you say detroyes, i say detroit

first, i just have to say that i think i just ate one of the best oranges of my life. i’m not kidding you. the other day niña teresita came to my door and gave me three oranges from the tree here in the courtyard of the hostal and i’m telling you, i’ve never in my life tasted an orange this unbelievably perfect. it was sweet and juicy and nothing like any of the oranges i’ve ever eaten in all my 34 years. i’ve never really liked oranges all that much anyway – orange juice, yes. and at times i’ve eaten oranges, but the whole pulp thing...all that filmy junk in between the sections just wasn’t my thing. but once i moved down here, i started eating lots of oranges mostly because they are virtually free and taste better than any of the oranges i’d eaten in the states. but these three oranges niña teresita gave me? oh my god. you guys are missing out, let me tell ya.

well, was that a ALCS series or what? i mean, honestly....i’m not a big oakland hater at all, and even at one point in my past had the hots for oakland’s third baseman, eric chavez (he’s still kind of cute), but seriously, did they even show up for that series against detroit? the good part of it all is this: i got to watch three of the four games on “ESPN vivo,” right here in the hostal in apaneca! here’s how...

the night of the first game, i was reading in my room and much, much later after the game would have been over, i turned on my cell phone to set the alarm for the next morning and i saw i had a text message from antonio. it read:

“hola. te cuento están pasando el partido el detroyes en el canal veinte y cuatro.”

basically, just telling me that detroit was playing on channel 24. i was like “what????” but, like i said, it was really late and surely over and so i went to bed cursing the fact that i could have watched the game, but instead was in my room reading. anyway, the next a.m. antonio then called me really super early to relay the news that “detroyes” won the game! the thing with the “detroyes” is that people who speak spanish have no idea how to form the letters “oit” in their language. it’s just not something they have ever had to do. like how some people who speak english can’t rrrrrroll their r’s. on second thought, detroit’s a french word anyway, and we are saying it wrong too. it’s most likely “detroye,” or “detwoi,” (i’m not sure about the french pronunciation), not “detroiT” so who am i to say that spanish people can’t say it right? anyway, so i was happy that detroiT or detwoi or detroyes won.

that day i made sure i was in front of the televisor for game two. i sat there, alone (sob, sob) saying things like “that was a classic slide!” (who says this except for a total baseball nerd?) or “c’mon – we need a hit!” or “how the fuck did milton fucking bradley hit ANOTHER home run?” all to myself, but outloud, within the confines of the lobby of the hostal. every once in a while the crazy parrot in the next room would caw and what-not, but always at really bad times....like when oakland would get a hit or something. anyway, towards the end of that game after todd jones loaded the bases in the bottom of the 9th, i was sitting on the edge of my seat with my head in my hands. but he got through it and they won again.

so friday came and i was bound and determined to catch the game again, even if it was going to be on earlier. 4:00 ET to be exact. so that morning i went to the school and met up with the volunteer who was visiting my site and showed him around, did some worm stuff with the kids. then after lunch we both left – me to ahuachapán, him back to the host family he was staying with while here. i found out the meeting that i was supposed to be going to wasn’t going to happen, so i ran some errands and bolted (well, as fast as a salvadoran bus goes....i wouldn’t say bolted is an appropriate adjective to use in describing salvadoran buses) back to apaneca. i turn on the game at 4:00 and it’s like the bottom of the 4th or 5th. huh? then i remember that el sal’s two hours behind ET and i should have had my fat ass parked on the sofa in the lobby at 2:00. but no worries, detroit’s ahead and kenny rogers is cruising along to his eventual blanking of los atléticos. kenny rogers is a crazy man. seriously, even when he’s just sitting in the dugout watching relief pitchers close out the game for him he looks like a crazy person. but whatever, he got the win. tigers are up 3-0. meanwhile, i’m thinking about all the predictions i read on “the internets” about how the tigers were good, but not THAT good. tony gwynn predicted this series would be a good one, but eventually the a’s would take it in seven....citing a bunch of defensive abilities that he thinks the tigers just don’t have.

so it’s saturday, time for game four. i read in the sección de deportes in “el diario” (one of el sal’s newspapers) about the tigers’ win the night before. at some point in the article they are mentioning players of the game and one of them, to my utter surprise, is placido domingo. i honestly did not have any clue that the tigers had signed on a large opera singer to play second base for the team. not only that, but he was one of the stars of friday night’s game! wow! oh, i see, it was supposed to be “placido polanco” not placido domingo. you say domingo, i say polanco. poor polanco, probably all his life has been compared to that OTHER placido. you know, the one that can sing. anyway.

i’m laying around in the hammock on the back porch of the hostal, after having a horrendous morning in ahuachapán (never go to a latin american city on market day, what a friggin’ nightmare). i’m waiting for john (the volunteer) to meet me at the hostal and he shows up right around the time the tigers game is gonna start. but i’m thinking – maybe it’s better not to see the first part of the game anyways....let them get started without me maniacally trying to catch every word of the ESPN vivo’s mexican sportscasters words (surprisingly easier to understand than most salvadorans). so i let it go and chat with john on the back porch for a couple hours. around 3:30 or 4:00 or something, i tell him i’m gonna check in with los tigres and see how they’re doing. john goes to the internet place and i click on the televisor and what’s this? tigers down? 3-0? but, surprisingly, as soon as i make myself at home on the sofa, they add two runs. 3-2 isn’t bad. eric chavez is making horrible plays left and right which surprises me as tony gwynn’s predictions of the a’s taking the series included how many golden gloves eric chavez has. well niether his glove, nor his arm, were anywhere near golden on saturday. more like cubic zirconia if you ask me.

