Floripa crunch

Tuesday night, Trae and I rode an overnight bus for 13 hours to get to Florianopolis, a cute little rich beach town on the south coast of Brazil. This was after we successfully applied for our Brazilian visas, for which I had to pay around $75 USD and Trae had to pay $140 USD. Brazil hates the U.S! (who doesn´t?).

We arrived in Floripa (as it´s known to the locals) Wednesday morning, hot, stinky, and tired as all hell. For some reason, Latin American buses are COLD. Really COLD. Even though I discovered this firsthand four years ago while busing around Venezuela, and again last week while busing from Rosario to Iguazu, I forgot to bring my hoodie on the bus and therefore froze and woke up every 10 minutes to the fact that I was FREEZING.

Trae and I were torn between staying near the beach and staying downtown - we´d read that the beaches (there are many of them in Floripa) are all really far from stores and restaurants. We rode the bus to the gay beach, where Trae was hoping to meet some lucky guys, and kind of wandered around looking for beachfront accommodations. None of them were affordable, though, so we took a bus back downtown, wandered up a hill (at which point I abandoned my pack), saw a sign for Lagoa Hostel, found Lagoa Hostel, and settled into our new digs.

As luck would have it, it was hot hot hot when we stepped off the bus and while we wandered around looking for a cheap hostel, and then, as soon as we were ready to head to the beach, it got windy and cloudy and drizzly. So we went to a smoothie joint and I had the best acai, grape juice, banana, strawberry smoothie EVER.

That night, Trae and I were excited to check out Florianopolis´s nightlife, as I´d read that Floripa is the Ibiza of South America, a.k.a party central. We wandered over to a local bar, ordered some Heinekens and caipirinhas (Brazil´s national cocktail, which is STRONG and lime-yummy), and watched the end of a football game between Peru and Brazil (well, I watched the end of the game, Trae was completely disinterested and distracted by cute boys). We eyed a cute French boy at the table next to ours, and eventually started chatting with some Spanish men who were looking to go out. We made our way over to a bar down the street that was supposed to the ¨best party in town¨. It sucked ass. We had to pay the equivalent of $7.50 USD to get in, the band played lame covers of bad American pop-rock songs, and the people were boring.

Thursday morning, Trae and I woke up and headed straight to Praia Mole, one of the many beaches in Florianopolis. The weather was shit again, though, so I laid around waiting for the sun to come out while Trae wandered around the beach. After it was clear that the weather wasn´t going to improve, Trae and I decided to eat a seafood lunch. When we arrived at our hostel, the receptionist had told us that the seafood here is world-renowned, and, since I´ve been eating a whole lotta fish since I started travelling, I thought I´d give it a go. We settled on one of the dozens of seafood restaurants that line the strip between downtown and the beach, and ordered the lunch for 2, which consisted of crab, fried shrimp, garlic shrimp, more shrimp, fried fish, french fries, salad. I was hesitant to even order this meal to begin with, given the high content of fried foods and the overarching presence of shrimp; shrimp is too insect-like for my liking (all those legs, that crunchy skin), and shrimp farming is bad bad bad for the ocean, killing dolphins and all kinds of other sealife. But I relented, thinking that I may only be in Florianopolis this one time (oh, how fluid the ethics!).

The crab came out. I ate it, it was delicious (and I didn´t have to tear any legs off). Then the fried shimp came out. I was nervous about the fatty egg-batter, but I ate the shrimp anyway. They tasted pretty good (besides the grease factor). Then the real deal, the shrimp with eyes and skin, came out. They were piled up on a plate, pink skins gleaming in the afternoon sun, boiled black eyes dead but pointedly once-alive. I felt my stomach churn, told Trae I didn´t think I could do it, and then a second plate of fully intact, dead shrimp (this time seasoned, garliced), was set down before us. Trae couldn´t get the shrimp down fast enough. He was lickin his lips and fingers hungry, and I just sat there, waiting for something to click.

David and I spent Boxing Day with his Aunt Marilyn and Uncle George at their beautiful home on Salt Spring Island. For dinner, Marilyn served us crab. Crabs with shells and legs, crabs dead at home. I just sat there, politely refused on sketchy, shifting grounds of veganism (oh, how those grounds have shaken), until David, 20 minutes into leg-ripping and crabmeat sucking, offered to prepare me some crab meat. I politely aquiesced, ate the delicious crabmeat, thanked David for being such an awesome boyfriend.

Trae, the good friends that he is, offered to de-skin some shrimp for me, and I let him. But I also didn´t want to interrupt his delicious meal, so I only let him de-skin a couple. I ate some fatty fries, some tomato and lettuce and shredded carrot, some fatty fried fish, beat myself up about all the fat, stared at the shrimp eyes, and then tried to de-skin some of my own shrimp. I cut off the heads with my knife, and pictured my dad laughing at me, remembered that when I was 13 and newly vegetarian (and what a haughty vegetarian I was!), he thought it was a passing phase. I´d proved him wrong, though, because, for the rest of his life, I managed to remain not only staunchly anti-meat, but staunchly VEGAN. Until I succumbed to a fish craving that followed me around for 2 years. It´s all been downhill since that first salmon bite 7 months ago, and I can hear his laughter now, could feel him smirking as I cut off those shrimp heads and then tried to tear off the shrimp skin. Oh, the legs, oi! Shrimp legs are so insect-like, all curled up in their boiled nonlife. I grimaced, my stomach churned, I thought I might throw up. Trae was thoroughly amused.

I decided that seafood is probably not a good idea. I´ve been wanting to read Bottomfeeder: How To Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood for a long time, and I plan to read it once I return home from this trip. Being vegetarian for half my life has made me incredibly conscious of the impact my diet has on the planet, and I don´t think I can continue to eat seafood without a clear understanding of the fishing industry, its environmental impact, and the amount of mercury and other toxins present in food from the sea.

Iguazu

Trae (whom I bet a couple of weeks ago in Buenos Aires) and I visited Iguazu Falls on Monday. The park was amazingly beautiful, sublime even, the falls took my breath away, beats the shit out of Niagara, I finally saw toucans (those beautiful, colourful, big-beaked birds that I thought I´d see all through Central America, but didn´t) and falcons and two other species of bird I couldn´t identify and raccoon-like things called coaties and psychedelic butterflies and a tailess bunny-type rodent that was cute as could be. Trae and I had so much fun!

Chasing Che

Rosario, Argentina, was Ernesto ¨Che¨ Guevara´s birthplace. I visited the home he grew up in (well, I sort of stood outside the apartment but couldn´t tell which one was his), visited the Plaza de Cooperacion, and found the bronze Che statue that was made out of 7500 keys.

In lieu of posting photos of my Che chase, I am presenting pics of political graffiti from around Rosario.



























HELL YEAH

RADIOHEAD, memoria, verdad, justicia

March 24th is Dia de la Memoria por la Verdad y la Justicia, a national holiday in Argentina to remember, and oppose, Jorge Rafael Videla's military dictatorship from 1976 to 1983. The streets of Buenos Aires were alive with a youthful, hopeful energy that day, as cafes, restaurants and streetfairs filled with people milling, chilling and drinking mate on their day off.

