After a night of the howling monkey soundtrack, Ester and I returned to the park at 7am. The previous day we had been prepared to see packs of spider monkey swinging from the trees but we saw only one. Maybe it was two, but I think it was the same monkey twice, which doesn’t count. Our guide had told us that the best time to see the monkeys, parrots and all the other critters is in the early morning hours, so we were anticipating some great wildlife photos. Sadly, these monkeys never appeared. Ester saw parrots in a faraway tree, but I couldn’t quite make out what they were exactly, other than some random birds in a tree. We did get some really great photos of the pyramids and landscape free of tourist adornment. It was definitely worth a second visit; it felt like a different experience from the previous day in the early afternoon sun. The only disappointment was the lack of monkey sightings. We took a shuttle back to Flores for our return flight later that afternoon. On the way, we met an English/Canadian couple living on their boat, which they dock in Guatemala to wait out the hurricane season. They had been to the park that morning at exactly the same time of day and seen packs of at least 20 spider monkeys and couldn't believe we didn't see the same.
We had a very bumpy flight home because it was still raining in Antigua. Ester is a flight attendant and she looked nervous, so it worried me. It was a small plane, maybe capacity of 24 passengers and we were seated in the front with a view of the instrument panels. She noticed that some of the instruments were labeled in Russian and she told me afterwards that Russian planes are cheap and terrible. I'm glad she told me after the fact. We had heavy traffic all the way back from Guatemala City and arrived back to Antigua at about 7:30 pm, when I officially moved into my new house.
The new house is only about 2.5 blocks from the old house and it's a huge improvement. For starters, I have my own bathroom with shower. I still prefer the shower at the gym, so I'll probably stick to that routine. It's just nice to have the option. There is also a living room with comfy chairs and a tv to watch the hilarious telenovelas and upstairs there's also a roof deck. It still kind of rains inside, but I no longer feel like I'm camping. Every last one of my new roommates will be gone by the end of the week, so I'll have a whole new batch to look forward to. It should be interesting. Oh, and the food is much better, too. There is still the usual white bread and starch overload, but more variety and fruit every morning at breakfast. I think I'll stay put for the duration of my time here. I'll try to take some pictures to post later in the week so you can do a before/after comparison of the houses.
I think I have officially decided that I want to take the last 10 days to 2 weeks to go to Belize and then meet up with Noortje in Honduras. If anyone has some free time from about July 25 - Aug 3, feel free to fly down here to join me:) I haven't worked out all the details, but I am pretty solid on the route, which will mostly be by ferry, I think. I'll let you know once I figure it all out.
On Sunday morning at 4am, my friend Ester and I left for our trip to Tikal. We had a flight out of Guatemala City at 6:30 am and we arrived in the town of Flores at about 7:30, which is about an hour drive from Tikal. We were fortunate to have chosen a low-traffic day to visit the park and we were a tour group unto ourselves. The previous day our guide had a group of 32, which means they are as slow as the slowest person, which would have been quite frustrating for an impatient girl, like myself. After we arrived at the hotel, we dropped off our stuff and proceeded to to the park for a 4.5 hour walking tour. Antigua was inundated with rain and we were so glad to see that Tikal was sunny, although that meant it was really hot and humid. The humidity added a nice shimmer to my skin to complement the double layer of DEET I wore since the mosquitos are even more plentiful in the jungle during the rainy season, as you can imagine. Our tour guide spoke English very well and knew a lot of slang from having worked with the crew of Survivor: Guatemala. I don't know how recent that season was, but every Tikal gift shop has an assortment of Survivor:Guate
mala hats and tee shirts.