john returns, the innings are ticking away. antonio shows up and before entering the hostal, excitedly says “3-3? el partido con detroyes?” i shuffle him in and he sits down and we three watch the game. i’m trying to explain to antonio that even if it becomes the 9th inning and the score is 3-3, the game won’t end. they’ll play until somebody gets more runs. then john and i are laughing at how in spanish, some of the words for things in baseball are the same as in english. like “foul” and “out” and “base” and “inning.” they are just said with the accents in different areas. like “fowul” would be how you say “foul.” and “bahsay” would be how you say “base.” but homerun is “jonrón.” it’s almost the same....but funny.

finally, it gets down to the 8th and i’m like “i can’t watch!” but antonio suggests we go eat pupusas and watch the game there because don michel has a television in the pupuseria. so we three go and antonio gets the kids to change the televisor from cartoons to the game. as we’re waiting, it’s the bottom of the ninth, two on, two out and magglio gets up to bat. i tell antonio that magglio hit a “jonrón” earlier in the game. john, who really has no interest in baseball (i don’t think....but my god, this guy is the undeniable king of traveling....you name the place, he’s been there!) is even getting into it. so magglio does it. he hits another jonrón and ends the game and i’m pumping my fists and saying “yes!” and antonio’s like “se terminó?” (that’s the end?) and john’s like “wow!” and everyone else in the pupuseria is staring at me and my table like we are crazy folk. ESPN vivo keeps replaying the ¨jonrón¨ over and over and showing comerica park erupting into emotion and craziness. they show the handing out of the ALCS trophy and the fans and the players with their new champion t-shirts. and i’m sitting in a pupuseria in el fucking salvador with nothing more to do, no other way to celebrate, except eat my frijol con queso pupusas that have just been put in front of me.

and you know, i’m thinking later, all this depression about being down here sola and not having any of my die-hard tigers’ fans friends and my parents, especially, to celebrate or watch games with, is really just me feeling sorry for myself. pathetic, i know. but i think it’s cool that i’ve gotten at least one person down here (antonio) - who didn’t really know that much about baseball before - to get into it. and now he’s asking me “when’s the next game?” and “who are they playing?” there’s been a little exchange of sports culture here – me learning more about soccer, him learning more about baseball. so things are fine. and while everyone is up there cheering and poring over detroit free press and toledo blade articles....and, ahem, cleveland plain dealer...shudder....articles....i’ll probably be the only one who has in her possession an article where it is claimed that placido domingo helped the tigers win one of their games!

but as my dad said, in one of our day-after-the-game chats, the big win was over the yankees. we both agreed we have nothing against most american league teams and while it was great to see the tigers win the ALCS, the big victory was contra los yanquis. they, and the entire media, think they can do no wrong. ever. when it’s simply not the case. even after they lost, most articles on the net were about whether or not joe torre was gonna get fired. not that the a’s swept the twins, or that the tigers actually beat the yankees. not much about the cardinals or mets either. most of the space was taken up by articles about the speculation that joe torre was going to lose his job. the articles should have been about the fact that steinbrenner pays all those guys shitloads of money to play and it didn’t even get him anything. his formula didn’t work. it wasn’t joe torre’s formula that failed, it was steinbrenner’s. steinbrenner thinks that by buying every single one of the players in the league with the highest batting average or lowest ERA or whatever means you’re automatically gonna win every game, all the time. steinbrenner’s not totally at fault, though. the players are to blame too. i liked alex rodriguez when he played for seattle. i respected him and his game but he couldn’t turn down the dinero AND the idea of playing for the yankees AND the possibility of getting that ring. sure, teams offer good players more money – often times the most of the rest of the team. pudge rodriguez came to detroit from florida, mostly because of the money – but he certainly wasn’t going to detroit because he thought he’d automatically get another world series ring. the tigers SUCKED when he came on board, and continued to suck after he was there. how many “stars” are on the tigers this year? magglio? pudge? rogers, maybe? although he was pretty much labeled the clown with a temper before he joined the team.

it seems that if you have a couple of really good players – stars, if you will - you can work with that and get the rest of the team to work together and become a better team as a whole, without shelling out a ton of money. and that’s where you get great players like polanco and guillen (who, actually, i’d probably label a star) and bonderman and verlander and the rest. that’s managing. not having a bunch of studs and basically just sending them up to the plate every other inning and not doing anything to actually manage them. basically what steinbrenner does is give joe torre a bunch of egos to manage, not a baseball team. he hordes all the best thinking it’s an automatic ticket to the world series. but the thing is, sometimes it works. and sometimes it doesn’t. it’s not automatic. which is where steinbrenner fails. miserably. so whatever.

there are lots of people with yankees rants. yes, they are a legendary team, but it seems that as of late, they’ve made a laughing stock of the game. and that’s sad. but totally my opinion. and you know, all of baseball has really taken a turn for the worse this past decade or so. but i reserve most of my disdain for the yankees because they are at the front of this....and a lot of teams think they have no choice but to follow in their footsteps because they started this whole thing, paying out tons of money just to get to the world series. but they can’t even do that because the media only wants yankees coverage. so even if other teams wanted to become as world series hungry as steinbrenner is, they couldn’t possibly compete with him. it’s a vicious cycle i suppose that will only get worse as time goes on.

but i don’t want to be like those yankee-loving media people and find a way to make my entire entry about the yankees. so let me close with this! one day back when i was living in cleveland, my dad came to visit me on a typical dreary cleveland day and we went to the local bar in my neighborhood. at the time, the indians were buzzsawing their way through the season, clearing their opponents left and right, in first place in the AL central. the tigers were cellar dwellers, as was usual ‘round this time. i was being ridiculed at work (filled with indians fans – bandwagon and die-hard). as we sat there in the bar, surrounded by indians memorabilia at every turn, my dad laughed and said that the tigers would go to the world series before the indians would go again (let alone win). and i laughed and i believed him, because, my dad has a really uncanny knack for predicting things like this. and i remember telling everyone that he said that and of course, was always met with laughs and “yeah, rights” given the situation the indians were in at that very moment. but i faced the music and year after year the indians began doing a little worse each season, farther and farther away from that hallowed entry into the world series. and here we are.....have the indians gone to the world series since then? i think not.

ah, does it get any better than this?

