Tony’s Guatemala

So, the last week has been quite an adventure. Remember one of my last posts? I had gone to the Solala market.

Well, while I was there, I got swarmed by Mosquitos. Not a common occurrence for me, but it happens.

The next day I headed into Antigua for yet another in what seems like an endless string of dentist appointments. Getting to my favorite (read the cheapest in town) Hostel, also run by the shuttle company, conveniently enough, I was disappointed to find they where all booked up, and I’d have to stay someplace else.

After sweating bullets in the dentists chair, he assured me we could break up the visit into two to reduce my fatigue and pain to a tolerable level. I wondered what he meant by tolerable, but proceeded with some trepidation.

As it turned out, the last time I was in “the chair” he must have missed the nerve with the local before he proceeded to grind away, much to my chagrin. This time however, he nailed it, and I sat happy as a clam as he drilled and ground away on what had always seemed like two perfectly good teeth, in fact the worst thing about the day was the terrible smell that comes from grinding bone (or teeth) which most of you wouldn’t recognize, but I did distinctly, and had not the fondest memories.

2 hours later I was sitting in my favorite coffee shop in the city, “The Refuge” having a specially prepared lukewarm cappuccino and Chatting with Jim, the owner. The left side of my face was still numb, including my nose, which made for an interesting cup o’ joe, but I was glad to have the pain free visit out of the way. And I was looking forward to some curry fries and a nights rest before heading home.

I went and dropped off my umbrella at the hostel (more on that later) and headed to the irish place for good music and a bowl of semi-mushy french fries covered in curry sauce and chicken. So far, so good.

Heading back to the hostel, I grabbed a soda and settled in to sorting some of the photos I’d taken on the drive in. One of the many benefits of showing up early at the shuttle place is that I have the pick of the seats, and I learned long ago, that for a long legger like myself, the front seat with the driver is the place to be. Sitting in the front seat has a few added benefits besides leg room, I’m always friendly with the drivers, and get to practice my spanish, I get laughed at a lot. Beyond that, I have access to, and control over an entire window, and on the last few trips, I’ve been trying to take advantage of that, and get some photos en-route.

After sorting some of the photos, I headed for bed, the plan was to walk about the city some the next day, and grab some photos around town before heading back to Panajachel. When I got up in the morning, bright and early to beat the haze that tends to settle in during the rainy season, and to make waste of the free breakfast offered by the hostel, I noticed a few things that I didn’t like; the first of which being that through the night, I had been covered in bed bug bites. Beyond that, it appeared that someone in the shared bunkroom had peed on the floor in the night. Between myself and my shoes.

Shortly after wading to my flip-flops, I decided that a shower was just the ticket to feel better about what I’d just done, and to help get the day going. I scurried up the stairs to the bathroom, climbed into the tiny shower stall, disrobed, and looked dumbly for the hook, there was none, so I just hung my clothes over the divider. My towel promptly fell off the pile into the toilet. I didn’t notice. I turned the handle to receive the much anticipated lukewarm water from the electric showerhead known locally (but not affectionately) as “the widow maker.” The good news is, I wasn’t shocked, unfortunately, it was because the shower head never had the chance to complete the circuit… No water.

I gathered my clothing and re-robed and went looking for my towel. Another “guest” had been kind enough to cristen the towel with a happy stream, and I was suddenly glad I didn’t need to use it to dry myself off with, unfortunately, it was a towel I had brought with me, and not one that belonged to the hostel. It does now.

Having gotten redressed, now sans towel, I stopped by the central congregating area, since I still had about 10 minutes till they started serving breakfast. As I sat down, one of the other guests was doing something to clean up the table, I thought that was nice of him. He then produced a vial of cocaine, and poured it’s contents upon the table, rolled up a 1Q bill, and snorted the whole thing. I watched on in amazement, and rather hurriedly vacated my seat, attempting to be cool as I made distance, I asked what the other stuff he was pulling out of his pocket was. He replied “heroine”. I had no response, and simply went to breakfast.

