Last day

Today is my last day in Guatemala, and I am quite ready to be on my way back.  I didn't explore much more of Flores today and mostly sat around and read, and updated this blog.  It was a nice relaxing day.  I am waiting for tonight's night bus back to Guatemala City, where I'll have time to grab a shower, a couple more hours of sleep and then get ready for my flight back home.  Another epic transportation adventure begins to get back home. 

Tikal and Caverns

Today was Tikal day.  I got up at 2:30 to get ready for the journey to Tikal.  We got to the park and it was still nighttime, so we had a rather dark walk all the way across the park where we viewed the sunrise of Temple 4, which is the tallest building in Tikal.  A lot of it remains unexcavated though, so you climb wooden steps to the top and sit and wait for the light to come.   Unfortunately, it was foggy and the sunrise was unspectacular.  We just stared into brighter and brighter fog, and couldn't get a view of the other buildings.  Later in the day, I had to come back to see the view, which ended up being pretty cool.  The tour guide took us along the major sites of the park and gave us a few tidbits of information here and there.  The tour wasn't great, but we did see most of the main buildings all before about 9:30 in the morning.  I felt like I had a full day of exploration before the time that I normally get up on any other day.  The tour group was rather large but I ended up meeting someone to hang out with.  Later, we hit up one of the temples that the tour didn't lead us to and a couple of the museums. 

In the afternoon, we explored some nearby caves, which were surprisingly more impressive than I expected.  Unfortunately, the entrance fee only covers us opening the gate to the caves, and it doesn't cover lights or a guide or anything, not that there was an opportunity for these other things.  So, we ventured into the cave with our headlamps and cellphones alit.  They worked pretty well, and we spent quite a long time exploring the underground rooms.  Luckily, there are signs to keep people from getting lost.  There were a ton of bats in the cave, and I caught a glimpse of a gigantic spider that I didn't really care to weed out. 

Flores

Since I got in super early this morning without a whole lot of great rest, I decided to take it easy.  I did end up walking around the whole town, which took about 15 minutes.  There is a nice walkway that was made on the perimeter of the island.  Some parts of it are flooded though, which is a bit strange.  Then I went over to San Miguel, which is a boat ride across the lake for about 5 minutes.  I did the hike to the top of the small hill there to the Mirrador and got some nice pictures of the lake and the town of Flores.  There are also some ruins over there of the Mayas but they are mostly covered.  In fact, I don't think I recognized any ruins in the area. 

I went to bed super early because I have to get up at 2:30 am for a sunrise tour of Tikal on Thursday.

Last day in Panajechal

I am catching up with the blog so this is a little bit late.  Wednesday was my last day in Panajachel.   I am now on my own since Liz is on her way to New Jersey.  Today, I decided to do a tour of the lake.  We went to 3 different places around the lake:  San Juan, San Pedro, and Santiago to see these small towns each of about an hour or so.  It's a short time, but most of them don't have very much.  Each has a unique flavor and unique things that they are selling to tourists.  The best parts were actually next to the water, where you could get a great view of the lake from different vantage points.  My favorite of the towns was San Pedro, which had a nice vibe.  It seemed to be a place you could easily stay overnight, if not making your home Panajachel.  Santiago had a couple of interesting items.  Besides the church, there was also another San Simon shrine, which was in someone random home.  It was a lot less gaudy than the one we saw in Zunil, but had the same flavor, and there was definite money collecting going on just to see it.

Wednesday night, I made the epic journey from Panajachel to Antigua to Guatemala City to Flores and arrived Thursday morning by bus. 

San Marcos

I have to catch up on yesterday and today in this blog. 

Yesterday, Liz and I went to Ixchimbe ruins, which is near this town called Tecpan.  A lot of the day was spent driving there, but the ruins were pretty extensive.  They had been excavated so that we could see the outline of the entire city.  The main buildings weren't as high as Zaculue but the grounds were larger.  It was a really nice day for the trip and our driver was super nice.  We had lunch at a nice restaurant near the highway, and headed back to Panajachel where we stopped at Liz's new favorite restaurant in town, which serves the vegetarian cuisine that she craves. 

