Day 113 November 28
*one thing I forgot from before is that while we were out, I was in the ladies room talking with some of the women around me in Spanish and we were amused to discover that we were all from the States, just speaking Spanish out of habit. The accent in Antigua is the most clear Spanish accent I’ve dealt with. We continued to speak in Spanish.
The day after the volcano hike:
I was up before seven, to get ready to catch our bus at 8. Carolina and I ran out for coffee and got back in time to catch a quick bite of breakfast in the hostel. Carolina and I were afraid that Guido wouldn’t wake up in time for our leaving (he was planning to catch a bus before we got back in the evening) so we wrote down our e-mails and we going to leave them at the front desk, but he woke up just before we left and Carolina tried to convince him to change his bus to a day later.
I’m finding myself becoming more and more a part of the travelers community here. While we waited for our bus, I talked to a couple that was about to go to Lankin and I was able to highly recommend El Retiro (the hostel I stayed in the last time I was in Guatemala that I raved about.)
We got to Lago Atitlan and found Tammi, Nash, Beth, and Abby. Beth and Abby showed us a really nice, relaxed restaurant (pillows, hammocks, sitting on the floor) and then caught a cheap bus to Antigua, so we didn’t get to see them for long. We ate, and I tried liver for the first time. It sounded like it would be covered in enough stuff that if I was going to like it, now would be a good time to find out. So, I ordered the “Jerusalem mix” and ate about 30% of the liver in it before I decided to pick it out.
We got a boat ride across the lake, which was huge, to Panachel (sp?). The lake, mountains, and volcanoes around here were just beautiful. This was the roughest boat ride I’ve had, but I held in my liver.
Panachel is known for its cheap market, but we didn’t bring much money and we discovered that no cards were working here. So, we had enough money for a bus back and 52 extra quetzals between the two of us. We did enjoy watching a man juggle and balance a glass ball in all kinds of cool ways.
The funniest part of the day was when a woman followed me into a store and asked me if I speak Spanish. I told her I speak enough, I think. She then asked me if I would take a picture with her 18 year old son, who was sheepishly standing in the doorway. I did and his entire family continued to watch us as Carolina and I walked on.
When we caught our bus at 4, we got to talking to a woman from Germany who was living near by. She told us some pretty horrific stories about people being burned in a nearby pueblo for murder and about how scared she is every time she has to cross the bridge we were crossing (because the mountain is moving and the bridge keeps collapsing and what we were crossing was temporary.) There had clearly been a large landslide recently. It was so comforting.
The ride was long and I failed to sleep, as usual, but the views were lovely. When we got back to the hostel, we found that Guido had moved his bus back a day and we’d have him for another day. Unfortunately, I’d been feeling pretty sick since the boat ride.
We went out to dinner with live music, which was awesome. I kept feeling sick, but toward the end perked back up. I think my sandwich had the best hummus I’ve ever had. Though, the dinner was peppered with Guido’s camera in our faces. I came to call it his weapon.
He wanted me to try to use the camera, but wouldn’t help me figure anything out. I cheated and got Carolina to help me turn it on and then just played until I learned. I had the same trouble navigating his phone, mostly because everything was in German, but whenever I got something right, I was pleased.
Several of the Germans (who were all traveling separately), Gilad, Carolina, and I went back to the hostel after the music was over and stayed up chatting for a long while. At one point, and I thought Carolina was sleeping, but she came out later, Guido and I were just talking and looking out over the town from the roof of the hostel, we looked over and saw El Fuego erupting. Lava just shot out the top and black smoke went up. As it died down we watched lava run down the side for quite a ways (Fuego is completely uninhabited and known to have small eruptions like this, people don’t hike it. It was also way off in the distance.) A few minutes later there was another small eruption, but no pictures came out. It was at, approximately 1:53 a.m.
When Carolina came out (after I saw a shooting star), she was displeased that I hadn’t come to get her, but it was so short lived that by the time I would have gotten her and gotten back it would have been over.
Some time later we all went to sleep, after Gilad also saw a shooting star.
This was the night Guido and I found a pile of coins and felt the need to throw it at drunk American tourists. We just ducked behind the wall and lobbed them over to confuse them. Juvenile, but insanely fun.
