Guatemala April – June 2008

Have you ever noticed how stretchy and bendy time is ?

Sitting here, already 6 days back in NZ, it feels like forever since I made my first stop off in Singapore….the heat and humidity of early April……then on to Frankfurt and surrounding areas and a dramatic temperature shift into late winter : in both these places I was so warmly received and looked after by friends I had not seen for, in some cases over 10 years !!

Isn’t that one of the beauties and privileges of having traveled so much and met so many generous people ?

It felt so easy to slip again into conversations of life, ideology, experiences, loves and losses, looking into faces of those who, just like me have been aging, and yet (there’s that time thing again) feeling like no time had passed at all.

And so it is too with Guatemala, one of the main focuses and motivators for this 8 week travel : already I am 10 days removed, and yet sitting the other afternoon at French Bay, it was like I was never (or at least so recently) there……yes, behind it all there is this new set of memories….images, rememberings and new experiences indelibly imprinted but how do we keep such experiences present when each day we immerse in more ?

For a while I didn’t want to speak English, as (although with certain limits) I had become so used to the sounds and my faltering conversations in Spanish….I felt if I didn’t keep it going, it will just dissolve like a morning mist…and then (my ever-inquiring mind says) what will you have from that trip ?

Such has been a background in the weeks and months I have been away : now I’m not going to spend endless pages boring you with the inner ramblings of my mind, but you may notice little references pop up along the way : where what was going on ‘in there’ was definitely related to and influencing / influenced by the outer daily experiences.

Returning initially to UK after more than 9 years away was a profound time too : not just to re-connect with parents and few other family, but to really go back to all those old places where I grew up; schools, homes, places of work and social times; monuments and landscapes…..again there are a few lingering contacts but above it all was a sense of completion….of whatever stories I had made up about England, English people and culture, my wanting or not wanting to ‘belong’ to this or that identity….somehow it had all got a bit distorted over the years and a good reality check proved indeed there are no ghosts or skeletons in closets waiting to jump at me at any time : stuff was all made up and it’s a freeing experience to have been there-done that, so to speak.

And so, with a growing sense of anticipation, by late April I was more than ready to get on the next series of flights and head over at last to begin my Guatemala experience (via flights in and out of LA and Houston).

The first few days were quite disorientating : with so many flights and, I think being so out of practice at ‘traveling’ again, I made it away from Guatemala City by bus to Quezaltenango (AKA “Xela” pronounced 'shay-la'), 5 hours way up in the highlands, west and north. So there I am first 24 hours : no sense of location / orientation, tired, no real food in a small and very basic room with my host ‘family’ (ie Senora Antoniette and her two little dogs !)….The city is at 2200m altitude and cold at nights…..I had some sleep but awoke (as became the pattern) at about 5am with noisy trucks and buses passing within a metre of the outside of my room/wall.

I get a bit cavalier too when I travel (or I always used to !) and soon find myself eating some basic foods from scruffy street stalls…..well, a new environment exposes you to new tests on your immune system, and to cut a long story short, I got sick (and you know I have this pride thing that I don't get sick !!!)….so that’s the platform I set out from….more to follow !

Immediately first morning there, at 8am sharp, I made my way to the nearby school….in a very old building and courtyards, called La Escuela Miguel de Cervates, owned & run by Sary : I had booked this all up online before leaving NZ and at least it gave me a start, not really knowing what I would be expecting actually ‘on the ground’

Xela is Guatemala’s 2nd city, with around 200,000 population (depending on how far out in the surrounding regions you stop counting)….and those surrounding areas are themselves surrounded almost entirely by mountains and not a few volcanos…this is one of Xela’s biggest draw cards to visitors, with many stiff hikes to old and still active peaks. The other reasons for going there are to get a good standard of Spanish Tuition, and for many, to also get involved in the many humanitarian and environmental volunteer programmes.

