Guatemala and the Art of Chicken Bus Maintenance

December 21 - January 10, 2001 -- Having overcome my initial nervousness about crossing into Guatemala, I jump a river boat to cross over, take in Tikal, and then spend a few lovely weeks at Antigua and Lago de Atitlan.

Tikal

After returning from ruins at Palenque to the campground, I grabbed my backpack, paid up, and headed into town to catch a bus to Frontera Corazol, my jumping off point for Guatemala. From the town of Palenque, Frontera Corozal is a Medium Bladder ride over pretty good roads providing great views of the pretty well hacked up Lacondan rain forest. I met a Venezuelan girl and a Guatemalan businessman on the bus, so the conversations were pleasant. Not really sure what his business was, didn't want to know, but he carried small packages across all the borders of Central America, and when we got to Frontera Corozal, we surrendered our mexican tourist cards and got our exit stamps at a tiny little office from some guy who came riding up on a bike. Then we walked straight to the fastest motorized lanchas, and through our Guatemalan friend's connections, were en route immediately for 5 dollars each, half the going rate. The Rio Usumacinta is about 300 yards wide, and looks like a pea-green version of the Willamette with jungles and vines coming right down to the water. Occasionally on the 10 mile journey, we would see little shacks set back in the trees or indigenous people bathing or doing their washing in the river. In what was for me far too short a time (30 minutes), we stepped off the boat on the muddy shores of the Guatemalan border town of Bethel.

All of us were heading for Flores, a good town to stop for the night if you are going to visit the ruins of Tikal. Unfortunately, we missed the bus to Flores, so we were out of luck. My Guatemalan businessman friend swore that something would come along though, private transport or mini-bus, so we checked in through Guatemalan customs, paid our five dollar "tax" to the border guard's beer fund, and settled down into a little shack to sip some brews ourselves. I was in a good mood and bought us three rounds of Gallo, the most popular Guatemalan beer. Gallo is like something heinous from the dumpsters behind the breweries of Milwaukie. It is a flavorless, Lucky Lager type beer with the added feature of giving you indigestion every single time you drink it. It does the trick though, the conversation was good, and we were enjoying ourselves.

After 3 hours of waiting, a pickup truck came along, and for the rather steep price of 7 dollars each, we all were on our way. I was jammed into the back seat next to the Venezuelan girl for the Medium Bladder ride over very bumpy dirt roads to Flores. This was the actual night of the winter solstice, so I was thinking a bit about all the bongo beating that must be going on back at Palenque. As I stared out into the night, at any given moment, I could see several hundred fire flies at once, giving the night a very magical feeling for the next several hours. The Venezuelan girl and myself were rather unceremoniously dumped in the town of Santa Elena, just outside of Flores. We got out, shook the dust off, I bought some chicken and tortillas from a guy barbeque-ing on the side of the road, and we set off for the kilometer or so walk into Flores. Oops, forgot my floppy hat in the truck, oh well, damn. A 12 year old kid stopped us to offer to sell us pot, and after we laughed and refused, he asked me for one of my tortillas, which I thought was hilarious, so I gave him one. Flores is on a tiny island in Lago de Peten Itza. Apparently when the Spanish arrived, it was covered with pyramids of a religious nature. The good Spaniards saw fit to level what was there, and instead of impressive ruins, Flores now hosts a cute little town chock full of hotels. The Venezuelan girl (I never got her name) and I were tired and since several hotels were full, we jumped at the first thing we could find and shared the last available double room at the Hotel Canoa for 5 dollars a piece. In the morning, I went to Tikal on a round trip shuttle that cost 5 bucks. I didn't get to say goodbye to the Venezuelan girl. She was kind of skittish, and had ducked out pretty early in the morning.

