Mexico and Back to Guatemala

Ok everyone, there is so much that has happened in since my last email that I really don´t know where to begin. The experience in Guatemala was amazing, life affirming and other things I cannot adequately express in words. Truly, it restored a bit of my faith in humanity and will turn out to be the cornerstone of this journey(seems so long ago when it really has been only a couple of months). Have to give a big what-up to all the volunteers in Xela, I miss you all immensely and will remember each one of you for your kindness, warm spirits and well lets face it, many powerless nights with a little too much Quetzalteca (the local drink of choice for people who can´t squeeze two nickels together)… speaking of which, someone give me Frenchy´s email please.

OK, enough sentimental wanderings of the mind, I wrote in haste last time and forgot to mention a big part of my trip, In late august I headed up through Belize (15 bucks to exit… sigh since I was only passing through and didn't even get to do anything but sit on a bus for a day) to Mexico to meet Maria in Cancun (cheapest flight to Central America by far). When I got to Mexico I stayed in Tulum (Yucatan beach town not too touristy compared to others and full of damn cool people) for a few days. Jacob, if you get this could you please send me some emails that I forgot to get from the crew at the weary traveler, thanks. Ok I digress, the night before I went to pick Maria up in Cancun all of us at the hostel went to a really nice party at a beach restaurant club, we spent the night jumping into the ocean and then into the pools from the second floor where I splashed some people (only one got unreasonably upset) and ended up making friends with an Ex-pat from AZ named Matt who happens to run this place… www.amansala.com hearing of my financial situation and the impending arrival of my girlfriend he offered me a room there at whatever I could pay, needless to stay it was paradise for the next 2 days when Maria got there. Amazing snorkeling, beaches and people coming lighting incense and candles in our private cabin. Maria and I then traveled through the Yucatan up to Isla Holbox, where we had planned on swimming with whale sharks… the day we got there it was too late to go out and sometime between that time and the next morning the whale sharks had moved on from the island to return next year… crap timing (migratory animals should accommodate to tourists a little more don't you agree?) we spent 2 days there and went to Isla Mujeres for the remaining time of Maria´s visit. The island was really nice but a little touristy for our tastes there was however one advantage, topless beaches with people who you would actually want to see topless, I have never seen that before and would suggest any perverts reading this to make a B-line for the Yucatan. One other thing about the island, too many mopeds… the whole damn island was full of them and they make things quite dangerous when coupled with unmarked speed bumps on dead end roads. Ok, one more thing, sharks in little pens in the ocean where you pay to take photos swimming with them…while there (we were on a snorkeling tour and couldn't avoid it) I get hit on by the most gaudy and drunk older woman possibly from Texas (staying in Cancun)who said… more than once, how absolutely adorable I was then reassuring me that I was too young for her... all with Maria standing directly behind her, it was charming really and one of the many reasons your avg. American tourist has a pretty negative reputation around the Yucatan (not even counting Cancun).

Maria and I parted ways at the airport and I headed back to Tulum for a few days, spent a day wandering the caves very close to the ancient ruins on the Caribbean of which Tulum gets its name. I headed from Tulum back towards Guatemala but wanted to avoid the heavy Belize fees (as it already costs 20$ to leave Mexico) so I headed through Palenque first which is a jungle town in southern Mexico to the capital of Chiapas, San Cristobal De Las Casas. It was a really cool city that reminded me a lot of Xela. I met a lot of cool people at my hostel and we spent a few days seeing the surrounding area and the city. There is even a church north of San Cristobal where Mayan and Christian influences have mixed and took on a lovely part of good ole American corporations… soft drinks, pepsi and coke are used in ceremonies where belching is coveted and the shamans/priests are sponsored by one of the two companies… I shit you not, I wish I could have taken pictures but as it was a place of worship I didn't (not to mention the guy who took my money explicitly warned me against it). The church was really interesting, Catholic style church, large, floor covered in pine needles and tons of musical boxes with moving figures like you find during the holidays in American department stores(I think I saw one of those talking fish from the TV commercial but I cant be sure)… surreal doesn't begin to describe the scene after you add that backdrop to the parishioners with their burping and soft drinks etc.

After San Cristobal I headed back to Guatemala for the week of Independence. I missed the final soccer game and the big party at night because I got stuck in HueHuetenango and missed the back to Xela by less than a minute, I saw it as our bus pulled in from the border. When I got to Xela I met all the new people that arrived around my circles and reunited with the ones that were still around. I don't recall exactly how long it was till the floods came but it wasn't long after this, which I have already emailed about…

OK I was planning on covering the rest of Central America in this email but I already have taken up way too much of your time, I will email again with the next installment for those of you who have any sort of interest, for the rest of you sorry. Peace, James

big trouble in little Guatemala

this was originally sent 11/19/05. the picture is of some Mayan Indians standing where their houses used to be on the slopes of Volcan Santa Maria. The smiles on their faces need to be addressed. These people had very little, they lost their HOMES. gone, no insurance nor money/supplies to rebuild yet they smile and laugh when 2 crazed gringos come on a motorcycle to take pictures and be amazed at their misfortune.