Also depending on which stats you read, more than 60% of the population are ‘indigenous’ (saying Indian is as insulting to them as calling Inuit people ‘Eskimos’….2 main dialects of indigenous (ie Maya) language are spoken in Xela, and Spanish is also used…however many older ‘indigenas’ never receive much schooling and thus do not speak as much Spanish. What is most striking though is the vast amount of people (mostly the women and girls) who daily wear the most vibrant colourful costumes whether they are working at dirty markets, eating out at the local McD or wearing heels and using cell phones….its simply another, normal way to dress and of course it blew my photo-biased mind quite a lot. This was one of those ‘things to get over’ for me : not having my ideal camera anymore (through damage) and also being there as ‘more than a tourist’ I felt, I was much more reluctant (and somehow ‘intimidated’ in a subtle way I can’t explain) than in Asia to create and take the kind of photos I normally do. Also the culture is very conservative and esp respecting people’s space and dignity…..most people say ‘no’ to a request to take a photo, unless there has been some sort of trust / conversation created, and even trying to sneak a more general shot has them looking away and not producing much of artistic merit anyway.

So, with all that and using my little digital camera, I have nevertheless ended up with the shots I have, and had to stop mourning the ones (and there have been hundreds) I didn't take !!

So, Learning Spanish : an Interactive Approach !!!

There are many schools in Xela, of varying quality, but the norm. is that you book 1-1 tuition for 3, 4 or 5 hours a day : I had elected for 5 hours. Many of the teachers, I later found out work freelance for many of the schools, depending on student traffic, so they sort of have arrived at this way of teaching being the optimum…given that a student could be there for a week or a month or several, and come with any degree of experience, I guess they have to start somewhere. Even though it IS ‘immersion’ ie you live in the town with a host family and basically just get out there each day to have a daily life, the actual ‘classroom’ (often mine was at a sunny garden table in the courtyard !) is still the ‘grammar book / theory first’ approach. This kind of frustrated me a bit, and despite changing teachers, really I could have spent a lot of my time moving around and not getting any traction. I did therefore learn that I ‘learn’ and am more motivated by certain methods, and also learned that really the teachers (of various ages and experiences) will teach you what you tell them to teach you….end of the day, if I were doing this again, I would invest in a good course book and material, with work book, and then have a teacher work through lesson by lesson with me. then use the environment (markets, shops trips etc) as my proving ground, and reinforce that in the end with the grammatical form.

My young teacher, Lizandro, 26, (as well as finding every opportunity to bring a line from a 1960s or 70s UK-USA rock anthem into the context of our lessons !) is studying philosophy at the city’s ‘free’ university, and gains there quite a liberal, ‘Che’ Guevara-influenced education : we had some good discussions (in Spanish !) on many aspects of culture and philosophy, and I also came to learn that so many words in Spanish are similar to English (given the Latin roots) …. Sometimes I felt good about that, but at other times I knew I was still sort of ‘guessing’ and noticed I was really avoiding the more formal stuff…..great when you can catch yourself like that I find.

Then some days I could barely understand even a basic greeting from some one in the street…drove me crazy and I realized learning to really speak and learn a language takes more than the clever little few phrases I could get by with in say, Thai or Malay…..for novelty value ! This is something wholly different I’m onto here !

So I had a new footing for the tuition anyway, and in the end needed to change where I was living, landing on my feet a little, a few short blocks away from the Parque Central area in quieter streets and with a nice big room on a roof terrace.

Here each day having returned from my 8am-1pm schooling I would be fed, then do some tarea (homework)….my motivation was somewhat low though, as I was really not eating much by then, being right off food, yet still feeling ‘full’ and bloated. I also felt so tired each day and often needed to nap in the afternoons. I got to do a little sunbathing (as the weather up to end of May is still warm & sunny enough) on the roof, but that was a problem for the conservative and very Catholic lady of the house (as I was later pulled up for it via my school director)…..not the done thing, esp as there were many family members coming and going during that time for the commemoration of the death of the grandmother….18 days of evening gathering, eating, prayer and hymn-singing Whew !!!! Upto 40 people at a time some evenings….you could say it was an ‘opportunity’ at very least, to practice my fledgling Spanish !!