This tame enjoyment proved a stark contrast to the chaotic energy that circulated through the Club Ciudad de Buenos Aires later that evening. I arrived at the open-air concert venue around 5:00 with Kristian, Molly, Chris, and Kyle* for the Radiohead/Kraftwerk concert, eager as hell to experience my fifth Radiohead show (and second one in 7 months!). Anyone who knows me knows how much I love Radiohead; they´re my favourite band, they externalize - in sound - the way I feel about pretty much everything, and I love that they´ve been together for 15 years and are still writing perfect songs that feel so good to listen to while doing pretty much anything: thinking, gardening, cooking, partying, loving, dancing, agitating, creating. I love love love them. I was really excited to share Kristian, Chris and Molly´s first live Radiohead experience, which, in my opinion, is nothing short of spiritual.

The show was phenomenal, of course. They played for 2+ hours, did 3 encores, played Kid A (the song, not the album), which is THE most beautiful song I have ever heard live, and sounds so different from the album version. It was all the awesomeness I´ve ever experienced at a Radiohead show, but with some serious Argentine hooliganism thrown in.

While Kraftwerk - a kitschy, electro-minimalist German band that revolutionized electronic music in the 1970s and 80s - were playing, people started pushing. Pushing real hard. Before long, there was a crowd within the crowd getting all riled, pushing and shoving people forward where there seemed nowhere to go. Since I was starting to get my Kraftwerk dance on, this really pissed me off. There are a few things I absolutely have no patience for, and one of them is outright inconsideration for the safety and well-being of others. Before long, I was swearing at some of the pushers (who were actually really hard to distinguish from the pushees since, at this point, everyone was pushing everyone around them just to stay afloat), giving them my erin death-glare and generally hating on Argentines.

When Radiohead started playing, it became even more chaotic. Because I am the world´s biggest Radiohead fan, I wanted to be as close to Thom and Jonny and Colin and Ed and Phil as possible. So I let myself be pushed forward, hoping that I would end up closer to the band than I´d ever been, inside the music if possible (or at least able to see my boys do their awesome thing up close and personal).

Entonces, NO. The band started out their set with 15 steps, the first song on In Rainbows, and I spent the better part of that song fighting to stay on my feet, gettin´ sweaty as hell, gettin´ covered in my sweat and the sweat and stink of hundreds of reckless Argentine man-boys. I was especially worred about Molly, whom I couldn´t see anymore (I´d become separated from the rest of my posse), because she´s really tiny and petite people have a particular kind of trouble in moshpits. Getting trampled at shows is a common phenomenon, and I didn´t want anyone getting hurt. After my earring got ripped out and my flipflops disappeared into the sea of surging bodies, I started pushing my way out of the pushfest, towards calmer grounds.

I eventually made my way out of the worst of the mosh-madness, and had to settle on only a so-so view of the band. But then I had to deal with people (mostly man-boys again) chanting what I assumed is a futbol chant. Argentines are superserious futbol fanatics, and I think that some of that fanaticism got transplanted to the Radiohead concert. I yelled real loud in Spanish for everyone to listen, cause they weren´t listening, and isn´t that the point of a concert, to actually HEAR the music, HEAR the band do their magic?

Things eventually settled down a bit more, and I got my revenge by busting out my crazy dance moves that only seem to really come out of me while I´m experiencing my favourite bands play live. It was hella fun, and I even enjoyed the barefoot walk home.



*I met Norwegian-Canadian Kristian about a week into my Buenos Aires trip at a deserted late-night shindig, and then met Molly, who´s from the Yukon, and Chris, who´s from Vancouver, through Kristian. They´re all really cool and we´ve become fast friends.

culture vulture

Since I've been in Buenos Aires, I've visited at least a dozen galleries and museums: the MALBA (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires), BOCANO, Centro Cultural Recoleta, Centro Cultural San Telmo, Palais de Glace, Museo de Arte Popular de Jose Hernandez, Museo Historico Nacional, and a smattering of independent galleries in Palermo, Recoleta, and San Telmo. Here are some of my favourite pieces from the MALBA, which I visited twice:



Tarsila do Amaral, Abaporu, 1928 (Brazil)



Frida Kahlo, Self-Portrait with Monkey and Parrot, 1942 (Mexico)










Antonio Berni, Manifestacion, 1934 (Argentina)



Fernando Botero, Los viudos (The Widowers), 1968 (Colombia)









Maria Teresa Ponce, KM 485 (from Oleoducto/Oil Pipeline Series), 2006 (Equador)

Check out Ponce's website, which showcases her photography and installations. In addition to the Oleoducto series, I really like Deshabitados, a series of photographs depicting drug users that was mounted in an abandoned hospital in Quito, Equador.

International Women's Day

I celebrated International Women's Day on March 9th by taking a bike tour through San Telmo and La Boca, two Buenos Aires barrios just south of the downtown core. San Telmo is dominated by tango, antique shops, carnicerias (Argentines love them some meat), cute little cafes, and the sunday artisan market. La Boca is a colourful (literally) working-class neighbourhood, the centre of which seems overrun by tourists.

La Boca:


in the San Telmo market:




sipping my first mate:


some cheesy, uninspired tourist tango


After I finished my bike tour and wandered through the market, I stepped into a clothing store. The (male) clerk handed me a rose and wished me a Happy International Women's Day.

Later on, as I was wandering around San Telmo in search of vegan food, a man stopped me to wish me a Happy International Women's Day, kiss me on the cheek, and offer to buy me a beer. His name was Maximillion, and I told him that if he could find me vegan food, he could buy me a beer. We ended up eating falafel, drinking red wine, and speaking in some seriously confusing Spanglish for many hours thereafter.

Maximillion:


A note on Latin American machismo and patriarchal Canadian indifference: in Canada, I have only ever been wished a Happy International Women's day by comrades; men who are academics, Marxists or anarchists who have some appreciation for feminist history and culture. I remember walking into work last year on International Women's Day and wishing everyone a happy happy and people looking confused and not knowing what the day was, or that it existed. Latin America may be machismo as hell, but at least the men here know what's going on. Somewhat.

During my bike tour, we stopped off at Puerto Madero to see Santiago Calatrava's Puente de la Mujer, a contemporary urban sculpture that's supposed to represent (albeit abstractly) a woman in the throes of tango.



We also checked out Ruven Afanador's photo exhibition, Mil Besos, on the docks. His photos are lovely pieces that celebrate womanist energy:

Argentine Amor

A series of emails/love letters I've received since I arrived in Buenos Aires:

Me robaste..., Carlos Alberto Valiente

Cuando duermo, me robas los sueños,
y al despertar me robas las horas,
cuando camino, me robas los pasos
cuando respiro, me robas el aliento,
cuando pienso, me robas el pensamiento,
cuando lloro, me robas las lagrimas,
lo unico que no puedes robarme
es el corazon..!
porque me lo robaste, hace mucho tiempo...-


EL PRINCIPE VALIENTE



Vestido de otoño, trepare a una mariposa azul,
para alcanzar tus sueños...

---------------------------------

Hi Erin,

I'm Alejo, we were talking together friday night at Los Cardones.

I really enjoyed the conversation we had and I realized that you are a very interesting girl.

I will send you another email soon inviting you to go out some night; do you agree?

So tell me what kind of program you prefer to do (going to drink something, to have dinner, to dance, to know a specific place you want to know, etc).

I'll be waiting for your answer.

