We parked our bikes on the Guatemalan side and were immediately surrounded by people who wanted money from us in one way or another. There are older boys called Trimitadors that you pay to get all the paperwork taken care of for you. They all wear badges with their picture on it and have a uniform shirt that says Tramitador. I'm still not exactly sure whether they are official. Anyway, since Jeff was telling, via the communicator, not to stop, we ended up picking the tramitador who could maintain a 10 mph pace for the couple of hundred or so meters to the next border. He designated two of his buddies to help out. The little boys that wanted to watch the bikes for money figured out that we didn't need their services (with us both there) so they changed their sales pitch from watch to wash. Then there were the older men that wanted to exchange money for us. We gave our passports and titles to the Tramitador and he took off to start the offically unofficial business of getting the appropriate stamps, documents and stickers. Meanwhile, we needed quetzales and according to everybody and their brothers, all the banks were closed on Saturday. Jeff was haggling over exchange rates, calculator in hand, with one of the money changers. Jeff was going to stay with bikes and the bike washers and I was going to go up to the office with the Trimitador et al to complete the money exchange on the way there. Unfortunately, Jeff failed to tell me that he had his calculator out because you can never trust the ones the money changers use. They have somehow mysteriously rigged their calculators or are experts in the use of slight of hand calculations that could fool even the most seasoned of CPA's. So, I thought I was doing pretty good when I bargained a rate of 7.5 (bank rate = 7.7). In the rush, I didn't make any calculations in my head and just stared believingly at the changer's calculator. He basically swindled about $10 out of me. Sucker lesson #1. Anyway, after paying our exhorbitant entry fee for the motorcycles of $92 for both (hopefully not Sucker lesson #2), I went with the Tramitador et al to the next office where our entry papers were to be typed up. I just sort of hung around while the Trimitador was in the office. After about a half hour, the Trimitador came and said we just had to wait on the red tape process. We walked back to the bikes and I got a traveller's check to exchange at the bank that had now mysteriously re-opened. Upon my return, I found that the bike washer boys were busily trying to remove the dirt from our "muy sucio" bikes. We all sat around talking and waiting on the documents and the Tramitador went back to find out what was going on. On my way back from the bank, he informed me that they needed 100 quetzales ($13) per bikes to expedite the process. Well, it is true that money talks and things do have a way of happening for a "small fee", but that was crazy. We still coughed up 50 Q per bike. It was getting close to 3:00 by the time we had all the required stuff. Now time to pay the Tramitadors and the washers. There went another 80 Q for the tramitador et al and 10 pesos for the washers. But, we were ready to get going. We knew we had 60 miles of really twisty roads with very rapid elevation gain that guaranteed a slow pace. It was very muggy at the border so we stopped for a drink before heading up. Jeff came back with two cans of peach nectar. I guess he didn't know what nectar was. Oh well, we downed the syrupy sweet goo and off we went.
Ahhhhh...feels so good to be back tickling the keypads. The awsome sensation of power I derive from being in control of the computer can only be described as pure exhileration. But I digress. I'm afraid I'd have to give us a C- grade on that last border crossing. We're going to need to improve quite a bit before we get to the tougher ones a little further south. In retrospect I should never have let the border guard seperate us from the herd by shoving us off in an isolated parking lot. Oh well as Doris Day had so succinctly stated "Que sera, sera..."
A couple hundred meters down the road from the border town of El Carmen the difference from Mexico was astounding. The topography, the climate, the people, even our everpresent nemisis 'El Perro' (the dog) seemed different. We immediately started climbing from an elevation of about couple hundred feet to well over 9,000 feet over the next 30 miles. After about half an hour the dark skies finally opened up and made an already treachorous ascent even more so. It was also the first real rain shower that we've encountered on the trip so far and it found us completely unprepared. After another hour or so of gains in elevation, coldness and wetness we finally cried "No mas, por favor" and hightailed it to the first hotel we could find in the mountain town of San Marcos. It was a wonderful hotel with secure parking for the bikes, hot water and cable TV (with a remote!) all for the affordable price of $17. A bargain by US standards, exorbitant by mine. But we were cold, hypoxic and drenched to the bone. So as I looked into my hopeful warrior princess's eyes, how could I possibly say anything other than let's unpack. After a wonderfully hot shower, a little TV (with remote!) fix and hanging up all our wet stuff we spent the rest of the afternoon strolling through town. The feeling of progress was envigorating and we finally felt like we were truly on our way.
