San Pedro-Guatemala

It's been a while since the last entry and I've been having trouble with internet access and my USB card so I'm going to put this entry up without photo's and add them later.

Additionally I'm splitting San Pedro into two parts because it's a very interesting place. The second bit will arrive in a week or so.

I met a crazy Canadian actor in Mexico City who liked cheap tacos and Thai prostitutes. So at least I knew why he was in Mexico, but anyway he told me over a few beers that if I wanted to learn Spanish that I had to go to a school in San Pedro, a small town at Lago de Atitlan in Guatemala.

So I got a bus to San Cristobal in Mexico and then made the border crossing.

If you ever meet a Canadian actor who likes tacos and hookers you should do what he says because San Pedro is by far the best decision I´ve made this trip.

Some backgropund about Guatemala first though, which I have lifted straight from Wikipedia:
-Guatemala has the fourth highest rate of chronic malnutrition in the world and the highest in the Western Hemisphere.
-Approximately 75% of Guatemalans live below the poverty level, which is defined as an income that is not sufficient to purchase a basic basket of goods and basic services.
-Approximately 58% of the population have incomes below the extreme poverty line, which is defined as the amount needed to purchase a basic basket of food.
-Approximately 50% of Guatemalan children under the age of 5 now suffer from chronic undernutrition.
-In the nation's highlands, where many indigenous people live, 70% of children under age 5 are malnourished

If you want more information on that the link is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Guatemala

Mexico is great and I really like it but when you get to the border there is a slightly different vibe to Guatemala. It´s wilder, more basic and more raw. Fun time.

The first thing I did at the border was change some cash. The guy who approached me first had long oily black hair, black ray bans, a black waistcoat and alligator skin boots. He also had a whispy moustache, and a 9mm pistol in his belt, with an ivory handle engraved with a mosaic of the Virgin Mary and a clip that extended fully 6 inches past the grip, with a few spare in his belt as well. Of course he tried to rip me off and having no idea what the exchange rate between Mexican pesos and Guatemalan quetzales was, I faffed around for a bit but he was happy to bargain so in the end I think I got a reasonable price for my pesos.

The most common way to get to San Pedro is by boat from Panajachel. Pana is full of tourists and locals flogging the sort of junk that tourists purchase and while I´ve heard good things about it I got straight onto a boat for San Pedro. The captain of the ¨Dorcas¨ quoted me Q25 but I only had 14 on me so I told the guy I´d fix him up when we got to San Pedro from the cash machine.

A few minutes later he told us that they were waiting on two more gringos before we left and he was going to charge them Q35...please don´t tell them they were paying more! So I didn´t feel too bad when the cash machine at San Pedro was empty and I couldn´t pay him the rest of the fare!

Lago de Atitlan is probably one of the most beautiful places on earth. I´m not going to spend too much time writing about it because many people, with better writing skills than myself have already done so (e.g. Alduous Huxley). However it is worth a brief description for those who have never heard of it.

Lago de Atitlan is a large, mushroom shaped lake about 5km across, nestled between three dormant volcanoes in the highlands of Guatemala. The volcanoes themselves are covered in verdant green forests and are anchored majestically around the water. Their slopes plunge in a more or less linear fashion from the summits to the crystalline water of the lake. They are like monolithic sentinels, observing the mundane activities of the busy little humans existing on their slopes with temperant, timeless patience. Clouds attend to the peaks, obscuring the tops, even when the rest of the sky is a clear blue. When the moon rises from behind the peaks it is stained orange from the woodsmoke from the fires the locals still use for cooking, and its reflection shimmers off the lake with a wraith-like luminescence.

Situated at various points around the lake and nestled into the ravines between the mountains are small villages, many of which are only accessable by boat from the transit town of Panajachel.