"You kind of get tired of giving the other team credit," third baseman Alex Rodriguez said after another terrible October. "At some point you've got to look in the mirror and say, 'I sucked."'

damn straight! that’s what i’m talkin’ about! go tigers! dudes, i’m so excited for them. as sad as i am that i can’t be up there partaking in all the motown madness, at least they’re in the playoffs – ALCS, that is. i disagree with a-rod´s comments that it´s all about him....that the tigers won just because ¨he sucked.¨ but, whatever. let him think that all winter. hee hee.

i found an article in la prensa gráfica (one of el sal’s national newspapers) about how the tigers won, but goddammit if it didn’t have a photo of derek jeter pouting in the dugout that he lost. seems as if the media EVERYWHERE, not just ESPN, still can’t manage to give the tigers proper credit. jesus h. christ. i used to say that the entire tigers squad could find a cure for cancer and ESPN would still start their daily sportscast with what a-rod ate for breakfast and how long it took for him to take a shit afterwards. and here the tigers are, going from worst to best and beating the prodigal son-like yankees in the playoffs, and true to form, the media’s sticking it to the tigers. i have my “my yahoo” page set to give me all the news about the tigers and there weren’t that many articles about how they were awesome this year. but when they started playing shitty towards the end of the season, there were all kinds of articles saying “what happened?” “the tigers are faltering!” blah, blah, blah. whatever. so, pardon my language, but fuck you yankees and ESPN and la prensa gráfica and my yahoo. hello oakland! oh, and i have to say MUCHAS, MUCHAS GRACIAS to my dad and my friend bryan for keeping me updated on all the last minute goings on of how the tigers are doing (as well as all other detroit sports teams).

on with other things. i hope you all got through the entries about guatemala! i know it’s a huge undertaking to sit there and read something that long on the computer, but i really do like how i can keep you all updated on life here in central america. i have to admit though, that the photos of the lake really don’t do it justice. just like any other place in the world that is so big, beyond what a camera is able to capture, and breathtaking – it’s nearly impossible to convey just how picturesque it really is. so i guess that’s the point of actually visiting places. i have taken a ton of pictures of places like canyon de chelly (in northeast arizona), the big sur coast up to monterey, the eiffel tower, the cologne dome in germany, etc. – but none of these pictures matches actually seeing them up close. i’d really like to see the pacific coast from north of san franciscio all the way up to seattle. that area is pretty high on my places i’d like to visit sometime in the near future, as well as new zealand, rapa nui, the canadian rockies, turkey and of course, all of south america.

anyway, getting on with things.... things have been really, really busy here. i’m trying to get a few more biodiversity lessons in at the school before the last day. classes end on november 9th, so i don’t have that much time left. you know, there’s the usual fiestas and things like that that need to be worked into the last days – so taking that into account too, there’s really not that many days left. you know, i’m feeling like i did a pretty good job this year in the school. i mean, if you look at it like this: i came to this country a little over a year ago not really knowing the language other than words and phrases and basic verb conjugations. and now, a year later i can go in and teach classes and converse with people. so all in all i think that’s pretty good. and it just means that next year i’ll probably be a little more effective just because i won’t have to take the time to learn the language and get to know the school and community and all that. but i think i’ve done a lot just this year – i’ve talked about trash and recycling, bosques, volcanoes and butterflies. we did a worm box, the huertos, we planted flowers and two izote plants at the school. plus i’ve done a lot of other teaching stuff not really related to the environment. anyway, i’m going to try and work on an internet project for the school during vacaciones, as well as work on lombriculture in the community.

on top of wrapping things up at the school, i’m getting ready to have a volunteer from the new group come to my site on thursday. a couple weeks ago, a few of us from my group had to go to san vicente to have “mentor day.” those of us who were mentors to people from the new group had to form this panel and answer questions about what it’s like to be a volunteer – how we’ve managed in our sites this year and how we’ve dealt with illnesses and our spanish and all that. it was interesting, although the whole time i was sitting up there, i was like – what? i’ve been here a year already? the group seems pretty cool and it was just funny hearing them ask all their questions. there was this one guy i talked to for a while and the whole time he wanted to know what the likelihood would be that his future site would be on the beach. i remember clear as day how we were all freaking out about where our sites would be, and now we’ve all be in them for a year. anyway, so we’re now hosts to this group’s immersion day and so i’ve got somebody coming on thursday. and let me tell you, it hasn’t been easy coordinating this. see, we have to find a family in a cantón or caserio near us that will let a volunteer stay with them for a couple days. then on the third day, they come and stay with us where we live. so i asked this one mom, niña doris, whose family lives kind of outside san jorge. her daughter’s in sixth grade and her son’s in first grade. anyway, she’s really nice so i asked her a couple weeks ago. well, see, she and her husband live on the grounds of these stables that this other guy, don jaime, owns. it’s kind of like this horse ranch, not huge or anything, but there are stables and it’s more in the campo than san jorge is. so she said that it was totally fine but she just wanted to make sure it was ok with don jaime. so the next day she told mirna that don jaime wanted to talk to me, so i walked there and don jaime wasn’t there. but niña doris told me that don jaime was concerned because the area where niña doris thought the volunteer could sleep was not very nice....just a bed and it was outside the actual house, in another building. i told her that it wasn’t a big deal because that is all part of immersion day – seeing how other people live, having to adjust to living in a different setting, etc. anyway, don jaime didn’t come back that day, so i wrote him a note and left later in the afternoon. then the next day i didn’t go to the school because i promised antonio’s sister i’d hike laguna verde with her and her students and some teachers from her school in sonsonate. so i did that, and that night don jaime called me and explained that the volunteer could sleep on the second floor of his house. so he invited me to come over and check it out this past weekend. so on saturday i went over there, and his house is super fine! like, this volunteer is going to be living in style because his house is so nice! anyway, so i explained that the volunteer can eat and stuff with niña doris’s family and all that – then just come back and sleep at don jaime’s. but it’s weird because everyone thinks that because we’re americans we can’t live in the kinds of houses the normal average salvadoran lives in.