We walked the trail for about 25 minutes to get to the first stop, the grand plaza where there is an assortment of impressive pyramid configurations and some still half-buried stone carved images of faces. At this point the park was fairly crowded and Ester and I decided to return the following morning at 7am when the park opened to get photos of the pyramids that weren't flecked with people. We spent about half an hour here, climbing the stairs and admiring the Mayan handiwork, although I honestly only needed about 15 minutes. I appreciate such things, but I guess I don't need to spend a lot of time admiring them in order for it to make an impression on me. Besides, it was really hot and I made the mistake of wearing a black tank top. When I left Antigua it was chilly and had already been raining for 2 days, so the thought of sunlight had not occurred to me. Fortunately there are places to buy water at various points of the park. Although there are some steep points in the trail, it's the climbing of all those stairs to get to the top that is the most physically draining. I also climb stairs very carefully as they are steep and uneven and always lead with my left. 3 days later my right quads are still really sore from bearing the weight of steadying myself going down those pyramid steps. I suppose I don't feel bad about not getting to the gym this weekend. We visited all the main temples and climbed the one with 72 steps (I think it was 72) to see the tops of the pyramids that peek through the vegetation. There are still a large number of temples and structures that remain unexcavated. I think the Guatemalan government ran out of money, so the University of PA and other such organizations are involved in carrying on the excavations. Aside from the heat and humidity, it was a startlingly beautiful place to see and I enjoyed the hiking aspect. The entire tour was a little over 4 hours and then we had to rush back to the hotel by 2pm for Ester to see Holland play (and lose) to Portugal in the World Cup. Our hotel didn't actually have a TV, so we went to the hotel next door to watch. Also, our hotel only runs their electricity between 7pm-10pm and again from 6am-8am. If you need to charge any electronics or want to take a hot shower, you better time it well. I also found it funny that one of the selling points of the hotel rooms was the ceiling fans, but they really only operate in the evenings when you are out at dinner anyway, so what's the point. Regardless, the room was really comfortable and I really enjoyed sleeping with a backdrop of jungle noises. Fortunately we both brought our ipods so we had a source of light to get around since there was no electricity and it's pitch black outside. The hotel also had a nice pool, so after we watched Holland lose, we got to hang out by the pool and feel like we were really on vacation. It was lovely. (I have to run to a salsa lesson, so I'll post more photos & details tomorrow...)
Saturday, June 24
Happy birthday, Christina!
Okay, today I’m officially missing the comforts of home. It’s a rainy Saturday with dark skies that look endless. At this moment I would like to be in my cozy and well-appointed little apartment, lis
tening to NPR and drinking coffee. I miss my ginormous TV and box sets of Buffy. The Slayer is always good company on rainy afternoons. I may have to break down and download an episode or two off of iTunes.
This morning I packed up all my stuff to take over to the house I'm moving into. Tomorrow I’m leaving at the crack of dawn for the Mayan ruins of Tikal and returning to Antigua on Monday evening. I have been to the house and I haven’t seen the room yet, but I know it has a private bathroom. That means no more having to go outside and potentially getting rained on in order to make a trip to the bathroom. What a luxury.
The trip to Tikal should be really great. I’m going with Ester, the KLM flight attendant from Holland. We have a 6:30am flight out of Guatemala City, which gets us to Flores within an hour. From there we are taken to our hotel, where we will be met by an English speaking tour guide who will take us on a 4 hour hike through the ruins. The factor that is supposed to make Tikal so stunning is not just the height of its steep-sided temples, but the fact that the whole area was carved out of the jungle and is still thick with vegetation and all kinds of wildlife, like tree frogs, howler monkeys and toucans. I’m hoping the rain does not follow us, but regardless it should still be impressive.
Friday, June 23, 2006
So I finally got my act together and invited an assortment of friends, family and colleagues to join my blog. I have always been a bit hesitant to create such a thing as I have no desire for self-promotion and I consider the much of the blogging world to reflect a certain degree of self-absorption. But since many of you ask similar questions or have asked me to keep in touch during my sabbatical, I figure it’s the most efficient way to communicate without having to repeat myself. That way when I send personal emails, they can be of substance instead of your having to listen to me blather on about the details of my day to day.
This week I finally started to get it. I can't explain why, but for the first time I am able to have complete conversations in Spanish, albeit very slowly and with a limited vocabulary. At the very least, I am better able to understand what people are saying. I suppose 2 full weeks of 5 hours daily instruction have to eventually teach me something.
