Last Night Screw Up

Rather than take a 4 am van from Antigua to the airport in Guatemala City, we figured we would go the the city the day before and stay at a hotel near the airport. Made a reservation at a place recommended by our Antigua innkeeper. When we arrived to check in at the Casa Blanca, the owner asked me something that could not possibly be heard above the construction noise. As I started gasping from the sheet rock laden air,
Gene took over and determined that there were no restaurants in the area because it was a "residential area." (So how the hell do they operate a hotel there?) Unfortunately, by that time the van had left and we didn't know where else to go, so we left our backpacks there and started walking around. There was absolutely nothing around, except for one little store, from which I figured if nothing else we could live on cookies, candy bars and sodas for the rest of the day. We had not eaten in Antigua, figuring to have a good meal in the big city, so I was not happy about all of this. We finally gave in and went back to the hotel, where they told us that the construction activity would be over at 5 and that they could call us a taxi to take us to a restaurant.To be totally fair to them, they also offered to prepare us some lunch. Sheetrock dust in my lunch with sledgehammers pounding in the background wasn't what I had in mind, so we opted for the taxi and went to a Spanish restaurant. Fortunately sangria with an order of Spanish ham and queso manchego can help to improve one's mood. Follow that up with a huge platter of seafood can almost make you forget construction noise and sheet rock dust!

Crossroads Cafe - Best Coffee in Town

Guidebooks - Don´t Trust Them!

After a leisurely walk and an appallingly bad breakfast at a "recommended" eating establishment, we had a lovely day being tourists!
One of the important lessons to learn when traveling is to never trust guidebooks. Of course I could add never trust other travelers, never trust tourist offices, never trust travel agencies, and a host of other important things not to trust, but the subject for the day is guidebooks. Never trust guidebooks. Not that I'm a non-believer in guidebooks. I love the damned things. I buy at least 2 of them for every place that we go. Reading about places I'm going to visit, or that I might visit, or that I'm thinking about visiting, or that I dream of visiting, is one of my favorite passtimes. Guidebooks are a great place to start all this. But once there, they are inherently untrustworthy.
Assume for a moment that every single word written in a given guidebook is the God's honest truth when it is written. If there is one thing that I can promise you is always going to happen no matter where you travel, it is change. So if you have this year's edition of the guidebook, some of that material is going to be almost a year old - right? Wrong! Most of it is going to be years old! It may be that guidebook publishers like to say that their books are completely updated every year, but think about it. Is that even possible? Sure, a lot of it is updated, but most of it is just there, year after year after ... One instance in particular that we always remember is the time in Costa Rica when we walked and walked trying to find the cute-sounding bed and breakfast in Santa Ana. We finally stopped at a bar that we were familiar with, since it happened to be in the area. Over a beer, we asked the owner where this mysterious B & B that we couldn't find was. Laughing uproareously (and I am sure that is NOT a word in any language), he said, "You're in it!" It turned out that years before, his very bar had been a B & B. "Some owner before me, years and years ago..." he said. Since then, I take my guidebooks lightly.
Speakiing of taking guidebooks lightly, please do not ever carry around a whole guidebook if you do not need it. First off, when you first get a guidebook (assuming that you own it and didn't borrow it from a friend or the library), immediately tear out any pages with bullshit like advertising for travel agencies and resorts. You paid good money for this book. You certainly do not need to be bombarded with paid advertising! Tear it out, throw it away - immediately. Thank you. Now, you may read every chapter and every word, if you so desire, but before leaving on your grand adventure, tear out and take with you only those pages which will be useful to you on your trip. So, for example, if you have purchased a book about Spain, but are definitely going only to Madrid and Seville, tear out those pages to take with you and leave the rest of the book at home. How you handle the loose pages depends on your personality, but don't get all hung up on that thing your mom told you about not defacing or destroying books. Trust me on this. You paid for the damned thing. It's yours to do with as you please. And when you trip lightly up the stairs in the metro station, comfortable with your little 12 pound backpack, you will thank me for this. You have permission to laugh at those serious travelers who carry those huge honkin' 50 pound packs around. (We won't even talk about the volkswagon sized suitcases on wheels here). So tear the pages out, staple them together in sections (one for each town perhaps; or one section for sights to see and another for places to eat or whatever), or leave them loose, but carry them in baggies, or whatever works for you. Repeat after me: "Paper is heavy."
OK. Where were we? Oh, yes, I take my guidebooks lightly. Unfortunately, at times, I still take them. And I still need to try places that are made to sound really interesting in said books. So this place, being near the bus station and the market (always a good bet for good local food at low prices in places with genuine character), sounded like a good bet. Here's a tip: If it takes more than 5 minutes to get your first cup of coffee in a restaurant that supposedly caters to breakfast traffic, it's gonna get worse. Get the hell out of there. Another tip: If the coffee finally comes, but the milk takes another 10 minutes to appear, get the hell out. But oh, no! We've gotta check this out. After all, the guidebook said ... So we finally got the cold rubbery eggs with the bowl of room temperature purreed black beans (NOT what I expect when I order refried beans). Lovely that the little basket of cold tortillas arrived at the same time as the cold eggs. The saving grace was the golden platanos. If only they'd been warm.
We've had so many great meals here. And so many totally adequate meals here. I guess you have to expect a bad one once in a while. So I don't expect guidebooks to be perfect, and I know that places change and are not always consistent, but I still plan to write to the Rough Guide to Guatemala and tell them that they need to delete the Comedor Tipico Anigüeño from their next edition.
After breakfast, I took Gene to see the weaving museum that I had seen a couple weeks ago with Chiqui. I was even more impressed this time than on my first visit.