Another thing I had to figure out how to resolve in Spanish was that the little shower in my room gave me electric shocks (yes even when standing naked with my Crocs on !) and in letting my host know about this, I discovered that Spanish for electric shockis…..’electro choque’ : how convenient : holds true for so many words, but beware of what we call ‘false friends’ ie words that sound like English but have a very different meaning : I’ll give you an example : the word for ‘engaged’ (to be married) is 'compromiso'….interesting, eh Guys ?? Also the word for ‘commitment’ is…wait for it : 'compromiso' ! (Just to round this off though, the word for ‘compromise’ IS also 'compromiso', incase you wondered).

Anyway, back to the story: I noticed I felt I was withdrawing and between some other fevery kind of experiences, my mind started chewing on that old bone….as I was tired I wasn’t enthused to got out in evenings or join in some extra-mural activities, like salsa lessons or even too much wandering round the streets. I did often take myself into the main square however, and sit for a while….surprised (or not actually) at how many people, often street vendors, would approach and we’d strike up conversation….I learned to speak quite eloquently about where I was from, what NZ is like and why I was there learning Spanish.

But after a while I noticed I was avoiding that too, as the streets are busy with noisy traffic and (like NZ !) there are no toxic emission laws of course, so I felt a little short on breath .

Don’t get me wrong though, I did get out a lot, often with Lizandro within our lesson time, and also on my own, to explore the region….whether going to a nearby town or village on the famous and crowded Chicken Buses (the city also has a large and somehow workable network of mini or micro buses that for 1 quetzal (10cents) take you anywhere in the city…handy for those longer trips which start from all kinds of market / bus terminal locations).

With Lizandro we went out in to the rural areas, climbed mountains and volcanos; visited friends in more remote areas and got to connect with people just getting on and living life in Guatemala.

My overall impression is that in this 3rd world country, people are mostly concerned with getting on and doing what it takes to put simple food on simple tables. In the papers one reads often about corruption and crime (more in Guatemala City) and bus crashes, and then come June, the tail end of hurricanes moving up the east and Caribbean side of Central America.

What was still a shock, probably more than when I traveled and lived in Asia is the blatant dumping of litter and waste almost everywhere you look !

All along the roadsides (straight from the bus windows !) but worse in the rural areas, streams and rivers…in one nearby town, a very lush and produce-rich area (how amazing to walk one day for 8 kms back from a remote hot springs through vast steep landscapes where families were harvesting huge cabbages, round white onions, radishes as big and bright red as apples and so much more !)…while waiting to find a bus back home, I watched as a handful of women came from the market with 30kg sacks on their heads and simply dumped the whole contents of waste over the bridge down into the river below….this the same river that further down stream other women were washing clothes in, and the same river from which water is irrigated onto those ‘healthy’ and productive fields ! Really, there is no sense of connection between those kinds of actions and the ever-polluting of the environment….its a tradition to discard of things in this way, and a basic lack of education….but where do you start that process ?

Other trips involved getting out of town to places like Salcaja or San Andres Xecul for their famous churches….some of these villages too have a weird mix of more evangelical (than catholic) religion, as this seemed to allow their older, more pagan-animist beliefs to be maintained.

Zunil and San Francisco el Alto for their vibrant and chaotic markets. Fuentas Georginas and Los Vahos for thermal and sulphur pools (great to spend an afternoon with regular local people hanging out and relaxing, rather than at tourist spots)…plus several more.

To get to all these one becomes very adept at getting the Chicken Buses (old USA school buses brightly re-painted and crammed to the brim with people !! This is the kind of place you get your foreign culture education !!!!). Often the usual food/snack vendors come on and somehow squeeze down the bus to earn a few cents. What I found much more impressive though was the guys (almost always) who would get on at the outskirts of town and among jostling and crazy driving and people not paying any attention, would begin to deliver a very respectful and comprehensive sales pitch ! I watched in admiration at what people do, 20 or 30 times a day to earn a crust….and mostly it was promoting some pill or herbal tincture in a jar….I thought how amazing and how that related to my own journey in the west about what I would or would do to promote my business, wellness services and particularly Life Force opportunity….these guys really get into it, and not surprisingly do sell some stuff !! I found chance to chat to some of them after, and acknowledge them for their dedication. Other people would sell pencils (yes people traveling on buses do need pencils) and ‘picture of Christ’ postcards and all sorts of other things that short window of time on the bus provided.

