On the road down into San Pedro La Laguna, Lago Atitlán, I encountered a broken down chicken bus blocking the carriageway. A man optimistically waved me through, so I pulled forward, only to find that the gap was pretty much not Suburban-sized. Trying to reverse back up the hairpin, I only slid further forward, and when the bus to my right itself slipped off the rocks holding it, 6 inches toward me, I just gave up and breathing in, slithered the ´Burban through the gap. I am starting to get pretty proud of my ability to navigate the beast. Which probably means I am due a crash. Actually, I did have a pranglet in Santa Cruz, as I left, in the parking lot. I had to do some crazy N-point turns to get out the gate, and the rear windows were all muddy. I tried to do it on intuition but misjudged the length of the car by about 2 inches. I made a two-inch dent in a Toyota truck's bull bars. Needless to say the Suburban was unscathed, yet again. Unfortunately the owner was standing right there: fortunately, they were two super-nice guys from Guatemala city, and although they started off a bit upset (reasonably enough!) when I was contrite, they were very friendly. I ended up giving them 100 quetzales to get the bar knocked back into place. Actually I have the best conversations with people through car-related events (just to counter those people who thought that by travelling by car I wouldn't meet people!).
Since there was two chicken-buses-worth of passengers milling about in the road, a good hour's walk in the sun to the nearest town, I offered lifts to one group, 8 schoolteachers from San Pedro. They were very helpful with directions, and interesting to chat to. Although I generally feel guilty driving such a huge car, I do really enjoy all the conversations with the people I give rides to.
Lago Atitlán is pretty. I had never really thought before how much volcanoes add to the beauty of a place. I think because they are a bit like the mountains in children's books -- conical, wooded, with tops shrouded in clouds. The place I stayed was odd. It resembled nothing so much as the greenfields area in Glastonbury. Lots of nice places to hang out run by hippies, with reggae music, fruit smoothies, good organic coffee and fresh bread, all that sort of thing. After spending a few hours one afternoon chilling out in one place, reading a book on Central America, I came out onto the footpath and was actually surprised to see Guatemalans there. Still, the local people seem to generally like the hippies. There are lots of friendly women and kids selling cakes and ice-creams and handcrafts, and they are super good-natured, even when you never buy anything. I have found that from the Maya: when you politely, with a smile, decline whatever they are offering, they smile back and move on. Intimidation seems not to be a part of their culture. It makes for a pleasant atmosphere.
I think every one of the four days that I spent in San Pedro, I met at least one person who I knew from previous encounters on the gringo trail. It's surreal. It's so nice to see people you thought maybe you'd never see again, and find out what they've been up to. So there was no shortage of friends to hang out with, and rooms were just a few dollars a night. I can understand why people stay there a while! However, I still began to feel after a few days that it was time to move on. I heard so many warnings about bandits on various roads around San Pedro that I was almost disappointed when I got all the back to the Carretera Interamericana without meeting a single one. Perhaps they don't work Sundays.
Antigua is really one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen. Every corner seems is a photograph waiting to be taken. Bright sunshine and clear blue skies frame time-faded or brightly-painted colonial houses, and lilac and bougainvillea trees fill the courtyards of crumbling ruins of convents, churches and monasteries. The colourful Maya handcraft and produce markets crowd the cobbled streets. And always the green slopes of one of the three volcanoes surrounding the city visible beyond. It is very touristy, with a lot of rich Guatemalans and El Salvadorean tourists as well as gringos, but really they don't spoil the picturesqueness. It is so expensive I am only staying one day, but it is definitely somewhere I would love to return to, with money. It is slightly less good for a solo traveller than other places, because it isn't really possibly to "lose yourself" in the city.
But I have bought a map of El Salvador, and will cross the border tomorrow. It has been a very rapid two-week tour of Guatemala, but I have done pretty well at seeing a diverse range of places. I don't even know what to expect of El Salvador, which is quite exciting in a way!
Monday, February 27, 2006
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Four punctures in two days
So... sometime around Valentine's day I left Belize and braved the corruption and anarchy of Guatemala. I should immediately say that I have seen no sign of anything like this. The border was very straightforward, and the helpful man who took me through all the steps was interesting, friendly, and didn't even ask me for any money. I offered him 10 quetzales to thank him, about 70p, and he seemed cheerful enough!