The ride from Flores takes 1 1/2 hours and wraps around the lake and up into the mountainous jungle to the north. When I got to Tikal, paid the 7 dollar entrance fee, and started to wander out to the ruins, I was quite impressed with the thickness of the foliage. You would be quite lost if you strayed more than a couple hundred yards off the path. Then I started looking around, and holy smokes, the animals that live there! Raccoony cat like things, gigangtic 2 pound gerbil looking things, spider monkeys playing above throwing globs of moss down at me, howler monkeys howling their terrifying roar in the distance, turkeys with rainbow irridescence in their feathers. The jungle here is loaded with critters. One of my first glimpses at the ruins of Tikal was the Great Plaza, featuring the two gigantic pyramid-like Temples I and II and the North Acropolis. I climbed Temple II and just sat up there for an hour or so, taking it all in. The jungle backdrop and the immensity of the structures before me was great. Lots of screaming kids though, so I recommend getting up there as soon as the park opens if you ever decide to visit. Inside the North Acropolis, I descended some stairs, looked at the gigantic face carved into the wall, and wandered off into a tiny tunnel for awhile that started forking and I chickened out and came out. I really don't like tunnels or caves that much I've decided. They are just too lonely for me. Temple IV provides a magnificent view as well, and after listening to the howler monkeys for awhile, I started booking it back to the parking lot as a torrential downpour started. I considered spending the night inside Tikal. Apparently you can bribe the guards with 50 quetzales (7 bucks) to let you spend the night inside, but the rain would have been too much so I just caught the shuttle back to the hotel in Flores. If I had to make the call, I'd hands-down say Tikal beats Palenque, simply because of its remoteness along with its pristine jungles and abundance of wildlife. Cheers to the Guatemalans for setting aside all of the land there and keeping it so nice!

Another night in Flores didn't sound that appealing, so I bought a ticket on the Fuente del Norte's all-night bus to Guatemala City for 10 dollars, then found a nice bar to eat a bit and suck down Gallos till my 11 PM departure. My last hour in Flores was spent listening to the hotel manager play lovely classical style songs on my travel guitar to a backdrop of pattering rain. Very nice. I was liking Guatemalans quite a bit already. They are quicker to smile right off to a stranger, and were generally a bit more laid back than the folks I had encountered in Mexico. Boarding the bus was a riot of mud and pouring raind and shuffling feet and smiles and laughter. Everyone was smiling, curiously looking at me...it was nice. I also for the first time noticed how lovely Guatemalan women'a faces are, especially their eyebrows. Call me crazy, but it's true. You'll just have to see for yourselves :) All I can report about the bus ride into Guatemala City is that the road is well-paved, with a normal amount of windiness, and that the ride took 7 hours.

Antigua

It was getting light when I arrived, and from what I could see, the rumors about Guatemala City being a bit ugly were true. It kind of looked like the ugly parts of Mexico City, but didn't have the charming town center to hold it all together. Further, I heard it wasn't safe for travellers, so I opted for moving on to the very popular city of Antigua. I walked a few blocks and caught the next chicken bus to Antigua and paid my 50 cents for the Empty Bladder ride. Second class buses down here are called chicken buses because you often see people toting chickens and other oddities around on them. Antigua is a bit up in the mountains to the north of Guatemala City. The first impressions that I had were of its remarkable colonial architecture and the three volcanos that ring the town. Volcan Agua is the giant directly to the south...Volcan Fuego the smoking one to the southwest...and Volcan Acatenango is the one to the west. The town preserves its colonial charm very well, and there are several impressive ruins from the earthquake in 1773. Almost immediately, I made the decision I wasn't going to rush down to Costa Rica by bus, but was going to chill here for a week or two, explore some of the surrounding area, and maybe take a spanish class. Flights were cheap, and the peace of mind of not rushing around too much sounded great to me.