Day 114 November 29
The next day, I woke up in time for breakfast, but tried to sleep again after. I was on a several day streak of averaging 5 hours a night. I failed to sleep and went talking with everyone in the hostel. We then decided none of us could live anymore if we didn’t go get coffee. I found it in my best interest to get a second breakfast of chocolate cake, also.
Guido and I calculated the “exact” distance of the lava flow we saw by figuring out how far the hostel was from the volcano, the distance between my fingers that the lava flow appeared to be if held a certain distance from my face. We discovered that it was exactly 75 meters of lava flow. Exactly.
After, we 7 went out to lunch and while we were eating at a Korean restaurant in Guatemala, as a Canadian, a U.S. American, 3 Israelites, and 2 Germans, we counted 5 languages being passed around the table. Some sentences had 3 languages in them. It was incredible.
We got more coffee after, and Guido simply needed to buy the spoons he saw in the coffee shop, but his bus was leaving in about an hour. We rushed to buy one, but they didn’t have the spoons he wanted. He said he likes to have small things to remind him of good moments in life. During the spoon hunt, I cheered in the street with folks celebrating Barcelona’s win over Real Madrid.
Guido teased me that I was going to hate him and wouldn’t tell me why. When we got back to the hostel I found a sticker from the coffee shop stuck to the back of my shirt. Which he wasn’t sure if I would find before or after he left, but he then put it on my notebook.
The group sat around talking, remembering, and joking until his bus came. We said our goodbyes and then I set to the internet for a few minutes. I wanted to research how the election was going and if there were any troubles, but couldn’t find much. I took it to be a good sign and tried to comfort another couple that wasn’t sure they would be able to get through Honduras tomorrow.
5 of us went out into the central park for the first of Advent festivities. It was beautifully decorated and full of people. There was live music everywhere, but after about half an hour, my coffee ran out and I found that my several nights of minimal sleep had finally caught up with me.
I ate subway with Carolina and then went to bed. I didn’t really sleep for a long time because people kept talking and setting off fireworks, but I was still better off in bed.
Day 115 November 30
We were up at 3:30 for our bus at 4. It was miserable, cold, tired, and the bus made several stops before we really hit the road. I was unable to sleep at all, but I did get to see more mountains that peak over the clouds during the sunrise. We did take an emergency stop for one of the young men on the bus who needed to use the restroom, and it was true. We had to just stop on the side of the road and it was, undoubtedly, the longest urination I have ever even heard of.
When we stopped for breakfast I got to talk to a man from Ontario who was teaching at a school like mine in Gracias, but it sounds like their school is a few years behind ours with the whole Visa renewal plan (and my school’s plan isn’t even that good.) He actually ended up being retained at the border for a bit, but they let him go after he paid a 100 quetzal fine.
I also talked with Joe, from north of London for a long time, when he and Carolina weren’t trying to sleep.
We got home about 11 and I took a quick shower before running to the internet to let the couple know we’d gotten through the border with no trouble. I told them I’d let them know before noon. Casa Villamil was closed because it was a national holiday (day after the elections and I did see a lot of caravanas for Pepe, the new president.) I wandered around town until I found that Yat Balam was open and settled in to update, research, and reminisce over the last few days.
I finally got to see Sierra again after her trip to the States and we just gushed over each other until parting ways. Carolina and Luis came over too. There was much talking and remembering. I ate at Picame and went to sleep while folks were still over at 8:30. Exhaustion set in yet again. I did wake up at 2 in the morning and I could still hear music coming from the park for the election celebrations.
Day 116 December 1 - Day 121 December 6
The rest of this week and weekend involved many trips to the internet, much sleep, starting on antibiotics, reading and finishing My Life at Rose Red the diary of Ellen Rimbauer, working, planning, and tutoring.
Highlights: I was trying to explain to one of my students that we would have a quiz, on Friday, on our money unit, but she kept trying to ask if by “money” I meant “Monday” so I finally said, “no, dinero.” From across the room, I hear one of my boys say, “A dinero, salud, y mi amor” with the most serious expression on his face. It took everything I had not to bust out laughing.
I spent a lot of time preparing for a week of science experiments in the classroom and how to manage 20 kids in this venture. I think I’ve got it.
On Sunday we had a girl’s day in which we gave each other massages, painted our nails, ate good food, and chatted. It was a good and relaxing time. Hopefully a tradition.
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