Today, we got up early so that we could fit in a couple of activities before Liz leaves for home.  We ended up starting a bit late though because we ran out of cash and it's rather hard to find a working ATM.  We are afraid to use the ones open all night long because there is a lot of card number theft here and they looked somewhat compromised in the way they were beeping all the time.   After we got the cash situation settled, we hit the Nature Preserve, which was very awesome.  There were some nice hikes to take to a waterfall with some cool suspension bridges.  Also, there was an enclosure with monkeys and coatis.  The family of coatis were in a caged area, but we were surprised to see the baby coatis could fit right through the fence and came right up to see us. 

In the afternoon, we hit the public ferries for a ride to San Marcos, which is a tiny hippie village on the side of Lake Atitlan.  We didn't have more than an hour to spend there, but it's super small so 15 minutes is enough to walk the whole town.  We stopped at a little restaurant called Valerie's, where we met the owner, heard her story, and enjoyed veggie meatball subs.  It was a good place to stop but a complete hole in the wall restaurant, since she just got started with it a month ago. 

Tonight, I said goodbye to Liz as she heads home and I finish off my Guatemala adventure.  Tomorrow, I plan to hit some of the other pueblos on the side of the Lake before going to Guatemala City, and then taking an overnight bus to Flores so I can see Tikal on Thursday and Friday.

Antique and Ancient...It's a Matter of Timing?

View of the parade from lunch,
through iron bars for effect. 

This morning we set out to travel to a new location, but appear to have traveled to a new time as well. We left Xela early in the morning, and by high noon arrived at our subsequent destination, the Western highlands town of Huehuetenango (pronounced way-way-ten-an-go). Shortly after our arrival we discovered that they take the "Western" part seriously. On the shuttle ride into the center of town, our driver was required to wend his way through residential back streets in order to avoid a band of horsemen navigating the main road. As we neared the central park we noted an inordinate number of people dressed in cowboy gear. It turned out, the horsemen were the main attraction of a parade through the city center, and we had the fortunate timing of selecting the very day of the parade to arrive. We viewed the parade from a restaurant along the route where we enjoyed our lunch (huevos rancheros, naturally).

The main temple of Zacaleu

After lunch we ventured to the main attraction of Huehue, the Mayan ruins of Zacaleu, a few kilometers from the city center. The ancient city was once a powerful Mayan jurisdiction, which eventually fell after a two month siege. Surveying the site from atop the main temple felt like a journey “way-way” back in time. The site boasts enough fully excavated and restored buildings to lend a taste of this once thriving city. Meanwhile, the unexcavated ruins partially submerged under grassy knolls remind the visitor of the passage of time.

Huehue, despite giving travelers the sense of temporal displacement, also boasts some modern innovations relative to Xela. For example, the snazzy stoplights here include countdown timers to warn motorists and pedestrians of an impending alteration in the flow of traffic. This considerably diminishes the times required to learn how to cross the street. Additional modern touches include far fewer people clad in traditional Mayan attire and paved (rather than cobbled) streets.

Last day in Xela

Today was our last day in Xela.  While Liz was in class, I went with the other students to a market in a nearby town called San Francisco.  Here, we visited one of the largest markets in the area.  It had everything for sale from vegetables to electronics to clothing to live animals.  We asked how much a cow that we saw was and it's 5000Q, which is about $710.  I guess you just hand over the cash and walk home with the cow.  The way that the animals were treated was not that great, so that was a sad part of the market experience.  Also, the crowds were pretty intense, which was a bit annoying.  There is a church in the center of the market and we all went to the roof, where I got some nice pictures of the entire valley below, the volcano, and the town. 

This evening, we had a farewell dinner with the students from school.  It was a dim sum place where the chef promised us only vegetarian food, since everyone was willing to go vegetarian for the night, and we were brought nohting but meat dishes.  After each plate that we were brought, we complained a bit, and were brought even more meat dishes.  It was annoying, but it made for a lot of laughs about the restaurant and its service.  It was a fun evening overall, and we shared some good stories. 

Tomorrow, we are heading to Huehuetenango early in the morning.  We decided that we couldn't fit in Copan, Honduras into our stay because it is too far away.  I guess that means we'll have to come back some day.

