Travels & tales... and travails??

Hi to people (ok ok, noone else reads this other than a few very too kind froggers) who have asked about me and Spanish and made some far-too-warm comments about my photos on Flikr.

right, [intake of breath]

I "gave up work" at the end of 2005 and decided to get some time to myself away from work.
No clear objectives or destinations in mind but ended up going to Poland to visit a friend, Spain to visit a friend and Guatemala to visit... well, noone actually.

anyway, for Spain and Guatemala I took a very small notepad with me in order to scribble thoughts, observations and to look intelligent when alone in a bar or restaurant.
Rather than blog while abroad, I transcribed the notes into the blog (c'mon - I was abroad and I do not want to be in an internet cafe). A bit of editing here and there but not as much as you'd wish (you haven't read it yet).

Anyway, I have no technical control of this blog so can't "tag" my posts and get them grouped "dynamically". So instead, I've stuck links to the beginnings of the travel notes in the right hand column. yes go look. yes those ones.

Interestingly(?) you have to read the page from the bottom up as this is a blog, so start at the bottom of the page otherwise any humour I can wring from the dry rag of reality will be lost.

alternatively, ignore the links and demand I be amusing or insightful now as opposed to being johnny foreigner not speakinger the languagy.

another confusing day as people tell you stuff that ain't exactly true:
"That's the bus stop" (true-ish. I'd asked about buses to Flores and they point at a bus stop. It is a busstop if not actually the right one)
"Do you sell tickets?" "No" (not exactly true as I buy tickets from his colleague hours later when wandering and wondering where to buy tickets).
"It will pick you up from the hotel" (not true - I have to make a mad dash in a taxi to catch the bus about to leave from the bus station)

sigh. I guess this is what all tourists feel like when people try to be helpful... and I'm only moaning as this place is constantly pissing with rain - I need sun!!

And sun is what I get in Flores.
As the name suggests a really pretty little place. Tiny in fact. So tiny that I managed to get lost as the map gives a false sense of scale. still, as I say so small that you can't really get too lost, merely disorientated.
Flores is an islet (is that a word?? I mean a small isle at the end of a prominitory in a big lake. Its whatever one of those are.
Glad its off season as its a quiet place and would be far less relaxing with tons of people all trooping around doing the same thing (ie either catching a bus to, or getting off a bus from, Tikal).
Instead its quiet and easy to relax looking over the lake with a beer.
And hot. Not overpowering or particularly burning (which for me is a big deal being a ginga) but bright and exactly what I needed.


This is a jumping off point for Tikal, a collection of Mayan ruins that I'm really looking forward to.

how much more..?

Just had a look at my Guatamala diary and realised I'm only up to the "caves" bit. Jesus this is taking ages to get through. Not because there's a lot of it just cos I'm so bloody lazy in writing it up.

Hopefully I'll finish before I go to Aus otherwise it'll start getting weird with Aus and Guatamala stories overlapping in some kind of Potter-esque storytelling.

That's Potter as in "Dennis" not "Harry" obviously...

my ignorance

So back to the Guatemala diaries.....

Its good to get your expectations exploded.
I'm sitting in a dreary town called Coban. Its raining. Its always raining apparently. Yesterday was an 'exceptional' day in that it wasn't and was instead gloriously sunny and beautiful. But today is like any normal day here, mild (it is kinda winter) and drizzly.
Its a small town where its very easy to feel like you've seen everything worth seeing in about 20mins. And I've been here 2 days.

I've dived into a cafe and opposite me is a 'typical' american. Fat, out of breath, wearing typical fat-american clothes and he's been offhand with the locals from whom he's just ordered a beer.
Typical.
We're sitting opposite each other in front of an unlit fireplace that promises warmth, but I won't bank on it. I'm feeling pissy. I don't enter into conversation with this guy even if he is the only other person here, we're in each other's line of site and is the only guy who's first language is English that I've met in days! Instead I just sit and feel superior... and then he starts 'conversation' by saying:
"Hmm, that food smeels good"
(I'm eating crappy nachos and he looks fat and hungry. Sod off they're mine)
"Yeah"
Weirdly within a few minutes we're drinking beers together and he's saying things like:
"How much do you know about neo-liberalism?"
Actually at this point I was foxed as I know sod all about anything, but tried to save some face by saying "weeeellllllll.... possibly its more useful if you define what you mean".

yup - a born consultant.