A little stunned by what I’d just witnessed, I ordered a bagel, ate it quickly and gathered my stuff for the shuttle home. Man, it had been a long 24 hours, and was I ready to get home! I dropped my bag off at the shuttle stop and said hello to the folks there, they smiled and said something about “lugar” something something and “no es desponible” I smiled and said “gracias” and went back to the refuge for more coffee. I did kind of wonder why they where talking about german guns though.

After another good cup of coffee, I walked the two blocks back to the shuttle stop, where the nice lady who laughed at me earlier came running out  and informed me in her best english that the road to Panajachel had been washed away the night before. I stood for a moment, no doubt with a quizzical look on my face, and she said that was what she told me before. Dangit, my freshman highschool spanish had failed me again! She said there might have it fixed by tomorrow, but I’d have to ask then. She still didn’t have any rooms available.

So, with all my crap I’d just carried out of there a few hours before, I hoofed it back to the crappy hostel I’d been at the night before, chosen not for it’s ambiance or clientele, but rather for it’s proximity to the shuttle stop and relatively low price. As a stroke of good luck, they had no rooms available. It was really one of the worst places I’ve ever stayed anyways, so I didn’t ask them to check again.

After walking around the west side of Antigua for what must have been an hour (or probably more like 20 minutes, but I’m getting older and softer every day) I finally found another hostel, and one that had been recommended to me by a local, though with the caveat “I’ve never actually stayed there, but a friend did, and it seemed cool” I walked in, and was greeted by a level of cleanliness that was unrivaled by either of the two previous hostels I’d mentioned. Everyone there seemed both British and relatively quiet.

I unloaded some stuff, and headed out, after all, if I’m gonna be here another day, I can get more photos. I swung by the ATM and got some cash, as I was now without enough to pay my hostel bill for the night, grabbed some dinner and ended up meeting some welsh guys who were staying at another place in town.

Eventually I went back to the hostel, and dropped my camera off, I was feeling kind of weird, though not really tired, just a little loopy. I figured water and some evening air should do the trick, and I thought I might stop by the craft market to get some gifts for folks back home as well. I walked towards the market after a quick water stop at a tienda, and a few minutes later, was all at once, wishing I had stayed in, and very glad I’d dropped my camera off, as there was a pistol about 4 feet from my face, and a small man yelling “GIVE MONEY!!!!” I obliged, and handed him the 350 or so quetzal’s I had in my pocket. He didn’t ask for anything else, and was standing there counting it, so I asked for directions. He laughed, gave me the directions and handed me back 20 quetzals saying something about “cahones” and continued laughing as he jogged away.

I walked back to my hostel, and started getting ready for some much needed shuteye. I was glad to be going home to Pana the next day, as a matter of fact, I wasn’t sure I’d ever been so glad. It seemed like my trip was going from bad to worse, and I just wanted to be home in my own bed, this one was lumpy, and hey, what’s that thing o the wall? Really?! I can’t believe there’s a freaking CAMERA in my room! I was too tired to protest, and the mount looked too sturdy to be easily removed, so I resigned myself to sleeping under the watchful eye of some creepy pervert. CCD, must be why the Brits feel at home.

I had a hard time getting up the next morning, wasn’t sure why, but I sure was achy, must have been that terrible mattress. And man, I must have gotten really dehydrated too, I’m sweating like a pig.

I was too late for breakfast, but just in time for checkout, so I gathered my stuff, put on my last clean stitch of clothing and checked out. Besides the fact that I had “already checked out” according to the clerk, things went pretty smoothly, and 45 minutes later they finally let me leave. I only had to convince them that I was indeed myself. It would have been easier if I hadn’t forgotten my passport in Pana.

I walked again to the shuttle stop, just wanting to get home. I felt like crap, and I was pretty sure it was the hottest day I’d ever experienced in Guatemala. Upon my arrival, the nice lady told me that they had indeed cleared the road the day before. And that the heavy rainfall last night caused another landslide, taking out an even larger section of road. “it rained last night?” Still no rooms, so I was off again to find yet another hostel. I didn’t like creepy man watching me sleep. Man, I must have been walking forever, my feet were really tender and starting to swell, and my hands were swelling from the heat, and from the blood restriction of carrying the backpack and camera bag. And why was it so darned hot?