There are so many great things to say about Antigua. Great restaurants, great bars such as the Mono Loco and Cafe 2000, great tiny little cafes such as Cinemaya that show foreign films for a buck, whole wheat bagels just the way I like them...chewy on the outside, soft in the middle...excellent language schools (70 or so), great place to meet travellers, and easy accessibility to other fascinating places such as Lago de Atitlan and Chichicastenango. Furthermore, Guatemalans are nice. Some dress in lovely traditional attire and come into town to sell their amazing fabrics and handicrafts. Every day provides you with some interesting opportunity to do something or to just chill out. My first hotel was the Posada Alameda for 5 bucks a night. At the market, I was able to get cucumbers, tomatos, avacados, onions and limes. Mixed with a bit of salt, the equivalent of green tabasco, and vegetable oil, this was one of the tastiest salads I had eaten in months. Another favorite of mine was the whole wheat bagels I mentioned earlier and the Superior brand cream cheese that hands down beats the cream cheese we have back home for flavor.

Christmas Eve I spent wandering around the town, watching the floats go by with the beautiful lights and the adorable little girl dressed up like the Virgin Mary holding a little plastic baby Jesus. There was also the Domino's Pizza Santa, but he wasn't nearly as charming. I started to run into people I had met before, and the first was Chris, my Australian friend who I had originally met in Oaxaca City at the Magic Hostel. Christmas Day, I called my mom and dad which was nice.

The following week, I went around to some language schools and chose the spanish school called Don Pedro Alvarado. Tuition was 60 dollars for 5 days of 4 hours of one-on-one instruction, plus 50 dollars for a homestay with a local family that included 3 meals a day. My family was lovely, and I really enjoyed eating meals with the family and talking to the parrot Bartolo. Olivia, the mother, was a wonderful cook, but when she left Esmerelda the maid to do the cooking, we got beans from the can, unseasoned noodles, and greasy fried bananas. All in all, I'm glad I stayed in the home for a week, just to see what it is like, but you are better off staying at a low budget backpacker hotel and eating the things you like to eat. My teacher, Blanca Liliana, was sweet, flirty, and interesting to talk with. I most enjoyed just rambling with her in Spanish, listening to her very closely to sharpen my ears. We got into some interesting discussions about Catholicism, local culture, stuff like that. She is pretty conservative, and once when she was telling me about her fights with her boyfriends over jealousy, I asked her to tell me about her amigos. Amigas, she said, I don't have any guy friends. Hum...Some days, all I did was transcribe notes on grammar, and that was a bit lame, but I think I improved quite a bit in that short time. A month would be a better amount of time. I also think it would be beneficial to have a different teacher every week to hear different people speak.

Lago de Atitlan

By my last day of class though, I was ready to be done with the beans and bananas for dinner and note-taking. I had run into 3 lovely Swedish girls that I had originally met in Oaxaca at the Magic Hostel, and they had invited me up to Lago de Atitlan for New Years. I had to leave for the lake later than them, but I ended up running into them anyways at the crossroads at Chimaltenango. After we sat there for awhile watching one full bus after another pass by, we realized that the shortcut over to Chimaltenango (bypassing Guatemala City) had been a mistake, and we backtracked to Guatemala City, caught an empty bus there, and were on our way, chalking up the 3 hour delay to a learning experience. A week later I would find out that instead of taking the bus to Chimaltenango, you take the one to San Lucas where it is easier to get a seat. The road to Lago de Atitlan is on the Interamerica Highway along the Continental Divide. The mountains are lovely, lots of pine trees and misty hilltops, with corn interspersed in any space available. Of all things that set the land down here apart from home, I would say the number one distinguishing characteristic is the corn. It's in every nook and cranny where it can grow, and it's brown stalks make the land look older somehow, like it has secrets or something.

Our entourage consisted of me, the three Swedish girls...Carlota, Emma, and Malin...along with a Danish girl who went by Juanita, and Emma's boyfriend from Australia, Martin. We got off the Interamerica Highway and switched buses at Los Encuentros, then switched again at Solola, the last little hillside pueblo before you drop into the collapsed volcano caldera that cradles the lake. The total chicken bus fare for the Medium Bladder ride to the lake, including our detour, only cost 3 dollars. Bus fare is definitely cheaper in Guatemala...less comfortable, more interesting with the people, and quite terrifying at times with the crazy passing on blind curves that the drivers constantly do. My advice to anyone with backseat driver tendencies is just to not look at anything the driver is doing. They have been driving crazy their whole lives and all the other drivers expect it, so don't worry about it. Once at the lake, we boarded a lancha for the pueblo of San Pedro. The sunset was fantastic as we were crossing the gigantic body of water...volcanos on the horizon, Swedish blond hair blowing every which way, the approaching twinkling lights of our destination, the lapping sounds of the water, the thunder and lightning in the distance...wowzas.