He´d Give You the Pants off His ...

His name is Morgan. He is one of the owners of a really cool little cafe/bar half a block from our apartment. We were the only customers in Kafka tonight when we stopped by for a late night bite to eat. This seemed to be good luck for us, since we caught Morgan in a talkative mood. It was obviously not good news for Morgan, who would probably have preferred to have a full house tonight.
We originally met Morgan the day that Gene sat down and ripped one entire leg out of his pants. Later that day, we dropped by his bar for lunch and asked where a 6' 2" guy might buy a pair of pants in Antigua! "I might have some jeans that would fit you!" said Morgan. Whenever he sees pants in the market that look like they might be long enough for him, he buys them. So he had a pair that were a bit short for him, but turned out to fit Gene almost perfectly. So I don't know if Morgan would give you the shirt off his back, but he did give Gene the pants off his ... What a guy!
Still in his 20's, originally from Alaska, in Guatemala for a year and a half after traveling to various other places, Morgan turns out to be a friendly guy who loves Antigua but seems a little uncertain about what he wants to do with the rest of his life. He tells me that $400 a month is a good deal for our funky little 2 room apartment in this town. I had assumed that we were overpaying dramatically to get a short-term rental. After all, I thought, for $425 a month in Costa Rica, we have a really nice 3 bedroom 2 bath, 2 story house! And Costa Rica is known to be the most expensive country in Central America. Nevertheless, says Morgan, this may be a poor country, but Antigua is the most expensive city in Central america. Interesting perspective, given how much less expensive it is to eat in restaurants here than at home. So, it seems, housing here is expensive, but food is very reasonable. Does this all make sense? Beats the hell out of me.
I have noticed also that while there are something like 80 language schools in this town, and a couple of travel agencies on every block, I have not seen one real estate office. Now I know that there are 3 or 4 such offices, although I don't know where. But I'm remembering that everywhere else that I've ever gone, there have been multitudes of real estate offices.
Eventually someone is going to explain all this to me. But meanwhile, as I may have mentioned before, I could live here!

Women´s Health & Other Problems in Guatemala

It was 6 years ago when Sue Patterson received a call from a nurse friend asking for her help. The friend was working with 7 women who wanted to have their tubes tied. Each of them had at least 8 children. When Sue learned that $35 would pay for a tubal ligation for one of the women, she said that yes, she would pay for one of them. And furthermore she would email some of her friends, who might help some of the other women. The next thing she knew, says Sue, her friends had emailed their friends, and people were sending money to her. Shortly she had $4,000 in her bank account and says, "it occurred to me that this was not my daughter's money if something should happen to me!" Thus WINGS was created to help poor women in Guatemala to obtain reproductive health services.