I found another hotel, and gladly accepted their offer of a private room for the same price I’d been paying thus far for a bunk in a dorm at the other places. I left my stuff, and went out for water and some air, hoping to find some shade.

From this point on, things get a little fuzzy, I stopped and got lunch, ran into the welsh guys again, and promptly started hallucinating. One of the welsh guys helped me home. I woke up the next morning in a great deal of pain, and decided to go back to bed. A few hours later, I woke up again, and went for a shower. I still hurt a lot, everyplace, and couldn’t stop shivering, no matter how hot I got the shower, the palms of my hands and soles of my feet where bright red and swollen, and I had a rash all over my back. I stumbled to a pharmacy and got some advil, took a bunch, and went back to bed. I never did stop shivering.

I woke up the next day with less swelling, and slightly less pain, but I felt dazed, and like my brain was about 2 seconds behind reality. I took more advil and went back to sleep. I woke up that afternoon, and desperately needed food and water, so I stumbled out after taking the last of my advil. Before I left the hotel I met a guy from NY who was here working with an NGO, I was interested, but unable to focus, so we said we’d talk later. I then walked the block to a fast food place and ordered something salty, and stopped to get a gallon of water and tylenol afterward.

With my gallon of water in hand, I stumbled into a doctors office. I didn’t know what was going on, but I knew it wasn’t good. When he saw me walk in, the doctor pulled me into his examining room in front of another patient, and after he struggled with english, and I with spanish, I had a pretty good understanding that he was saying I had Dengue fever. I had described my symptoms, and he described how the rest of it would play out. He took blood to test to make sure, but he was positive already.

He predicted that I would likely feel a lot better Either the next day, or even that evening after a nap. That was good to hear, but then he told me it was only a temporary reprieve, and I’d be back to the pain and violent shivering the day after my “good day”. That wasn’t wonderful news.

True to predictions, I woke up about 4 hours later, and felt well enough to finish the conversation with the guy from NY, who was just heading out to meet some folks from the aforementioned NGO. I was invited along, and went. The pain was gone, but I still felt in a daze, and everyone there enjoyed laughing as I butchered my spanish even more than usual. It was good fun, and I went home knowing that the next day was probably gonna be terrible. I got more water, and some crackers on the way.

The water and crackers I got may have been the single best decision I made on the entire trip. I was so bad off the next day, I literally didn’t leave my room except once to use the restroom, and upon doing so, promptly climbed back into bed, struggling to choke down pain killers/fever reducers, and some water.

I woke up the next day, after sleeping (if you can call having violent convulsions while sweating like a pig and freezing to death, sleeping) for 23 hours straight. I ate crackers, drank water, and took medicine. About an hour later, I was feeling a little better, with my fever and pain both being managed with the tylenol, so I went and got a hamburger and fries. Nothing like comfort food, when the only thing I wanted in the world was some form of comfort. I promptly went back to bed upon my return.

I had given up the idea of getting back to Pana several days earlier, I was in no condition to travel, and I had another dentists appointment on Monday anyways. Monday was the day the doctor predicted I’d start to feel better, and would no longer be contagious. He was right about the feeling better part, and I can only assume about the contagion. I went to my dentists appointment, had more drilling done, and my shuttle was scheduled to leave the next day, and boy, I was really ready to get home.

On the way back to the hotel I stopped by the doctor to ask about the blood test (he was closed sunday… I assume) and he said he was amazed, he thinks I had 2 strains of Dengue at once! I had antibodies for 2 out of the 4 general varieties. He checked me out, and said I was once again healthy, then looked at my physique, and said “mas o menos” and laughed. I laughed with him  and wondered what my gut had to do with catholic church.

Today I woke up feeling pretty good, no more aches and pains, no more headache, no more fever. I paid my hotel bill, about $40 US for the 6 nights I was there, and went to catch my shuttle. Which finally left.

I had been a refugee for a week, been robbed, adopted by the welsh, had dengue fever, and had 2 dentist appointments. I hope I never have a week like that again.

That’s the last time I go to Solala market without insect repellent.

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So, I woke up early this morning and headed down to the lake since the sun was out and everything was night and bright and cheery. I took a few good photos and enjoyed sitting by the water.