I'm glad to have met you!

Alejo


Alejo Gabriel Larralde, MBA
Cel# (011) 15.6161.1034
Buenos Aires - Argentina

----------------------------------

My friend will be translating for me all I want to say to you, I could write it in spanish and I know you would understand, but I prefer it to do it this way...

First of all, I didnt write you sooner since I just met with my friend. Please dont think that I do this kind of things everyday. (Probably you would think it that way). Ill be honest with you, I really like you (I think that by what I did it shows it a little).

I would really like to see you so I can get to know you better (eventhough it would be hard for both with the language barier it I still want to try ;) to see if this can work out. Its hard that you will bealive me, but how can I explain that when you got close to the car I realized how much I liked your pretty eyes, voice and lips. Sounds crazy I know, but you caused all this. I would like to see you Thursday or Friday, whenever suits you better.

Here I leave my cel phone number. 1559458557

Goodbye Erine (I hope this is the correct way of spelling your name)


Santiago.

---------------------------

Hola Erin,
Como estas? espero que bien, seguis por Buenos Aires todavia o no?
Soy Heri, nos conocimos en Los Cardones no se te acordas.
Bueno espero que andes bien,
Besos

--
Heri

---------------------------

my favourites: "what kind of program you prefer to do," "Sounds crazy I know, but you caused all this."

I also received a grade 2-style Valentine's card with cartoon hearts and puppies. Seriously.

After my visit to the Recoleta Cemetery last week, a man pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket as I walked by him. It had his name and phone number on it!

Buenos Aires

I arrived in Buenos Aires early in the morning after nearly a full day of travel. I was exhausted and stinky. I took a bus into the city and then a cab to my hostel in Palermo, one of the barrios in Buenos Aires. I reserved myself a private room for my first night in Buenos Aires, since I knew I´d be exhausted after travelling for so long. I had a shower, took a sleeping pill and slept for 5 hours. I explored a bit of the the area, bought some underwear and some snacks, found vegan pizza (vegan pizza! for 6 pesos!), then returned to my hostel and watched Hilary and Jackie, a really awesome film with Emily Watson and Rachel Griffiths (Brenda from Six Feet Under) that I hadn´t seen since it came out when I was 16.

Friday morning, I packed up all my stuff and headed to a nearby cafe for my free breakfast (included in the price of the hostel) of two croissants and tea. I asked my waiter how to get to HI Hostel Suites Palermo, the hostel I´d be staying in for the rest of my time in Buenos Aires. He must have given me wonk directions (unintentionally, of course, cause he was so cute) because it took me nearly an hour to walk there with all my shit. On my way, I was stopped by a group of construction workers, who took pictures of me with their cell phones. After checking into my hostel, which is in a really beautiful old building in Palermo Soho, I wandered over to Krishna, a nearby vegetarian restaurant. After lunch, I felt so tired I almost started crying til I wandered into a clothing store and blew three days´ budget on a red 80s-style jacket and a slouchy multicoloured knit vest that relentlessly sreamed my name as I skulked by it. I felt guilty for even being in a clothing store, but the guilt didn´t stop me from buying; I´m a fashion hound, and I haven´t bought new clothes since October.

Argentines know what time it is. They dress well, eat well, and know how to have a good time. I´m blown away by their beauty, charm and style. I´ve never seen such a heavy concentration of beautiful people in one place (Toronto´s a beautiful city, I talk about that all the time with David, but Buenos Aires blows Toronto out of the water). The women are GORGEOUS. And there´s something really beautiful about the way Argentines carry themselves, the way they move through the world; there´s the stereotypical melancholy, which is actually quite tangible, and, I think, adds to the physical beauty they´ve been blessed with. There´s also a confidence, a strength, an intelligence that's heightened by that current of sadness that runs through the streets of Buenos Aires.

That night, I drank a delicious bottle of wine that I paid $4 for in a supermarket, and then went out to a bar called Los Cardones with a Dutch couple. The three of us were initially going to another bar to drink with some of the people from our hostel, but we couldn´t resist Los Cardones when we walked by it. There was an awesome Argentine band playing, and, because we were the only non-locals in there, people were really curious about us. Everyone was really friendly, and the Argentine men were smitten with Molina and I; three different guys bought me roses! We were invited to drink with a polo player and his friends, who were singing and playing guitar. It was the funnest night ever!

I had a hard time sleeping Friday night, so Saturday I still felt exhausted and a little hungover from the previous night´s festivities. I decided to explore the Botanical Gardens in Palermo, as well as the Evita Museum. Cats everywhere, fighting or fucking in the botanical gardens, lounging past noon and the discovery of cacti, Argentine cacti, African cacti.

Laying over in Lima

The Interzone

I spent nearly 7 hours at the airport in Lima, Peru, before catching my connecting flight to Buenos Aires. Airports are strange places, in between places, nonplaces, really. I was a bit worried about how I would occupy all that time, but just getting a glimpse of Peru from the airport (albeit a heavily commercialized, touristy, gifty version of it) was sort of cool. The airport gift shops were full of beautiful jewellery, Peruvian recipe books, novels, chocolate. Since I´m in the interzone (a nonplace), I decided to spend some non-money and buy Edward Galleano´s Open Veins, a book of Latin American history that I couldn´t find in Toronto.

The Interzone - 6:20

I´m starving, sleepy and freezing in the interzone. I´ve noticed that being overtired sends my body temperature plummeting, and it´s been 4 days since I´ve had a proper sleep. The last week, Davey and I seemed to rush from city to city to lake to island as we discovered Nicaragua´s immense beauty.

I got drunk on Flor de Caña Saturday night in Merida, Isla de Ometepe. It was a surprise, fun drunk, and hit me hard after only a couple of shots. We´d spent the day travelling from Granada to Rivas to San Jorge by bus, and then took the ferry to Ometepe, and then spent 3 1/2 hours on a bus from Moyagalpe, where the ferry lands, to Merida, where we planned to spend a couple of nights.

6:40, still interzoning

mmmmmmm. Peruvian ceviche. Sole marinated in lime juice with red onions, lettuce, corn and sweet potato. And a red jalapeno pepper that I mistake for a sweet bell pepper. Big bite, that hot piquante rush, pepper gets spit into a napkin though I'm sweetly satisfied. I switch to dipping fish in pepper, small bites to avoid the seeds.
7:10

an arrival. where are they from? many of them look gringo.

7:45

i think they´re french, they sound french.