Sue spoke this evening at the Rainbow Cafe. The Rainbow is kind of an all-purpose hangout for foreigners. It includes a cafe with pretty good food (but terrible coffee!), a bar, a used book store / exchange, a travel agency, and a bulletin board with announcements about local events, rentals available, etc. They host musical performances on most nights, and their best feature, they regularly host speakers on significant current events and conditions in Guatemala.

WINGS now has 15 employees as well as many volunteers. They have a $500,000 budget and focus on 3 main programs: (1) Family planning education and referrals in rural villages, (2) Youth Wings - 140 young people have been trained to provide talks to their peers and others, and (3) Cervical cancer screening.
Here are some of the sad statistics which Sue discussed:

· 60% of the population of Guatemala lives below the poverty line.
· Only 43% of women use any form of birth control, including "natural" methods. This falls to 21% among indigenous women.
· The average woman has 4 - 5 children.
· Cervical cancer is the most common cause of cancer-related deaths among women of reproductive age.
· A woman is 15 times more likely to die in childbirth in Guatemala than in the U.S.

As she discussed the numerous problems facing the country today, it was clear that Ms Patterson found the situation to be discouraging. It was equally obvious that she intends to continuing to help as many women as she can to have the resources to take control of their own reproductive health.

Other statistics:
· $50 protects 4 women from unwanted pregnancy for 1 year using Depo Provera every 3 months.
· $100 pays for 7 women or men to undergo voluntary sterilization.
· $250 pays for 20 women to receive cervical cancer screening and necessary follow-up treatment.

I am very impressed by this organization. You can find more information about them at the Wings Website.

Discussions with Chiqui

It's been a quiet few days after all the excitement of Holy Week. On Monday when Gene didn't feel like going out to lunch, I found a really cool little restaurant (we would call it a soda in Costa Rica) that serves tipico food. I had the "Adobado Antigüeño," which was a big slab of nicely flavored beef with a baked potato (naked), guacamol, chirmol and tortillas. Chirmol is a tiny bowl of salsa which my teacher tells me is puréed tomato, onion and salt (and maybe with some culantro). Anyhow, it was good. It was served on a wooden "plate." The entire meal cost me 25 Quetzales ($3.20 or so). The delicious licuado de melon (read refresco de melon in Costa Rica or cantaloupe smoothie in the US) cost another $1 or so. I liked the place so well that I took Gene there yesterday for lunch.
Other than the excitement of discovering a new place to eat (OK so you all know how I rate a place), the week so far has been about studying Spanish. We still have our morning classes. We had planned to switch to afternoon classes, but Saira, Gene's teacher, is only available in the mornings and he didn't want to change teachers, so we're still doing classes from 9 to 1 or so. Then we do a lot of studying the rest of the day.
The really cool thing about having a one-on-one learning situation like they do here is that we get to decide what we want to do. If we want to take a break and go for a walk to some historical site, the teachers are happy to do so. Or we can spend the entire morning doing some activity or trip, talking Spanish as we go. It's pretty much up to us. Most of the time, we feel that we get more practice studying at the apartment.
Today my teacher (Chiqui) and I decided we would go to the mercado (market). We got side-tracked when I told her I had read about a museum near where we were walking. We ended up touring the "Casa del Tejido Antiguo," a museum dedicated to the traditional Maya clothing and weaving. It is a large place with many rooms displaying the traditional syles from many villages (which are still being worn today). We also got to watch a woman doing some weaving. It is amazingly meticulous work, incredibly time-consuming. The bright colors used are beautiful, the intricate designs are incredible. For a donation of 5 Quetzales (Q7.5 = $1.00), we were given a private tour with a guide who explained the different styles from the different villages. The receptionist asked if I wanted English or Spanish and my teacher told her Spanish before I had a chance to "vote," but I was able to understand most of the explanations. It is an awesome place and I want to go back again and take Gene.
In Chiqui I feel like I have a teacher, guide, and cultural expert all rolled into one. Although we spend some time everyday going over grammer and vocabulary, we spend a lot of time discussing Guatemala, it's history and culture, it's problems today, what it needs to do in order to improve the lives of its people. It is a country of diverse culture and many languages. There are 28 indigenous languages spoken in Guatemala today - and there are many villages where few people speak Spanish. It is an election year here. Although it appears that there have been many improvements under the current administration, the prior president, Alfonso Portillo, left for Mexico the day his parliamentary immunity from prosecution ended after leaving the country virtually bankrupt, with allegations that hundreds of millions of dollars were transferred from the social security fund into Panamanian bank accounts. Apparently no one knows where he is now. It's not surprising that the people do not tend to trust governmental officials. The current president, Óscar Berger, was an enthusiastic supporter of CAFTA, which was ratified in 2005 in spite of massive opposition from the people.
Chiqui is studying to be a lawyer. She is an incredibly intelligent, strong-willed woman. I fully expect to read about her in the national news someday. For now I just feel lucky to have her as my teacher.