Anyway, this guy has lived in Guatemala for 10 or 20 years off and on. He's a University lecturer in Latin American studies, although annoyingly for him, his linguistic skills in being able to speak some native Central Amercan languages means he's often stuck in the languages department of different universities.
This guy is not typical. Maybe no one is...

Anyway, I get a lesson in Latin American politics, neo-liberalism (to which my comment "hm, seems like a banker's solution" gets a snort of agreement so I guess I at least learnt what he meant by neo-liberalism) and modern history (after the IMF attempted to fix things here by demanding on a neo-liberal agenda of pegging currency to the dollar, sorting out the economy and waiting for everything else to fall into place - the country has a wider gap between rich and poor, the poorest are poorer if fewer).

and I learnt what I couldn't learn from the web. Max (for that was his name) answered my unGoogleable ponder - what the hell was the guy selling rocks at the market doing??

gotta go. If you care you'll read on...

My first time - I'm too old for this

OK another tale of Guatamalan travels.... to be honest I'm writing this a month after the fact but my notes are from the night it happened. Do you care? I wish my scanner worked as I'd just scan 'em. Can't even be arsed reading them again so here goes - an excercise (for me) in typing and for you in reading.

good luck.

"Saturday night after Semuc Champey and Grutas [something] Rey.
Helluva day. Before I start I'm writing this after the day, sitting in casa D'Acuna (again) and I reckon I've insulted the proprietor (again) by ordering Gallo rather than wine.
Anyway, expected to be on my own for this trip with maybe 1 other person (doddery pensioner knowing my luck). Instead got a nice guy and 2 US girls (Elaine + Vivian?). Then into the ineveitable shuttle minibus, full of people.
Before we reach our destination, the driver wonders whether we'd like to 'upgrade' caves we're visiting. Its the first good day in ages apparently.
We upgrade.
Good choice. Walked and swam through a cave complex, holding a candle for light. Any of you who know me may know I'm NOT a confident swimmer. Soon my candle was doused as I thrashed around. Not very manly. Its amazing that you can have any fun while scared and embarrassed.
Honestly - I was in the middle of a line of people swimming and treading water through these caves. Swimming I can kinda do but "treading water" is just a foreign language to me. Hence inapropriate splashing feet, swallowing of water and girly gasping while holding some crumbs of wax (the remnants of the candle). When we reach the 'end' and turn back to retrace our "steps" I head to the back of the line so I can 'swim' between rocky crags and ignore the idea of treading water. hanging onto these rocky outcrops cuts me arms a bit but do I give a monkey's? No. Well, not until a current (current?!? I'm in a cave!!) tries to take me under the outcrop and I get genuinely scared for a second (its a dark cave, I'm behind the group, "safety" is a word I'm unlikely to hear in Spanish).

After all this we emerge blinking and shivering into the light (though I am maniacally grinning as I'm still alive) and I begin to relax (ie my muscles are beginning to stop gripping themselves). From here we walk to a staging post and shed the umpteenth-hand trainers we put on to go into the caves (I've done this in size 9 trainers - I'm usually an 11) and cos I wasn't prepared (how come everyone else had flip flops?) I go barefoot to the "next bit". However, this is land and if its sharp stones I care not a shit - its land and I could fucking dance on this stuff!! Anyway, now we get into inner-tubes and float down the river. Fucking fantastic! I love it! Truly - its wonderful!! I'm giggling. After my obvious crapness in the cave this may sound odd but honestly its wonderful. While going down the river I learn that all US and Canadian kids do this in "summer camp" - "it ain't no big deal".

It is a fucking big deal.

They've forgotten what its like doing it the first time. And its beautiful- this is a truly beautiful river and area but as we'd been clambering though caves and shit none of us had our cameras so no pics I'm afraid. The closest I've got pics of are of Semuc Champey itself - hit the piccies on the right and look for those ones.