What always makes a lasting impression is the people one meets, and for all my inner ‘stories’ and stuff, this trip has been no exception. Whether more remotely observed or directly interacting with (esp with the time spent deliberately meeting people with Lizandro) I have benefited hugely. Of course I always made attempts to network too and enquire into others’ lives, language allowing, and to pass on something I may have or have experienced as my ‘gift’ back (esp had lots of fun handing out my Thank-You Cards all over the place !!!).

Often a few ‘market vendor’ regulars would call by the school so that in coffee break we could chat and admire their wares…usually fabric and bright, hand made pieces : one older lady was always a treat to talk with and buy from : Maria, tall enough to reach a little over my waist…these people work hard and all I can ‘profoundly’ say, live very different lives from you and me : the privilege as always is to be offered a glimpse into that life, by taking time to meet, talk and connect. I think that IS still one of the motives behind why I want to learn language(s).

The other part, I have now realized, is far less altruistic : I simply think it’s neat to be able to speak another language : another skill or ability, whether it saves to world or not.

Nothing works without practice though, and whether in Xela or later as I traveled around the country more, and especially now I have moved on from that country and brought my materials home, this is where I really find out if my passion is true and I will continue to commit the time and effort on a daily practical level to accomplish my wishes.

So, at last my four weeks at school came to an end : each Friday we would hold a pot luck lunch and this week is was my turn to be farewelled and wished well on my journeys onward.

I stored my main bag, made sure I had some extra dollars changed and for security divided up all over my personage. Despite the very real possibility of robbery, I none the less continued my life experiences of not needing to attract such incidents, though everyone in Guate' has some sort of story to tell you, esp if they have lived or often visited Guatemala City : that seems to be a wholly different experience, and not one I partook of this time, thanks !

By the way I became very familiar with my regular visits to the banks, walking in past several guards armed with big pump-action shotguns : I never saw any use of such (and even many delivery trucks have their own gun-toting guards too) but each night I did hear loud bangs, whether from someone just letting off….not surprising, given the Guatemaltecos’ love of fireworks and big bangs …seemingly for any occasion and at any time of day or night….all part of the culture !!

So, desperately craving sun on my body and the sounds and feel of sand and ocean (how long can a (even-adopted) Kiwi go without the ocean and beach, right ?) I embraced more rough and tumble on the buses, 4-5 hours south eventually spilling out in Tulate (pronounced 'tu latte' , for all you Ponsonby café-frequenters) on the Pacific Coast….wow, what a different place !

Guatemala has 24 distinctly different micro-climates and down here it is hot and dry ! Try 32 degrees at 8 in the morning ! Also the landscapes are so different : no longer in the cool highlands, here things are low, flat and tropical, the views from the bus (past the 2 little kids happily playing or sleeping on my lap as we bumped along) being of lush rubber plantations and reminiscent of journeys through Malaysia, for example.

That’s another of those funny asides, and we all do this ‘comparison thing’ right ? How often, while in Xela was I reminded of the narrow and older streets and some quarters of Kathmandu ? And how often did I look into the faces of high cheek-bones, almond eyes and brown skins that had me transported back to Sumatra ? I became so ‘not’ in Guatemala, but simply in the end, in ‘another country’ where the language and sounds and sights simply ‘were’ what was going on ! Strange, eh !

OK so Tulate is not a big tourist hit (yet), though in high season (which this was not) I could see a lot of people would descend there and soak up the sun, eat a fresh seafood meal and grab more than one beer at the many thatched shacks on the grey-sand beaches.