Northern Guatemala is somewhat like Belize -- sparsely populated, forested, and with villages strung along the road in which everyone will smile and return waves and greetings as you pass through. I find it so soul-nourishing to have these little encounters with people. I was talking last night to the Finn who I have been travelling with for the last four days, since Tikal, about friendships. It seems that, unable to deal with the temporary nature of life (we all die), we like to separate our relationships into the "temporary" and the "permanent". It can easily seem that only the permanent relationships have value, or meaning. But once you accept that in fact all your relationships are temporary, just shorter or longer, it is a great liberation and you realise that therefore all relationships have value. I have enjoyed travelling with Tuomas for four days, and the fact that we may never see each other again does not reduce that. Equally, I have valued exchanging genuinely happy greetings with men doing road repairs, women carrying packages on their heads, and children drawing water at wells, beside the road.
Tikal was pretty groovy. It is really a big rainforest, with huge enormous trees with monkeys, birds, and other wildlife in them, which incidentally contains a few giant stone pyramids! It is lovely to walk around, and I spent nearly a day there. Then, along with a Canadian couple and Tuomas I drove down to Lago Atitlan, taking four days and stopping often along the way. Apart from managing to get four punctures, and leaving my sandals and my towel in various hotels, it has been a fun trip. Actually things going wrong with the car has proved a great opportunity for meeting people. The guys who fixed my puncture in Fray Bartolome one evening for 15 quetzales (1 gbp) were super-friendly, and were so amused when I returned the next morning with another tyre that they fixed it for free! By the fourth wheel-change, I was getting pretty quick, at least.
So there we are. One night, we decided to stay in this hostel. It was so weird being suddenly transported back into gringolandia, with fruit smoothies and organic dinner, bonobo on the stereo, etc etc. Basically I found it pretty unpleasant, even though the riverside setting was beautiful, the people interesting and international and open to talking to strangers, and the prices good. I would have loved it in England, for sure. I suppose I've become so used to (so addicted to) extreme cultural dislocation that just sitting in a bar boozing with some Europeans somehow lacked lustre. I couldn't face going straight to Lago Atitlan, the next stop on the gringo trail, so I have stopped in Santa Cruz del Quiche for two days. There is absolutely nothing to do here, and I am pretty much the only gringo. The others have gone on to their various destinations. I will go to Atitlan though, and Antigua. I have to overcome my stupid cultural prejudice against First Worlders (or whatever you call us), since they are likely to be some of the most interesting First Worlders I'll ever meet. And I can at least hang out with them as equals.
So, probably another week in Guatemala, and then on into El Salvador, which I'm really looking forward to -- it has no traveller trail to speak of. Tuomas is generally of a like mind to me, so wants to go to El Savador too, so I hope we can join up again further down the road.
This morning I came across my 90 Doxycycline tablets, supposedly for three months travel in malarial parts of South America. The idea of continuing this rate of experience-exposure for another 7 months and 15 countries sometimes makes my mind feel like exploding. And makes me go hide in an Internet cafe ;). Presumably that's why most travellers stop from time to time for a few weeks in nice, safe, culturally easy gringo hangouts. But now that I've had the full on 100% cultural immersion experience, I find it hard to accept it diluted, even though keeping taking it neat might make my head explode!
Travel really is a drug.
Northern Guatemala is somewhat like Belize -- sparsely populated, forested, and with villages strung along the road in which everyone will smile and return waves and greetings as you pass through. I find it so soul-nourishing to have these little encounters with people. I was talking last night to the Finn who I have been travelling with for the last four days, since Tikal, about friendships. It seems that, unable to deal with the temporary nature of life (we all die), we like to separate our relationships into the "temporary" and the "permanent". It can easily seem that only the permanent relationships have value, or meaning. But once you accept that in fact all your relationships are temporary, just shorter or longer, it is a great liberation and you realise that therefore all relationships have value. I have enjoyed travelling with Tuomas for four days, and the fact that we may never see each other again does not reduce that. Equally, I have valued exchanging genuinely happy greetings with men doing road repairs, women carrying packages on their heads, and children drawing water at wells, beside the road.
Tikal was pretty groovy. It is really a big rainforest, with huge enormous trees with monkeys, birds, and other wildlife in them, which incidentally contains a few giant stone pyramids! It is lovely to walk around, and I spent nearly a day there. Then, along with a Canadian couple and Tuomas I drove down to Lago Atitlan, taking four days and stopping often along the way. Apart from managing to get four punctures, and leaving my sandals and my towel in various hotels, it has been a fun trip. Actually things going wrong with the car has proved a great opportunity for meeting people. The guys who fixed my puncture in Fray Bartolome one evening for 15 quetzales (1 gbp) were super-friendly, and were so amused when I returned the next morning with another tyre that they fixed it for free! By the fourth wheel-change, I was getting pretty quick, at least.