This contagious and genuine happiness is present everywhere I have traveled in Latin America. I dont know what it is but there is a different attitude there. On more than one occasion people have said to me that their lives may be poor but they do not need money for happiness. now everyone has heard that saying a million times but its usually people who are financially stable saying it. Of course, the upper class in LA trump most Americans in the materialism and vanity categories but what can you do? Of course its not all flowers and sunshine, there are little kids huffing glue and drinking rubbing alcohol all over, and i am sure the depression that accompanies extreme poverty affects many... yet still something is different. Life is consumed as i feel it should be with a strong focus on family and passion... anyway enough bs, here is the old email.

Hello friends and family, sorry about no emails as of late but things here have been crazy to put it lightly. Guatemala was hit by a hurricane last week. Rains continued for almost a week nonstop and created massive flooding and landslides which have crippled life as it was known here. Roads out or
in are sparse if any, and the majority of people in heavily affected areas are stuck. Xela, the city I am in, was only hit very hard in the low areas. 6 teachers at my old spanish school lost their houses in zona 2. As soon as volunteers could get near zona 2 and out to the surrounding towns, they did. I tried to get a couple of pictures but things were sensitive and there was lots of work to be done. During the hurricane, I went down with a friend of mine to the higher parts of zone 2 and took some video and pictures which i cannot get online due to the size, after that, days later, when the rain slowed we headed to zone 2 and other parts near zone 5 to do whatever we could, this involved a lot of moving ruined things, bricks, beds clothes, dead pets and anything else you can think of out. I am kind of overwhelmed at how to write about this but i feel like i need to,


The worst thing I witnessed in real time was helping this old lady with her stuck front door and as she walked in watching her face as she saw her "house" and stuff for the first time. She started crying and I was able to, with the help of another volunteer, remove her 2 dogs from a tree in her backyard, they were starting to smell and were definitely a health hazard, not to mention that it was very sad seeing them both upside down in a tree, we put them in garbage bags and just walked them to the street, hopefully she thinks they just escaped...

Sorry about the somber email, but Its amazing, if not just a little disheartening, the lack of media coverage this got in the states, personally i am glad though because if not, (those of you who know my mom know this is possible) my mother might have chartered a helicopter and a megaphone and flown over xela screaming my full name(ok maybe a slight exaggeration, but she would have been extremely worried is the point.)
I am trying to upload some pictures but its slow going due to the insanely slow internet post storm. www.trekshare.com/members/veritas

Everyone be safe, I will email again shortly with my plans and what i have been up to for the past 2 months. Much love,
james

chicken bus add-ons

this picture was from a chicken bus so packed that the money collector had to climb along the outside of the bus while moving to collect fares from the window. It was exhilarating.

Ok, these emails are rough to read. I am going to promise once I start writing current blogs, I will make an effort to make them palatable because it pains me to read these old emails. Anyway, here is another.

Hello everyone, i hope the mass emailing isn´t annoying, if they are please let me know and i will not bother you with them again. Ok so far as my trip, things are amazing as is becoming the usual(moving back to the states is going to be hard, i am lucky i have some good reasons to do it because without some people back home, i could see myself here for awhile. I do have a couple of additions to add to my previous emails, mainly some missed requisites for being a chicken bus and a picture of a bathroom overhead light being powered by the shower heads i so fondly spoke of. that will be on my website.

The 2 main things i think i forgot on my chicken bus email were these... 1. the stickers on the mirror must be of some old American cartoon like captain caveman or woody woodpecker and 2, there must be music BLASTING through the bus (if it has working speakers). ok and i want to reiterate that what you think is crowded is damn near empty, i haven't been able to get an exact headcount yet, but on a bus i was on today back from this amazing lake called lake Atitlan (surrounded by mountains and 3 large volcanos) there were at least 7 adults per row and aisle and that is not including children.. i know it sounds impossible, but i managed to get enough room to take a picture when about 15 people got off the bus and i will put that on the website too... hope you are all doing well, james

crime in guatemala

Well, this all happened in the summer of 05 but I said I would write about it even though it isn't fresh in my memory. basically, the crime in Guatemala's second largest city (Quetzaltenango) had become so bad that the citizens formed these vigilante groups to combat gangs and assorted gang-related crimes. The police in Guatemala and much of Latin America are so corrupt or inept or both that they do very little to fight crime. Actually the stories I heard were of gringos getting robbed by police in the name of justice "give us all your money and we wont have to bring you in for this false charge we are about to bring on you" or something equally as exciting.

A brief history lesson: El Salvador had a nasty civil war. They sent many orphaned kids to the US for a better life. Orphaned kids got a real LA street gang education and started getting into trouble. The US said "f this" and sent them back to El Salvador. In El Salvador, these kids who saw how gangs operated in LA brought that education back home, adding to it a ruthlessness that was not seen in LA. MS 13 and these other hardcore gang-bangers start chopping people up with machetes while leaving their body part to mark their territory. general terror reigns down on El Salvador. This problem moves to Guatmala and to other countries. Repeat.