We left San Marcos around our ususal time, blissfully unaware of the epic journey that lay before us. When we arrived late the previous afternoon in the middle of a thunder shower we hadn't realized that not only had we transplanted ourselves from the lowlands of Mexico but we also found ourselves smack dab in the middle of the world of the Maya. Guatemala's indiginous Mayan people still make up a full 45% of the total population. Nowhere is this more evident than Guatemala's Western Highlands. As we motored our way out of San Marcos on some of the best paved roads this side of Walmart, we started our visual feast of the Maya people and their Tipica clothing. Each village has it's own unique style of dress with vivid colors and intricate designs. During our many stops, all it would take is just one look into these beautiful peoples' eyes and I swear I could see a thousand years past and a thousand years into the future. The backdrop of all of this was 13,000 ft mountains and lush green valleys. We continued to meandered our way through visual splendor towards the second largest city in Guatemala, Quetzletenango. The city is home to the infamous battle between the the Spanish Conqustador Alvarado and the Mayan Ruler Tecun Uman. The 30,000 Mayan soldiers vastly outnumbered Alvarado's 300 soldiers (along with a couple hundred Aztec warriors), Alvarado challenged Tecun Uman to an individual fight of casting lances at each other. Alvarado took the first toss and successfully defeated Tecun Uman. And so started a bloody and violent conquest of the Mayan people. As Tecun Uman lay dying, legend has it that a Quetzal (national bird of Guatemala) flew down from the sky and landed on his chest, thus giving the bird a crimson red breast. The country's currency is named after the Quetzal and just about everything else can somehow be related to the bird. Ironically, the name Quetzal is derived from the Aztec word for the same bird. (No, I'm really not this smart, I just read it in our 'Let's Go - Central America' book). But just riding through the countryside, you can feel the history come to life all around you. I'm not sure, maybe it's the thin air, but come to think of it I do feel a little bit smarter. We made our descent into the large city, made a casual tour of the town center, had lunch and started our climb out of the valley floor to 'Alaska', the aptly named highest point on Central America's portion of the Pan American highway. At 12,041 ft of elevation we were above the 'tree line' but apparently not above the lesser known 'corn line'. It was amusing to see that some entrepeneurial farmers had utilized the mountain top to plant corn. What was 8 to 10 ft tall stalks of corn on the valley floor were no higher than 2 to 3 feet up here. Once again we started our decent on expertly paved roads towards the well traveled Lake Atitlan.
Lake Atitlan and more specifically, Panajachel, is firmly entrenched on the 'gringo trail'. The gringo trail is the term used for the path that travelers from around the world take to visit the Aztec and Myan ruins of Mexico and Central America. It is not at all uncommon to keep bumping into the same people month after month, country after country. Three years ago when I was on the gringo trail I kept bumping into the same German couple over a 2 1/2 month period. If the gringo trail had a capital city it would have to be Panajachel. It has gotten so bad that even Australians are looking for more remote places to throw back a couple pints with the lads. Aside from its well traveled reputation, Lake Atitlan is one of the more beautiful places on Earth, and a visit to Guatemala wouldn't be complete without a visit here.
From Panajachel we took the sometimes paved, sometimes not, back roads to our ultimate destination, Antigua Guatemala. As we twisted through the serpentine back roads we were to be rewarded with astounding views and experienced narrow roads cut into solid rock, with walls 30 ft high on either side. Albeit a tad bit slower, Linda appears to be truly enjoying the rides as opposed to fighting them. A sure sign that she is fast becoming a true motorcyclist (rather than someone who rides a motorcycle purely for transportation). Meanwhile I'm in heaven. I'll always remember today's ride as one of those 'epic rides' that will reside in a special place in my memory banks. We arrived in Antigua around 6 p.m. quickly found a language school, a place to live and prepared to settle in for two weeks of 6 hour a day classes in Spanish.
Antigua Guatemala is a charming town most famous for its stunning location precariously situated between the two volcanos, Water and Fire. It is equally famous for the sheer number of its' Spanish schools. At last count there were approximately 71 official schools in town. People from all over the world flock here to study Spanish in all its colonial splendor. My best guess is that 90% of Scandinavia's youth are here, butchering the Spanish language (I know, I know one shouldn't cast stones when one lives in a glass house - but it's just so much fun). The spanish schools give Antigua a really hip international flair and it's loads of fun talking to all the travelers. Back in the States I always feel a little like an outcast when I talk about traveling to other countries. Americans - God love 'em,their usual response to every place on Earth, aside from where they live, is "I've heard that (insert place traveling to here) is really, really dangerous!". This reaction is usually cultivated when they or their friends travel abroad, they tend to travel to American style resorts. Once in the safe confines of these resorts they hear all sorts of horror stories of the carnage that goes on outside the 12 ft thick walls. In fact, they see very little of the country they are visiting which is the easiest way to acquire imperceptions about a place. Europeans, Canadians, Asians and Australians are much more travel savvy and I feel totally free to talk about traveling with them. Amazingly enough, we rarely ever meet other Americans traveling abroad. But the ones that are out here are loads of fun and very interesting people to boot. I'm rambling again, aren't I? Now where was I...oh yeah Antigua. Great place to learn Spanish.