So there we are. One night, we decided to stay in this hostel. It was so weird being suddenly transported back into gringolandia, with fruit smoothies and organic dinner, bonobo on the stereo, etc etc. Basically I found it pretty unpleasant, even though the riverside setting was beautiful, the people interesting and international and open to talking to strangers, and the prices good. I would have loved it in England, for sure. I suppose I've become so used to (so addicted to) extreme cultural dislocation that just sitting in a bar boozing with some Europeans somehow lacked lustre. I couldn't face going straight to Lago Atitlan, the next stop on the gringo trail, so I have stopped in Santa Cruz del Quiche for two days. There is absolutely nothing to do here, and I am pretty much the only gringo. The others have gone on to their various destinations. I will go to Atitlan though, and Antigua. I have to overcome my stupid cultural prejudice against First Worlders (or whatever you call us), since they are likely to be some of the most interesting First Worlders I'll ever meet. And I can at least hang out with them as equals.
So, probably another week in Guatemala, and then on into El Salvador, which I'm really looking forward to -- it has no traveller trail to speak of. Tuomas is generally of a like mind to me, so wants to go to El Savador too, so I hope we can join up again further down the road.
This morning I came across my 90 Doxycycline tablets, supposedly for three months travel in malarial parts of South America. The idea of continuing this rate of experience-exposure for another 7 months and 15 countries sometimes makes my mind feel like exploding. And makes me go hide in an Internet cafe ;). Presumably that's why most travellers stop from time to time for a few weeks in nice, safe, culturally easy gringo hangouts. But now that I've had the full on 100% cultural immersion experience, I find it hard to accept it diluted, even though keeping taking it neat might make my head explode!
Travel really is a drug.
Monday, February 13, 2006
A week in Toledo
I have just spent four days in two Maya villages, Blue Creek and San Jose, in Toledo district in Southern Belize. One of the poorest regions in the country, it is incidentally where Maya Gold chocolate comes from. I stayed two days in a guesthouse, and two days with a family. I didn't take any pictures, due to my usual reticence in treating humans as photo opportunities. Here though are a few of my crowded impressions from those impression-filled few days.
Sharing the joy in accomplishment of reading with Juni, 8. Doing English by pointing at pictures with the smallest daughter. Eating hot bowls of chicken or pork caldo with fingers, accompanied by huge calabash-pots of corn tortillas, freshly cut, milled, patted and fried.
Many first-time experiences. Seeing glow-worms glimmering in the grass, like a trip. Riding with seven guys in the back of a pickup going to the village meeting. Sleeping (just) in a hammock. Washing in a stream surrounded by rainforest. Watching the mother wring a chicken's neck, helping to pull out its feathers, then only four hours later eating it.
Listening with growing incredulity as the village school principal talks enthusiastically, in complete seriousness, about the discovery of the lost city of Atlantis in 2004. "Somwair neeah Japan I tink." They are Maya, but they learn the Caribbean-inflected English used throughout Belize. It fits them, somehow.
Being interrupted mid-shave one morning by two giggling, wriggling sisters, hiding smiling behind shocks of jet-black hair, holding onto each other for support, feet bare, toes splayed, as they inform me: "Yur brekfass reddy!"
Finding myself naturally helping the women (sweeping the floor, plucking the chickens, playing with the children), unable to sit idly by while they work. Yet shying from offering my services with the men's work (raising a roof), embarrassed by my soft hands, weak arms, unsuitable for the task.
The 14-year-old neighbour sitting on the porch with me, telling me about the Romans, and his plans to study history. But when bidden inside by Valentino, he says his goodbyes; he won't come inside the other man's house.
No electricity: at night, the only light is from candles. And in San Jose, old mustard jars filled with kerosene, a length of wick piercing the lid. Sophia knocks one over in her excitement to show me the Maya Atlas. I, worried grownuply about fire hazard, recruit Valentino to help clear up, forgetting that he has been drinking. He snarls at the children and they scatter. He violently mops the tabletop with a nearby pair of trousers, spilling the vase of plastic flowers. Sophia appears, too late, meek and crestfallen, with the Toilet Peepah.
The children wonder at my truck. "It beautiful!" says Juni, simply. I demur: I well remember what a wreck it has looked in parking lots along the way. Yet here, 15 miles of dirt track between us and the rest of world, yes, it somehow does seem quite luxurious. Embarrasingly so.
Eggs and oranges undescribably delicious, eggy and orangey beyond where I had calibrated Eggness and Orangeness to be. Yet their chicken, free-range, organic, freshly killed, is surprisingly tough, gristly and dry.