Nicaragua

David and travelled through Nicaragua together from February 19th to March 3rd. Here are some impressions of our time together in what is, in my opinion, the most beautiful country in Central America:

Managua - February 19-20

a long tired ride from Tegucigalpa to Managua, a surprise encounter an airport saviour, our mirror-image doppelgangers, sexy strangers with the same story, a Nicaraguan Dali, lovers loving a late valentines, vino simulcast and a putasnack dinner at the Nicaragua Guesthouse, residential Managua graffiti a gangster gifting Sandino riffing and a Marley beast keeping the streets alive, a morning meander and couta´s cash cow at the armed mall, a city of school children in white and blue uniforms, joyous cab ride joyous flight

Little Corn Island - February 20-25

small plane stopover in the bluefields of Vietnam, ferry ride from hell turned amusement park ride and wet wet wet from head to toe, salty petrol eyes wave, turn off engine, water whip wave hit it like Ahab

david´s first paradise, our caribbean oceanswept cabana of eclectic ensueño charm, a cockroach cabana, a spider above my head, the very best coconut bread we be eatin´ by the loaf, windy beach on the powerless northend rising tide receding beach seaweed beachmat and a sunchase, a struggle to find the sun to catch it from the clouds to settle on sand free of flies and that deceptive caribbean breeze

the feel of a deserted island, the feel of grassy little hills beyond the sand and homes built from sea detritus, leftovers from pirate days, coco palms candles and a romantic quirky sway a snorkel scare, a burnt davey (burnt back burnt feet burnt scalp), wine days rum days 2-day novelfest, beach sunsets, seafood cocktails, Toñas, photo battles, nightime aliencrab dog-licked, flashlit, pincers out and heading to the ocean in stressed confusion

casa iguana´s best view on the island, beach lolling, sun spots hot sauce sun hikes gekho gazing lovemaking translating and davey´s chaotic bag. Habana libre, my full fish dinner: head bone eyehole tail, friendly creole locals, our drunk cook and a breakfast delayed til the rooster crow morning comes

Granada and Masaya - February 26-28

colonial charm, tourist strip dinner mad, dog beggars child beggars a late bill a davey unimpressed, Masaya folk dinner, dancing piña coladas, lago de apoyo drunk party boys chatting up davey as i hammock languish, premenstrual, or pregnant, planning an Argentine abortion in the most beautiful place on earth

Ometepe - March 1-3

the flow, the cataract hike, shelly and mike, oranges and avocadoes from the gods, cows! blood sugar dip and suddenly i´m 85, no energy, dry fruit a narrowly escaped rockfall fela from oregon, early bus no bus cab breakdown hitched ride and a chance discovery of magic eye

After Ometepe, David and I spent one night in San Juan Del Sur. The following morning, we took a cab to the border so that we could cross into Costa Rica and take an onward bus to San Jose.

After we parted at the airport, I cried.

Disjointed musings on Belize and Honduras

I'm really glad that David has decided to meet me in Nicaragua (tomorrow!), which forced me to hang out in Belize for a week. Belize is really cool, and it was nice to communicate in English. I hung out with Carmine, a really cool guy from Pennsylvania, as well as Sharon and Anthony, a couple from Florida and Argentina (they met each other while travelling through Indonesia a couple of years ago). I didnt make it to Caye Calker, which is all the rage in the backpacker scene, but I enjoyed Belize so much that I would consider going back and checking out the cayes.

After leaving Belize last Friday, I ended up in Utila, the cheaper of the Bay Islands. My intuition led me there, as did the budget lodging and cheaper food prices. Utila's very cool, very chill, but oh so gringo. There were so many foreigners there! Almost every dive instructor I saw was from somewhere else. Except for my dive instructor, Marvin, who is originally from Tecugigalpa, one of the major Honduran cities.

This is the back of Marvin. I regret not getting a photo of his front, as it is a beautiful front:


My time in Utila was really relaxing. The beaches were pretty ugly and the sand flies were terrible, but being introduced to diving was amazing. I was feeling down Monday and Tuesday because this time of the year brings memories of my dad dying, and I think that diving was the perfect thing to do to distract myself and stay positive. The fish were incredible, they were so colourful. I didn't see any whale sharks or eagle rays or anything else super exciting, but there was one moment when the sea wall dropped like crazy, and the ocean was the bluest blue I've ever seen and a school of fish swam by me and my mind was completely still. I am sad to report that, after snorkeling in Placencia and scuba diving in Utila, I never saw a single dolphin. And I met three other divers who did!

I really enjoyed the day I spent biking and hiking around the island. Sunday morning, I rented a bike and cycled out to a marshy area where there are supposed to be lots of birds. Actually, it wasn't the morning, it was around 1 in the afternoon, which is probably why I ended up seeing more lizards than birds. I played hide and seek with an iguana at a construction site, saw neon green gekos, and nearly ran into a giant snake that had already been run over by some motorized vehicle, and that was being attacked by a vicious swarm of flies. CREEPY. Later that afternoon, I hiked up Pumpkin Hill with a Dutch couple I'd met in Placencia, and some of their colleagues at the Utila Centre for Marine Ecology (where they're doing volunteer research on whale sharks).

This is my iguana friend:


In addition to running into the Dutch couple, I also saw a woman I'd met at the beach in Monterrico, Guatemala, and three other kids (I think they were Scandinavian) I'd met in Flores, Guatemala. For the past month, I've been hearing about travellers who run into each other in different countries and thought that it was hokus pokus. Now I understand that everyone is using the same damn guidebook (Lonely Planet's Central America on a Shoestring), and is roughly following the same itinerary. This makes me feel lame.

Saturday night, I FINALLY had my first ever, real night out (drinking more than 3 drinks, dancing, getting felt up by a French man, escaping the heat from a fire-twirler). I can't believe I've been travelling for over a month, and I've only partied once. For some reason, all of the travellers I've hooked up with have been invested in early days, either because they're studying Spanish, going hiking, exhausted from travelling, or whatever. I've been going to bed uncharacteristically early myself; I'm usually ready for bed by 11!

I left Utila Tuesday morning, and caught a bus to San Pedro Sula. I stayed the night in San Pedro, and left this morning on my long journey to Nicaragua to meet lover D. Because I really wanted to see Lago de Yojoa (where there are 373 bird species) and Pulhapanzak Falls, I caught a bus to El Mochito and asked the driver to let me off at San Buenaventura. I walked up hill for about 15 minutes with my pack on, and eventually found the falls.



After hiding my bags inside the restaurant, I went for a quick dip in the falls, took some photos, and then decided I had better catch the bus to Tegucigalpa. After asking around, I found out that the bus to Tegucigalpa doesn't stop in El Mochito, and was told to take a bus to Caracol. So I did. And, as soon as I stepped off the bus, a bus to Tegucigalpa drove right by me, and the driver completely ignored me as I ran, and waved, and ran, and waved. Luckily, a man in a van stopped and told me he would take me to Tegucigalpa, where he was headed. Surprisingly, I didn't really hesitate to get in his van. There were no ringing bells, just a desire to get to Tegucigalpa before dark so that I could catch my morning bus to Managua, Nicaragua. As I settled into my seat, though, I thought to myself, “Erin, you're HITCH-HIKING in Central America, BY YOURSELF.” Herman, the man who picked me up, was really nice. He bought me juice and water and corn soup, and lectured me about staying in my hotel and not going out by myself (apparently, Tegucigalpa is one of those Latin American cities our mothers fear and loathe).

A note on Honduras, which is so unbelievably different from Guatemala. It seems more westernized (Pizza Huts, Burger Kings, Wendys, KFC, everywhere, all the time), more sexualized (the women here dress scandalously!), and the men are pervier. They STARE. And STARE. I cannot understand Honduran Spanish, it's like they speak out of the backs of their throats.

I'm stoked for my tropical tryst with Davey!

Safe in Honduras

Just a quick note to let you all know that I´m safe, I´ve been beachin´ it the past week in Placencia (with a little skip and a hop over to San Ignacio to see some ruins, a butterfly farm and the Garifuna Museum in Dangriga). I´ve been gloriously lazy, finished reading Rushdie´s Midnight´s Children (which was brilliant, such a rich piece of fiction, if I ever teach a literature class it´ll definitely be on the syllabus).