Sunday afternoon we were chased down by an eagle-eyed school 'recruitor' that did a good job describing the merits of the Cabaguil (pronounced Caba-hweel) Language school. Tuition for 6 hours a day of one on one study was $87 per 5 day week. The Guatemalen 'family' option was an additional $35 per week. I put 'family' in quotations because the school put us up in the house of Dona Clara. It was more like a hotel with a whole bunch of gringos sitting around the large dinner table for three, albeit tine, square meals a day. But Dona Clara was a really neat person and a fabulous cook. (Three years ago when I studied here, I stayed with a real family and it was an experience I'll always treasure, but it is really difficult to stay with a real family when we have to find a sleeping place for our babies, Suzi and TGH). The room she put us in on Sunday night was terribly musty with no windows, two single beds and an overhead fluorescent light from hell. We were to use the communal bathroom down the hall. We were not happy campers. School was to start promptly Monday morning at 8 a.m. So after a musty nights sleep we woke up, took a cold shower and headed to the dining room for breakfast. But what's this? No one in the house was stirring and the dining room was locked tight. So we found a little coffee shop that was open and bought a couple muffins (another thing I miss terribly from Portland are the Grand Central Baking cinnamon rolls). Disappointed with our room and the lack of breakfast we marched to the language school at 8 o'clock to remedy the situation. Oh no, the school was locked tight! Had we been taken? Was this some complex scam to remove a lot of money from some unsuspecting tourist? No you idiot, you forgot to change your watches forward an hour for the change in time zones. It was really 7 a.m.! By the time we got back to the house, Dona Clara had a wonderful breakfast of fruit and bread all prepared for us. After breakfast we went back to the school to find the courtyard brimming with students and teachers, creating a cacophony of sounds that eminated from the courtyard. Linda and I were quickly introduced to our teachers, Olga and Eva, respectively. Linda and I said our goodbyes and off we went to go a learnin' some Spanish. My teacher seemed to be hit pretty hard with some nasty virus that was running around the school. The next couple of hours she was attempting to figure out what level of Spanish I was at. It was probably not too easy because I can converse reasonably well in 'travel spanish' but I stink in 'everyday life spanish'. All in all, my teacher seemed very competant, but because she was so sick she didn't seem terribly motivated to be there. The hours flew by and before we knew it, it was time for lunch. At lunch we asked Dona Clara if we could have a room with one bed. Dona Clara gave us an inquiring look but she never answered the question. So Linda quickly accessed her female intuition, deduced the situation and informed her that it was OK, we were married. Dona Clara seemed relieved and we immediately switched to a very comforatable hotel suite with our own bathroom. So to all you nay sayers out there, at least there's one good thing about being married. After lunch, we went to visit the family I stayed with 3 years ago. Unfortunately the mother of the house didn't recognize me. After a half hour of trying to convince her that she did in fact remeber me, we said our goodbyes and it was back to school at 2 p.m. for two more hours of classes. This was to be our routine for the next two weeks. By Monday afternoon I was already missing the road. Just as everything was beginning to fall in place, Linda was not feeling particularly well. After Mazatlan we were feeling much better and were back to eating everything we could get our hands on. It was kind of funny how quickly we forgot what we had both been through in Baja. Now Linda's tummy was a rumblin' and we were concerned that she may have another visit from old Monty.
By Tuesday morning Linda was in her third tri-mester and was about to give birth to a pride of lions. By noon Linda was struggling to attend school and hadn't eaten all day. Tuesday afternoon while Linda was resting, I went off in search of a gym. I found one by the Soccer stadium. It was a sweaty, smelly place with banged up weights...perfect. My body quickly filling with testosterone, I confidently walked up to the bench and asked if I could use it. All the guys agreed and made room for me. I then proceeded to knock out 12 quick repetitions of whatever the weight was (I would guess 150 lbs). This obviously impressed all the locals. After a couple minutes I was back at the bench ready to reaffirm my status as the new kid on the block. Only one problem, in the month or so since I last worked out with weights, I had seriously lost some conditioning. One of the crazy nuances with weightlifting is that it takes a little while for the lactic acid to interfere with the muscles ability to respond to stress. In other words, on the second set I felt absolutely fine by repetition #8 but by #10 my muscles shut down. So there I was, pinned to the bench, trying desparately to prevent the weight from crushing my chest and asking for help at the same time. Fortunately a couple of guys rushed to my aid, pried the weight off my chest and placed it in its rightful home. We all had a good laugh at my expense as I sheepishly tried to explain that I had been traveling for a long time and hadn't been able to work out for a while. I suspect my lamentations were falling on deaf ears. After another hour of kicking around some more weights, I left - barely able to hold on to TGH's handle bars. When I returned to the house Linda was no better. When we told our house mom about it she told me to run over to the pharmacy and pick up some "Yodochlorina Fuerte". With no questions asked I quickly administered the Yodochlorina and the results were amazing, by that night she began to feel much better. It turns out that this wonder drug is a healthy dose of iodine and chlorine meant to purify the belly. Not sure if it is good for you but Linda swears by it.
By Wednesday morning Linda was feeling much better but was still afraid to eat. By lunch she felt well enough to eat and by dinner we went out to find a more palatable alternative to the gym I went to yesterday. We found a great gym called La Fabrica. It is so nice to get back into a routine of exercise. Back home we workout at least 8 to 10 times a week. So to go cold turkey the last month or so has been kind of hard on us. After the workout we met up with our housemates, Satome from Japan and Neil from England. We were going to celebrate Linda's quick recovery by finding a local bar called "Monoloco" that advertised microbrewed beer. We found it easily and I was esctatic to find that they had an excellent ESB, good Amber and an OK Oktoberfest on tap. We talked with Billy, part owner along with Jean Louis, who buys the beer from a microbrewery in Guatemala City. Apparantly the brewery is Guatemalan owned but the head brewer is originally from Breckenridge Brewery in Colorado. I was officially a happy camper. The national beer of Guatemala is Gallo and is nothing to write home about. Here's to Yodochlorina!
The next day after Spanish class I went to the local motorcycle shop and ordered a new Bridgestone tire for Suzi. The price was $62 installed. Not too shabby, I was to bring the bike by tomorrow at noon to have the tire installed and oil changed. We then met up with our other housemates from Holland, Rini and Jolanda, and went out to the brewpub to celebrate the excellant price on the new tire. That and we were trying to figure out what we were going to do for the All Saints Day celebrations and the Day of the Dead festivities this coming Monday, the 1st of November. After much deliberation we decided to split up with each of us picking a festivity that would best suite our individual strengths. Linda would cover the kite festival and cemetary tours and I would saddle up The Green Hornet and ride the 4 or so hours out to Todas Santos for the drunken cowboy festival.