Mostly, I am inspired and glow from the primal joyousness, the wholehearted dedication to living, the cheerfullness of the children (Valentino has 10, 2 boys and 8 girls. He tells me matter-of-factly that two have died: one in infancy, one at 19, of Hepatitis.) According to the Atlas, in most Maya villages children account for 60% of the population. Into adulthood, harder truths are apparent. The subordinate nature of the women's role. The alcoholism amongst the men, and the status games, the playing at being important, speechifying, self-congratulation.
But what has worked for centuries ought, perhaps, to be left to work now. They are paving the road to the villages, they say. Things will, of course, change. But the Maya people have been around since before the Romans: somehow I don't doubt that they will survive whatever comes their way.
Sharing the joy in accomplishment of reading with Juni, 8. Doing English by pointing at pictures with the smallest daughter. Eating hot bowls of chicken or pork caldo with fingers, accompanied by huge calabash-pots of corn tortillas, freshly cut, milled, patted and fried.
Many first-time experiences. Seeing glow-worms glimmering in the grass, like a trip. Riding with seven guys in the back of a pickup going to the village meeting. Sleeping (just) in a hammock. Washing in a stream surrounded by rainforest. Watching the mother wring a chicken's neck, helping to pull out its feathers, then only four hours later eating it.
Listening with growing incredulity as the village school principal talks enthusiastically, in complete seriousness, about the discovery of the lost city of Atlantis in 2004. "Somwair neeah Japan I tink." They are Maya, but they learn the Caribbean-inflected English used throughout Belize. It fits them, somehow.
Being interrupted mid-shave one morning by two giggling, wriggling sisters, hiding smiling behind shocks of jet-black hair, holding onto each other for support, feet bare, toes splayed, as they inform me: "Yur brekfass reddy!"
Finding myself naturally helping the women (sweeping the floor, plucking the chickens, playing with the children), unable to sit idly by while they work. Yet shying from offering my services with the men's work (raising a roof), embarrassed by my soft hands, weak arms, unsuitable for the task.
The 14-year-old neighbour sitting on the porch with me, telling me about the Romans, and his plans to study history. But when bidden inside by Valentino, he says his goodbyes; he won't come inside the other man's house.
No electricity: at night, the only light is from candles. And in San Jose, old mustard jars filled with kerosene, a length of wick piercing the lid. Sophia knocks one over in her excitement to show me the Maya Atlas. I, worried grownuply about fire hazard, recruit Valentino to help clear up, forgetting that he has been drinking. He snarls at the children and they scatter. He violently mops the tabletop with a nearby pair of trousers, spilling the vase of plastic flowers. Sophia appears, too late, meek and crestfallen, with the Toilet Peepah.
The children wonder at my truck. "It beautiful!" says Juni, simply. I demur: I well remember what a wreck it has looked in parking lots along the way. Yet here, 15 miles of dirt track between us and the rest of world, yes, it somehow does seem quite luxurious. Embarrasingly so.
Eggs and oranges undescribably delicious, eggy and orangey beyond where I had calibrated Eggness and Orangeness to be. Yet their chicken, free-range, organic, freshly killed, is surprisingly tough, gristly and dry.
Mostly, I am inspired and glow from the primal joyousness, the wholehearted dedication to living, the cheerfullness of the children (Valentino has 10, 2 boys and 8 girls. He tells me matter-of-factly that two have died: one in infancy, one at 19, of Hepatitis.) According to the Atlas, in most Maya villages children account for 60% of the population. Into adulthood, harder truths are apparent. The subordinate nature of the women's role. The alcoholism amongst the men, and the status games, the playing at being important, speechifying, self-congratulation.
But what has worked for centuries ought, perhaps, to be left to work now. They are paving the road to the villages, they say. Things will, of course, change. But the Maya people have been around since before the Romans: somehow I don't doubt that they will survive whatever comes their way.
Sunday, February 05, 2006
things
my 43things
although in fact, only 37 things (so far). how lacking in imagination i must be. or possibly just short of internet time.
what are yours?
although in fact, only 37 things (so far). how lacking in imagination i must be. or possibly just short of internet time.
what are yours?