Coffee Plantation

Today, our main event, or fiasco, was a coffee plantation tour.  I didn't do a whole lot this morning when Liz was in school except look into booking our tickets to Copan, Honduras, to which we are going on Saturday.  The afternoon was a trip back down the mountains to a coffee plantation.  I think that the driver had good intentions, but the whole thing was kind of a mess.  There was nothing that worked or was clean in the car that he came to pick us up in.  There was no speedometer, a seat belt in the back was not working, you could barely see out of the window because it was cracked and also there was a sun shade sticker on it that covered most of the front except for a small foot wide slit to see through.  Our driver got lost on the way there, so it took an extra half hour of driving to find the place.  He decided to pass a bus on a blind curve right when another car was coming from the other direction and we narrowly avoided a bad situation, and he was so slow to do anything we needed to get done was part of the tour.  The coffee plantation people didn't expect us, we had to search for a guide for another half hour, and we ended up lingering at the place for another half hour for some unknown reason when the tour was over.  When we finally got the guide ready to go, things got a little bit better.  The tour was fun and we learned about how they prepared and grew the coffee on the plantation.  They had a 100 year old gigantic drying unit for preparing the coffee beans for shipping.  They also, in the past, produced sugar from cane, but for the last 10 years, the farm hasn't produced sugar and the cane is left to grow wild.  We also saw a rubber tree farm and collected some sap from the rubber tree. It was a very long day and we are quite tired now.  It's off to bed. 

San Simon and Zuhil

Today, for my morning stroll, I went to the zoo.  It's basically a park with about 10 cages or enclosures and a few animals in each.  The zoo was actually a pretty sad sight as the cages were dismal and some animals a bit mangy.  I noticed a big pile of trash, bottles, and cans building up right next to the chain link fence that enclosured some birds.  There were exotic animals as well, like domestic rabbits, coyotes, and goats.  I was actually impressed to see a male lion though in pretty decent shape.

Our afternoon consisted of going to Zuhil, seeing the catholic church in the center of town, a weaving workshop, and the ediface of San Simon.  The shrine of San Simon had a plastic manequin wearing a cowboy hat, aviators, a bandana, gloves and having a feint resemblence to Michael Jackson.  People were offering cigars, alcohol, and candy as gifts to the shrine.  There were even some people who got to pour alcohol into his mouth.  Apparently, the alcohol is collected inside the manequin, collected, and resold as a special kind of drink afterwards.  The whole shrine was a bit weird.

After that, we went to some thermal baths and had a nice soak for about an hour in some naturally heated water from the volcano.  It was very relaxing.

Making a home in Xela

We are just finishing off my second day in Xela.  We arrived yesterday early in the morning after an extremely early bus that left Antigua at about 5:30 am.  I am staying with Liz in her home stay with her host family.  There are 6 members of the family living here: the mother and father, three boys, and the grandmother.  They welcomed us to the house during our lunch.  Liz got me acquainted with the town a bit by taking me on a walk to downtown before she was off  to class for the afternoon.  I was pretty tired so a caught up on sleep in the afternoon and only did a short walk around town to see a place called Temple of Minerva. 

Today was more of an adventure.  I walked all around town while Liz was in class this morning.  I saw a Museum of Natural History near the central park, checked out a few markets, and generally explored all that Xela had to offer, in a couple of hours :)  The museum of natural history was kind of funny since it was pretty much a taxodermy museum.  One of the most exotic creatures there was labeled a generic dog, chow chow.  There were some other interesting creatures including a series of conjoined stuffed goats.  I figure that they could miss the opportunity to put these in a museum and just threw them in this Natural History Museum since that was the only place they sort of fit. 

This evening, we drove to some Mayan ruins called Talik Abaj about an hour and a half south of Xela.  The ruins and the forest were pretty.  There was a little animal sanctuary with some exotic animals native to the area.  I couldn't understand our guide all the well, but we got by. 

Tonight's dinner was a fancy restaurant that Liz wanted to try, which proved to be quite a disappointment in terms of food and ambiance.  Oh well, the rest of the day was a lot of fun.  I am looking forward to going to Zuhil tomorrow with Liz's school trip.