Friday came too soon and it was off to class for another 6 hours of work. In retrospect we should have only signed up for 4 hours a day. With 6 hours it is difficult to digest the loads of new information fed to us daily. Oh well, mama never said this trip was going to be easy. Linda and I also decided that our teachers shouldn't have to work on All Saints Day (next Monday) but if we didn't come to class they wouldn't get paid. So this is what we did. I found out how much they make ($1.5 to $2 per hour depending on their level of experience), finagled a refund from the school for one days tuition (less an incredible steep commision paid to the guy who brought us to the school, who easily make more money than the instructors) and paid our teachers for the day we would miss. It wasn't all that much money but its the principle of the matter. The school could definitely afford to give these hardworking instructors a paid vacation or two. I dropped Suzi off at the motorcycle place and picked her up at 4:30 with fresh oil, new oil filter, clean chain and new tire. Then we went back to the gym and went crazy for a couple hours with the tread mills, numerous free weights and machines all perfectly designed to simulate real life stresses on the human body. After dinner we all went to the brew pub to celebrate the successful installation of the new tire. Once there Linda and I met some of the ExPat locals who talked of the obvious wonders of Guatemala and the great experiences that they've had while living here. We were telling Billy about our problems connecting to IPass here and how expensive it was to call Guatemala City from the pay phones. He offered his phone line and would only charge us a couple cents a minute. Much better than the .50 cents a minute we've been paying to get e-mail. Our connection costs are high because people are sending us attachments via e-mail and the modem speeds down here are sometimes a dreadful 14.4 Kbps. We'll be connected for at least a half hour which ends up costing us about $6 per connection. We've remedied the situation somewhat by eliminating attachments on all incoming e-mail. But we want to upload pictures to the web-site so that could take an hour or so. So it was very kind of Brewpub Billy to offer his phone line for such a low price. We talked in depth about the Todos Santos drunken cowboy festival. Should be a blast. Apparently it takes a bus 8 to 9 hours to get there so I estimate that I'll be able to get there in half that time. According to our map it only looks like its 170 miles or so away. The catch is that I'll have to cross 'Alaska' again and then another 12,500 foot mountain pass a little closer to the town. I'm really looking forward to the trip. Up to this point I've been riding really conservative to stay within communication range with Linda. I'm kinda antsy to open it up a little and let The Green Hornet, sans panniers, fly.
We spent a leisurely Saturday walking through the many Tipica markets looking for anything that would catch our eye. I bought a pair of shorts while Linda bought a Mayan dress worn on special occasions like weddings and such. Not sure how we'll get it back home but I'm sure TGH won't mind a couple extra pounds. That night we went to Linda's Spanish teacher's son's graduation party from high school. He will be attending the University in Guatemala City next January. He is studying to become an accountant with a specialization in computers. Ah, a man after our own hearts. Later in the party the DJ fired up the salsa beat and we were expected to dance. Now since we were the only gringos there I felt an enormous amount of pressure to perform. Now we all know what happens to us males when we feel pressure to perform. Hopefully we represented gringodom with honor and integrity. It was a fun party and good luck Jorge on what will most certainly be a very stimulating and satisfying career. (Did the Oregon Board of Accountancy get all that. I'll need a little help getting by the CPE hours requirements next enrollment period.) We hit the hay early- for tomorrow we (The Green Hornet and I) ride!
Sunday Morning couldn't come quick enough. The Green Hornet, minus the 70 plus pounds of gear I normally carry, and I were chomping at the bit to unleash some serious riding on the general populace of Guatemala. But as I was kissing my lovely bride goodbye I couldn't help but notice out of the corner of my eye some seriously dark cloulds on the horizon. As soon as I left the comfy confines of Antigua it started to drizzle. The shotgun toting guard at the gas station assured me that this wasn't the season for rain so no need worrying about it. As I started to climb in elevation the rain and cold just increased in intensity. By the time I was crossing my first mountain pass it was probably just a little above freezing and maybe 50ft of visibility. In these conditions we weren't unleashing anything but self-pity upon a couple people unlucky enough to be outdoors in this slop. The next couple of hours nothing much changed except that it was getting a little hard to work the clutch from the cold. I finally arrived in the bustling town of Huehuetenango after crawling up and down 'Alaska'. The Guatemala elections were in full swing and every once in a while I would get caught in a 30 car cavalcade. To pass this slowmoving, space hogging centipede I was reduced to playing a game of chicken with oncoming traffic. We both waited until the last second to see who would blink first (swerve out of the way). 90% of the time it would be the other driver, unless of course it was a bus driver. General rule of thumb; don't ever play chicken with a Latin American bus driver. In Heuheutenango I saw this beautiful Suzuki DR800S dual sport motorcycle. It looked like Suzuki's answer to Honda's African Twin. I understand the rationale why Japan won't release these awesome bikes in the States but it doesn't mean that I have to like it. Just outside Huehue the road bent sharply skyward. Still in a sustained rain I began to climb 4,000 verticle feet in the next 25 miles. This road was cart path width and slippery as hell (assuming, that is, that hell is slippery-contrary to popular belief I wouldn't really know). I was really starting feel the effects of the elements just about the time I was delivered to the 12,500 ft plus altiplano. It was truly an inspirational site. I was way above the cornline and even the dark purple rain clouds. It was a swirly, fog shrouded landscape complete with stone fences and scattered herds of sheep. It looked exactly like Ireland, but without all the oxygen, and fair haired maidens, and Guiness Stout. Eventually I made it to the end of the paved road and started my steep decent into Todos Santos. As I lost elevation I rejoined the rain. But this time I was decending on treacherous rock and gravel road in near zero visability. As I downshifted to make the numerous hairpin turns my rear wheel would lose traction and I would just kind of slide to a near stop, then turn. The dropoff, if I miscalculated my downshifting, was severe. It was about this time that I came to the realization that I was frozen, exhausted, flirting with disaster and on my way to a drunken cowboy festival to commemorate the Day of the Dead festival in some lonely little pueblo in the middle of the Guatemalan Western Highlands. It was only a month or so ago that I was slapping together some financial projections and fielding questions from the Consumer Product Safety Commission for Christ sake! Isn't travel grand! I finally arrived in Todas Santos around noonish, about 4 1/2 hours after I started, to near mayhem.