Basically, the vigilantes are locals tired of this crap so the guys (and some girls) get together at night with weapons and whistles and patrol the streets. Throughout many a central american city I fell asleep to the semi-comforting sound of whistles blasting through the thick night air. the problem with vigilante justice is its not regulated. Add in the fact that many of these vigilantes seemed to be doing it because it was an ego trip (or as some told me, to get away from their wives) and you have a recipe for trouble. Finally you must take into account a mob mentality. The tuesday before we arrived in Xela the vigilantes had killed a teenager who they accused of being a gang member because he had tattoos. So, on one of the earlier nights there, my brother and I went and found a group of vigilantes after some scare in teh streets and took pictures with them. They were incredibly friendly and enjoyed posing for the cameras with us, some have masks, others big sticks or knives. I will post again soon,

James

killer showers and vigilantes

as promised, updates every couple days! . the showers in latin america amazed me for a few months. i will write more on the vigilantes later and include a picture later tonight or tomorrow, i have no time now... here is an email from the beginning of my trip. 07/25/05

last night we met a group of about 100 heavily masked and armed vigilantes (as you will see in teh pics) after they broke up a fight, tonight the power went out in the whole city and we sat and watched it from our roof... that was fun.

ok since i am trying to keep these emails educational i thought i would share with the gringos on my list some shower info. in guatemala, hot water is provided by .. get this... a little device called a fumadora (or something very close to that ) which is a 110 volt device that plugs into the outlet right near the shower... can you guess where it attaches? if you guessed to the showerhead, you are correct. couple this marvel of technology with the fact that the tile floor of the shower dosnt drain water too well and you have a recipe for disaster, open electric device plus a large puddle with one tall wet gringo who nearly touches the contraption whenever he moves while showering...oh yeah a couple more things, the water has 2 speeds and 2 temps, dribbling out or niagra falls and freezing or scalding... you can only combine them in the following arrangments 1.dribbling while scalding and 2.niagra falls while freezing. couple these things with the fact that you cant let the water get in your mouth because of ameobas and you can see what kind of fun we are talking about here. Despite these difficuluties, i still manage to shower everyday and am enjoying each day more and more, its an adventure at every turn and just when you think you have it figured out, the power goes out.

Peace and love, James

a primer to the chicken bus

this email was originally sent out on 07/15/05 you can see how my writing has really not changed much except for maybe new vocab and sometimes now i use correct grammar and punctuation due to the whole career thing. peas.

Well, I arrived in Guatemala on tues and it has been non-stop craziness since... havn´t been to class yet (skipped the first day to hike a volcano at night) though which isn´t much different from college. We went from Guat city to Quetzaltenango (Xela) via a ¨chicken¨ bus as they are called here... let me explain what i see as the requisites for being classified as a chicken bus.

1. it must be a very old surplus us school bus
2. it must be painted crazy colors/have scary sayings/bloody murals of christ/bulletholes/or fake chrome or other shiney things
3. must have a guy who hangs out holding on with one hand either the window or the door, he must scream at anyone on the road and solicit them to get on the bus... even if there are already 60 people in the seats and the aisles, which segues nicely to 4...
4. bus must be crowded and by crowded dont think of your western, 5 people in a car crowded, thats empty by these standards you must have people and/or animals until you cannot move an inch with any part of your body. aisle, laps and over the shifter up front are all completely valid and promoted seats.
.5. the final and most important requisite is the driver. imagine the worst road you have ever been on, imagine it now with a school bus with bad breaks, no muffler , no suspension going in the wrong lane on a hairpin turn doing 3 times the posted speed limit. that is you avg chicken bus ride between cities. the driver must possess a reckless disregard for anythign in his path, including but not limited to

*any people or animals in or near the road (because near the road is perfectly fine as long as its not off a cliff)

* other vehicles, including large mack trucks carrying highly explosive propane.

ok so thats the chicken bus in a nutshell. on tuesday a chicken bus killed 20 people as it went off the road further west of my city. oh yeah one other thing, when in need (which is surprisingly often) a 2 lane highway can accommodate 3 large vehicles passing at high speeds (often clipping mirrors) when none of them will yield to other.

One other thing, on our 4 hour trip to Xela, we were stopped twice by policia who lead the males off the bus at gunpoint, and guns here arnt little toys, they are large shotguns and submachine guns wielded by kids who look about 15, i hope their teens arnt as angst filled as ours because people would get shot often if we gave american 15 year olds guns. on a lighter and serious note, it is amazing here, to those of you who have never been to central america , if you come i dont think you will regret it, the people are amazing, the food is very good and the overall vibe is just more relaxed and laid back....except on the chicken buses.

old emails = new blogs = frequent updates

Ok, so i am going to start putting my old mass emails as blogs here. basically for those who dont know, I graduated in may 05 and didn't want to start working right away (as i just did 2 years of full time work plus almost full time grad work) so i decided I wanted to learn spanish and travel latin america. the following blogs chronicle my thoughts (few) and adventures (many) while there. i hope you enjoy. disregard spelling, punctuation and other things most english teachers would kill me over.

if you want to see pictures from this trip (i stopped putting them up halfway into the trip, which really sucks because i lost some of the best ones due to numerous things beyond my control) i have a site at

pictures


James