Easter Sunday

Rest, study, rest, study. Streets are quiet today. Mid-afternoon decide to walk around and find someplace to eat. Want to try Don Martin on the other side of the church. Sounds like it might have some good simple tipico food. It's not open today, so we stop on the corner and eat at Capit án tortuga. Food was not all that great and the prices were high, but we ran into Suzy, who we had talked to while in the line at the bank the other day. We ended up having a great conversation and hearing about all her fascinating travels from her single days. Another one of those adventurous women, now in her 60's, who traveled in her 20's to places where women didn't travel by themselves back then - Africa, Afghanistan... would love to hear more of her stories.
Saw today's only procession, San Pedro - a little tiny one to wind up the week!

Viernes Santo - Good Friday

After a brief couple of hours of very uncomfortable "sleep," we awoke with a start at 3 in the morning, just before the Roman Soldiers paraded down our street, elaborately costumed and on horseback. What a show as they were announced by trumpet and stopped at each corner to read the sentencing of Jesus. The electricity had come on and the neighborhoods were alive with alfombra makers. We agreed that we were "awake." Half a pot of coffee later, we were ready to go out into the dark streets again to watch as the alfombras grew on every street around us.
I said that the "informal" alfombras in the streets on Palm Sunday were works of art and that is true. Today's street art was worthy of one of the world's great art museums! Every street was alive with neighbors working on their alfombras. Each was totally different. At each site there were buckets of materials: supplies of sawdust or sand in various colors, multi-colored chrysanthemum buds, all sorts of flowers, and other items as needed. The street is first sprayed with water to keep the sawdust from blowing around. A base of sawdust (or sand) is laid to create a flat surface on the cobblestones. Then the formas (stensils) are used to meticulously create these beautiful multi-colored masterpieces. What an amazing experience to wander through the streets for the remainder of the night, watching these creations come to life! By about five in the morning, the alformbras closest to the church had been completed in time to welcome the procession. The atmosphere that exists in Antigua as the entire town is involved throughout the night and then all day is indescribable. Some of the active participants in the procession are Roman centurions, trumpeters, and cohorts, drums and flutes, Pontius Pilot, the thieves, banners with the Sentencing, incense carriers, children processioners, bands playing funeral marches and numerous floats carrying images including the Prayer at the Garden, the Seizure of Christ, Saint Peter, Christ at the Column, Christ Falling, María Magdalena, San Juan, Marta, María Solomé, María Cleofás, and the large floats with the sculpture of Jesús Nazareno, the sculpture of the Virgin of Dolores.
After a couple hours of watching the procession pass through our area, we wandered around the town through the streets that were still workiing on their alfombras in preparation for when the procession would get to their street later in the day. At some point, we stopped long enough to have a good breakfast at our neighborhood cafe, and then continued walking and admiring the art work until noon, when it was time to walk to the Cathedral in the middle of town to observe the Crucifixion Ceremony. No, they didn't crucify real people, although I had observed that particular custom many years ago in the Philippines. There were 3 more processions which started out around 3 o'clock from various churches (about the time that the one that had started at 5 am returned to Iglesia La Merced and ended). Thus throughout the day and night these amazing events wound through this unbelievable town, eliminating all that beautiful art work as they went! Sometime between midnight and 2 am we went back into the street to watch one of them make its way through our neighborhood. I heard one passing through the area around 4 am, but decided not to get up and go back into the street to see it again. Earlier in the evening (believe me this all runs together after the fact!) we had come out of a restaurant on the corner and stupidly started to make our way to our apartment through the crowd. We eventually figured out that something had gone wrong with one of the processions and two of them had come together at the same time, from opposite directions, at our corner. There was total gridlock for a couple of hours as neither could move through the intersection until the other did so - and there were thousands of people in the streets who couldn't move either. There was a man directly behind me with a huge basket of something on his head who kept saying "Permiso por favor!" I finally turned around to him, which was vertually impossible, and told him I could not move! He told me that yes, I could; that I just had to keep saying "Permiso!" and pushing my way through! Amazingly, we eventually made it down the half a block to our apartment and stood outside for another couple of hours with our landlords watching the processions as the gridlock somehow eventually got untangled.
This is a day that I will remember the rest of my life, in spite of the fact that it is all running together in my mind already. This week is something that I will return to Antigua for every year that I get the chance. It is totally amazing and trying to describe it is futile.
By the way, have I mentioned lately that I could live here?