Todas Santos is home to the Maam people. Indiginous subset of the Mayan. Their claim to fame was finally liberating their people from Tecun Uman's Quiche rule about the same time as the arrival of the Spanish Conquistadors. Talk about hopping out of the proverbial frying pan and into the fire. They are easily identifiable by their dress. All the men wore striped red pants (that looked a lot like what Tom Watson- professional golfer wore back when he was winning all those majors), a tiny, tightly woven straw hat with a blue border and striped red, green and blue tunic. Quite striking. All the men in the village were already extremely inebriated and sprinkled in amongst them were several, quite sober, gringos. Some Quatemala City partiers I almost ran into around one of the many blind hairpin turns during my decent into the city told me not to worry about finding a hotel, "just ask anybody you run accross if they have a bed available". So I wound my way through the throng of humanity to the end of town. Parked the bike and the first place I came upon, I walked up and asked if they had a place for my bike and myself. It turns out that the older citizens in town don't speak much Spanish. Their native tongue is Maam, a gutteral language not anything like Spanish. Kinda like a cross between Hebrew and Chinese, though not necessarly in that order of course. So the Patriarch of the family and I began to settle into the gentile dance of determining a fair price for the bed, with his daughter acting as translator. I was thinking I would pay 50 Quetzales ($6.50) per night. He asked, through his daughter, what I thought a fair price would be. My answer was a coy "No se" ("I don't know" in Spanish - OK not all that coy but my Spanish is limited). I asked him to name his price, he rubbed his chin looked me over, obviously felt badly for me and asked for 25 Quetzales. I counter with 30 Q, 25 for me and 5 for The Green Hornet (which, by the way, doesn't translate very well in either Spanish or Maam). After translation, his reaction was immediate and crossed all linguistic barriers, "this guy is either very dumb or very desperate!" True on both counts. I quickly moved in and tried my best to blend in with the locals.
After a quick lunch and a couple brewski brimskies (Russian not Maam), I met up with Sarah and Camilla "Parker Bowles" from England, Alain from Ireland and Dirk from Germany. Together we made a full frontal assualt on the local gringo bar. The local festivities don't really get started until midnight anyway so we had a couple hours to kill. It was a night of 'solving the world's problems', salsa and merenge dancing and just your basic everyday exhilerating companionship until about 2 a.m. It was about this time that we made our way up the steep hill to the 'locals only party'. This was where all the idigenous music and dancing happened. It also was where a lot of the elaborately dressed men who would be riding tomorrow morning do their pre-race preparations. The whole event had that death defying feel to it. Sort of like the San Fermin festival (running of the bulls) in Pamplona, Spain. We danced, we sang, we laughed, we cried until about 3:00 in the morning. I talked with several of the more sober town youth who explained the festival's importance and that the rampant drunkenness was an integral part of the festivities. We said our goodbyes to the riders and watchers of tomorrow's ride and gingerly made our way down the steep grade back to town. It was then that we happened upon a moment caught in time. Two Caballeros were frozen in their tracks - one of them had obviously fallen up the steep grade and with outstretched hand, had passed out. His compassionate friend had stooped to help him and with his companion's hand in his, he too, passed out. Camilla "Parker Bowles" remarked that it was all reminiscent of the volcanic ruins of Pompei, Italy. We all laughed nervously. You know, the kind of nervous laugh that people do when they hope the same fate doesn't befall themselves. We made plans to meet at the 'race' start tomorrow morning at 8 a.m. As I made my way back to my humble abode I happened upon some more indiginous music, sounds like xylephones on steroids, and some more Caballeros partaking of the local moonshine. This moonshine would make my sister-in-law Susan's North Carolina brethren's skin curl. It was some potent stuff. They all took great pleasure in my reaction to a slug or two. I bought a couple rounds and we all made a toast in the Maam language to tomorrow's riders. By this time I was speaking fluent Maam. One of my 7 new buddies could speak Spanish and we spent the next couple of hours sharing stories, jokes and life experiences. To hear these guys talking such an ancient language gave me goosebumps ( or was it the moonshine?). One particullarly telling moment came when I asked how old the Maam language was and their response was "Siempre!" (the spanish word for "Always"). They were gracious and friendly hosts and seemed genuinely happy that so many foreigners would take the trouble to visit their beautiful town and share in their festival. By now it was a little past 5:00 a.m. and I was debating the benefits of staying up all night versus getting some sleep. I decided that some sleep would be better than none because I had a pretty tough ride back to Antigua lined up for tomorrow.