I arrived in Honduras today after a full day of travel, and am staying the night in La Ceiba before heading over to Roatan, one of the Bay Islands renown for its snorkeling and diving. I´m hoping for dolphins!

Will give a more detailed update soon...

some pics of Tikal and Flores

i love the murky waters



tikal






that's a howler monkey, they sound like dinosaurs



i climbed up a really steep set of stairs to get to the top of one set of ruins so that i could look out over the jungle at some other ruins

A lone, woman, surviving the rough rough waters

The last week has been a whirlwind of Guatemalan buses, shuttles and death-defying boatrides.

Guat City, en route from Lago Atitlan to Tikal:

Bush a la merda And a noisy demo And a knife-selling man wants to know me better And
look at the mighty palms! And many fingered-cacti reaching for the sky, fresh cut wound on a moon-faced Guatemalan boy And bandito-tripping bus stops And skipped meals

Livingston, Guatemala:

I was really excited about Livingston, as the Lonely Planet guide says that it's one of the most interesting places in Guatemala. Interesting, I'm assuming, is euphemism for sketchy, dirty, indigent. Livingston is a dump. I'm pretty sure I'd have enjoyed it more had I been with someone, but the confluence of dirtiness and guys hitting on me every two paces made me feel like I'd stepped into a cesspool of sleaze.

I feel bad writing this because it's so poor, definitely the poorest place I've been in Guatemala, but I just didn't feel safe. Lecherous stares from men of every age (I'm SO SICK of men, especially old men, staring at my breasts), hey babies, that irritating beyond belief cat-hiss that Latin American men feel they are entitled to perform whenever they see a pair of tits.

I did meet a very nice soul at the Rio Dulce Hotel in Livingston (not the hotel I was staying in). I was passing by the hotel, purse gripped tightly against my side, when I was invited into the hotel restaurant for fresh cut coconut and Livingston history. The man's nickname was Tiki Tiki, his birthname escapes me, and he was so nice. He owns the bar and runs the hotel in the owner's absence. Tiki told me to watch out for the Livinston playboys, all the young guys who like to hit on the girls and laze around without goal or job, and I laughed knowingly because I'd already come across a few of them. Tiki asked if I like bikes, and I answered in an enthusiastic affirmative because I LOVE bikes and miss my red 21 speed buried beneath Toronto snow.

It had started to rain, so I ran back to my hotel to grab my hoodie before setting off on this voyage of Livingston discovery. The bike was old and the brakes were even older - they were the ones you activate by pushing back on the pedals - and Tiki had us going down steep steep hills, across wet dirty beach paths, on beaches themselves, up hills down hills through Garifuna neighbourhoods Maya neighbourhoods whore houses and past playing children (all of whom seemed to love Tiki, who would tousle their hair and grin at them lovingly, all the while reminding me of my dad who had that same magic touch with children of every age). Even so, I found myself clinging to caution, and couldn't really let myself just BE. I clutched onto the bike in fear as I rode down those steep hills, envisioned myself flying unhelmeted, headfirst into rubble and ditch. Worried about Tiki putting on his best kindness performance to lure me into danger (at one point, we entered an abandoned, unlit bar, and I, confused, met Tiki's explanation of "es me casa" with a blank stare and a quick move towards the door. Tiki, I think, immediately recognized my unease, and shrugged it off).

I've been cautious as hell this entire trip, full of stories and images of rape and murder and don't travel alone at night and flashlight on and knife and whistle at the ready. All this is fine, but it's taken me awhile to shake the panic and heart pangs that come whenever I'm confronted with a dark or abandoned street or a prolonged, icy stare. I feel that traveling alone as a woman is the bravest thing I've ever done, but it's also scary and has left me thinking that it might be my last solo trip. Not that I haven't been enjoying myself, but all the caution and suspicion has definitely gotten in the way of superenjoyment and getting to know people. I'm thankful that I've at least moved beyond feeling panicky when I'm in a new place alone and not sure if I'm safe, but I wish I could trust people implicitly. But then I'd probably end up in a ditch somewhere for reals.

So back to the bikeride. My favourite thing about Tiki: he stopped a boy from littering. While riding back to the Rio Dulce Hotel (after it started getting dark and I told him, in my best broken Spanish, that I wanted to return to the town centre because I was feeling "tired"), we passed by two boys. When one of them threw a chip bag on the ground, Tiki stopped his bike and told the boy to pick up the bag. Then he took it from his hands, sighed heavily, and muttered something about kids not learning and not having respect. I have a feeling that the boy already knew Tiki, and Tiki's obvious disappointment in the boy hopefully means he won't be littering again any time soon.

I thought I was stuck in Livingston for a few days after finding out that the next boat to Belize didn't leave til the following Tuesday and for Honduras until Friday. Fortunately, my determination to get out of Livingston superceded by ability to acquiesce to the situation, and I figured out that I could take a boat to Puerto Barrios, another Guatemalan port town, and then a boat to Punta Gorda, Belize. So I woke up early Wednesday morning (after a mosquito-swatting filled sleep), caught the 7:30 boat after passing by a man who just happened to ask if I needed a lancha, visited the immigration office in rainy Puerto Barrios, paid my exit fee, bought a ticket for the 10:00 boat to Punta Gorda, and survived what has to be the craziest, wettest, most dangerous ride I've ever encountered outside of an amusement park. It was POURING rain and water was spraying into the boat and I was near the front so got the worst of it and I had a rain cover over my head the whole time and actually found myself PRAYING to gawd knows who (I seemed to be imagining a mighty life-protecting force surrounding me in the energetic form of my dad, paternal grandparents, uncle joseph, and maternal grandfather, all guiding the boat to belize). I honestly didn't know if I would survive.

But i did, and clearer skies in Belize. I arrived in Punta Gorda just in time for the noon bus to Independence, from which I caught ANOTHER boat to Placencia, a sleepy sleepy beach town. It's unseasonably cold and windy here, they say, but it's not raining and there were periods of sun today. And it's Caribbean lovely, white sands and blue waters and palm trees everywhere and few cars and beachside cabanas And I found a hotel for dirt cheap even though everyone says Belize is the most expensive Central American country.

Tikal!

I visited Tikal today! I was supposed to go yesterday (Saturday) with George and Caroline, but sleeping pills and drugged miscommunication got in the way. I left Lago Atitlan Friday morning at 9 a.m. with the understanding that I would arrive in Flores, one of the towns near the ruins of Tikal, at 10 p.m. My bus turned out to also be a postal service, however, and I had to wait for a long time in some random town while the driver and employees at some makeshift postal service took parcel after parcel out of the bus. The ride turned into a 16 hour affair and I didn´t arrive in Flores until 1:30 a.m. Since I was completely exhausted (I had barely slept the previous night due to my new phobia of scorpions), and assumed that the girls would also be getting in later than expected, I took the opportunity to get some medicated sleep. Unfortunately, George and Caroline arrived ontime at 6 a.m., and could barely rouse me. When I finally woke up, I told them I needed some more sleep and thought they´d agreed to wait for me. Not the case. It was really nice to see them both again, though, and am quite regretful that the three of can´t travel through Central America together.