In San Pedro, guides meet you at the boat and lead you around to hotels. Most of the hotels were full though, so we ended up walking quite a bit down the winding dirt paths, past yard after yard of drying coffee beans, to some hotels close to the base of Volcan San Pedro. My friends chose a very basic place for 1.50 a piece. I decided to check in next door to a place with private bath and nice beds for just under 5 bucks. The evening ended perfectly with an amazing meal at Restaurant Tin Tin's. Rumor has it that the chef used to be Kenny Roger's personal chef. Whether this is true or not, he whipped up some amazing salads, Thai, and Indian dishes. Malin and I sat up talking very late about her work with Amnesty International, the subtleties of speech inflection in Chinese, and ended with a completely random bedtime story from yours truly about a badger and a squirrel who lived in a volcano. The morning of New Year's Eve, Juanita took some of us to a neighboring village called San Juan where her friends were going to guide us up the volcano. We had slacked, and it was too late to climb by the time we got there, so we hiked up a smallish hill with a cross and some religious relics on it, snapped some pictures, and swam in the lake. Unfortunately, I had forgotten my shorts, so I had to sit there enviously as they all swam in the perfect temperature water. Visibility is about 20 feet, and the water is a lovely green color with kelp forests and black bass and bluegill prowling about. Made my fishermen's instincts start to come out, and I made a mental note to keep an eye out for a possible fishing guide. Juanita told me about her work with a charity organization where she provided schooling and tutoring for the kids of people who live in the dump of Guatemala City picking through the trash for things to eat and sell. It was a very touching story, and I wish her the absolute best in the work she is doing with this new program. One interesting aspect of the program is that the children get rewarded with points if they attend school and the tutoring regularly. If they accumulate enough, they can trade the points for things like shoes, or even a bicycle. One especially savvy aspect of the program is that if the children attend regularly, the parents get compensated with a sack of food at the end of the month to compensate for the money they lose by not having their child in the dump with them gathering things to sell. The woman who designed the program obviously understands the complexities of the situation, and was setting up a situation where mothers and fathers who had never had any schooling could possibly have their children become a doctor or lawyer one day. I think that is great.

New Year's Eve started with Gallo's as we waited hours for our dinner at the crappy Nick's Place restaurant. It was cool hearing the Swedish girls talk to Juanita (who spoke Danish). Apparently, the languages are very closely related and the Swedish, Danish, and Norwegians can pretty much understand one another. They taught me some useful phrases, such as I don't want guacamole in my shoe. All I can remember is...guacamole i mina skeor (guacamole in my shoe). I would say one of the only drawbacks of San Pedro is all the drugs. I hated seeing heroin needles on the dirt paths where we were walking in Tevas, and three times people approached me to sell cocaine or heroin. I guess to each his own, but people who are addicted to heroin have this vacuous look in their eyes that I find disturbing. They are there talking to you, but they are abnormally calm in a way that is hard to put into words. I think it may be that they don't blink enough. Anyways, I drank quite a few too many Gallos pretty early on. Malin, who had been quite cool to chat with up to that point, had gotten really withdrawn and wasn't feeling well, so about 10 PM I walked her home and stopped by my place just for a moment to take a leak and play guitar for a bit. I had been writing lots of songs as of late, and wanted to play some tunes. I closed my eyes for a minute, and when I opened them, I could tell by the noises outside that it was probably very close to midnight. Ouch, I looked at the clock and it was 4 AM. Well, so much for my New Year's Eve this year. At least the Heavenly Host saw it fit to not swoop down and sweep up the faithful, leaving the rest of us to our weeping and gnashing of teeth. I guess we have that to look forward to another year, possibly when the comet Haile-Boppe returns :)