Right around 7 a.m. I could hear the cannon fire and the clomping of numerous numerous horse hooves - signifying that the 'race' was about to begin. I got out of bed around 7:30 and walked down the road to the 'race' course. The 'race' course itself was pretty simple. It was a dirt road, very muddy, about 200 meters long and straight as an arrow. When I arrived, there was one elaborately dress Caballero racing up and down the course with only a handful of people watching. By 9:30 there were 26 riders and thousands of people lining the course. The simplicity of the course belied the difficulty of the effort. The riders were so intoxicated that they could barely stand. They had to be helped onto their mounts. After all the horses would reach the end of the course, they would all stop, turn around and do it again in the other direction. There was no timer, no officials, no score keeper, only drunken men, dressed in fancy garb, racing each other back and forth on a muddy street in front of an international crowd of thousands. If you think about it, what more could a guy ask for? Now sure there's a lot of history, pomp and ceremony associated with this event. But in reality when you get right down to it isn't this what drives a lot of these crazy events in the first place; The male need to showcase his skills while slightly inebriated? We may give it a fancy name or tiltle, associated with some mystical event, but in reality all we really need is a little attention and a beer every now and then. It was now time for my own personal test of skill and daring. Somehow getting back to Antigua in one piece after a little more than 2 hours sleep.
The rains of the previous day had thankfully passed. As I climbed out of the canyon that frames the beautiful town of Todas Santos and its brave Caballeros I re-entered 'Ireland' and got an eyeful of the beauty and the hazards I that faced the previous day. It seemed as if I could see forever on the return trip down to Huehue. Now I had a fateful decision to make. Should I take the same route I took yesterday or should I forge a new route along the backroads. Now under normal circumstances this decision would be a 'no-brainer' - of course I would take the back roads. But I was in no shape to take the backroads. Who knew what perils would lay before me. What would the drunken cowboys of Todas Santos do in this situation? "Take the backroads!" I immediately got a taste of what I would face for the next 4 hours. Rutted dirt roads snaking over majestic mountain passes and deep valleys. River crossings, bone jarring rocks and potholes. It took every ounce of energy that I had left to concentrate on the numerous road hazards. If I was more well rested and didn't have to make class tomorrow this would have been the ride of the week. Unfortunately my current condition precluded me from truly enjoying the moment. It was with grateful relief that I finally reached the more humane gravel roads at Sacapulus. I was starting to run on fumes and I was becoming a bit delirious. I actually felt like the motorcycle had become a part of my body as I zigged and zagged in and around traffic. I developed tunnel vision and the only possible outcome of this trip was that I would get back to Linda as soon as possible. When I arrived back at base camp 6 1/2 hours later I was totally spent, both physically and emotionally. What a great trip. One that will go in the memory banks as one of the best ever. But of course, as with all travel you can't have any Ying without any Yang and there would be a price to pay for such revelry. My body's defenses were in disarray, I was a sitting duck for the plethora of bugs waiting in line to take advantage of my weakened condition. And take advantage they did.
The next morning, we rose early and Jeff was on the road to Todos Santos by 8:00. Of course, I was pondering, well worrying about his journey. But no sense worrying, so I headed down to El Parque to check out the start of the final stage of a bike race. It was about 8:00 and the race started at 9:00 so all the bikes and their vans and support crews were milling about. It was a small tour, I don't think there were more than 40 riders but it was fun to go to a race. I was just standing around taking pictures when I heard some Americans talking to one of the cyclists, whom was also American. He was talking about how difficult the tour was and how the Olympic hopefuls on the American team had dropped out to save themselves for some other race. I can't remember which team was in the lead but I think it was Argentina. So, as 9:00 approached the announcer came on and read them the rules and off they went down the cobble stone steets. These streets are hard enough with the knobby motorcycle tires. I can't imagine how they felt on those skinny bike tires.
This day was Halloween but the only celebration I was aware of were those in the bars. I had no real plans for the day other than walking all over the town and trying to do some haggling for Mayan wares. There was a soccer game that I was going to go to with the guys (Rini and Neil), but I was really tired still after being sick and decided to take a nap. Jolanda didn't want to go the game either so we went walking all over town and into the markets. I also took a little time to go to two small museums in an old palace off the park. These colonial buildings date back to the 16th century. I was a little saddened to see the state of disrepair of the interior. Maybe some funding will eventually be obtained to restore them a little. Anyway, after meeting up with Jolanda again, we decided to head over to the grocery to buy water, T.P. and a little food. As we were preparing to leave, we met a new girl that would be staying at our house. Ines was from Germany. She came with us to the store. We spent about 45 minutes or more in the store just looking at all the stuff. Don't ask me why but we derived great pleasure from this. After walking back, I decided to spend the night working on journals and bypassed the invitation to go out for a couple of beers and agreed to meet everyone in the morning to go to Santiago for the kite festival. Just as I was returning to my room, I heard a commotion in the street. Dona Clara was also in the doorway and said something about a parade. I grabbed my camera and headed off to the square to see what turned out to be the most amazing procession. There were hundreds of men in all sorts of religious robes (representing many different churches) that lined the streets on both sides. In the center of the street, some people made a rectangular bed of pine needles surrounded by flowers. Finally, came the swaying procession of what appeared to be an enormous coffin. All of the saints names were on top. There must have been 80 men holding it and as they walked, they rocked from left to right. Oh, there were also a bunch of guys with those old fashioned incense burners that you swing back and forth and smoke comes out. I can't remember the name of them. It was really neat. I wish I knew what was going on but what can you do? I do know it was for All Saint's Day.