Will the Lights Come On?

There is a definite atmosphere of waiting for something to happen today. Tonight will be the final preparations for the Good Friday processions. For most people, it will be a sleepless night. After our class, we walk down the street to Kafka's, a really cool tiny courtyard cafe where you can relax in a hammock with your drink or enjoy it from a table on the veranda. Selecting a table, we have pulled pork sandwiches with fries and beer. After a bit of a walk, we plan to study a while and then take naps in preparation for the busy night to follow. Alas! As usual at such times, I am too wired to take a nap, but do some reading and studying. In the evening I sleep for nearly an hour and when I awake, we hear a loud bang and the electricity goes off in the entire neighborhood. We walk in the strange darkness up to the plaza, along with a lot of other people. We think we will go to Kafka's because we know Kevin is going to grill "pinchos" (kabobs) on the charcoal grill. But he's decided it's too much trouble to cook in the dark and is giving up by the time we get there. Across the street, many of the vendors have generators, so we wander around enjoying the crowd for a while and have some fried chicken. I can't help thinking of all those plastic gloved people in fast food restaurants who are not allowed to touch (dirty) money as the woman picks up a chicken leg and hands it to me, accepting my quetzales with the same bare hand! When did we start requiring food handlers to wear plastic gloves, I wonder. Certainly no one wore them when I was growing up. And somehow I lived. Anyhow after the chicken, we buy some churros and make our way home to make hot chocolate in the dark to go with them. Late at night we take a chance and lie down for a while. We keep all our clothes on so that we will be uncomfortable enough to not fall into a deep sleep because we can sleep no more than 2 hours or we will miss all the excitement of the night.