The boat guys weren’t too rude, and after being told that I didn’t need a boat, mostly left me alone.

Lots of tour groups running around today.

After catching a few minutes of peace and quiet, or as close as you can get here, down by the lake, I thought I’d take the bus up to Solola, which is higher up the mountain, and far less touristy.

I climbed on the bus, and after a little bit, we where off. I paid my fare of $0.38 and got a little change. I had decided to head up to Solola because today was one of the twice weekly markets, and it was nice and sunny.

Normally I wouldn’t recommend running around very many places in Guatemala with big and expensive (looking) camera equipment, but I’ve taken that bus ride a number of times, and generally don’t worry too much around the indigenous cultures unless the place I’m going is kind of deserted. It was market day, so deserted was gonna be the last thing Solola was.

After arriving in town, I walked through the square, and towards the market. Unlike Pana, Solola doesn’t have a dedicated market building, and instead twice a week (Friday and Sunday for the curious among you) they clsoe down the streets around the town square, and vendors from all around carry in their goods.

I normally try to respect peoples desires not to be photographed, especially away from tourist areas like Pana and Antigua, and simply planned to walk through the market taking photos of the colors. It seems that many things here are more colorful, the fruits and vegies, the clothing, the buildings, you name it, it’s likely to be colorful.

So far so good, everyone that I asked had been more than happy to let me take photos of their wares, and I think they appreciated me asking (many gringos fail to respect them enough to ask even before taking photos of the people) and I saw a pile of chickens feet. I asked, and the lady said it was fine to take a photo, so I did. After taking the photo, she demanded that I pay her 5 Quetzales for the photo. I was dumbstruck. It’s not uncommon for people to ask to be paid if you want a photo of them, but I’ve never had anyone try to charge me money for taking a photo of their goods. I played stupid and said a lot of things in very poor spanish that didn’t string together very well. She was unhappy, but not as much as I was. In the end, I didn’t pay her anything for taking the photo, but it did cut my day in the market short.

Here’s the photo by the way:

I’m sure that 5 Quetzales means more to her than it does to me, I think it was the way she went about trying to get it that bothered me. If she had said it would be 5 Quetzales to take the photo, I would have walked away, but she said it was fine, and then put a price on it.

Well, Guatemala has a tendency to cause all kinds of electronics to function sporadically or inconsistently, or just stop functioning altogether. Whether it’s a computer, phone, camera, electric razor, pretty much everything is effected. I think the combination of dust, humidity and altitude just wreak havoc on the circuitry and mechanics of things.

My camera gear has been no different. My battery charger still functions, but no longer recognizes that there isn’t a battery plugged into it, and continues to try charging after the fully charged battery has been removed. My flash ceased functioning within 3 days of getting here, and now occasionally works, but the LCD screen doesn’t always, even when the rest of the flash is, and I’ve lost most of the controls on the control panel. thankfully, some of the time, it still communicates properly with the camera and TTL works, but that’s only some of the time. My nice tele-zoom has pretty much locked up in the fully zoomed position, and refuses to budge to zoom back to it’s shorter focal lengths.

But probably the oddest thing that’s happened has been the fact that my my 60mm AF micro Nikkor lense has suddenly started to work properly. I’ve always used it as a manual focus lens, it was that way when I bought it 5 years ago, and it never worked in Auto Focus mode. Now the Auto focus works. go figure. Not that I’m complaining mind you, when I bought the lens I got an amazing deal on it because the AF didn’t work, I picked it up in a box of stuff along with a sunpak 622 pro, an AIS 55mm Micro nikkor, and a bunch of other stuff that a company that was switching to digital didn’t think they could use anymore. I paid the whopping sum of $25 for the whole box. I’ve gotten a lot of use out of the sunpak, though I did buy a IR head for it to go with my D1R Infrared camera, and have used it pretty much exclusively with that. And I’ve used the Micro-nikkors for several projects as well. That’s the kind of deal I’d love to stumble into once a year, sadly I haven’t found anything close in quite a while, though I did pick up a nikkor 55 mm F1.8 AF-D lens at a thrift shop for $10 the day before leaving to come down here. Sadly it stopped working upon my arrival here as well…

So, I think it was just yesterday that I was writing about Manny, and mentioned that I was glad he didn’t live here in Pana, as I seem to have enough weird people here that want to be friends with me.