I arrived at about 9pm and the town is a rabbit warren of cobblestone lanes, dirt alleyways and steep streets tracking straight up the mountainside. The main strip is barely wider than an armspan and tacks in and out of the bars, comedors (eateries), local shops, fruit and market vendors, and street dogs. Tuk tuks and men on ag bikes swerve through the human traffic, which wends back and forth through the buidings which are a prime example of what happens when there is no planning-no order at all. But, trust me, there is an abundance of atmosphere.

Walking through the main street of San Pedro for the first time at night is surreal. The bars loom closely in over the street in an almost life-like fashion, dimly lit from within as they are with strings of red, green and blue glowing bulbs strung from the trees. Bamboo fences line the street, obscuring, but not hiding the shadowy interiors of the establishments, which are decorated with colourful swirling artwork and thickets of vegetation. Music, from Guatemalan classics, Vietnam era rock and blues, soul, electronica and heavy metal wafts into the street, with the murmur of conversation, and the tang of tobacco, cooking, and marijuana. Occasionally through the bamboo poles you glimpse a worn face, matted hair wreathed in smoke, slumped over a meal and a bottle of beer. Old women sit on the side of the road selling chorizo tacos cooked on small portable barbecues, with dogs and children playing around the fires until the early morning, when drinkers stumble out of the bars searching for something to eat. You'll meet quite a few US Army veterans in this part of the world.

I was reminded of the sort of world that Alice might have found in Wonderland if it was R rated, an impression heightened when I passed the Mad Hatters, a bar with giant mushrooms decorating the exterior.

There are various types of tourists in locations like this. I call one group professional hippies because for them it's a lifestyle choice.

If you take away the rest of the tourists there is a smattering of Western men walking around who take their alternativeness pretty seriously. It seems they ignore the rest of us with an arrogant disdain, and tend not to socialise much at all. It´s comparable to the way you´d walk past a dog sleeping in the street. You´d look at it but not register anything other than the fact that it was there and to not walk on it. These chaps are all different heights and colours but they are always skinny with baggy clothes, slightly sunburnt faces and dull glassy eyes and that wizened look you get from squinting into the sun too much. You can often find one of these fellows standing, lonely and forlorne on a roof, facing the lake as the moon rises, a long silhouette caste by their emaciated bodies by the orange orb, playing a pan flute or other indigineous instrument. Without exception it sounds...fucking horrendous! It sounds like a doberman trying to make sexytime with a chihuaha. It definately isn't Enya.

These guys work in the local bars at night hopped up on gear and spend their days smoking grass and eating Valium which is $1 for 10, or something like that. The point is, they aren´t arrogantly ignoring me at all, they are too spaced out to notice my presence.

The women in this group have a bit more spark to them. Rather than dully ignoring me as I walk past they might emit a mildly scornful look, quickly supressed. They are confident in the fact that I will never embrace the local culture to the the extant they have, and am therefore a transient gringo selfishly raping the locals of their culture, as evidenced by the fact that I have not:
-Allowed my BMI to drop below 15
-Purchased and worn local, hand woven garments made from natural fibers
-Let my underarm hair grow to more than 3 inches (ok I have but that´s because I´m male, if I was female I would shave it every now and then for sure.)
-Thrown away, lost or burnt my bra, or canabalised it to mend my natural fiber pants
-Have not joined a co-operative to help local women make beaded jewellery from genuine local materials (like a rock for example) for the economic emancipation of local women.

Of course such efforts are genuinely praiseworthy, especially in a culture where womens rights probably aren´t they foremost issue but I´m not sure I understand the scorn for the tourists who spend their capitalist dollars on, oh, hand woven jewelery for example.

Or maybe they just don´t like me because I can´t help looking at their angry nips which poke through their bra-less hemp fibre tops, which probably aggravates them. It´s not attractive, but weird, like the mole on that guys face in Austin Powers.

Speaking of hippies, I met a guy at a restaurant who doesn´t like them much. The first night I went to this place he staggered over with a beer and a cigarette and told us that the fish was really good so we went in-I was with my two friends from the hostel, two girls from Sweden and Quebec who were travelling together.