New Year's morning, I got up by myself, rented a clunky wooden kayak for 1.25 an hour, and paddled around to a little private beach for a few hours. A little boy there who was watching his brother hand-line for bass told me about all the tigers in the hills and monsters in the lake. I assured him that I would keep my eye out for them while I was paddling around, not wanting to be monster food myself. The people here speak a Mayan dialect, along with Spanish, and it was very cool to see them hand watering crops the old fashioned way and speaking their ancient language. Later that day, all of us rented horses (7 bucks for 3 hours) and took a lovely ride along the base of Volcan San Pedro and sat on another beach for awhile. Great evening it was indeed. I had them laughing by saying in my best drawl, get along little doggies, and don't you worry your pretty little head there missy. They were even funnier saying it with a Swedish accent. We got up early and caught the 6 AM bus back to Antigua where I said goodbye to the girls and checked into Posada Ruiz 2 for 3 bucks a night. Then I quickly went over to the Rainbow Travel Agency and bought a roundtrip ticket to Costa Rica for Wednesday, January 10th for 180 bucks. The round trip was cheaper than the one way, and I couldn't stand the thought of 4 days on a bus when the flight was only 1 hour.

I liked Posada Ruiz 2 right off the bat. The rooms were crap, but the management is nice and it has this great courtyard where everyone hangs out and talks. My guitar has been the ticket to meeting people so far. A lot of times I'll take out my guitar and start playing, and pretty soon there are a couple people sitting around, chatting, requesting Free Bird or whatever the hell else. It's really great fun. At Posada Ruiz 2 (I did in fact confirm that there is a Posada Ruiz 1, but I never saw it), I met 4 girls from Argentina who were lovely, completely hilarious and very fun--Angeles, Cali, Belu, and Caja. Along with Ben from New Zealand, Christoph from Poland, and Ivan from Switzerland, we all hit the bar. I made everyone order my absolute favorite beer of the trip so far...Moza, a dark Guatemalan beer with a slight aftertaste of molasses. It is truly heaven, and I would kill to be able to get it back home. The night was a long one, and between Ben and I, the guitar was passed around for hours. The next day I went to breakfast with the girls at Ricki's. I guess it is a good restaurant, but this was the first time I had eaten there. Something didn't taste right with my yogurt and fruit though, and no amount of sugar or honey helped, so after 6 bites I gave up. Angeles and I were the only ones who had eaten it, and she threw up later. I just felt like total crap, and I'm assuming it was made with unpasteurized milk or something. Or perhaps it wasn't milk at all, but something far more nefarious, brought to earth by the aliens? I don't think I will ever know the truth. Funny how you can be well for 2 months, eating whatever, and one little thing will set you back like that. I have just been really lucky up to this point I guess. The next day, we climbed Volcan Pacaya, the most active volcano in Guatemala. The bus ride was through a tour company, and we negotiated in a group so it only cost 4 bucks a piece, plus 3 bucks to get into the volcano park. Angeles and I talked the whole way there. The girls are from the richest suburb of Buenos Aires, San Esedro, and I couldn't get her accent at all. Argentinians drop the S from many words and change the pronunciation of J, L, and LL. It doesn't seem like that should be enough to mess me up, but it was. Luckily, they had all gone to the same school and had all studied English for 14 years each! Angie was studying to be a psychologist. All the people I had met from Argentina so far seemed extremely European to me, very liberal, extroverted, highly educated, and fun-loving. The girls exude warmth and are quite comfortable with touching, which I think is great too. Makes me want to go there to check it out.