Friday, February 03, 2006
frontiers
frontiers are wierd. discontinuities in the desert. i can't get my head round them. why is it that from tijuana to tulum, every cafe in mexico has a paper-napkin holder made of a vertical U of metal, but 3 miles south, across the belize border, suddenly everyone has decided that the correct object to hold paper napkins is a wooden tray with a sprung metal loop?
why is it that from vancouver to halifax, donuts are provided as a de rigeur snack on every street corner by tim horton; yet in america (an equally if not more snack-obsessed country) no such chain was to be seen?
why from baja california to patagonia do they speak spanish, yet in belize it is considered normal to speak english, instead? why do belizeans write their street names in paint on bits of wood, while mexicans get theirs sponsored by car manufacturers and printed on metal? why do mexicans drive like their pregnant wife is in the passenger seat, and belizeans like tomorrow would be soon enough?
the fact that differences in culture exist, i can understand (although even that question does bear reflection). what i find hard to understand is that one culture spans a large area of land, running right up to what is after all an imaginary line, and then suddenly, for no reason at all, just stops.
why is it that from vancouver to halifax, donuts are provided as a de rigeur snack on every street corner by tim horton; yet in america (an equally if not more snack-obsessed country) no such chain was to be seen?
why from baja california to patagonia do they speak spanish, yet in belize it is considered normal to speak english, instead? why do belizeans write their street names in paint on bits of wood, while mexicans get theirs sponsored by car manufacturers and printed on metal? why do mexicans drive like their pregnant wife is in the passenger seat, and belizeans like tomorrow would be soon enough?
the fact that differences in culture exist, i can understand (although even that question does bear reflection). what i find hard to understand is that one culture spans a large area of land, running right up to what is after all an imaginary line, and then suddenly, for no reason at all, just stops.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
beautiful belize
well the border crossing from mexico was superbly easy. they speak english here again! to begin with i kept addressing all officials in spanish, before i remembered. in the north there's lots of hispanic-looking people, some of whom actually don't speak english, so it's highly confusing.
it feels like a very civilised country, unlike mexico. everybody drives nice and slow, and coruzal, the first town on the road through belize, is so laid back its amazing. there's hardly any cars at all, everyone's biking around, and everyone smiles and says hilloo deer, or stops to chat. it feels a lot like, say, the Scilly Isles -- like the England of thirty or fifty years ago. today i am leaving this lovely place and going to a nature reserve, one of many. belize is all nature reserves and relaxed people, as far as i can tell.
it's going to be a struggle to face other central american countries after this, that's for sure, with their corruption and lack of civilised infrastructure.
oh, and the houses here are all faded clapboard affairs on stilts, rather than the concrete and breezeblock structures so favored by the mexicans. often with attendant old black man sitting in rocking chair on the stoop.
met david and naomi the first night i was here, in the guesthouse: the first fellow-brightonian travellers of the trip! like me, of course, they aren't from brighton at all, they just moved there. it was wierd to sit and talk about brighton house prices over a couple of belikins, but all that was brought to a stop by the other people in the bar who came over to talk to us. an interesting mix of locals and ex-pats.
finally, no more maize tortillas! here it's good old rice, beans and chikin. and deep-fried flour tortillas called "fry jacks", if you want a heart attack on a plate. oh yeah, as well as everyone talking english with accents that sound to me like jamaicans (even the hispanics which seems kind of incongruous), most people also speaks creole which is so cool to listen to. "ah won't ya cut out ya foolishness bwah."
it feels like a very civilised country, unlike mexico. everybody drives nice and slow, and coruzal, the first town on the road through belize, is so laid back its amazing. there's hardly any cars at all, everyone's biking around, and everyone smiles and says hilloo deer, or stops to chat. it feels a lot like, say, the Scilly Isles -- like the England of thirty or fifty years ago. today i am leaving this lovely place and going to a nature reserve, one of many. belize is all nature reserves and relaxed people, as far as i can tell.
it's going to be a struggle to face other central american countries after this, that's for sure, with their corruption and lack of civilised infrastructure.
oh, and the houses here are all faded clapboard affairs on stilts, rather than the concrete and breezeblock structures so favored by the mexicans. often with attendant old black man sitting in rocking chair on the stoop.
met david and naomi the first night i was here, in the guesthouse: the first fellow-brightonian travellers of the trip! like me, of course, they aren't from brighton at all, they just moved there. it was wierd to sit and talk about brighton house prices over a couple of belikins, but all that was brought to a stop by the other people in the bar who came over to talk to us. an interesting mix of locals and ex-pats.
finally, no more maize tortillas! here it's good old rice, beans and chikin. and deep-fried flour tortillas called "fry jacks", if you want a heart attack on a plate. oh yeah, as well as everyone talking english with accents that sound to me like jamaicans (even the hispanics which seems kind of incongruous), most people also speaks creole which is so cool to listen to. "ah won't ya cut out ya foolishness bwah."
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