I woke up at 4:30 today to catch the 5:00 bus to Tikal. The ruins were awesome! Tikal is more peaceful than Chichen Itza, the ruins that I visited in Mexico last year; it´s less touristy and it doesn´t seem to have the same air of sacrifice that pervaded Chichen Itza. In Mayan, Tikal means ¨The city of whispers¨. After my tour finished, I sort of wandered around the main acropolis for a bit, and there were hardly any other people around, so it was really quiet. All I could hear were the leaves rustling in the wind, the intense dinosaur-like screeches of howler monkeys (I also SAW howler and spider monkeys today, they were SO CUTE!), and birds. It was so beautiful the way the birds were playing together amongst the ruins.

After Tikal, I caught a shuttle back to Flores, and began my 2 hour hunt for cash. Every cash machine I visited was either busted or out of money, so I decided to walk to Santa Elena, a town across the bridge from Flores. On my way, I heard someone shout ¨sister!¨; when I turned around, an excited man was waving at me from across the road. I walked over to talk to him, and he was elated to see another black person in these parts. His name was Carlos, and he was travelling home to Livingston, which is on the Caribbean coast of Guatemala. The Caribbean coast of Guatemala is very different from the rest of the country, as it´s mainly populated by the Garifuna, descendants of shipwrecked African slaves who intermixed with the indigenous Maya of Guatemala. I told Carlos that I´m heading to Rio Dulce and then Livingston tomorrow morning, and that I was looking for a functioning cash machine so that I could pay for my hostel, dinner, and bus ticket. He was super friendly, and told me all about Livingston and how great it is there and how everyone would be so happy to meet a dread from Canada.

Carlos had been arrested crossing the border from Mexico into Arizona, where he was hoping to find some work. He was supposed to spend 6 months in prison, but was let out after one month on good behaviour. He has a Maya wife and 4 children at home and was so excited to be on his way home to see them. He had no money, though, so I told him I´d give him half his bus fare once I found a cash machine. Carlos helped me find an ATM (took us 4 tries), told me that he´d tell everyone in Livingston about me and feed me fish that he´d catch himself, and I told him about Canada and Toronto. It felt like my first authentic encounter with a Guatemalan (and was obviously aided by the fact that Carlos speaks English -- the Garifuna speak Spanish, English and creole).

I had a great day, I´m feeling healthy again, David´s coming to Nicaragua with me at the end of February, and I can´t wait to get to a beach!

Ill in Guatemala

Tuesday, after eating store-bought refried beans, I started feeling sick. At first, I just felt dehydrated, and drank a bunch of water. By Tuesday evening, I realized that my stomach and bowels were not happy, and I retired to my bed. This sucks extra large because I’ve been feeling super homesick and lonely ALL week. I really miss David.

I was sitting up in bed reading when I noticed something crawling next to me. IT WAS A BABY SCORPION. Luckily, Josie-Ann came down and killed it for me, but for Christ’s sake! This experience cemented my desire to flee San Marcos; I was already sick of its hippie trappings, and my second scorpion in two days was enough to make me want to leave for good.

I had a horrible night of vomiting, loose bowels and crazy twitching. Wednesday morning, I packed up all my shit in preparation for the boat ride to San Pedro. I figured spending my last couple of days at the lake in San Pedro was better because I can take a shuttle from San Pedro to Flores on Friday, where I’ll be meeting up with George and Caroline to explore Tikal, the famous Mayan ruins in northern Guatemala. Eva wanted me to stay in San Marcos so that she could check up on me every couple of hours, but I wanted to go to San Pedro anyway.

I found a private hotel room near the dock in San Pedro. It@s really stinky around here, but I was in no shape to travel around much with my pack. I spent the whole day in my hotel room, sleeping, laying around, and going to the bathroom.

I slept 10 hours last night, and today I feel a bit better. Still a bit weak, but no more stomach problems. I haven’t eaten in over 24 hours, and am having some juice in order to see how my stomach handles that.

Lago Atitlan

Bitchy preamble: I’ve gotten way behind on my blog, and some of you -- well, ONE of you -- has been asking me to update it every day and tell everyone what I’m doing. Unfortunately, this is impossible, as internet connections are sketchy in some places, and it costs me money to get online, and I’m on a budget.

Last Friday, some of us at the student house in Antigua went out for drinks. This was exciting, as I had not had a proper night out since arriving in Guatemala. Before heading out to the bars, we started taking group photos. Conrad, a German doctor who specializes in tropical diseases, was among us; since arriving in Antigua, I’d gotten a creepy, older man vibe from him... like he was staring at me sometimes. While we were taking pictures Friday night, he tickled me, and then rubbed my belly, and then put his hand over my breast. Fucking creep! I told George later that night that he stunned the feminism right out of me. I was so shocked that all I did was yell and move his hand away. And then glare at him for the rest of the night.

Saturday morning, Paul, Eva, George and I caught the morning shuttle from Antigua to Panajachel, the busiest of the lakeside villages in beautiful Lago Atitlan. We were headed to San Marcos, reputedly the “most” beautiful of the villages, which also include San Pedro (stoner central), the aforementioned Pana (a tourist dump, as Paula, the snotty English expat who works as an administrator at Sevilla, told me last week), Santa Cruz, and several others. The four of us arrived in Pana around 10 a.m, and then took a boat to San Marcos. The view of the lake from the boat was stunning. Lago Atitlan is by far the most beautiful lake I’ve ever seen. It’s surrounded by volcanoes and hills and settlements, and is believed by its inhabitants to possess a special spiritual magic.

I didn’t quite know what to expect from San Marcos. I’d read that it’s packed full of hippies, but not in the “let’s get baked by day and tanked by night” way that defines San Pedro’s hippiness. Firstly, there’s hardly anyone there. At least it seems that way. Unlike San Pedro, where the tourists and Guatemalans seem to intermix quite a bit, San Marcos seems more divided. The place is full of new age centres -- yoga, meditation, massage and reiki schools -- and these, along with some hotels, hostels, and restaurants, make up the lakefront area of the village. Further up, past all the airy fairy bits, is the main village.

The four of us checked into Hotel La Paz, which is much like every other hotel in San Marcos; sort of built into the trees, almost coming out of them if you will. It was quite beautiful and serene, and there was a great veggie restaurant, sauna, and yoga space just steps from our room.

After checking in, we explored San Marcos, and then ran into Louis and Josie-Ann, a Quebecois couple we’d met at our school in Antigua. It turned out that they were staying in the upstairs portion (sort of like an attic space) of our dorm room!

Sunday, George and Paul headed back to Antigua for more Spanish lessons. I joined the meditation class, and at the end of it, I received an angel card with the word “expectancy” written on it. We were instructed to meditate on our angel card and to think about its significance in our lives. I thought it was pretty fitting that I received expectancy, as I am the queen of expectations. I expect a lot of myself, of others, and I’m constanty planning planning planning. I suppose this card was a hint that I need to relax and that I can’t control the future.

That night, while getting ready for bed, I saw a scorpion about 5 inches long on the bathroom wall. I stared at it in amazement; I’ve only ever seen scorpions in zoos, and I hadn’t even known that they run wild in Central America. Then panic set in. My bed was on the other side of that wall, and I started to wonder if other scorpions were living in or nearby hotel La Paz, in my bed, in my shoes, etc. Not a good night. I slept in socks, pants, my hoodie (with hoodie protecting my head), and cowered under the covers between fitful awakenings.