I am also taking private salsa lessons with this instructor, Miguel who has a studio across from my school. I am not so crazy about salsa music, but I figured that since it’s the thing to do around here, I might as well try it out. Miguel is Guatemalan, but grew up in Utah and lived in Japan for a number of years, so he is trilingual. I am also having some salsa shoes custom made, which is terribly exciting. They will be black leather with double wrap ankle straps and a peek-a-boo toe. In fact, I think the shoes may have been my primary motivation for the lessons. I have never before had shoes made uniquely for my feet and I can’t wait to get them. There is a teacher at my school who is also a salsa instructor and offers private lessons on the premises, so there is a lot of salsa music blaring into the street from open windows. It’s pretty much like my neighborhood in NY, only there the source is usually from a stereo of a parked car, which serves as the background music for families who host their barbeques on the front stoops and public sidewalks. I am missing the prime summer barbeque atmosphere on 109th Street where people camp out on lawn chairs, block the sidewalks and allow their little kids to run around in streets until midnight. (Cheryl, you can tell me what I’m missing.) At least I have a similar soundtrack in Guatemala. There is a screaming kid who lives in the house next door, so it adds to the ambiance and makes it feel more like home.
Oh, and here’s a milestone; I haven’t had a new mosquito bite in almost a week! Thank God for DEET. I don’t like to think about the toxicity of what I apply directly to my skin everyday, but it’s better than having itchy ankles.
Saturday, June 17, 2006
Today I had originally planned on doing a 3-hour walking tour of Antigua recommended in the Lonely Planet. Instead, I decided to accompany one of my roommates, Ben to a nearby town called Pastores, known for its shoe stores - boots in particular. Ben was in the market for shoes and over the course of the week I had convinced myself that wherever leather shoes could be found, that leather handbags couldn’t be far behind. Where Ben referred to the name of the town by name, I just kept calling it the handbag factory in my optimism that there would be a huge selection of bags. I also convinced myself that if I did not find the selection to my liking, that they would custom make anything I asked for.
We had to take a local bus to this town, which was about a 20-minute ride. The local buses here are retired American school buses, often with colorful paint jobs and often named after women. I thought about the quality and comfort of the bus I used to take to school in 6th grade and imagined it to the point of deterioration where it is no longer suitable for shuttling public school children. Then I started to think that there was a slim chance the bus I was on could very well be my exact bus from the 6th grade. It wasn’t. Our bus still bore the name Mason County Schools on its side, not Fulton Public Schools. When it comes time to get off at your stop and you are seated near the back, they open the emergency back door and help you quickly jump out while the bus slows down, but never actually comes to a complete stop. It's not recommended to wear flip flops.
Oh, and unfortunately, I was completely wrong about the handbags. While I did help Ben select 2 really nice pairs of shoes (in black and brown) there was nothing for me to get excited over. On top of that, the smell of tannery leather combined with the exhaust from the constant stream of buses was a bit of an assault on the senses. Regardless of the handbag-free shops, the trip itself was interesting and made the outing worthwhile.
Sunday, June 18, 2006
Happy Father’s Day, Dad! Although, Father’s Day is celebrated here on Saturday. Today is the religious holiday called Corpus Christi. I haven’t quite figured out why it is celebrated on different days in different towns throughout Guatemala and not necessarily on Sundays. I think it’s an excuse to have a parade and shoot fireworks; only they are not the fun, pretty kind. They are just loud like cars backfiring and go off at random times beginning at 6am and setting off car alarms up and down the street. Come to think of it, I have been hearing these small and startling explosions since I arrived so I find the whole Corpus Christi excuse rather thin. I think they just like blowing stuff up.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
On Sunday we got a new roommate from Holland, who already moved out this morning. Her name is Esther and she’s a flight attendant for KLM. She’s only here for 2 weeks to brush up on her Spanish. She wanted to live in a nicer place I I would also like to live in a nicer space with more roof. I have spoken to the school about it and I think I'm moving into the same house this weekend. I hear they have a roofdeck, but I haven't seen it yet.
