Monday, September 25, 2006
We´ve arrived!
I have so many thoughts and so many observations in just a few days of being in Guatemala and Levi has to go to the bathroom, so I have to make this quick. In short, Levi and I arrived in Guatemala City on Thursday morning and took a terrifying ride into Antigua, which the guide books promised would be the Paris of Guatemala. Not so much. It´s more like the north side of Dublin on a sunny day. There are some colonial ruins to visit, including a huge church that this fallen Catholic bee-lined to. (What is it with self-hating Catholics needing to visit churches? My uncle Jean-Paul´s ideal vacation is spent visiting churches, and he HATES the Catholic church.)
From Antigua, we took a chicken bus (a garrish, brightly painted, retired U.S. school bus) into Panajachel, which was supposed to be a cheap ride in but ended up costing me a skirt, a debit card and about $100. Why? A seemingly nice Guatemalan woman sitting next to me sliced through my skirt with a razor to access my money pouch.
Feeling disprited, humiliated and poor, we ventured into Panajachel. (Levi was short on quetzals and the local bank machines had no more money to offer, and I, of course, had nothing.) Given our chicken bus experience, it was a fitting day to arrive -- a US citizen was nearly lynched by a mob of 40 locals who said he had raped an 11 year old Guatemalan girl.
In Pana, we stayed at a small hostel called Hotel Sanchez, where a Maya woman cooked vegetables over a stove and a mother hen clucked about the courtyard with her baby chicks in tow. So cute, right? I thought so until about 1 a.m. when I was reminded that, where there are baby chicks, there are daddy roosters more jet-lagged than you. They will crow at 1 a.m. They will crow at 3 a.m. They will crow until they can crow no longer, until it is time for you to get out of bed. I was reminded of farm camp in the fourth grade, when a classmate of mine replied to the rooster´s crows with, ´´I want Chicken McNuggets!¨
Sadly, something bad happened at Hotel Sanchez, though what was unclear. The wonderfully kind Maya woman was sobbing later that night, and in the morning, the older boys hung around the courtyard, some kicking stones, the others with their hands in their heads.
On Sunday, we arrived in San Pedro, where there are bare-footed hippies, more evangelical churches than Lynden, and, of course, many Maya people. Here, everybody speaks Spanish poorly -- the locals and the tourists. It´s a bit nice, really, though also pretty confusing.
The evangelical influence is overwhelming, but so too are the number of malnourished children we come across. And though everyone seems to think that the Maya people are very friendly -- don´t get me wrong, most are -- there´s this sense that we´re really in their way. Spray painted on the wall by our hotel are the words, ´Gringos go home.´
All right. Levi really has to go to the bathroom now and has given me more than just stink eye. I´m being unfair, really -- Levi has been a wonderful traveler and companion and we´ve had so many laughs in just one week.
Soon, I will have photos and you won´t have to peruse these ramblings. Much love,
Isolde
From Antigua, we took a chicken bus (a garrish, brightly painted, retired U.S. school bus) into Panajachel, which was supposed to be a cheap ride in but ended up costing me a skirt, a debit card and about $100. Why? A seemingly nice Guatemalan woman sitting next to me sliced through my skirt with a razor to access my money pouch.
Feeling disprited, humiliated and poor, we ventured into Panajachel. (Levi was short on quetzals and the local bank machines had no more money to offer, and I, of course, had nothing.) Given our chicken bus experience, it was a fitting day to arrive -- a US citizen was nearly lynched by a mob of 40 locals who said he had raped an 11 year old Guatemalan girl.
In Pana, we stayed at a small hostel called Hotel Sanchez, where a Maya woman cooked vegetables over a stove and a mother hen clucked about the courtyard with her baby chicks in tow. So cute, right? I thought so until about 1 a.m. when I was reminded that, where there are baby chicks, there are daddy roosters more jet-lagged than you. They will crow at 1 a.m. They will crow at 3 a.m. They will crow until they can crow no longer, until it is time for you to get out of bed. I was reminded of farm camp in the fourth grade, when a classmate of mine replied to the rooster´s crows with, ´´I want Chicken McNuggets!¨
Sadly, something bad happened at Hotel Sanchez, though what was unclear. The wonderfully kind Maya woman was sobbing later that night, and in the morning, the older boys hung around the courtyard, some kicking stones, the others with their hands in their heads.
On Sunday, we arrived in San Pedro, where there are bare-footed hippies, more evangelical churches than Lynden, and, of course, many Maya people. Here, everybody speaks Spanish poorly -- the locals and the tourists. It´s a bit nice, really, though also pretty confusing.
The evangelical influence is overwhelming, but so too are the number of malnourished children we come across. And though everyone seems to think that the Maya people are very friendly -- don´t get me wrong, most are -- there´s this sense that we´re really in their way. Spray painted on the wall by our hotel are the words, ´Gringos go home.´
All right. Levi really has to go to the bathroom now and has given me more than just stink eye. I´m being unfair, really -- Levi has been a wonderful traveler and companion and we´ve had so many laughs in just one week.
Soon, I will have photos and you won´t have to peruse these ramblings. Much love,
Isolde