Less than 6 hours after writing that, I made a new “friend” which means someone randomly stopped me in the street to talk to me because I speak English. Maybe that’s it, I should feign ignorance, and let people believe I’m a European from some odd country, maybe the Czech republic or something. Maybe then I won’t make so many “friends.”

I digress. The newest “friend” I’ve made is named Matt, not to be confused with the fairly normal Matt that I know here who’s from Australia and rode here on a bicycle. This Matt is an American. And when the conversation got to what we do, he said “I’ve got a bunch of kids with a lot of different women, that’s kind of my thing.” American Matt always runs around either bare-foot or bare chested, and sometimes both. he’s always wearing his sunglasses, normally a baseball cap, and a small backpack. I’ve seen Matt around town for about a month, and according to our conversation, that would coincide with his arrival date.

I don’t know how Matt makes his money, and I didn’t want to ask why “his thing” is having a bunch of kids with a bunch of women. Maybe I’ll have the opportunity to say something constructive to Matt.

I went into Antigua for the final portion of the dental work that was absolutely mandatory last week, and did a little bit of traveling from there. When I was stopped at one of the bus stops along the way, I met Manny, or Manuel, or whatever… Manny seemed really nice, spoke some English, and was actually talking to me rather than one of the women on the bus.

Manny is from Mexico, his dad’s Mexican, and his mom Guatemalan. Manny lived in the states for a little while, and even claimed to have a US Social security number. I’m not sure if I believe the last part, since as he was naming off the states he was a “resident” of, he included Florida, Miami, and Orlando, each as separate states.

This was when things in the conversation began to get kinda weird. Manny lifted his shirt to show me the tattoo he had, which read “MEXXXICO” and perfectly framed his beer gut. After that he proceeded to tell me that the reason he left the states was because he had killed three people. “@$%)*^’s needed to die” was his explanation. Afterward, Manny proceeded to curse at and make rude gestures to a group of Nun’s that walked by, and then ran after them, calling them names and opening the fly of his pants.

Sadly, such occurrences aren’t that terribly uncommon here. I’m just glad Manny doesn’t live in Pana, I have enough “friends” that act pretty similarly here.

Still having about an hour a day of water here… oh well, at least I can flush my toilet once a day.

For the last month, or most of a month anyways, since I’ve been back, I’ve averaged about an hour a day of running water in my apartment. I guess I shouldn’t complain, there are a lot of people a lot worse off than me.

I’ve been walking around and looking at the damages done by the landslides and torrential rains, and I wonder how I can complain about something as petty as not having water at my sink.

So I’ve started working to help locally, in a problem that spans much of Guatemala, and parts of surrounding countries as well. There’s not much I can do on a large scale, but I’ve been working with a local family to redesign the drainage on their property to reduce the likelihood of future damage. I’ve also been trying to spend my market money with families that need it to rebuild their homes.

I’m continuously impressed by the ingenuity of the people living here. Both Guatemalans and Gringos alike. If you walk around town, there are several places that you can see pieces of railroad rail being used as telephone and electrical line poles. Most of the funnels that I’ve seen here come from cutting the top off of 600ml plastic soda bottles. Plastic grocery bags are useful for everything from carrying groceries to rain bonnets to serving as makeshift galoshes.

But the things that really struck me and made me start thinking about it were twofold today. First when I was walking by the lake, I saw two young men rowing around in a funny looking canoe. I immediately recognized that this was no ordinary canoe, but rather, it was a gutted jet-ski.

Back in the states, this thing would have been relegated to the scrap pile, here, plug the holes, grab some oars, and we’re good to go fishin.

Later on, I was given a pair of earrings to give Rachel that had been made in a local village. The interesting thing about the earrings was the origin of the materials used to make them. They are quite colorful, and they’re made of the aluminized mylar packages from potato chips. This is the ultimate recycling, if you ask me. Potato chips cost 2-3 Q for a small bag, eat the chips, and have the material to make at least 5 pair of earrings that sell for 20 Q each. And everybody who saw them loved them and wanted some (the women for themselves and the men for their wives). Man, I’m in the wrong busines.