The next morning I met everyone for breakfast and at 8:00 we headed off to the school that Neil, Rini, Jolanda and Ines go to. We were to meet their teacher, Lidi, who was going to be our tour guide. From there we headed over to the bus station and caught a bus towards Guatemala City. We were lucky to be the first stop and were able to get seats. This bus was 3.5Q (.50). We made a stop and caught another bus to Santiago for 1Q. We weren't so lucky this time and had to stand in the very crammed center. Poor Rini, who is well over 6 feet tall so had to lean his head over a bit. It was a short ride though and soon were in the already crowded town of Santiago. We walked through the town towards the cemetary where both the kite flying and the Day of the Dead festivities were to take place. The streets were lined with vendors, with a strong bias towards selling food. I quickly spied one of my recent favorites - grilled corn on the cob that is served with lime juice and salt smeared all over it. But is was only 9:30 and not quite time for lunch so we headed on through to the cemetary.
In memory of lost loved ones, families adorn tombs and graves with all sorts of flowers. Sometimes graves are adorned with plates of food that were favorites of the person who has passed on. I guess some people find it morbid but I think it's a lovely idea to have a special day of thanks giving for those you have lost. My friend Neil, from England, fancied the idea so much that he declared that when he returned to England, he was going to start his very own holiday and begin advertising it. He was confident that the idea would catch on like wild fire and that in time, it would become a national holiday. Buena suerte, Neil! Ah, the musings of the world traveler. What is somewhat strange is that all of the above ground tombs serve as precious viewing spots for the kite flying. Somehow, it did seem to detract from the sanctity of Day of the Dead but I guess ya gotta do what ya gotta do. So we perched ourselves atop a tomb and watched as the men tried to hoist the giant handmade kites. The big kites have a diamater of about 11 feet and are constructed of light wood and tissue paper. It's really a wonder that they fly. It takes 5 - 10 guys to get them up. We were lucky that there was a brisk wind and the kites launched pretty easily. There are tons of little kites too. We all took lots of photos and I especially enjoyed taking pictures of the little indigenous girls. I wasn't sure how they felt about pictures so was trying to be inconspicuous. No need. They got so excited (moms too) that they ran up closer and cried "Quiero otro, quiero otro" (I want another). They squealed and squealed when I showed them the pictures on the viewfinder of our digital camera and talked rapidly in their native language. Unfortunately I had to tell them that the pictures were only inside when they wanted a copy of the pictures. But they cheered up again when I gave them a little money for ice cream. When their moms grinned at me, I couldn't help noticing the gold star fillings in their two upper front teeth. Hmmm... I wonder how that'd look on me?
After awhile, we were getting a little bored and decided it was time to check out the food stands. We all pretty much stuffed ourselves silly with junkfood and headed back to catch a bus. We agreed that if we didn't get sick off of the street food, we were probably not going to get sick anymore. It was pretty interesting to watch the groups of Mayan women cooking over smoky fires. Once again, we were catapulted back in time. They were using the same stone tools that I saw in all the museums. The ones in the museum were over 1,000 years old. Who needs appliances? It really is criminal how many processed foods we consume in America. I love how the slower lifestyle and lack of affluence down here allows/forces natural, home cooking. Mmm... Mmmm... good. Well, as we headed for a bus, a mini van driver asked Lidi if we wanted to catch a ride with him for 5Q each. Great deal and seats too. We hopped in. The traffic was at a complete standstill and our van was still headed towards town. We all thought he was waiting for an opportunity to turn around. But no, he actually had to pick up three more people in town. Bummer. After about 1 hour we had picked up the people and headed in the opposite direction. By this time all the junk food in my stomach mixed with the diesel fumes of the idling traffic was making me and the rest of the crew feel pretty lousy. After returning to Antigua we all headed off for naps. I was awakened a few hours later by my tired husband who was eager to tell me about his trip to Todos Santos. After dinner, Jeff hit the hay as he had only had a few hours of sleep the night before.
During the night, Uncle Montezuma came to visit Jeff again. We couldn't decide weather it was the Mayan moonshine that he tried or the fact that he danced with other women. He was feeling really badly by the time we needed to go to school. But we paid for this darn school and were going to get our money's worth. So, like I had the week before, he picked himself up, dusted himself off, bought some gatorade and headed to class. After informing Olga about Jeff's illness she decided we needed to get some more Yodo so we headed off to the pharmacy. Jeff didn't want to take it but he caved at about 11:00 after some serious waves of nausea. By the time we took our lunch break, he had started running a fever so he wound up having to miss his afternoon class. Olga and I had agreed to go to the cemetary in Antigua to check out the flowers in lieu of my afternoon class. This cemetary was really beautiful. Very well manicured with beautiful above ground tombs that often looked like tiny churches with wrought iron doors. We spent about 2 hours wandering around. Olga doesn't normally go to the cemetary for the Day of The Dead because she gets really depressed when she goes with family. I gave her an excuse to satisfy her curiosity about what she'd missed in the last few years without having to go through the emotions, so it was nice for both of us. After I walked back, I found Jeff to be no better but he had at least gotten to sleep. I went to the gym while he slept and when I got back, the yodo had kicked in and he decided to eat dinner. He was still running a temperature but the food stayed down, and up, if ya know what I mean. He went back to bed and I went out with gang for a couple of beers. When I got back, it was time for his final dose of yodo and he thought his fever had broken.