So, we float down to Semuc Champey proper. This is a series of torquoise pools which really are as beautiful as professional photographers can make them. If not more so. I wish I had me glasses on.
However this wasn't just a pleasant float or scenic end of the trip.

oh no.
Now we float/ swim this bit of the river from pool to pool which is a bit like going down the different levels of a canal (I guess) without the locks. and more beautiful. and no barges. How do I describe a river that's cut its way through a mainly limestone landscape leaving 'shelves' of harder stone along the way which contain these still, torquoise pools? Probably that's the best you'll get from me.
But this did mean for me, a bit of a gentle swim (although these pools are about 10-20ft deep and I don't "tread") and its quite a drop between each step or pool.
Hence my first ever jump from 14ft into water. The most I'd done before was jumping 2ft from the edge of the swimming pool in Stevenage.
Its a bit embarressing for me to have done so many "first" on the same day when I'm a 35 year old man. First time panicking in a dark cave that I'm swimming through. First time "tubing" down a river. First time "bombing" from a bit of a height. shit. 10 year olds discover this stuff and well they should.
Somehow I'm gonna make sure my niece learns how to swim.

and speak Spanish.

Don't expect...

Actually, the whole thing about expectations wasn't just the tourist office guy trying to sell a journey.

I guess in the West you get used to 'sameness' (exemplified by McDonalds). You have an expectation set by a previous experience. Here its different. The ingredients of a breakfast one day will be different to the following day - in the same restaurant - and for a different price. Maybe this time you'll get bacon. maybe. or maybe rice pudding. and remember - its the same restaurant and the same menu-with-photos and the same finger pointing at the same "americano" breakfast. And it would be stoopid to believe the sin on the outside (the very very large expensively printed sign) that proclaimed all breakfasts at Q10 when there wasn't anything on the menu below Q17. Its an expensive sign. They just.... kept it.

Not that I care, cos Q10 is about less than £1 so it really don't matter that this cost me a pound-fifty instead, its more the inability to expect.
There are lots more examples of this but it sounds like whining now, and that isn't what I was getting at - in fact, I guess I'm bemoaning a culture like the West when so much emphasis is placed on expectation over reality.

Which is more important? Which do you actually enjoy?

Which do you actually eat?

oh, sorry, obviously i misunderstood... lesson #1

Ok, I've just got to the bit in my diary where I'd booked the bus to Coban. I'd checked out a coupla places and it looked like a similar deal price-wise whichever tourist office i looked in.
Now, as I keep on saying, my Spanish is a bit ropey (ie nonexistent) but still I reckon that through the universal language of slow talking, making stuff sound spanish and a few sprinkled spanish words - as well as pointing to a fucking picture - the agent and I had agreed that the bus would pick me up from my hotel door and in one journey take me to Coban. I was sceptical cos the other places didn't do it in one journey, so I pressed him on this:
"Panajachel - Coban?"
"Si"
"No stopping??"
"No"
"No?? Really???" (slightly incredulous as its quite far and everyone else had mentioned a stop...)
"Si. Yes. It stops in Guatamala City"
"Ah, so Panajachel - Guatamala City - Coban?"
"Si"
"Same bus?"
"Si"
"I don't change bus in Guatamala City?"
"No"
"Really??"
"No. Same bus" and he's pointing to a picture pinned on the wall of a big fancy american style bus.
"That takes me all the way??!? Panajachel - Guatamala - Coban??!!??"
"Yes. Special price.... good!" This 'special price' being the same as every other tourist office, of which there are well over a dozen on this street.
"Same bus?!?!??"
"Yes"

No.
In fact I'll cut this short (I've already gone on but... ah well). anyway, instead of a big american style bus, I get picked up by the (usual) minibus and travel to Guatamala City. Here I'm turfed out at the bus station and waved onto the public bus to Coban. Admittedly not a "chicken bus", but still. I kind've expected this as that's what they mentioned in the Lonely Planet as being a typical journey (hence my disbelief in the tourist office) but still. After pointing at photos and actually writing down town names with hyphens between, I kind've expected....

Lesson #1 - don't expect.

actually lesson #godknows with the next one being "Take advantage of it now".
"It" being the thing for sale, a toilet break, food, anything. Even if you're not hungry or thirsty, or don't need to pee - pee. Drink. Take advantage NOW cos the next time could be hours away, and when you get off this damn bus, you gotta find a hotel and negotiate.

and negotiating while tired and needing to pee is not good.
Maybe that's a lesson too.

the ponder

I'm the kind of person that ponders. I'll see something and invent a reason for it happening. I'll imagine motivations or history; some kind of cause.

This is all well and good, and I'd got used to not expecting to ever discover the truth. However, now with Google, as long as you remember the ponder, you can pretty much answer it.

Which is why the old guy selling rocks in Chichi market was so interesting to me. Ok it was interesting regardless, but I also knew I'd never be able to Google it and discover what the hell he was doing.