Today I went to a pilates class at my gym. When I was there the other day one of the girls who works there asked me to come to their pilates class because she was interested to get my feedback on it. Since I have never spoken to her before, I was flattered that she would approach me. The class was definitely different from what I am used to with little to no explanation of postural adjustments or muscle recruitment. But the instructor was a taskmaster and made all of us take turns counting out reps aloud for the class. I am really glad I can count to 30 in Spanish and while holding a crunch. That would have been embarrassing if I started counting numbers out of order. Overall, it was more like a Pilates inspired abs class and I got a great workout.
After class I met Noortje for lunch out because we were both dreaming of fruit salad and couldn’t deal with the possibility of one more lunch featuring white bread and overcooked vegetables. There are many restaurants around here that cater to tourists, so all the food is washed in purified water and thoroughly cleaned. You can get a huge fruit salad here for 17 Quetzales ($2.50), which is kind of pricey for Guatemala, but average for Antigua.
WEEK 1
Weather
I arrived in Antigua, Guatemala on June 6, at the beginning of the rainy season, whic
h usually affords bright and sunny morning 
with rain beginning in the late afternoon or evening. My first 5 days in the country found all of Guatemala under some sort of tropical depression, with nothing but rain, day and night. Walking home from class one afternoon, I saw a pack of 6 or 7 dogs lined up in single file on the narrow sidewalk under an awning, seeking cover from a downpour. It was really cute. They looked like cars that had just pulled off the road to wait out a heavy rainstorm.
Gym
I joined a gym this week and the best part (aside from it being 5 minutes from the school) is that they have a nice locker room with good showers – good water pressure and plenty of hot water. I rented a permanent locker so I can keep all my toiletries there and get ready at the gym every morning. Equally as important, they have decent equipment and even have spin class everyday. I hear there is a Pilates class on Tuesdays, which I will try to check out if my class schedule permits. There’s something so comforting for me about being at the gym. I immediately felt like I had all my bearings again.
Housing
At first I was a little taken aback by the housing accommodations, which I am assured is a typical middle-class Antiguan homes
. I suppose that means most homes in Antigua are in various states of disrepair with sagging roofs and cracked windows covered with tape. The kitchen/dining room is in the front and there are 6 private bedrooms on each side of an open patio (it sounds nicer than it is) and 2 bathrooms at the end. Since the entire center of the place is open air that means it rains outside the bedroom doors and you have to wear flip-flops all the time. The first night I stayed in a different room while they were making up the one that I am currently in, which was vacated the day I arrived. The first room had orange walls and was decorated with those plastic bubble wall hangings often found in children’s rooms featuring Mickey, Tigger and the Tasmanian Devil. That room would have given me nightmares.
Now my room is “nicer” and the walls are a neutral shade with the only wall adornments those free calendars you get from banks. But 
now there is only one since I took the liberty of throwing away the ones that had expired. Fortunately the one remaining was the best of all, featuring an image of a woman lovingly gazing upon and caressing her pregnant belly. That one didn’t actually come from a bank, but rather from a local brand of bottled water.
Roomates
When I first arrived, there were 2 other students living in this house, Zach and Ben, both undergrads at the University of FL at Gainsville. They are wholesome, thoughtful boys, who choose not to go out to bars or out gallivanting around the town, but rather get up early and stay home in the evenings to study, read the bible and reflect in silent prayer. Okay, that was one of the first things I learned about them, but they are actually not freakish in any way. They are good-natured, open-minded and have a real curiosity about the world. They are also big on service with their motivation for learning Spanish to eventually get involved in outreach programs in Latin American countries.
Food
There is not a whole lot of nutritional value in a lot of things served at meals, which mostly consists of white bread, white rice, potatoes and other stuff I would not choose to eat. We were actually served fried hot dogs and I am not even kidding. It was at that time I decided that 4 days was enough time required for me to experience authentic home-cooked Guatemalan food. There is a great little coffee bar/sandwich place next door to the school where I can get grilled vegetable sandwiches and coffee with soymilk. I figure that I am making enough of an effort on this immersion thing by not having packed a box of Splenda. I also found the supermercado in town where I was delighted to find my favorite organic cereal brand, Optimum Slim. Yay!