Every time I make a trip back to the states, I have a list of things I need to bring back with me upon my return. sometimes the things on that list might surprise you. maybe more surprising would be the things not on the list.

Things you can get easily in Guatemala:
Prescription medicine, not everything, but antibitiotics, etc, are easy to get, and cheap.
Cellular internet, cheap and fairly reliable
Tortilla’s
Fruit nectar and juice
Eyeglasses
Dental work
Non-specific batteries (AA’s AAA’s D’s etc.)
Cellphones (starting at about $15 with $12 service included free)
Amoeba’s
Horses and cows
Umbrella’s
tuk-tuk’s
Steak
Clothing (Paca’s have a lot of american clothing, though not frequently in my size)
Chickens
Fresh Fruit
Dynamite
Incarcerated
Drink coasters
Sushi rice
Amazing coffee
Cheap lodging

Things that are either hard to find, or ridiculously expensive:
Clothing (other than T-shirts, in my size)
Clean water
shampoo (available, but not cheap, and it all makes my hair fall out)
butane gas
Fresh fish (available, but not safe to eat)
Real Ketchup (the stuff here is more sugar than Tomato)
Steak sauce
Gringo’s that aren’t crazy (not a cost comparison, but very hard to find)
Sturdy silverware
Anvils
Specific batteries (for camera’s, phones etc.)
Good roads
Raspberry or maple syrup
Canned Tuna (hardly ever found for less than $2 a can for the cheap stuff in oil- and it’s in smaller cans!)
Milk in a carton (it mostly comes in bags that don’t need refrigeration)
A decent mattress

All in all, it makes life interesting. I bring back what I think I’ll need, and invariably forget something, or discover that I need something not available locally, and add it to my list for the next return trip. Last time I brought a mattress pad with me rolled up and stuffed tightly into an old military duffel bag, along with gun-magazines (the reading type, not the holding ammo type) and fire starter flint thingies, along with my normal clothing, laptop, camera’s etc.

I just returned to Panajachel after spending a few days in la Antigua Guatemala. Literally “The old Guatemala”, a city that was the capitol prior to 1773. I was there to go to the dentist. Finally getting the last of the work done on a broken tooth I’d had for quite a while. An unwanted, but somewhat necessary expense, as the tooth kept getting infected, and was costing me an arm and a leg in antibiotics.

It rained almost the entire time I was in Antigua, so I didn’t get to walk around as much as I would have liked. I did make it to the market, where I ate lunch, and probably got a parasite. And I made it to the arch and the central square. I didn’t get to hang out in the Square at all, due to the rain, but I did stop by an interesting coffee shop. It’s run by a guy named Tony, he slow roasts the coffee, and I wasn’t really impressed by it. But the chocolate he made was interesting, if a bit “rustic” if you will, with bits of the cacao bean still in it. tasty, but crunchy, and not like a nutty candy bar.

On my second night there, I ran into an interesting old Guatemalan man. We discussed things for a bit, and it occurred to me that he was kind of crazy. He told me about how his father had been a catholic priest, and how he went to “religious school” and after informing me that he worshiped “jesus” he offered to show me his “jesus” idol. I declined. Afterward, he confided that he was a witch doctor, and offered to bless me, I declined again. We talked a little bit more, and now he’s gonna look me up on facebook. Imagine that!

I also met a very nice young man named Jonathan Tiemensma, He lives in Antigua, and is married to a Guatemalan woman, they have a 6 month old daughter. He’s from Holland, and wants to work in the US as a social worker, that’s what his degree is in, and he loves helping people. I hope he finds his way to the US.

After the rain finally let up for a bit on my last morning in Antigua, before catching the shuttle back to Pana, I finally made it to a Guatemalan blacksmith shop, something I’ve been wanting to do for quite a while now. I was impressed by the level of work they produced based on the fairly simple tools and techniques they were using. I took a lot of photos, I’ll be adding an album later on, and will post back with a link when I do.

I have to go back to Antigua next week for the final crown to be fitted, maybe I’ll have more adventures then!