When we got to the volcano, we got a shpeel from our guides and were told about the armed guards that were being provided to keep the banditos away. The first hour is a leisurely stroll up through some trees with an occasional clearing showing the steaming crater at the top. About twenty minutes into the walk we saw the guards sitting there swatting flies away, yawning and scratching their butts. Thank goodness for their vigilance. The last 45 minutes up to the top was grueling though because of the wind. We were totally exposed, climbing this super crumbly basalt, falling all the time. It was 5 PM now, it was starting to get dark, and the blue skies we had been having all day had turned to clouds which were whipping around us at what I would gauge to be up to 50 miles per hour. You could lean into it and not fall. My right ear, which faced the wind, was in a great deal of pain, both from the extremely cold wind and the dark black basalt sand that was filling it a little more each second. I kept watching the feet of the person in front of me, and I imagined the Mayas climbing up here just like this to sacrifice a virgin or two just to keep the mountain from wrecking the fun of the people who lived below it. That was a strange reverie, but I was definitely scared of this mountain, and I could see how they might have been too. I fell a couple of times, twisted my knee, barely made it up there, but finally peaked over the sulfur-stained rim at nothing. I couldn't see anything because of all the clouds blowing by us. I sat up there for about 5 minutes though, and I could smell the hot stink and feel the warmth and felt very vulnerable. Twice, for about 5 seconds each time, the clouds cleared and I could see an incredible view down to the valley below, but still couldn't see the molten lava inside the volcano. I had had enough, and bailed off as quickly as I could. The Argentinian girls never made it up there, which was just as well anyways under the circumstances. The two hour hike down in the dark was funny and quite enjoyable. The Argentinians were singing songs, punctuated by the occasional...cuidado, bosta! (lookout, cowshit) or cuidado, colones! (lookout, roots).

The next day, the girls wanted to go to the lake. The only real reason I had returned from the lake so quick the previous time with my other friends was that I needed to buy my plane ticket, so now that my plane ticket was secured, I jumped at the chance to return with them. It was me, Ivan from Switzerland, a guy named Mark from North Carolina, and the 4 girls. We headed up, but this time, we caught the bus to San Lucas first to avoid the full buses at Chimaltenango. At least I'm a quick learner :) At the lake, we flipped a coin and went to the village of Santa Cruz this time instead of the other cool options of San Marcos and Santiago. Santa Cruz is a totally different experience from San Pedro. The 3 hotels at Santa Cruz are right next to each other, right on the water, and the town is a 15 minute walk up the hill. No one is trying to sell you anything, no chickens, dogs, everything is squeaky clean...very relaxing and beautiful, just definitely different. Also, it is more expensive because of their monopoly. We checked into the Hotel Abaj, because our first choice, the Iguana Perdido was full. Mark, Ivan, and I split a rather expensive room for 4.5 dollars each. It had the classic stylings....cold water communal shower, holes in the ceiling where lights might end up some day, cheap ratty curtains, and bed bugs that bit the hell out of me. I find bed bugs disturbing. I don't like the fact that they suck other people, then suck you, and I don't like the bites that itch for a week either, reminding me of the vermin that crawl over you, in and out of your nose or wherever, while you sleep. They also got into my fleece jacket, which I vehemently hated and washed as soon as I could.

We ate and drank over at the Iguana Perdido, which has homestyle meals and cheap drinks. If you are drinking mixed drinks, you roll two dice, the number on the first dice is the amount of quetzales you contribute to the local poor kids, the second number is the one you pay for a drink. The most you can pay for a drink is 6 quetzales, or less than a dollar. It works out great. The food was OK, and I got to sit and listen to a guy rant and rave about how he had gotten fired that day and how the food was already horrible without his ministrations in the kitchen. He was a freak, and he was far too paranoid and needy to be employed anywhere, especially in a laid back hostel. The next day, we frolicked in the lake, read, did nothing. Snorkeling revealed some lethargic blue gills finning about and lots of pretty rocks under the water. Mark and I entertained the girls that evening with wild bongo playing, dancing jigs, improvisational songs, and guitar playing by the lakeshore. Our impromptu duo was called Pollo Frito (Fried Chicken), and we rocked Lago de Atitlan hard that night. What a band! The third day, we moved over to the pueblo of Panajachel. It is the biggest pueblo on the lake, and is the place where the buses stop to allow you to catch lanchas across the lake. We were staying there that night so we could make a day trip to the Sunday market at Chichicastenango, a highland village reknowned for its crafts. Chichi also has a Mayan stone that is thousands of years old called Pascual Abaj that I wanted to visit, so I was excited to go.