So my mind set to work. He's selling chalky rock. In small quantities. Is it used in making tourist stuff (painting masks or making stuff look old?). Hmm, doesnt feel right.

Maybe they use it in flour? I remember my parents telling me that they put chalk in flour to whiten it, but I also remember that chalk is good for indigestion. Which is extremely common here. I mean, there are posters for Alka Seltzer everywhere, and they can't all be for the tourist community. The locals must be suffering from some of the same problems.

I ponder on....

Windy

Actually reading my notes I had been feeling iffy but hadn't had 'liquid belly' until this entry. Which explains why I was cranky yet not knowing why.
Actually I'm a bit sarky at the best of times, but anyway...

Tonight was an incredibly windy night. [yes the weather]. The corrugated iron roofs and fences rattled all night and you could just hear biggish things landing. My imagination is pretty... erm, imaginative, so I imagigined all sorts. In the morning, it didn't look as terrible as I'd thought it would have to. I guess there's stuff lying around anyway, and all the corrugated stayed (roughly) in place.

Mind you, the dawn chorus of dogs and roosters was a little subdued.

want something...

Sitting by the lake. My body wants something but I don't know what. Salt? Sugar? Sex? Meat?

I've now figured out that I'm probably suffering a bit from sunstroke (as well?) Not bad, but maybe making me a little lightheaded as well as all the water.

Mind you, a lack of sex may be playing havoc with me guts I s'pose.

i blame me guts

So, just so you get the picture, I'm staying at Panajachel which is a very small lakeside town, where most tourists simply stay within a short stroll of a strip of stalls that remind me of Glastonbury (tshirts, ethnic rugs, trinkets etc).

The lake itself is beautiful and there are a few pics in me Flikr place (click on the pics on the right)

However, while I'm here I'm feeling a little "delicate" stomach wise. Plenty of water, salt and bland food. Which in Guatamala is actually very easy to do.
I do enjoy it here but I've noticed my notebook extracts are a bit.... grumpy. a tad misanthropic. For example:

"Qu'elle suprise - they're drumming the sun down. Thought they would - dunno where they were yesterday. Wonder how the sun coped without them?"

Ok hippies might get up my nose but still, a bit sarky on my part. Probably just jealous that I'm not able to go out with one of their skinny girlfriends.

multi ethnic yeah yeah

Lots of 'types' around Lagos Atitlan. I'm in San Pedro, another small (tiny) town on the lake. I've mentioned the ex hippies 60's dropouts (some of whom would have been very young in the sisties). But there's also the multi ethnic wearing travellers. Young americans with long hair, maouri/ indian tattoos - very thin with baggy t shirts and multi thread pantaloons. Which kinda describes both the men and the women. I'm sure they're all lovely, but its just a bit predicatable.

Actually Panajachel reminds me of one of the strips of shops at Glastonbury - both in what's sold and the kinda people.

am i misanthropic or just grumpy??

food and language...

Have I said this before? But because I have precious little Spanish, when I look at menues its always a bit of a lottery as to what I'll get when I order.
I'm in a lovely little cafe and I've ordered "Sopa Caichikal" I think. No idea what kind of soup and the lovely woman/ owner was very helpful but unfathomable as to what it was. Was insistent that it was very good though, but I reckon she'd have said that about any of my choices!

Turns out its a leafy but incredibly bland soup. Basically hot water. And tortillas seem to remove flavour from whatever you're eating. However, thank god for the fact that the soup comes with a side platter of spices that you're meant to use to give it some kind of flavour.

All in all atually a good choice for a guy with a 'jippy tummy'. Though I might have overspiced that last bit...

uh oh.

Hi Alessandro

Here's a big "Hi" to Alessandro Juan Lares Peres.

He's a nut seller in Panajachel who realised (I hope) that I was never gonna buy any of his cashews or macadamia nuts. He'd trudge up and down the beach looking for gringoes to sell to. I must've bumped into him more than a dozen times while I stayed there. Nice guy and when he knew I didn't want to buy any nuts was as happy just to sit, shoot the breeze and then carry on up the beach after a few minutes.

I know his name as he proudly wrote it in my notebook.

time warp....... man

In a greasy spoon in Panajachel. Actually this is more a breakfast cafe/ travel agent. The guy who's just come in is typical of one kind of person that seems to have washed up in Panajachel and stayed.
He's from Colorado and is drawling to some poor sod who happened to have a spare seat next to him (3 tables - 3 people so it could been any of us!)
Its taken him about 25 seconds to mention dope. the other guy is non-committal.
Now he's saying (and I quote):
"[in the U.S.] The military is in control.... all the people are on pharmaceuticals.... they're all sedated..."