Three nights later I was back at the restaurant, by myself (the food was really good). It was my last night in San Pedro. It was dark, with string lighting wending through the roof and there was some Black Sabbath or Motorhead playing through the speakers. Dario, from Gautemala City, was still drunk and decided to give me his point of view of hippies.

Me: So what do you think of hippies?
Dario: Fuck off hippies! Do you know what I do when I see a hippie come in here?
Me: What´s that?
Dario: I put on Slayer, and turn the volume right up. That scares all the hippies away!
Me: What about some Pantera?
Dario: You know what man, I wrote a song about hippies.
Me: Let´s hear it.
Dario: Ok man:
(at this point he leans back in his chair and dangles his cigarette in one hand and his beer can in the other. His eyes close and his mouth opens vacantly. He spreads his arms wide and the sweat patches under his arms dribble further down his singlet)
Ooh, ooh I´m a fuckin hippies
Let´s go and make some beads
Ooh and I hate to shower because I´m a dirty hippies
Let´s go and smoke some weeds
(Dario stops and leans forward intently, trying to focus and failing)
Dario: Hey man did you hear that, that rhymed!
Me: Yea it did actually, I really wasn´t expecting that!
Dario: It´s cos my brain isn´t useless from all those drugs man. I´m real man. You know those fuckin hippies pretend to want to help people but that isn´t real. You know something man? I´m not racist but I fucking hate hippies.
Me: Do you want some more rum and pineapple?
Dario: You know, I´m real man, I don´t want to help nobody like those damned hippies. I just want to listen to rock n roll and get drunk, that´s the truth you know? That´s fucking real!
Me: For sure mate you´re not alone in that one
Dario: And the worst hippies man...
(finally focussing on me intently)
...are Jewish hippies!

Anyway he had a mate called Byron who worked in the Guatemalan equivalent of CSI. This guy had two modes of communication. Silence, and a honking foghorn of a voice that couldn´t be modulated at all.

Byron locked me in his sights and honked at me about his job:

Byron: Hey Aussie, man I´ve seen some funny shit in my job man!
Me: What´s that?
Byron: You want to know what a .22 bullet hole looks like in a person?
Me: What´s it look like?
Byron holds up the pinkie of his right hand a waggles it in front of me.
Byron: And man guess what I can fit inside a man with a 7mm bullet hole in them, you know, from an AK-47?
He holds up the middle finger of his right hand and waggles it in my face
Me: That´s pretty loose
Byron: And man, guess what I can fit inside when you get shot by a Magnum?
This time, he puts both his thumbs together and waves them in front of me.
Byron: You don´t want to get shot by a magnum, man!

Bloody oath.

Byron himself would know as he had a huge scare on his arm from a shotgun wound he got while running away from some kidnappers.

I was actually in San Pedro to spend time at one of the Spanish schools they have there. I met a couple of girls at the hostel I was staying at who recommended the school they were at, the Mayan Spanish School. I signed on for two weeks, for four hours a day. A skinny little chap called Walter was my teacher. He seemed a bit nervous and was always saying things like, "Tim, that's perfect, well done, but..." Walter barely spoke any English so it's a good thing my Spanish wasn't all that bad to start with. One day he just didn't show up and I got another guy called Lorenzo.

Walter showed me where there was a free gym in the town. A really basic place run by a guy who happened to also work at the school. He was the bench press champion of Guatemala, called Erick Cortez. I started training there everyday. I had a great routine going. Get up and start classes, from 9-1pm, back to the hostel for a 3 hour siesta, then gym till about 7.30. After that a healthy feed and a bottle of El Compadre with the Cecilia, Marie (the girls form the hostel) and Gersh, a rasta from Miami. Cecilia was a cleaner at a hospital and Marie a psychologist at a mental institution, and Gersh worked at a bottle shop in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Well I'll write about the rest of San Pedro in the next one and throw in some photo's too. Not to mention the last two days in Miami which have been interesting.

Because tomorrow I fly to Haiti where I expect it'll be down to business.