We hopped a mini bus for the one hour drive there. The second you step off the bus, you can see that you are not in Kansas anymore. It is a complete maze of shops, a lot of them flimsily erected, and has an intense carnival-type atmosphere. The competition is so fierce that people are bothering you at every step of the way. If you don't want to be harrassed to buy stuff 5000 times, then don't go to Chichi. If however, you are patient and persistent, the crafts are hands-down the best I have seen anywhere in such numbers. I don't do well under these circumstances, and I didn't want to buy anything, but instead would say stuff like, do you have a blue tortoise, I would love to purchase a living blue tortoise, do you know where I could get one? If they were funny, they would say, why yes, the price is 500 dollars, payable now, you can find your tortoise on top of that telephone pole. Other not so funny people just said, huh? Other times, I would offer to buy the entire shop for 50,000 dollars, and when they would accept, I would say I just can't take it for that low, how about 60,000? This was all in Spanish, and from the laughs, I think they appreciated this more than a lot of the other rude blow offs they usually get. There were lots of other travellers here that we knew, and one of them kindly removed a kid's hand from inside his pocket and told him where his hand belonged. Sheesh.

After a couple of hours of this madness, I rallied some of the guys to join me in making a pilgrimage to the god Pascual Abaj so we could make a sacrifice. You are supposed to cut the head off a chicken, give cigarettes, Coca Cola, or rum in return for favors from the god, so at my urging, we all went a bought a 1 dollar bottle of fire water and headed up the hill. I figured a moron wouldn't drink Gallo, so why should Pascual Abaj? For him, only the best firewater! One enterprising shoe shine lad offered to guide us there for 50 dollars, but I shrugged him off and promised my motley band of grail-seekers that we would be better off following my fool proof instincts with regards to orienteering towards the aforementioned god, and they decided to follow me. We finally got there, with a few helpful pointers from people, and reverently approached Pascual. He had some smoking incense in front of him and lots of feathers scattered about. He is about 3 feet tall, and kind of looks like a stubby phallus. I heard there are a total of 4 like him scattered about Guatemala, and he has been worshipped for thousands of years. If I get even of fraction of what I asked old Pat for, I will be a very fortunate man. I really hope he enjoyed the drink.

We returned to Panajachel, all feeling pretty great. I had a nice bedbug-less sleep, and returned by myself to Antigua the next morning. The next couple of days were just spent recuperating at Posada Ruiz 2. I was still busted up from that bad yogurt I had eaten for breakfast at Ricki's, and I had blown it by eating a couple pieces of chicken. I could literally feel it rotting in my no longer functional bowel, and I must tell you, that the sounds and smells make me never want to eat meat again! I finally did recover from this though, with the help of Pepto. My second to last night in Guatemala, I got up to go to the bathroom and had to calm down this poor British guy who was supposed to return home in the morning but had went out for dinner, and in the meantime, someone had broken into his room and stolen his passport. Ouch. I am so very glad that I made the internal pockets that are explained in The People's Guide to Mexico. I never go anywhere, not even jogging or to the shower, without my documents and money. Just makes life a lot easier. I was invited to a BBQ by another friend on my final night in town. He is living in this big yellow house with a bunch of the people from Cafe 2000, one of my favorite bars in town. We all sat up on the roof, drank, laughed, and roasted animal products over the coals (OK, I still was only drinking juice at this point and not eating, but it was fun to hang out). I think their 3-story roof may be one of the highest buildings in Antigua, and the view of Volcan Agua and the moon rising were enough to make me never want to leave Antigua. Mark my words, of all the places I have visited, this is one of the places I will return to again some day.

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