Despite my fear of scorpions inhabiting my bed, I decided to skip the morning yoga class and sleep in for the first time since before I even left Toronto. Sleeping in meant getting up at 8:15, showering, taking my anti-malarial pills for the first time (I’ll be in mosquito-infested Honduras in one week), and washing some clothes by hand in the bathroom sink (no scorpions).

There’s a super hippie “meditation” centre in San Marcos called Las Piramides (it’s hippie to the point of new age ridiculousness), and Eva wanted to check out their morning “metaphysics” class (I’m gratuitously using scare quotes here because the centre’s approach to meditation and metaphysics is, I imagine, quite different from, say, a Buddhist’s or a Heideggerian’s). Monday morning’s topic had something to do with the Initiative process, which I understood to be an introduction to several new age philosophies and practices (which have been handed down from Atlantis, supposedly, and which include Tarot, astrology, numerology, lucid dreaming, astral projection -- COME ON, I was interested in astral projecting myself out of my overly-developed body in the early 90s, but quickly realized it was probably a lot of hooey -- Kabala, and the list goes on. Eva decided to stay for the class and sign up for the duration of the week’s yoga, meditation and esoteric instruction. I decided to leave the centre, go swimming, and find an internet cafe where I could upload my photos of the lake.

I didn’t have much luck getting on a computer that day. There were only 2 internet cafes in San Marcos; the first one I visited was down, and the second was full. When some spots finally opened up at the second one, the internet went down. This was really frustrating, and I had to go back to the other one, where I waited for over an hour and a half for a computer to free up. While waiting, I read some more of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children and acquiesced to the reality of yet another day of not swimming in Lago Atitlan.

A few words on Midnight’s Children, which I’ve been wanting to read since I was 19. It’s taken me 7 years to get to it, and I’m finding it REALLY difficult to get into. I’ve had it with me since I left Toronto, and I’m only on page 80. It’s full of the sort of self-reflexive, revisionist, postmodern tricks I went gaga over as a wee undergrad.

While I waited and read Rushdie, I overheard the owner of the cafe tell multiple people about a woman who’d bitten him earlier in the day. According to him, she’d become upset because she couldn’t use skype and, when he asked her to leave, she became irate. He’d then grabbed her and tried to push her out of the cafe and she pulled a Mike Tyson on him and bit his arm. Because I was at this internet cafe for so long -- waiting for an internet connection, waiting for a free computer, eating lunch -- I heard him tell this same story at least four times. Each time he told it, he sounded increasingly sexist. Suddenly she was a “chick,” and had lifted up her shirt at the end of the incident in order to flash everyone. The last time he recounted the story, someone asked him how old she was. His answer: “She was young, she had nice tits.”

Leaving Antigua

I´ve had the worst of days and the best of days. Thursday found me hungover - from insomnia rather than drink; anyone who suffers from sleep problems knows that a post-insomniatic night is as bad as a bender - miserably forgetful and self-conscious in my Spanish class. Doing immersion classes in Antigua, Guatemala is incredibly popular and there are usually a thousand plus students in this city, taking one-on-one, and sometimes group, classes with Guatemalan teachers. My teacher, Gloria, is fantastic. She´s incredibly sweet and organized and patient, and we´ve talked about everything from Spanish verb tenses (I´ve finally gotten comfortable with Ser and Estar, the two forms of ¨being¨ in Spanish) to the uselessness of the British monarchy, the effects of stress on the human body (Gloria also suffers from insomnia), to political corruption in Canada and Guatemala.

After climbing Volcan Pacaya on Wednesday, my cortisol (a stress hormone that also gets raised after intense exercise) levels must have been really high, because I had the worst sleep that night. Twitchy, itchy, waking every half hour. I didn´t do any studying either, so I was useless in class. I´m pretty sure I´m also premenstrual; after class, I just kind of moped around the student house, listening to Miles Davis and John Coltrane and worrying about my cortisol levels and the excess adrenaline coursing through my body.

In the early evening, I wandered out to find a cheap bottle of wine. I´d found a store just down the street from my student house the other day that sold a big ol bottle of Santa Carolina for 75Q ($10 USD), but I couldn´t find it again on Thursday.

While walking back to the student house, I crossed a street and was almost hit by a car. Dude driving said car was mezmerized by something in his passenger seat and didn´t even notice me as he turned the corner and nearly ran into me. If I hadn´t skipped outta the way, I might have been turned into Guatemalan street meat.

After dinner, I went to Cafe 2000, a really cool bar in Antigua that shows bootleg films for free (rightly so, obviously). I finally got to see The Last King of Scotland and discovered a great Guatemalan dark beer called Moza.

Friday, meanwhile, was fantastic. I had my last Spanish class in Antigua with Gloria, and it was one of my best classes by far. I feel that, after one week of Spanish lessons, I´ve learned some useful vocab and have gotten quite good at conjugating verbs - the problem is, I´m not good at conversation. Because Gloria spoke so slowly in class, I was able to follow nearly everything she said. While interacting with Guatemalans, however, things are much different. When I´m by myself and I need to ask for directions or inquire about the price of something, I get by, but when hanging out with other folks who´ve studied longer than I have, they usually take over the conversation. I´m very grateful to have studied with Gloria, though; I was really sorry to say goodbye.

After class on Friday, I called David Marriott, a professor at UC Santa Cruz that I´d like to work with should I decide to do a PhD. He emailed me last week to tell me that he was really excited about my application and that he wants to work with me! He also asked what would make it possible for me to attend Santa Cruz, and told me that he would tell the program director to look into offering me a fellowship! This is all very exciting because the History of Consciousness program at Santa Cruz is really competitive (they only accept 8-10 students every year). David wanted to talk to me on the phone, so I gave him a call Friday, and we talked about the school and the program.

After this phone call, I decided to explore Antigua a little bit more. I considered checking out a gallery or museum (I still know very little about Guatemalan history), but I decided to hike up Cerro de La Cruz with Eva (from Germany) and Paul (from Montana). Cerro de La Cruz is up a hill facing Volcan Agua, and provides a great view of the entire city (and can be picked out while on the ground in Antigua by the big cross that sits atop the hill).

After hiking to the cross, Paul and I walked to the market to buy some cheap oranges. The market felt and looked exactly how I imagined Guatemala to be. It was cool because there were hardly any other tourists around and I finally got a sense of what Guatemala is like for its inhabitants when they´re not catering to gringos.

Volcan Pacaya

Yesterday, I climbed Volcan Pacaya with some of the other students at Sevilla Spanish Academy. The volcano is active, and we were all under the impression that we would witness, and walk on, real, live lava. We took a 2 hour shuttle to the base of the volcano, where children eagerly and very persistenly tried to sell us sticks (es necessito! por the lava!). Then we walked. And walked some more. It wasn´t grueling, but I´m not used to hiking up hills (the treadmill doesn´t exactly approximate a volcano). My friend, Caroline, has a heart condition, so we took it slow and stopped often for pictures and resting. Unfortunately, we arrived later than expected, and the sun started to set before we reached the top.