The next morning Jeff was feeling much better and was able to eat again. But, the diarrea and fever from yesterday were replaced with a sore throat and cold symptoms today. Bummer! During the lunch break Jeff went over to the motorcycle shop and ordered a new rear tire. My orginal Bridgestone rear tire lasted almost 10,000 miles while Jeff's Dunlop lasted a little over 5,000. We got through the rest of school and headed over to the internet cafe to get some e-mail. I had a hard time with the connection but managed to get some mail. We decided to try later at the brewpub. We were both tired and just hung out replying to e-mail and reading.
The next day Jeff was back to a normal stomach but now had a full-fledged head cold. Nevertheless, in the morning before school he dropped off TGH at the motorcycle shop and made it through another day of school. After school he picked up TGH complete with new rear Bridgestone tire for $67 installed. Not sure why his was more expensive than mine. That evening we planned to head over to the brewpub to try to use their phone line. I went walking before dinner and managed to bargain for a few dolls for my niece, Indiana, that I am going to see in Costa Rica. When I got back, we had dinner and gathered up Satomi and Neil to head over to Monoloco. Neil was eager to watch the semi finals of some rugby tournament. Jeff and Satomi chatted and I finished up a few more e-mails before connecting. The ISP must have been doing some work because I had a heck of a time getting a good connection. But, eventually got it worked out. Meanwhile, one of Satomi's friends, Miho, came over too and we had a good time showing them our web site. After a couple beers, our Spanish flowed freely and we all got to practice quite a bit. The two girls are both from Japan and their English is much worse than their Spanish so it forces us to use Spanish. Well, time to go home so we told Satomi's friend good night and the three of us headed for home. (Neil had left earlier to meet up with other friends).
Friday was our last day of Spanish classes and I was beginning to feel melancholy that we would be leaving all of our new friends soon. My teacher and I were going to spend the afternoon learning to make tamales with another teacher. Jeff was going to take the afternoon off and try to get some journals done. We decided to go to the gym and get one more weight workout in before lunch. When we returned, I hurriedly ate and headed off to Olga's house. I got there about 2 and we all started working. Up until this point, I have been feeling that my Spanish had improved a lot in the last 2 weeks but quickly discovered that if I were taken out of a one on one conversation, that I get lost quickly when others talk at normal speed. But we had a good time cooking anyway. I headed home around 5:00 while the tamales cooked. Jeff and I were going to eat a little dinner at our house and come back over to try out the tamales. We got back to Olga's around 7:30, a half hour late as usual. She yanked me into the kitchen and whispered to me that the tamales were soft but that the flavor was good. We sat down in the dining room and she brought us some tamales. Jeff jokingly named them "sopa de tamales" because they were very much like soup. They were a bit too salty too but they did taste good and we both had two. We spent another hour or so hanging out with Olga and her two youngest daughters, Gabriela, 6, and Mariela, 1 1/2. They are both really cute and it was entertaining to watch them dance around to salsa. We were supposed to meet the crew for one last gathering so we had to say goodbye and we headed back to meet our friends. We sat around with everyone at one bar for a little while but I was really tired and didn't feel like drinking beer so when they headed off to another bar, I headed to the ice cream parlor and then back home to do some reading. Jeff returned shortly thereafter and we were asleep by 11:30.
The next day was to be our last in Antigua and Jeff had plans of working on the bikes while I got pictures and journals ready to upload. I also wanted to go out and get something for breakfast for the next day, exchange some money and get some stickers with the Guatemalan flag to put on the boxes. After accomplishing all of the errands and getting the computer ready, we headed over to the brewery to use the phone line. It was about 4:00 when we arrived and there couldn't have been more than four customers. Weird. Well, not so weird. Sunday was going to be election day for the President of Guatemala and they have a law that no alcohol can be served from noon the day before until six the next evening. Jeff was very depressed not be able to have one final microbrew. No telling when we'll get another. I was quite happy though because I was able to get all the pictures and journals uploaded. It took an hour. I paid them for their normal phone charge which amounted to 20Q ($2.50). At the rate we were paying in the internet cafe, we would've paid 120Q. What a great find we had in meeting Billy and Jean-Louis. About 6:00 we bid a fond farewell to our brewpub friends and headed back for dinner with Dona Clara. We had told her about the tamale disaster and how much we loved tamales. Because there were only going to be four students at dinner that night, Dona Clara took a night off from cooking for us and got us all a tamale. What a great last dinner! After dinner we went upstairs to pack up with the plan of getting up at 5:00 a.m. for our 350+ mile ride the next day. Although we were both getting stir crazy wanting to see new sites, it also was sad to be saying goodbye to so may nice people. Adios Antigua. Te amo!