or acceleration, of which there were many.

Back in San Marcos, I quickly grabbed all of the stuff in my room. Everything was still there, though it appeared that my shower had been recently used as the floor was all wet, and there was also a cigarette butt that had not been there before.

Then a bus from San Marcos to Xela, to some place on the highway where I got out, caught a bus to some town, then a bus to Panajachel, then the last boat to San Pedro on the Lago Atitlan. It was good that I had gotten off the mountain when I did. Missing one connection would have meant that I did not get to San Pedro. The lake is absolutely amazing. It has scenery reminiscent of Lake Coeur d'Alene, minus the resort and mansions plus it is surrounded by huge volcanos.

And that's where I am now. Back to Hippie-land. We'll see how long I can last. Oh, and I still can´t hear out my right ear. Kinda worried about that.