Volcano

Today, we got up super early to start a hike up one of the nearby volcanos, Pacaya Volcano.  The bus picked us up with about 10 other guests and drove us to the trailhead.  The trail up the mountain was steep and dusty, and we had to dodge a bunch or horse poop with every step we took.  Soon though, the trail was a little more picturesque as we hiked into the low clouds and up over the crater ridge.  We hiked down to the lava flow, which we were told was active about three months ago.  Today, it was mostly crumbling and brittle sharp rocks.  We didn't see and lava, but we did find a hole that reached down into the ground to a place much warmer than the surface.  Here, we could poke sticks with marshmellows on them to "toast" them to a scrumtious perfection.  It was a good hike and a great view from the top.  The weather was cool and comfortable. 

Later on today, we checked out the Church of San Francisco's colonial ruins and also went to Casa de Santo Domingo, which is a new hotel on old cathedral ruins.  There are about 6 museums to check out and a lot to see.  We spent most of the afternoon wandering around and exploring the area.  Tonight, for dinner, we found an Israeli restaurant which had a relaxed atmosphere with floor seating and lots of nearby hostelers hanging out playing games.  We're off to Xela tomorrow, so we are calling it an early night.

Antigua

Liz and I got into Antigua last night and had a long awaited reunion.  We slept in a bit today and spent most of the day walking around Antigua and seeing the old ruins of a town that once was.  Many of the cathedrals and monestaries here were ruined by earthquakes and never rebuilt.  The town is easily walkable you can find your way easily from churh to church to envision a more glamorous time. 

Our walk took us from our start at a cross on a nearby hillside where you can get a beautiful view of the city and the neighboring volcano to Parque Central, which is the hub of activities and social life for the town.  We are relaxing a bit before heading out for dinner and to meet up with Liz's friend Monica and her brother at No Se Cafe. 

Antigua is surrounded by 3 volcanoes.  One is very prominent and very close by.  Tomorrow, we are doing a hike to see some lava at the top of one.  We are going to attempt roasting marshmellows.

A Boatload of Teachers

Teacher boat with Ian, Liz, and Monica.

When I traveled with my sister after she graduated from business school we repeatedly encountered the company of other newly minted MBAs having one last hurrah around the world before commencing new careers. This weekend I learned that this was apparently not a coincidence; like-minded travels seem to find each other as they trek across the globe or dive into the particular wonders of a fascinating local. This is my first summer traveling as a teacher on holiday, and so it is my first chance to happen upon the company of other adventurous educators expanding their horizons as global citizens. In this case, Monica and I found ourselves on a boat full of teachers and their traveling companions as we toured the small villages tucked into the mountainous folds that surround beautiful Lago de Atitlan.

Each village we visited sported its own unique character. Between each village we chatted with a different teacher riding the same boat as us. We started in San Juan, one of the least commercial of the villages. Here we watched a local craftswoman spin natural cotton into yarn from which she wove beautiful scarves and the like and enjoyed the beautiful views.

Left: A weaver who is part of a local women's crafts collective spins a yarn (literally) from natural cotton.
Right: The Church in San Juan with the mountains in the background. The peak is known as Indian Nose because the shape resembles the nose shape of the people indigenous to the area.

Our second stop was the hippy village of San Pedro featuring colorful art whether it be spiritual or political.

Left: Statue in the square in front of the San Pedro Church.
Right: Anti-GMO art on the wall of a small clothing shop.

 The third stop took us to Santiago, where we took in the colorful vestments of the saints in the main church and in a small Mayan shrine.

Clockwise from top left: The view of Santiago from the lake. A mayan shrine where the Grandfather can cure your ailments. Inside the Santiago Church where the colors of this vibrant town are reflected in the garb of the statues.

Our homebase for the weekend was the town of Panajachel, a lakeside municipality about 2 hours from Xela. In contrast to Xela, Pana cultivates an international resort vibe reminiscent of Phuket and Sharm el Sheikh. We sampled a variety of international cuisines including Mexican, Malaysian, Japanese food, and sipped local coffee in an SF style that was roasted and brewed in an establishment operated by a couple of expat hippies from Korea. We haggled in the street for cheap jewelry local textiles. And of course there was plenty of rest and relaxation whether it be lakeside or reclined in the hammock hung across the balcony of our hotel room shaded by a veritable jungle of hanging plans.