Sábado de Ramos

Bfast @ Fernando's. Walking back toward our apartment afterwards we noticed many people heading to the church with huge bundles of pine needles on their backs or balanced on their heads. We're wondering if they are to be part of the alfombras or if they're for something else. Hopefully we'll find out eventually.
After breakfast we walked to San Felipe to visit the impressive gothic church & see their amazingly detailed alfombra, which runs the length of the church and is surrounded by gorgeous fresh fruits & vegetables. Don Benjamin, our landlord, had encouraged us to visit this one & when we saw him there, he took us outside the church & told us the story of the history of the church in this town where he grew up. It seems that the wooden sculpture of Jesús was originally in the church in San Lucas Cotzumalguapa, the home of many poor people. When their area was overwhelmed by bats, the people moved to San Felipe. Some time later, the Jesus appeared in the church in San Felipe. It was returned several times to its original home but always reappeared by miracle in the new town. The people from the two towns fought over the sculpture but it was eventually decided that it would stay in its new home, since clearly the miracle indicated that was where it belonged.
Written records tell the story a bit differently, indicating that the neighbors brought the statue to Antigua (then called Santiago) and that the priest subsequently had a church built for it. I prefer Don Benjamin's version, with the sculpture miraculously appearing in the middle of the night. At any rate, apparently the faithful have been praying to the Jesus sculpture since 1620.
After seeing the church and it's amazing alfombra, we talked to woman from Tennessee over cokes at a table in the market. She's here for 3 wks to study Spanish to renew her teacher certificate.
We walked back to Antigua and were walking from the grocery store to our apartment by a very indirect route when we came across a wonderful place called El Sitio. It seems to be an art museum/gallery, theater, exhibition hall and cafe. We had a wonderful lunch in the little cafe and spent some time viewing a big roomful of photography by Jeffrey Foxx, a wonderful artist who has specialized for many years in Maya people, culture and villages. Awesome stuff. We plan to go back again for lunch and to find out what events might be planned while we're here.
In the evening we wandered around the church plaza on the corner. Throughout this time of the year the plaza is filled with vendors supplying the crowds with food and drink. I love "street food" wherever we go. A great opportunity usually for a good supply of grease at cheap prices, and sometimes a learning experience, trying local foods. We had some sort of meat in sauce thing, served on a tortilla and topped with a choice of avocado, cabbage, tomato sauce, etc. As always, I asked the vendor for the name of the dish. And as is usual, I immediately forgot it. Anyhow, it was good! Other things offered are fried chicken, empanadas (but all fruit filled rather than meat or veggies), potato chips, french fries, chicharones (fried pork), sausage, pizza, pupusas (delicious flat things filled with meat, beans and/or cheese - a specialty from El Salvador), chiles rellenos (stuffed peppers), and tons of candy/sweet things.
While wandering around, we ended up talking to a family from the US who come to Antigua every year for Semana Santa. It's easy to see why people would want to return year after year. I think we will.
While at the plaza, I bought one of the palm bouquets. There is one big section of the plaza, directly in front of the entrance to the church, where the sellers of the palm arrangements sit and make the arrangements. It is a beautiful sight, as the women are all dressed in their colorful traditional indigenous outfits. There must be over a hundred people making and selling the bouquets, which are made of special palm leaves brought in from a specific area of the country, along with various other colorful flowers. Some different from the dinky little bow made of a piece of palm leaf that I recall from Palm Sunday in Florida! I was planning to wait until Sunday morning to buy one of these beautiful arrangements, but someone reminded me that the plaza would be so crowded tomorrow morning that I wouldn't be able to get there. So I asked what the price was. I was shocked to learn that these beautiful things sell for 5 quetzales (about 65 US cents), so I "splurged" on one.

We Made It!

Getting here last night was fun but weird. First off the thing about getting fed on an airplane was cool. Thank you Lacsa. I'd forgotten what that was like. Then when we'd hardly finished our little snack, we were landing. I think within an hour and a half of take off, we were on the ground in Guatemala City. By the time we got through immigration, which took a half hour or so, picked up our backpacks, and went through customs, which involved a friendly person accepting our customs declaration form and welcoming us to Guatemala, I guess it was 8:30 or so. Then we exited the airport to a mob much larger than the one that normally awaits arriving flights at the San Jose airport - and much more colorful, too, with many women dressed in traditional Mayan attire. It definitely made an impression, as did the soldiers with their huge guns.
We quickly spotted Roberto, holding a sign with our names. While driving us to Antigua, he told us a bit about Guatemala, the city and Antigua, and gave us a little Spanish practice. In Antigua we were met by the friendly Julio, the owner/director of our school. He introduced us to his mother and she showed us our apartment, which is off her patio - and next door to the school. This arrangement should work well. Dona Maria Linda, Julio's mama showed us that we had a gas stove, a bathroom and a lot of other handy items in the apartment. After the introductions, we walked a block or so and had some nachos and beer before returning to our little apartment and a good night's sleep.
The town looked beautiful last night, but it was dark and we really couldn't tell much. Today it's been confirmed. This town is fabulous! After breakfast at an adorable place around the corner from our apartment, Kaffee Fernando's, where they grind their own cafe (Cappuccino 9 Dbl 11 Tipico Desayuno 12 w Onion y tomate 14; cafe 45 a pound..), we went to the bank to get some quetzales, did the grocery store thing to get supplies for the apartment, paid our tuition for next week, walked some more, rested, then had dinner at a neighborhood Salvadoran restaurant. Life is good. I could live here.