but don jaime is really a cool guy. he’s got money and is trying to develop the area where the stables are into an area where people from the surrounding caserios and cantónes can come and have an open market. he showed me this map that had all the property outlined and his vision as to what would be located where. anyway, at his house he’s got this vivero where he’s working with a university in san salvador on agro projects. so i mentioned how i was looking to promote lombriculture to the viveros here and he told me that if i was looking for space to start up a bunch of bigger worm boxes he would let me use space either at the stables or at the vivero at his house. then i could just go from there. anyway, so i’m really happy about that whole thing.

so we’ll see how immersion day goes. and then on top of that, i finally found a place to live in apaneca. it’s been tough because like i mentioned above, every time somebody showed me a house in apaneca it’d be way too big and expensive. because everyone thinks because i’m american i need this big, huge house. but finally i found something that i think will work. it’s bigger than my cuarto, and of course it’s more expensive because it’s apaneca, but there’s nothing i can do about that. i went to talk to rolando to explain to him that i’m not trying to live it up in apaneca or anything, but that i need somewhere bigger to live especially so i can work with the kids during vacaciones. he was like “laura, you don’t have to explain to me.” because he said that he never sees me in the office and knows that i’m not always coming to san salvador and that i’m always at my site working. so somebody from the peace corps just needs to come and check out the house to make sure it’s secure and all that, and then in november i can move there. which means i have to get all my shit packed up from my cuarto and tell niña teresita i’m moving. i feel bad telling her, but the cuarto is sooooo small! and i’m going to be giving up my hot water....sooooo sad. i’m going to be freezing my ass off every morning when i move. cold water showers in the morning in apaneca. seriously? but whatever. i’ll have a house. it’s a nice house, it’s got three rooms, a bathroom, a patio and a pila. vamos a ver.

what else? i gotta head back to molineros in a couple weeks for sindy’s and mama rosa’s birthdays. plus, day of the dead and dia de los santos is coming up at the end of the month. megan’s bringing her boyfriend from the states up to hike one of the lagunas the first weekend in november. i’m supposed to go to my friend nate’s birthday party at his site, way the hell over in la unión that same weekend. whaaaaaaat? how in god’s name am i going to do all this stuff? plus i have to move and wrap up school around the same time. jeebus.

also, also, also.....courtney and i are planning this trip – maybe – we’ll see. but it involves going on a sailboat from lake izabel in guatemala, up the rio dulce to livingston, guatemala, and then on into the caribbean and over to the islands in belize. it’s super cheap and since we don’t have to fly anywhere (like if we were in the states, we’d have to actually fly to guatemala), it’s really, really cheap. we just have to catch buses up to the lake and then we’d be on our way. that’s supposed to happen the first part of december. we’ll see though.

so i don’t think i went into detail about this – but bessy, the kindergarten teacher, left the school in san jorge to teach in ahuachapán because it’s closer to where she lives. so we got a new teacher, elba’s cousin, whose name is maria laura. ha. anyway, she’s super nice and really good with the kids. but during the week in-between bessy leaving and maria laura coming, i “had” to teach kindergarten for a week. oh.my.god. those kids were nuts. but i suppose i had fun, in-between the kids acting like crazy banshees.

anyway, that’s just a quick update on everything here in el sal.

go to wrap up…… los tigres contra las atléticas. game on!

well, well, well.....

finally i have all the entries about my trip up and ready for readin´. so get on with it. like my site visit report, the first entry is the farthest down...titled day#1....etc., etc. probably the easiest way to do this is to go to the right side of the blog, scroll down to where it says ¨october 2006¨ and click on that. then go to the very last entry, which is the FIRST entry about my trip. get it? great!

i have MUCH more to write about...things are a busy here in the savior. i´ll let you go into a blog coma with my guatemala doc though before i bombard you with more.

saludos chicos!

days #5, 6 and 7: courtney seduces monterico while i almost pass out in front of a tienda, bolo style

so during our time at the lago, we decided antigua was out. waaaaay out. i REALLY did not want to go there after experiencing the influx of tourists at the lake. antigua is super touristed and is filled with american and european-owned restaurants, art galleries and businesses. antigua’s supposed to be really pretty – there is a beautiful church there. it was guatemala’s capital before an earthquake struck and they moved the capital to present guatemala city. but i had absolutely no desire to go there and courtney agreed, so we planned to try and go from panajachel to monterico, skipping antigua altogether.

the day before we asked three cobredors who worked on the local buses questions about how to get to monterico. they all basically told us the same thing, más or menos: there was a bus that left the desvio in panajachel at 5:00 a.m. (another said 5:30), which would then go to los cocales. from there to esquintla, then on to taxisco and finally down to la avellana where we’d hop on the lancha to monterico. it sounded simple enough and since every shuttle company in panajachel that ran a direct shuttle from panajachel to la avellana was charging $45 A PERSON to go there, we were all for the chicken bus route.