Is it the fucking 60's??

This is tedious. It also now occurs to me that his assertion that he didn't like the U.S. cos "everyone's sedated" is a bit rich from a guy looking to score dope.

Somewhere inbetween

Actually "somewhere inbetween" is something I've written in my notebook.

It occurred to me (as things often do) while I was walking along that this would be a good motto for my life.

Somewhere inbetween.



[dammit - I was gonna leave it at that but it occurred to me you may be going "wha?" and I'll explain a bit. Somewhere inbetween: a bit Piscean - constantly going in 2 directions; neither fish nor fowl; not actually a designer, but not a manager either; not exactly where I want to be in my life but then again not unhappy... somewhere inbetween]

Chichicastenago Market

Ok, I'm in Chichi (which is how all the gringos call it - and given the slightly tongue-twisting name you can see why.)
Its market day and this is a major market town - major for gringo tourists like me but also for locals who come from miles around to buy their own stuff.
The place is hectic and cramped. None of my photos will capture this so I stop trying. Its kinda fantastic even though i normally hate markets. Luckily I've bumped into 2 girls who I went up the volcano with and we mooch around. Its good bing with them as they're in buying mode and otherwise this could get tedious. [weeks later I wish I'd bought loads of stuff here but it was my 3rd day of the trip and i didn't want to load myself down].

There are loads of stalls that you'd expect - selling material, trinkets, masks, basketry for the gringos and just about everything you can imagine for the locals from plastic bowls to poultry.

However, I do see one guy here selling stuff that really foxes me. He's sitting on his haunches, dirty dusty clothes, with a small set of scales in front of him and some small stones/ rocks. As I watch a Mayan woman will come up to him, they'll say something and he'll measure out 4 or 5 of these small rocks and put them in a small bag for her. She'll give him a coupla Quetzales (ie they don't cost too much) and she'll be on her way. He'll wait for a few minutes and another Mayan woman will come along and the same thing'll be repeated.

This guy is doing quite well selling rocks. They look like chalk, but roughly cut and dirty.

This guy is selling rocks!!

There are loads of similar rocks all over the fucking place but this guy is doing a pretty good line in selling them!! Half the fucking country is made of limestone and he's selling the fucking stuff!!

As you can imagine, this made me think over the next few days..... what the hell are they using small chalk-like rocks for?

...

murals #2

I mentioned the commercial murals but Guatamala has endured 30-odd years of turmoil and civil war. In the last few years this has ended and there are clear signs of reconciliation being attempted. One way this comes through is in the painting of 'peace' murals on roadsides. Some of the country is very hilly, and corners on mountains have big splashes of white paint on rocks to prevent crashes. These white splotches have now been overpainted with political symbols such as the open 2-finger peace sign, the (Catholic) closed 2-finger symbol of peace, and a really good symbol of two hands which form the wings of a dove.
This is all really quite moving as you see them everywhere, and it looks like people are trying hard to promote peace. They're also extremely strong graphic images that use the same colours for each symbol so are instantly recognisable irrespective of how well or badly painted/ eroded.

** Actually I now realise one symbol is for the FRG - a party that is led by an admitted killer, pretty nasty and desperately crooked. Another symbol is from a 'party' of different paramilitary groups that came together.
Maybe I'm not really seeing what I think I'm seeing.

Its remarkable what you miss when you're a tourist.

murals

I love the local signwriting here. In the UK its kind've a lost art, but in Latin America every business paints logos and names on the wall of their shop (eg mechanics paint the logos for Michelin tyres, Machita chainsaws, Eveready batteries etc on their wall). I wish I'd taken more pics of these. Some are really naive where someone's son or mate has done it but others are extremely sophisticated and done by professionals.

Either are so much more interesting than simply pinning up the same posters that everyone else has. There are printed signs here but they look so characterless when seen beside someone's handpainted version.

fancy meeting you here..?

yup. Something I hadn't realised about travel (how had i not come across this before?) is that you bump into people you 'know'. Not actually know well or Biblically, but other tourists who you've met in the last tourist stop. We're all over here to see the same 'sights' and so roughly on the same itinery so in each town you visit you're likley to come across someone you've met.

I wish I could remember people's names.