Class
The first two days of class consisted of my teacher taking me shopping for things I needed such as a new pillow, bedspread and rug (so my feet don’t have to touch the cold floor.) The bedspread originally in the room had this rainbow pattern
and fringe and I felt like I was sleeping under a threadbare gay flag. I was able to get most things on my shopping list including a citronella candle to combat the immense mosquito population, who all love me by the way. I really hate bugs and wanted to take more drastic measures, but everyone looked at me like I had gone overboard at the suggestion of equipping the bedrooms with mosquito netting. I thought it was a good idea and might be a nice decorating touch to go with the pregnant lady calendar. But, I couldn’t find any mosquito netting around here, I wouldn’t know how to hang it if I did find it and I learned that if you just keep your door and windows closed, bugs will mostly stay out of your room. That has been true for the most part so I suppose I’ll live. My mosquito bite count hovers around 10, but most of those are one my feet and calves from walking around (outside) in the rain. I specify ‘outside’ since technically it rains inside, too.
My teacher’s name is El
uvia and she is very sweet and patient with my presently non-existent Spanish skills. The first day of class she was wearing corduroy Winnie the Pooh overalls. The second day she wore denim overalls with some other cartoon character on them. Based on the decorations of my first bedroom and my teacher’s fashion choices, I have concluded that Guatemalans really love Disney. I later found out that my teacher is about 4 months pregnant, so that explains the overalls part (but not the cartoons.) My Spanish lessons are rather slow going since the first thing that comes out of my mouth is French. People look at your funny when you say “merci” and “au revoir” in Spanish school.
WEEK 2
Weather
The weather has improved markedly in the past few days. The days have been beautiful and bright and perfect for walking around Antigua. The rain starts in the evenings and continues for hours. I kind of like it since it provides that white noise that I like and am without since I don’t have a fan in my room. The past 2 nights it has rained so hard I thought the roof would cave in, which probably wouldn’t require much more than a heavy rain. I worried about changing my clothes to go to bed for fear that I would need to make a run for it in the middle of the night to escape the house falling down around me. I kept thinking of those Noah images from my Children’s Bible Adventures book that I had when I was little (or more recently, footage of floods in India.)
Roomates
We got 2 new roommates this week, Jim and Noortje. Jim is from Calgary, retired, in his 50’s and wants to improve his Spanish to use on his frequent trips to Mexico. He and his wife own a house in a mountain area not too far from Guadalajara, which he has kindly offered to me for my use upon request. His wife’s mom is sick, so she stayed behind to look after her. Jim is 
originally from Scotland, but came to Canada in the late 60’s on his honeymoon and they decided to stay. He is friendly, has a good sense of humor and is a good storyteller. Noortje is from Holland, along with half the students at my school. She is studying communication and will be taking over the school secretary job for the summer in order to earn her final credits toward her bachelor’s degree. Oh, and she came from Holland with her own mosquito netting! I feel vindicated. It wasn’t such a crazy idea and that lucky girl is practically mosquito bite free.
Food
They don’t have a problem with us keeping our own milk or yogurt in the refrigerator. Often after the housekeeper feeds us and leaves for the evening, we make sure the coast is clear and then we all get out cereal bowls and supplement our home-cooked Guatemalan meals with some real nutrition in the granola and yogurt that we have all separately purchased. We found a great local place where they make their own yogurt and granola that is really good, which is fortunate since it’s often what we eat for dinner (after dinner, that is.) I wonder how so many Guatemalans are so pudgy because it doesn’t seem that they eat very much at all. I suppose if your calories mostly come from sugar and white flour, then pudge is the result. They certainly do believe in sugar around here.
Class
I have learned tons of verbs and I finally had to break down and make flashcards to keep them all straight. I am getting a little better about separating the French and the Spanish, but I’m still pretty confused all the time. Next week I start to learn tenses other than the present, so I have to commit everything to memory this weekend or else I’m going to start falling behind. I felt somewhat encouraged when the school secretary (who is from Holland, btw) told me that she heard I was learning at a very quick pace. I was not aware of that because I pretty much feel retarded, but maybe it’s not as bad as I think it is.