so we dragged our asses to the desvio at 4:30 on thursday a.m. and we sat there and sat there and watched 5:00 a.m. go by while we sat there. it was freezing too. there was nobody else out there except for this dog that decided to hang out with us. so we’re sitting there and i’m looking up at the sky which is almost pitch black. i could see the faint outline of the mountains surrounding panajachel, and of the clouds in the sky as well. as i’m looking up, i see what looks like a shooting star. and i’m like “hey, there’s a shooting star!” to courtney and i think she’s gonna miss it because shooting stars last like what, all of one second? so she looks up and to my amazement, the star’s still shooting and it continues and continues and continues. i’m like “what the fuck is that?” it was moving super fast, and like i said, looked exactly like a shooting star because of the way it was lit up. it left a stream of white smoke behind, like an airplane would and courtney’s like “what is that?” it was moving too fast for an airplane, and it looked like it was a lot closer to the earth than a jet that would make that kind of white smoke would. but it definitely wasn’t a star. after moving across the sky in this straight line for about 30 seconds or so, it disappeared behind the clouds. then, about two seconds later we hear this super loud BOOM! and courtney’s freaking out because the night before we were in this bookstore and there was this postcard that was a painting of lago atitlán and the volcanoes around it are erupting and there’s a flying saucer there. it was a painting depicting the end of the world which, according to the mayan calendar, will come in the year 2012 – because that is when all the mayan calendars simultaneously end. i explained what i had learned about this to courtney when we were in the store and she said she had never heard anything about that before. so she was all like “that’s weird.”

so that morning when we saw that, she was like – huh? and i was a bit weirded out as well. then we noticed our dog friend had fled. then, like two minutes later there was this other HUGE boom and there were these sparks that shot out of the electrical lines that were directly in front of us, and down on the street. all the lights in panajachel went out and then i got really freaked out and my stomach was all butterflies and i’ll admit, i was like – what. the. fuck. while the lights were out, a couple of other people showed up and were standing on the other side of the street waiting for buses as well and we were like “did they see that weirdo thing in the sky?” the lights eventually came back on and the sky eventually got lighter and more people started their days. but the whole time we were still recovering from our space invaders moment.

eventually we found out that there was no bus at 5:00 or 5:30, but at 6:30 (those lying cobredors can kiss my ass! the rule of three definitely did NOT work this time.) and we finally were on our way to los cocales. the trip through the mountains on the other side of the lake that morning was really pretty....just a really peaceful early morning ride. i love the mountains and i’d take the mountains over the beach any day. everyone was wearing their wool hats and sweaters and even though the bus got packed a few times, it was a relatively smooth ride as we hopped on and off of buses.

i won’t write too much about monterico because you already know all about the place from my previous trip there. the beach was the same as last time, only less touristed because september is supposed to be the rainiest month of all in guatemala. there wasn’t any rain while we were there though. things were tranquilo – hung out with bayron and his friends and a bunch of kids who live near bayron.

and, the WHOLE time we were in monterico everyone (read, guys) kept coming up to courtney and asking her tons of questions and i´m all rolling my eyes because of my aforementioned adversity to these conversations. then one guy claimed he was in love with courtney – but then someone else told her to stay away from him because he was bad news. THEN, there was this other guy – lionel – (the only reason i know his name is because courtney willingly entered into a conversation with him which i completely did not want to have anything to do with). lionel was a bit of an odd character…no wait, that´s putting it lightly. he was crazy. that´s more like it. our first day on the beach we saw him swimming in the ocean and as he got closer to us, we could see that he was laughing at and talking to the waves. ok, i´m sure there are some surfers or swimmers or fisherman or people like that that might have deep conversations with the water for whatever reason related to their sport or whatever. not lionel. lionel was crazy. he then approached us and i´m like, oh for god sakes. courtney´s like ¨what´s your name, do you live here, etc.¨ and i´m covering my face with a towel. because as lionel is talking to courtney he grows this humongous boner right there in front of us. and he´s just talking like nothing´s wrong. so finally he leaves and i´m like – you have got to be kidding me! well, that wasn´t the last we saw of lionel. oh no. lionel walked up and down the beach every day, all day long. at one point, i was swimming a little bit and I look up and lionel´s coming down the beach with this dead swordfish. he apparently wanted courtney to hold the fish so he could come down and join me in the water and as soon as i saw him coming i bolted back up to the beach. meanwhile, courtney´s holding this dead fish. lionel returns, with another boner, and continues to talk to us. apparently, from what we gathered from other people, lionel has a house in antigua and walked to monterico for a little visit. well, lionel sure likes the girls. gross! on saturday, a group of european tourists came to the beach – a bunch of girls and a couple guys – and the girls were laying out. lionel was having a field day. he went over and just stood behind where they were laying out and stared at them. courtney and i were sitting in hammocks farther up by this small hotel and were just glad it wasn´t us he was hovering over. He seemed harmless, well, except for the whole boner thing. ewwww!