I spent the first few hours straight at the beach, warming my eager body, swimming a little in the strong and ‘not-as-sweet-clean’ ocean (as you might find at Whatipu for example). In an instantly more laid back mood I watched a few other visitors the beach; an ‘indigena’ family in full traditional costume, experiencing the sea for what looked like the first time : a few scabby old dogs scratching around and looking pretty worse for wear….even a big pig and her litter, scavenging through some of the garbage that was to be expected around here (though to be fair much less than in the towns and crazy market areas I was by now accustomed to).

There’s only 2 hotels there, on the sandspit across a 200m estuary….one is a posh resort, way out of my league at US$50 per night : the other being an otherwise deserted, simpler place with clean pool for about $20….even here I had to make some concessions (like no water in my private toilet / hand basin) : my attempts to have that changed met barren soil : I was (I was reminded) ‘only’ paying a basic room rate, and so could use the poolside shower and facilities, if I had a problem !

By day I went for the accelerated tan, and by evening I dined simply for 3 nights here on pretty well the same dish, at the same place, with the same beer and Mexican TV shows blaring in the back of the thatched restaurant. Back at my hotel, the nights were peaceful and the early morning bird song, above the waves was a lullaby in reverse !

But time was at a premium for me, and had two more destinations to reach by 5 th June, and these required a lot of traveling on !

Returning to Xela again and over-nighting at the school, I launched off in another direction : this time east/northwards to reach the famed Lago de Atitlan : a huge lake of Taupo-like proportions and origins, with some stunning volcanos towering close by, and dotted around by smaller (mostly, apart from the tourist haunt of Panajachel) towns and villages in an idyllic setting.

Having to be flexible in my direction once I realized I was on a complete bum-steer about a bus direct to San Pedro on the lake, I took some chances and got on a bus that eventually spat me out on the main Guate-City highway at a little place with the cute name of ‘KM 148’ (you soon learn to listen in very different ways when the destination is “Ciento cuarenta y ocho” !! Anyway, after standing by the roadside long enough I was on a mini bus to Santa Clara, then into the back of a pick up to San Pablo, descending torturous hairpins as the slightly mist-shrouded lake opened up before me. Another short hop found me at last lake-side in San Marcos and I rejoiced in the cleanliness and labyrinth of little dirt alleyways filled with guest houses, new age healing centres, little eateries and so much more…really (comparing again) a lot like parts of Bali of old….very restful place and certainly lives up to its reputation as being a sacred place and draw card for ‘those who seek’. I found a great room in a very creative place, half built into rocks with some amazing wall artwork and glass features….a place you can just sink nicely into !!

For the next 2 days I chose to ‘do nothing’ and only wandered a short distance. I still very much had ‘the shits’ going on but was at peace and got some lovely food here, having long since become turned off by the usual local fare of rice, frijoles (beans), fried bananas/plantains and corn tortillas (or tamalitos). It may not surprise you to hear that I was hanging out for a pizza (which I got myself eventually) and even promised myself a steak when I got to Texas (gotta do that stuff once in a while, eh !)

The whole food / nutrition situation was actually compounded in that, when really not eating and feeling low, I guzzled my Body Balance supplies to ensure I was getting a good supply of minerals during this time. However, that also meant I ran out 2 weeks earlier than my next pick up (in LA) so really can attest to the vast difference and importance this liquid food brings into my daily life.

As I said at the start, time bends and twists and in no time I was re-tracing my steps back to KM 148 from where I got something of a bumpier ride, with an over full bus and a money collector who was definitely over-charging everyone by 50%...still, it gave me another opportunity to chat to the 17 people (no, 2 really !) that were sharing my seat and we actually had a good long chat (inc the topic of fairly un-challengable bus rip offs) until I was on my last leg back into Xela.

A final night here again, catching up with some email and snack buying (for the next journey) and then I was off at last, first the 5 hours to Guatemala City on a ‘Linea Dorada’ bus and with a few hours to kill at their city terminal, where I got to practice my Spanish again with a Japanese guy who now lives in Alabama (my, how we do move around this planet !) before heading out of town at 10pm for the 9 hour straight trip to the far north, and little lake town of Flores (by the way I hope you’re checking all these places out on GOOGLE-EARTH while you read !).