From my lakeside lounging (left) it is clear that I need a dose of the fantastic local coffee (right).

On Sunday Monica and I ventured to the town of Chichicastenango, famous for its biweekly market. As we settled in to the shuttle to Chichi we joked that at least one of the teachers we met on Saturday would surely appear. As if on cue, Ian, an English teacher from Hong Kong, climbed onto the shuttle and took the vacant seat next to me. We spent the morning wandering the Chichi market, enjoying the local art (ancient pieces at the jade museum and modern murals on municipal building), and visiting the local Church (I wish I could post pictures, as it was my favorite church so far on this trip, but they did not permit photography in the sanctuary). At one point we wandered around a corner and discovered a great view of the most colorful cemetery I have ever seen.

Clockwise from top left: Panel from a mural on the main square in Chichicastenango. The front of the church on the main square in Chichicastenango (market below). View of the cemetery just on the edge of town.

Rock and Roll is Here to Stay

Now that I am on vacation standard time, and get plenty of sleep on a regular basis, I find early mornings to be almost enjoyable. On the mornings that I need to get up unusually early, for example in order to climb a volcano, I am far less cranky about the hour than I might be otherwise. However, this new found almost-morning-person in me was jolted awake at 5:30 this morning by a magnitude 6.9 earthquake. The temblor was centered in Mexico near the border with Guatemala, and caused some damage in the Guatemalan department (kind of like a state) of San Marcos. Xela, in the department adjacent to San Marcos, experienced power outages for about an hour, and schools in this part of the country remained closed for the day.

As in California, much of the natural beauty in Guatemala can be attributed to historic and on-going seismic activity. Over the weekend, Monica and I had the pleasure of taking respite at one such wonder, Lago de Atitlan. This mountainous lake formed approximately 1.5 million years ago when a massive volcanic explosion emptied the magma chamber below causing the earth to collapse inward. Three volcanos tower above the southern edge of the body of water. From our vantage in the northern lake town of Panajachel, we enjoyed spectacular views of the cones.

View of the south lake shore from Sunset Cafe in Panajachel. There are two volcanoes on the left and one on the right.

 Incidentally, this is the third magnitude 6.9 earthquake I have experienced. The first was the devastating Loma Prieta quake in 1989. The second happened in March of this year when I was exploring the giant redwoods in Humboldt county. At the end of the month I will be in Philadelphia, so watch out Pennsylvanian’s, I bring big earthquakes with increasing frequency.

An Old Man Helped Me Cross the Street

As is often the case on my adventures the traffic and patterns, and signals which dictate them, do not follow the exact conventions of those in the United States. I am accustomed to requiring an adjustment period including keen observation of the local habits in order to learn the safest manner in which to traverse the town by foot. My day to day habits in Xela included ample walking because my home stay is in zona 3 (the area just north of the main part of town), but many of the restaurants, shops, and attractions that interest me reside in zona 1 (downtown). The walk between zona 3 and zona 1 is about 20 minutes and I find myself making the trek almost daily. On one of these strolls, I timorously teetered on the curb as I evaluated to present risk of crossing the street. An aged gentleman with a shared objective noticed my hesitation, and with a toothy grin, nod of the head, and a thrust of his cane toward the other side of the street, he indicated to me that it was, indeed, the time for me to cross.

Small Churches in Small Towns: A Pictorial Blog Entry

On Tuesday we toured three churches in towns surrounding Xela.

Photos from the San Cristobal Church including the facade, nave, and alter.

Photos from the San Andres Church including the facade, and a panorama from the square out front.

Photos from Iglesia de San Jacinto including the front, nave, and chandelier.
This is the oldest church in Central America.

Herds of Herds

High on a hill was a lonely goatherd.