on friday night we sat out in front of a tienda on monterico´s main drag with a bunch of guatemalan bolos. nothing out of the ordinary for us, really. anyway, bayron gets a double-deuce of some crappy beer and we three split it. i was not feeling it though. honestly, i just wanted to go to bed. i was dog-tired (the beach does that to you, well, at least me). anyway, i´m sitting there and all of a sudden i start feeling like i´m gonna totally pass out. like my head was spinning, i could barely see in front of me and i thought i was gonna puke. so i put my head down and i´m sweating like crazy. and i´m thinking – please don´t let me pass out on the street with this crappy beer in my hand! i tell courtney i think i´m gonna pass out and she´s like ¨whaaaaat?¨ i figured it was just because i got a lot of sun that day and i was tired too. well, no matter what it was from, i didn´t want to pass out on the street! plus, those bolos were like ¨oh, she´s drunk! hahahahaha!¨ and i was like ¨no i´m not!¨ as i laid my head on the cement wall i was sitting on. finally after about five minutes or so i felt better. i told bayron – i didn´t ask him – that i was taking his bike back to his house. and after i got myself into bed, i felt great. ahhh, i guess turning 34 really does mean you´re getting old!

that´s about it for monterico. oh, and when we told our story to bayron about that whole thing on thursday morning he said that he read in the paper that the space shuttle atlantis was supposed to be returning to earth sometime that week so it was possible that that’s what we saw. when i got back to apaneca on sunday i went to the internet place and the first thing i looked up was when exactly atlantis returned. and it looks like that’s exactly what we saw.......it returned in the pre-dawn hours on thursday a.m. and it landed in florida. and from where we were sitting in panajachel and the direction atlantis would have been going to get to florida, i’m pretty sure that it definitely was the space shuttle we saw. isn’t that weirdo though? like what are the odds of that. and if those asshole cobredors wouldn’t have told us a fake time to catch the bus we would’ve never seen that. muy interesante.

and that’s how things ended. un buen viaje, por supuesto.


courtney and mmmmmm cerviche

descansando en la hamaca

wish you were here!!!! (p.s. that is a lovely photo of my feet, eh? the toenail on my big toe on my right foot fell off the day before we left for guatemala. nice, huh? that was from hiking la peña)

totally cheesy, but the sunsets on the beach really are dreamy....









this weird sign (with AND RAPISTS in bold) was in some bar on the beach

more of the same, but a different night...







some of the niños i hung out with that live in the houses next door to bayron. the non-niño is some family member. all the men of the family build lanchas and sell them up and down the canal in-between the mainland and island



i must have rode bikes up and down this road like 10 times with these kids - but all good times!



drying fish....gross!



leaving monterico



until next time

day #4: finalmente! a tourist-free zone! yeehaw!

so our last day at the lake was spent going to the reserva natural atitlán. we had to walk a ways to get there, but it was super tranquilo because there was really nobody there when we visited. the lago atitlán’s nature reserve is a huge bosque that has a butterfly garden and a protected area for spider monkeys and badgers. i’d never really had much contact with badgers before, nor spider monkeys – so it was kind of cool to get to see those. the butterfly garden was amazing, but when we arrived we heard this banging on the side of the net that surrounded the garden and part of the lamina that serves as the roof of the building. we looked over and there was this huge spider monkey in the tree and he was pissed about something. he kept banging on the roof and shaking the net and then climbing on the roof. then he’d come back down into the tree again and start banging. we walked around the garden taking photos and by the time we came back around the monkey had left. i was kind of glad because i don’t know about interacting with monkeys that are mad about something. kate, one of the girls in our peace corps group, got bit by a spider monkey up at her site. the monkey is a pet of one of her neighbors and she had this huge bruise and bite-mark from where the monkey bit her. and i didn’t know this, but monkeys can transmit herpes to humans, so you know, getting in a monkey’s way when it’s pissed probably isn’t a good idea.

view of a waterfall high above lago atitlán

a spider monkey we encountered on the way to the butterfly garden


the monkey that was pissed off





so we left the garden and walked back to the center and then onto this other trail. they had this bin of walking sticks for visitor use and we took a couple but then were like “seriously, do we really need these?” but we kept them, and i’m glad we did. we came up to this platform area where the badgers were down below eating plantains. we watched them for a while and then went up top to watch the spider monkeys hanging out in the trees. monkeys are so damned cool! swinging about and acting like humans and what-not. so courtney and i are sitting there talking and watching the monkeys when all of a sudden courtney’s like “oh my god! oh my god!” and i turn around and there are like 15 of those badgers coming up onto the deck and towards us. like this huge gang of them. and it was a little weird. so i used one of those walking sticks and i’m like “vayase!” and they backed off – some climbed in this tree, others went back down the steps. but then we were watching some of them and i thought they were super cute. there was one with a hurt paw so we kept calling it the grandma. anyway, so we were taking pictures of them and then courtney says “what if one of them was like ‘now gimme a quetzal.’” and i about died laughing. seriously, that’s some funny shit.

some of the badgers that started stalking us

¨gimme a quetzal¨

¨while you´re at it, i want one too¨

these were the spider monkeys hanging out in the trees high above where the badgers were


so we continued on the trail which now consisted of a series of hanging bridges over the stream that was being fed by this huge waterfall. it was so super cool! we made it up to the highest one and then it started raining, but you know, not horribly. we took some pics of the waterfall and then moved on and decided to walk the long trail back to the center. well, of course, we only had flip-flops and about half-way down the trail we realized that the combination of flip-flops and a muddy trail didn’t mix well. it wasn’t really a problem when we were climbing up higher, but when we made the descent, we found nothing but mud the entire way down. and because it had just rained, it was even worse. so after almost falling on our asses a million times, i told courtney we should just take our shoes off and walk the rest of the trail barefoot. so we did that and it wasn’t too bad, actually a little relaxing. i felt like a hobbit – and probably looked like one too. but we made it down without falling, even though courtney had a near miss where i thought she was done for.