Why travel so far and for such a short stay? Flores (or more actually 20km around the small lake) in the far north, way up in the jungle areas close to both Mexico and Belize, is the jumping off point for some of the most amazing Mayan Temple ruins on the planet. Everyone’s big into the ‘Mayan Calendar’ and the whole 2012 year thing when this near 5000 year cycle comes to an end: so I wanted to see what kind of civilization they had built so long ago. Given too my fascination and wide experiences of temples in Asia (Cambodia, Burma, Thailand etc) I was not disappointed in what I found at Tikal : arguably the biggest and best restored complex of ruins in Central America.

So, in a (this time) warm and damp morning, I got from Flores to El Remate, a little string of shops, a guest house or two and lake-side restaurant, where for a very reasonable 40 Q (US$5) I had a simple room and shower, & where I could enjoy close-by a fish supper and beer (sounds like Manchester all over again !).

Up at 5 next morning and the 30km or so deep into this National Park to spend a whole day (dawn to dusk) roaming the jungle paths and sites of a huge number of temples and complexes, in various states of restoration (the temples, not me). I won’t try to over do the words here, and likely the little photos won’t do it justice, but you have to take your hat off to these ancient civilizations, for their mastery (with who knows what ‘help’ they got, and from ‘where’ !!) and total devotion to the ways of life, unseperated from their spiritual sustenance. The main two temples as well as another colossus first glimpsed further out in the jungle are truly amazing : most can be climbed, but with extreme caution, and only now via very steep timber staircases, to avoid erosion, and more importantly death (when many a tired tourist could only find the quick and direct way down !)

Although much of what can be seen today, restored and well kept is dated around the 7 th century, what was more fascinating for me was that the original temples / tombs etc were constructed around 400 BC and then as each successive king died and was buried, further layers were added over the top, to what we see today. For all those who have a deeper interest, it’s for sure worth checking out and researching more…even planning a visit one day.

The day wore on, and I have to say I got a bit templed out and physically tired ; not before I stayed on late though and got the main temples plaza to myself for a while, and had a chance crossing of paths with a gang of 'Pizotes' (a long-tailed Coati type animal) who were on the search for dropped food scraps after the days tourists had gone home.

Not wanting to wait an hour for the last microbus, I walked a few KMs (a bit wearily for sure) along the park exit road and finally flagged a little truck for the ride back to El Remate.

By now I felt I had done all I had set out to, and allowed myself the luxury of feeling ready to leave Guatemala now : another 9 hour bus south to the capital and straight out to a little but comfy hotel right by the airport left me with barely a cent left to spend, but at least a hot shower, my (takeaway, sorry guys) pizza and a short 5 min walk in the early morning to the check in. I was so glad I hadn’t needed to stay in the city after all; it really did not have any energy or appeal for me, but I was grateful to be able to get around simply and safely when needed

And so, before you know it, I am up in the skies headed to Houston and to meet up with a friend I had first (and last) met in Thailand on my first ever big trip in 1995 : that 4 days drive across the southern desert states to LA, from where I flew home to NZ was a re-entry for sure, and a chance to reflect just what this whole 5 weeks had really been about.

I don’t have any ‘definite’ answers to that, and each time I try to name one, it slips away from me.

But what I do think was important is that I do have another wealth of life experiences, which seems to be something of my journey to go gather, this life-around. I also have begun confident steps in Spanish language and this is still a passion I will follow.

I feel it is so important to guard against stagnation and complacency in life : you know, the things we can become so used to / familiar with, but there's no 'passion' in them anymore, right ? I have found, more by result than by planning that I have to keep re-inventing myself : its a restlessness that when used positively keeps me from stagnating.

And more than anything else, I think what was most important was that I get up off my ‘somewhat rooted’ backside and get out there in the world again : create a trip, move, explore, get some energy flowing again.

I feel it working, even to just come back to NZ on a bright mid winter day (just like I did 9 years ago !), to sniff the air and take up my next house sit here in Gulf Harbour while I re-integrate the whole last 2 months….something has happened…..I know I am in the right place right now…..all I can say is “Watch This Space” !!