This morning I experienced the pastoral side of Guatemala. Before dawn, Monica and I met a shuttle to the trailhead of a dormant volcano. Along the hike, we encountered people from the village located at the base of the mountain, including shepherds of various sorts. It started off normal, an encounter with a goatherd and his flock. I resisted the urge to yodel a line or two from “The Sound of Music.” Later, we passed a young man who was trailed by what can best be described as a herd of dogs. It is not an exaggeration that he had at least a dozen mutts faithfully tagging along at his heels. At the end of the trail, we rested at a point overlooking a second volcano, this one quite active. While we resided at the vista a gaggle of study abroad students appeared, ushered by their guide who giggled in amusement as the barely post adolescents snapped selfies of themselves with an erupting volcano in the background rather than watching the spectacular phenomena.

Monica and I patently spent almost an hour at the lookout and caught three substantial eruptions. In this case, the volcanic bursts were not spouts of smoldering lava, but belches of smoke forming a column above the volcanic cone.

Clockwise from left: The eruption of Santiaguito volcano. Monica and I at the vista point on the side of the (dormant) Santa Maria volcano. Panorama from the vista point as Santiaguito erupts.

Redundancy

At dinner last night Monica and I decided to sample the fare of the only Indian (as in the subcontinent) restaurant in Xela. At first I found the menu perplexing because it described each item twice, be it a curry or a thali. It was only after ordering that I realized one of the descriptions was in Spanish, and the other was in English. I guess one week of language instruction, and ample experience ordering victuals in Spanish (both at home and abroad) is enough to be menu fluent. If only it was this easy to become fluent in phone calls home to parents.

Mi Botella de Cerveza Runneth Over

Having a beer at the Fuentes Georgina's
hot springs and natural baths

This afternoon I had a special experience. Upon completion of my first sip of beer from a newly opened bottle, a frothy head suddenly developed and spilled fourth from its vessel. With alacrity I placed the bottle on the ledge adjacent to which I sat. As I watched the foam subside, I thought, “my cup runneth over” both literally and figuratively. You see, this occurrence took place in the small cafe nestled in a canyon on the side of a volcano, the heat of which warms Fuentes Georgina’s, the local hot springs out of which I had recently emerged. My foaming beer sat with the backdrop of the fern-covered canyon inspiring reflection on my recent bounty of good fortune and fun. 

Yesterday morning, I moved to a new home-stay so that I could be the only Spanish student in the house, thus necessitating more effort in my endeavors to communicate, presumably resulting in improved learning outcomes. The new family is lovely, including parents and three sons (ages 4, 11, and 15). Additional benefits of the move include close proximity to my language school, a private bathroom, and a gorgeous view of the city from the balcony outside my room.

The view from the balcony outside my room

At school things have been advancing equally well. Most days the curriculum consists of one on one language instruction, enabling rapid progression. In addition to the intensive vocabulary and grammar instruction, the teachers also facilitate opportunities for us to practice our new found knowledge in authentic, fun, and/or challenging situations. This morning, the performance task was a game of charades with the other students at the school resulting is much laughter and learning.

Alice and Monica playing charades

Breaking Bread is an Idiomatic Form

The inaugural day of my Spanish course included, among other things, a desperately needed lesson on verbs (prior to this afternoon my Spanish vocabulary consisted entirely of nouns). For each set of verbs to which my teacher introduced me, she requested I write five sentences. This naturally required me to utilize nouns as well. My knowledge of Spanish nouns far outstrips my knowledge of Spanish verbs, but three times nothing is still nothing. As a result, while constructing sentences, I biased toward employment of food related nouns, the understanding of which prevented many an unpalatable meal on prior excursions to Latin America. When practicing the verb romper, meaning “to break” I constructed the sentence “rompemos pan” literally translating to “we break bread.” My teacher looked at me like a crazy person. She attempted to correct me, perhaps I meant “comemos pan” meaning “we eat bread.” Thus, I discovered the first (of what will surely be many) idiomatic forms that defy translation from English to Spanish.

Fortunately, despite the words not directly translating, the sentiment does. The first thing I did after arrival at my home-stay in Xela was join the family for dinner. My homestay is with a widow, Sylvia who has two teenage children, Lorena and Borris. The family makes a living hosting guests. Currently this includes myself, another student at La Democracia, and a young man who lives in Guatemala  City with his wife and two children, but work brings him to Xela during the week. They were extremely patient with my utter lack of Spanish skills. Fortunately, Lauren, the other student, is two days ahead of me in school so she stepped in to do some translation when absolutely necessary.