yo on one of the hanging bridges

courtney and her walking stick




so when we finally made it down to the center, we approached in our mud-caked feet and the guy who was working there was like “what?” when we showed up on the sidewalk outside. we asked him to get us paper towels from the bathroom and i think he was confused. then i sat down on this tree stump out in the yard area and a couple of minutes later i felt something biting my leg and i look down and i’m sitting right in front of this huge anthill. the ants are crawling up my legs, biting whenever and wherever they could – i literally had ants in my pants and this group of people coming out of the center were laughing at me as i was hopping around trying to shake the ants away. whatever.

basically the rest of that day was spent making some last-minute market purchases followed up with eating the most picante tacos i’ve ever had in my life from this street vendor.


view of the lake from high in the bosque

view of the lake as we were walking up the road from the reserva

day #3: the day i had magical powers (well, not really...but that guatemalan woman thought i did!)

tuesday we decided to try and do this hike between a couple of pueblos on the other side of the lake. we wanted to go from jaibalito to san pedro la laguna. san pedro is on the opposite side of the lake as panajachel, on the western side of volcán san pedro (santiago is on the eastern side). we got a public boat that would take us to jaibalito and we were the only ones on it at first and the trip was like two seconds long and we were like – we got screwed on that trip. but actually, we were just on the other side of panajachel and were picking up passengers that were waiting for the boat there. so this is where we had the unfortunate luck to meet the most obnoxious tourist i’ve seen so far (well, except for that american dude i saw in ataco who was walking around drinking a beer and said to the owner of one of the artesenias about a small chair sitting out front of the store “that’s pequeño, right?” in this thick southern accent. i was mortified! the owner was like “what?”) anyway, this woman and he should be a couple because they were both insufferable. she’s wearing this spectacularly clean white outfit with a designer scarf wrapped around her neck. her face is caked in makeup, frosted hair (come on! when has frosted hair been “in” at any time in the last 20 years?), she’s got on these sunglasses that are straight out of la dolce vita or something. she was just asking to be punched. her boyfriend/husband/whatever lugs her stuff onto the boat and she sits between courtney and i in the front bench of the boat. so we take off and she whips out this gigantic digital camera and is making her boyfriend take pictures of her with the lake in the background. then, we got to another little town on the lake and she gets up because some guy needs to get off. then she just stands there at the front of the boat like she’s relaxing and stretching out and she doesn’t go back to her seat between courtney and i. so eventually, this guatemalan who had just walked up gets on the boat and sees the empty seat between us and sits down and she goes “excuse me, i sit there” in english, using these weirdo hand motions to the guy. so the guy gets up and moves back a seat – next to HER boyfriend - and courtney and i are like “seriously?” and then she doesn’t even sit down right away, she continues to stand there. so the boat takes off again and she sits back down and then she starts asking me questions and i’m like “god, whatever.”

she irritated us so much that we completely forgot that we were getting off in jaibalito and the boat passed that dock. but it worked out for us because the hike from jaibailito to san marcos would have taken us up and over these mountains that we weren’t prepared for – no hiking shoes, no real energy for it.

courtney at the panajachel dock, standing in-between the volcánes tolimán (on the left) and san pedro (right). volcán atitlán is behind volcán tulimán.





me being a tourist

volcán san pedro

mountains surrounding the lake - we´re on our way to san marcos in the boat

anyway, so then we get to san marcos and that woman is like “san marcos? san marcos?” just totally annoying. so we get off there and make our way to the road that leads to san pedro la laguna and start walking, the whole time talking about how irritating that woman was. san marcos was a nice, quiet little pueblo. but there were lots of little hotels that looked like they were expensive and upscale...spas and retreats and such. it kind of reminded me of santa fe or maybe sedona, arizona. they were all hidden amongst the trees and such, no big buildings or anything. i suppose san marcos would be a nice alternative to panajachel, but still – the smell of tourism was in the air, and i just didn’t like it. we walked down the road and courtney needed to find a bathroom so we walked into this restaurant that looked really upscale called the blind lemon. i thought maybe we could just get a coffee or something, courtney could use the bathroom and we’d be on our way. so we go in there and nobody’s there, but there’s this big, golden retriever napping on the front steps. then we see this older guy in the garden area and he says “hi” to us. so we sit down and he comes over and starts asking us where we’re from, in english. this guy is the owner, he’s from the states and he starts telling us the story of how he ended up there. his wife was a peace corps volunteer in guatemala back in the 70’s and they met after her service and she wanted to return to guatemala so they moved to the lake to live. then she died and he got the property where the restaurant is now and built it up and that’s basically where he was now. he kept telling us that all the people that live here think tourism’s great and it’s really improved their lives and all that. which i suppose is true to an extent. but it’s weird – like on the boat ride to san marcos, we passed these huge homes that looked like they’d be featured in architectural digest or something – square boxes with big windows and what-not. and the juxtaposition of those houses with the typical guatemalan homes just looked so odd. there were a couple houses that had towers that looked like they belonged to castles back in the middle ages in england. huh? then they’d have a hammock hanging out front. i mean, i guess it’s up to the person who owns the property to design a home however they want, but it’s like – why recreate your home wherever your home country is when you’re not living there? i don’t understand. there is this area just outside of apaneca that’s called “suiza” because there are about eight townhomes that look like swiss chalets. they look so odd amongst the normal salvadoran houses. i don’t know. i mean, why come all the way to el salvador to build a house that looks like every other house in your home country? i guess i should stop trying to figure out these things. it makes my head spin.