By the time we arrived at the lava floor, it was pretty dark, and I felt sketchy about crossing over such jagged rocks to reach the hottest point (I´m a clutz on the most level of planes). Caroline and I, and a few other people, remained behind, and thus I got some amazing photos of the rest of the group hanging out on the lava floor against a backdrop of the setting sun. Watching the sun set from such a great height was AMAZING.

La Antigua y Monterricco - Guatemala

Entonces.

I arrived unscathed in Guatemala City Thursday afternoon. I made my connection in El Salvador really smoothly (San Salvador is a tiny airport, and both flights were half an hour behind schedule; de-icing in Toronto, Central American time - muy relajandar - in El Salvador). La Escuela Español Sevilla, where I´m learning Spanish for the next week, arranged for a shuttle to pick me up at the airport. When I arrived at my casa in Antigua, it seemed really, really quiet and empty. I asked Ana, the young woman who runs the house, if there were other students staying here at the moment, and I guess she didn´t understand my crappy attempt at Spanish because she said no. So then I got REALLY lonely and envisioned a week of solitary Spanish study and no one to hang out with. After I got settled in my room, I started to panic a bit about the fact that I´m travelling alone. Anyone who knows me knows I have absolutely no sense of direction; I actually think that I have problems with proprioception in general, as I´m always walking into walls, spilling liquids, walking into oncoming traffic. And, despite my Spanish class last summer in Toronto, I´m a complete beginner. How the hell am I to travel around Central and South America with such limited Español?

An hour later, some of the other students returned to the student house in time for dinner; they´d been partying at the school all evening, and some of them were quite tipsy. I met Georgina and Caroline, two smart English women who have been at the school for one and two weeks, respectively. They´re really cool! Anna and Christina (the other woman who runs the house) were not informed of my veganism, so my first dinner consisted of watermelon and cantoloupe. And bread. I felt timid during dinner, didn´t really want to talk to people that much, and then I got paranoid that I would feel like this for my entire trip and never meet anyone at all. Then I realized I was really tired and decided to go to bed.

Guatemalans LOVE fireworks. Fireworks seem to fulfill a need for excitement and escape that Canadians seek in beer and Americans in giant food portions. My first night in Antigua, I mistook a firecracker for a gunshot, and envisioned myself getting attacked in the night. The following morning, a German girl named Sandra informed me that the noises were, in fact, firecrackers. I`ve heard them every night since.

Before class on Friday, I decided to walk around Antigua. Since all the streets are numbered on my map, I thought I´d be fine. Unfortunately, the calles and avenidas are not marked very clearly in reality, so I ended up getting lost. I kept returning to the same yellow church, and realized by the third or fourth time that I was not, in fact, walking south. I eventually returned back at the student house in time for lunch, and then headed off to Sevilla for my first Guatemalan Spanish lesson.

I think I must have one of the best Spanish teachers in Antigua. Her name is Gloria, and she´s absolutely lovely. She began speaking in Spanish to me as soon as we met, and I was able to understand her, if not respond in very clear Spanish. Each lesson lasts four hours, and, though my Friday class was at 2:00, all of this week´s classes are at 8:00. That´s right, folks, 8 in the a.m. Anyway, Gloria is really nice and patient, and does speak a bit of English, so we communicate quite well.

Georgina, Caroline and I decided to spend the weekend in Monterricco, a cute little beach town about 2 hours from Antigua. Antigua´s high up in the mountains, and has been quite chilly since I arrived, getting down to 13 degrees or so in the evenings (I KNOW, I KNOW, but I came on this trip in part to experience some intense heat), and Monterricco was HOT. The three of us lazed around the beach (the sand was black and got really hot in the sun) and played in the intense waves in the ocean. Being in the ocean was heaven for me; I could only think about staying above water (the rip tide is crazy at that beach), so it cleared my head and I finally started to relax.

Sunday morning, Georgina, Caroline and I got up at 5 a.m. to take a boat trip with around 2 dozen other tourists through a Monterricco nature reserve. Back in my undergrad days, I used to go to bed at 5 a.m. Anyway, the tour was led by a really great guide who made a point to speak really slowly and articulately in Spanish so that we could get a sense of the plants and wildlife in the area. We watched the sunrise, saw a school of flying fish that seemed to be performing a choreographed dance for us, and heard many beautiful birds I could not identify. I took loads of pictures, which I hope to share with ya´ll very soon!

The girls and I had the best daiquiris we´ve EVER had in Monterricco. They were made with real strawberries rather than that sweet filler that most daiquiris are made of. DELICOUS.

Sunday night, I stopped into a restaurant and internet café to call home, and ordered a ¨burrito rez.¨ I assumed the burrito rez was vegan, and I ordered it without cheese and cream. Since I was so hungry after my exhausting day lying around the beach, I took a big bite and swallowed two mouthfuls before I realized that, mixed in with the black beans was BEEF. I haven´t eaten cow – beautiful, cryptic cows! – in 13 freakin´ years! That´s half my damn life! Fortunately, the kitchen and wait staff were really nice and brought me a vegan burrito.

Monday, after class, I finally got a chance to take some photos of this beautiful city. La Antigua is full of cobblestone streets, big old dilapidated colonial buildings which have aged very gracefully, and, like every Latin American city I´ve been to, lots of colour! I´m finally starting to feel like I know the city a bit better, and am making a conscious effort, while walking around by myself, to notice landmarks and remind myself every 20 seconds which direction I´m headed.

La Antigua is surrounded by three volcanoes, and I´m going to hike up the active one, Pacaya, tomorrow afternoon with some other students from my school. I can´t wait to see lava for the first time in my life!

whammy

I'm convinced that ruin usually presents itself in the guise of the negative trifecta.

Last week, after nearly three months of medicated sleep, my insomnia decided to rear its ugly little head again. I'm not sure if my brain decided to switch back onto hyper-vigilant mode because I was jetlagged after my trip to BC (I used to think that jetlag was a mental construct, but now I understand that being thousands of feet in the air does, indeed, throw the body off), because I'm nervous about my trip (I'll get nervous about anything, and traveling solo through 6 Spanish-speaking countries and one Portuguese-speaking country without a good grasp of either language IS worrisome), or because I'm cursed (the last five years of my life plus a rumoured family malediction going back to the Louisiana days), or WHAT. Now I'm popping anti-histamines and the occasional benzo alongside my Remeron.

Friday, I had a doctor's appointment to discuss this very problem (the sleep, not the curse) with my family GP. On my way into the clinic, I tripped going upstairs (that's right, UP stairs), and vaulted, left side down, onto concrete. And kinda skidded across the concrete. So embarrassing, especially since part of the reason I fell was due to my sort of checking out a cute girl getting out of a car just before I bounded up those stairs. Other than bruising my knee and scraping some skin off my wrist and nearly passing out while waiting for my appointment, all was okay.

I later told David that, since shit always comes in threes, something else was likely to go wrong. Insomnia, a fall and... a missed connection in El Salvador? LACA loses my bag? I decided that I would probably get sick before I leave for Guatemala.

And now my body is fighting some sort of cold virus. I had a going away party Saturday night and, before going to bed, felt a little somethin'-somethin' in my throat. I've been ingesting echinacea, vitamin c and oil of oregano ever since, and today I feel really tired, foggy brained, and my nose is a bit stuffed up. I hardly EVER get sick and I'm leaving in three days for my adventure and I'm SICK.