Students and teachers of La
Democracia drinking hot chocolate

Similarly, the first activity I engaged in with the Spanish school was an excursion to a chocolate factory. On the visit we learned about the history of cocoa in Mesoamerica, the process of growing and making chocolate, and the health benefits of consuming chocolate. We also formed our own chocolate treats by hand from pliable chocolate lumps that were eventually chilled into permanent (until we eat them) creations. My favorite part was sampling the merchandise, including fondue and an amazingly delicious and refreshing vegan hot chocolate.

I tried to make my chocolate into a stegosaurus but I couldn’t make the legs strong enough to support its weight, so I shifted strategies and made a lizard instead

How to Avoid Motion Sicknes

I knew that after my arrival in Guatemala City I would need to take a bus to complete my journey to La Democracia Spanish School in Xela. Having examined a map, it seemed that Guatemala City and Xela were relatively close in distance. However, when traveling in certain parts of the world, proximity is better measured by time rather than distance. So, it was somewhat surprising to me when I learned that the bus journey was expected to take 4 hours. I have partaken in bus journeys of similar duration during previous adventures, and based on these experiences I have developed some trepidation with regard to travel by bus. Avoidance of the primary challenge of extensive coach travel, namely motion sickness, generates the secondary nuisance of boredom. The primary diversions on a long journey, namely reading, watching movies, and even gazing aimlessly out the window, all have the effect of exacerbating movement induced nausea. Fortunately, from my prior experience, I have generated a list of strategies that overcome my secondary concern while also circumventing my primary concern. These strategies include:

1. Listening to music or audio books
2. Sleeping
3. Engaging in lively conversation with my travel companion

Unfortunately, the circumstances of my voyage made each of these possible diversions unlikely to fill the duration of the journey for the following reasons:

1. In my haste to pack for the trip (I booked my flight 48 hours before departure while facing a full day working and a full day family gathering), I was unable to locate the charger for my iPod. Given the impending loss of its utility I decided it was best to skip the iPod all together. This limited me to enjoying the music that my fellow travelers blasted from their own devices. Certainly I enjoyed catching the refrain of “Hotel California” or the bridge of “Total Eclipse of the Heart” but this was not sufficient to fill the journey. Similarly, even if my iPod were available, I lacked the foresight to fill it with audio books.

   

   I may not always travel first class,
   but when I do, I look like a hobo.

2. One of the upsides of booking a trip with 2 days notice is the sudden drop in the price of airline
   tickets. This coincides with a decline in the number of seats available leading to a particularly unique condition in which, for less than the price of a coach ticket, I procured first class seating. Naturally I took full advantage of the extra space on my journey and slept for most of the flight. When I was not snoozing I took full advantage of the complementary wine served at the front of the plane. This meant I also slept soundly on my overnight stay in Guatemala City, a situation that resulted in feeling well rested and unable to succumb to the typically soporific swaying of the coach.
3. Congenial banter can delightfully fill many an hour, on or off a bus. As a solo traveler, said discourse is not easy to come by. My fellow voyagers were Spanish speakers. While unpleasant, I am compelled to highlight the irony that the purpose of my journey is to attend a Spanish language school in an attempt to remedy my embarrassingly poor Spanish skills. Needless to say, I did not find myself in rapt discourse while on the bus. Fortunately, I will be joining a friend, Monica, at La Democracia. On future bus rides, I can dialogue with her or attempt dynamic discussion with Spanish speakers, given the anticipation of rapid improvement in my conversational ability.

As it turned out, I happened to be traveling from Guatemala City to Xela by bus the day that a group of protesters shut down the road periodically to demand respect for the indigenous people of Guatemala in the form of land and water rights. To my delight, this resulted in at least 4 hours of time spent on a stationary bus. While my fellow travelers were irked by the delays and the associated doubling of our travel time, I was sympathetic to the cause and gratified by near impossibility of suffering motion sickness in an immobile vehicle. I took advantage of the disruptions to our forward progress by reading, writing (in case you wondered why a blog post about a bus ride is so long), and engaging in what would be sick inducing recreations were the bus in motion. Between these pauses I marveled at the novelty of making headway. I also figured out how to operate the text-to-speech feature on my kindle.