anyway, this restaurant, the blind lemon, was the same thing. it was pretty, but the walls were covered with things about the united states: blues singers, old advertisement posters for chicago and new york and miami, etc. it was like – what does this at all have to do with guatemala or lago atitlán or anything? finally we left there and exited the gate and that golden retriever started following us. the owner was nowhere around but i didn’t give much thought to it because i figured the dog would follow us a little way and then go back to the restaurant. well, it followed us and followed us and followed us and the whole time, obviously, we were getting farther and farther away from san marcos. we didn’t want to take the dog back because we didn’t want to walk all the way back. finally, we see this old woman and kid coming towards us. she’s selling apples and oranges that didn’t look too good, but i wanted to ask her if she’d take that dog back with her or see if she could tell that owner that his dog was following us. so i bought an apple from her for a quetzal and we explained the story about the dog. they try to get the dog to follow them, but it didn’t want to go with them. so her son, or grandson, i don’t know, decides that maybe they could use his belt for a collar and they can hold the dog until we were gone and then it would follow them. so he tries to do that, but the dog won’t sit still. so i’m like “sit, sit!” to the dog, in english, and it does what i say. and you should have seen the look on that old woman’s face. i bet she thought i was a witch or something because that dog sat down when i said something to it. people here don’t teach their dogs stuff like that – most of the time their dogs are wild and are really only used for protection of their houses. but i knew that golden retriever would know commands because his owner was american. after that, that old woman didn’t want to get near that dog and kept looking at me funny. finally, we tried to explain the restaurant (“se llama ciego limón!”) and to tell the owner where his dog was and we just left. the whole time courtney’s making fun of me because i bought one of those gross apples.

me and our new friend who turned out to be a pain in the ass!

view from the lake on the road just outside of san marcos



i have to admit, as much trouble as this dog made for us, he was damned cute





that´s san pedro la laguna in the distance, at the foot of volcán san pedro



a roadside memorial to two guatemalans

so we continued our walk with our new amigo and had a great time just getting good views of the lake. the water seemed a different color this time, more turquoise and it was beautiful. there were no other tourists on the road and it was really tranquilo. we came into this pueblo called san pablo la laguna and once we entered town, we caused quite a stir because of “our” dog. all these dogs came out and were barking like crazy and trying to attack the golden retriever and like all golden retrievers, it just cowered away. everyone in town was staring at us and it was totally embarassing. we were like “why is this happening to us?” as we tried to leave town these other dogs came out and were growling and barking at not only the dog, but us too and it was kind of scary. i picked up a stick and we both were like “chucho! chucho!” so they’d back off and finally we were able to get out of there. guess we made an impression on that town.

down the road we came to a long road that we could see led to the shore of the lake and all of a sudden the dog starts running towards the lake. so we decided that i’d go down and follow it and try to bring it back up and courtney would stay at the top of the road in case the owner came by or something. why we were taking responsibility for this dog, i haven’t the slightest idea. so i go down this road, through this corn field and finally get to the lake shore and there’s these two travelers down there playing with the dog. they asked me if it was my dog and i said no and then explained the story. they said it would probably find it’s way back home, but i was like – really? i mean, we had walked a long way. and they said that it happened to them the other night with some other dog and the dog that was with them even stayed at their rented house and then left in the morning. so i was like – ok, well, good luck then, and beat it out of there so the dog wouldn’t follow me any more. it was a bitch climbing back up to the main road and when i finally got there i was like “let’s go before it comes up!” so we continued on our way, following the lake road and taking pictures. it was really pretty and even though my feet were starting to hurt from walking in flip-flops that whole way, it was definitely worth it. then we met up with this old guatemalan named francisco who was walking in the opposite direction. he told us that he walks from san pablo to san pedro and back every day for work. he wanted me to guess how old he was and i told him 43 and he gave me this look like i had guessed wrong, but i had guessed ¨good wrong¨ - younger than he was and then he said ¨muy bien! exacto!¨ hahaha, he was funny. so we left francisco and continued and then came upon the pueblos of san juan la laguna. i liked san juan. it was quiet and some of the buildings had brightly painted murals on the sides of them. we stopped at a tienda to get some water and tampico (mmmmm, one of my favorite drinks here...kind of like sunny d, but a million times better) and we sat out front catching our breath for a bit. then we continued on with our walk to san pedro. the sky was getting a little overcast and it was looking like it was going to rain so we kind of tried to pick up the pace and finally made it to san pedro.

closer view of san pedro. on the right side of the lagoon there is the dock we needed to be at to take the boat back to panajachel. we first ended up on the other side (way up towards the top of the picture). d´oh!

wall mural in san juan la laguna







just one of the bizarro things you see on the streets in central america. this was in front of some house. a plastic case with three plastic cups of some kind of gelatin. there were no doors open at the house suggesting that anyone was selling these or anything. huh??

finally! 12 kilometers later, we reached the entrance of san pedro la laguna.

yep, you guessed it....one of the beautiful and attractive bathrooms we are given the opportunity of using down here in central america

we could see the dock where we needed to go and as we were walking into town we kept looking for a road that led to that area, but there were none – just these little tiny stone paths that looked liked they went into barrios. so we kept walking into the center of town and then we saw a sign that said what direction the docks were. so we followed the sign and then got down there and this guy tells us that we were at the wrong dock if we wanted to go back to panajachel. then he tried to tell us we could take a taxi for 20 quetzales or something to the other dock. and here we were, getting scammed again. so we just said no and went back the way we came in the direction of the other side where the right docks were. so the road between the two docks was this little tiny path that wound through this extranjero barrio – everything in english, internet cafes, coffee shops, head shops….a club called ¨trippy christy´s?¨ again, i will say ¨whaaaat, where in god´s name am i?¨ it was the weirdest thing ever. it was like entering another world, like walking down haight-ashbury in the middle of friggin’ campo guatemala. we finally exited in front of the dock for the boats to panajachel and i was ready to get back. when we got back, the woman at the hotel kept saying how much courtney looked like shakira. courtney kept saying ¨i WISH i looked like shakira!¨ gotta love the people down here.