MAYA-HO! _{Guatemala, Easter 2003}

Tuesday 8 April 2003

Novato CA - Today seems like a rerun of so many days in recent months. Get up too early, drive too far - down the Sierras and across the Central Valley to the North Bay for another medical check. But today has also included picky particular packing, and incarcerating the cat, and anticipation. And it's only mid-afternoon. Today will be 36 hours of fatigue.

We have a few more hours to buy last-minute supplies, repack everything again, drop the car off at a motel and get our butts to SFO (San Francisco International Airport). And at some painful time after midnight, we'll be winging our way to Central America.

The current TIME magazine (14 April 2003) has a piece, TIMELY TRAVEL TIPS, positing that any travel destination with a guidebook is already ruined. For fresh info about fresh places, go online. See these sites ==>

Meanwhile we're dreadfully worn from yesterday's exertions, driving to and from Sacramento (a mission of medical mercy and a shopping finale) so we probably won't have any trouble sleeping on the plane. IF EVERYONE SHUTS UP!

But we had a warm Marin afternoon - a gorgeous crossing of the Golden Gate - a splendid time to stop on a Presidio clifftop and finally repack our luggage whilst insistent zephyrs cooled our fevered brains. Then a fine near-gourmet dinner at the Sea Breeze Cafe, a confusing mapless drive across Daly City, and a successful docking at SFO.

Wednesday 9 April - early

Over Northern Mexico now? The witching hour approached. The rest of our party arrived in due course; all checked in uneventfully; only minor inconveniences with security - no strip-searches, not quite. And then an interminable tedious wait for departure, in a terminal nearly stripped of amenities. No drinks and little food available - this could never happen in Milan! Mamma mia!

Ominous messages emanated from the airport loudspeakers. Trevor said that due to the release of Osama bin Laden's latest threatening tape, the entire USA was on Red Alert. Eventually we boarded, departed, cruised, bounced - were blacked-out, flashed, deafened, fed, refreshed, bounced some more, etc. And only three more hours to go on this first leg, then an hour layover at Ilopango, then another hour to Guáte (Guatemala City). Oy.

Later, after an inflight film best left unnamed, we note that the view outside is no longer a featureless black. Lights of various unknown cities glow on the west, a hint of dawn rises in the east. Sleep? We don't need no steenkin' sleep! Can't get any anyway. I'll probably start hallucinating soon. That could be very entertaining.

This TACA airlines Airbus 320 (which could stand a bit of electrical and plumbing maintenance) isn't stuffed totally full; many passengers (mostly Latinos with maybe a 15% Gringo froth) have room to stretch across seats. I opted for legroom at the expense of squashed hips. Ouch. Ouch. I hate airlines.

Now descending into Ilopango Airport, El Salvador - still no sleep - lizards everywhere. Everyone has turned into lizards. Fringed iguanas, gila monsters, geckoes, Komono dragons. Passengers, stewardesses, everyone. The plane is being flown by great honking lizards.

Ilopango an hour after dawn: steamy - from terminal windows it looks and feels like old Orange County (California) on a hazy muggy day, but with fewer cars. Let's go to Aurora and Antigua now, por favor.

Midmorning - Guatemala City

The flight from Ilopango to Aeropuerto La Aurora in Guáte (Guatemala City) was just long enough to fill out the immigration and customs forms. The paperwork appeared somewhat baffling and daunting, but the actual passage through officialdom was perfunctory.

Guáte's airport - we're on the ground in a new land at last! We're hiding in the shade of the arrivals terminal, waiting in the thick noxious air for familiar faces and safe transport. Swarms of vendors and shoeshiners and beggers and the occasional masked student seeking funds. Strolling patrols and rollicking carloads of troops smiling and waving and brandishing their combat weapons. Eventually our party is all loaded onto a shuttle van, with only a little luggage lost.

Guáte is a vast jerry-built metropolis of schmazy air and ancient walls and concrete barrios stretching in all directions, a swirling maelstrom of desperate human activity punctuated by familiar international signboards and third-world improvisation, a gerrymandering low-tech Los Angeles with modern inclusions. The impact is more than I can assimilate now - I'll try again later. But with any success?

Midday - Antigua

Fatigue caught me and I dozed some as we climbed the steep grade past Mixco and San Lucas Sacatepéquez and descended to Antigua, only slightly higher than Guáte but whose atmospheric haze is less smoggy, more honest. Alas, the volcanos circling this old cultural-political capitol are obscured by haze. We're hoping for a windy tomorrow...

Antigua is a low city, necessarily so as it's been knocked about by countless earthquakes, with many traces evident of the most recent great shake (1976) and extensive ruins from centuries-old temblors. The cobbled streets (ensuring the wake-up of even the most exhausted traveler) are slotted between single-story adobe and concrete walls painted bright monocolors, each a great photographic background canvas.

As we later bounce around town we see that these walls hide the real city, a gorgeous world of courtyard shops and gardens and restorations. We plan to take a famous guided walking tour (by Elizabeth Bell) in a few days, exhaustion allowing.

Two standard references are ANTIGUA GUATEMALA: The City And Its Heritage, and LENT AND HOLY WEEK IN ANTIGUA, both by noted local historian Elizabeth Bell and published by her firm, Antigua Tours. Email her at elizbell@guate.net for more information.

Our party is booked not into the Radisson (as earlier thought) but in the Hotel Suites La Real Plaza, just down the block and much more Guatemalan (i.e., under reconstruction). A modest domain, verandas and a gorgeous garden courtyard stretching off into the distance, hints of volcanos through the trees, nicely antiqued rooms but sparcely furnished. A work in progress, thus a real bargain.

Evening - out-of-town

Evening finds us (possibly) in the quiet exurb of Santa Catarina Barahona, out beyond Ciudad Vieja, the old Antigua destroyed by quakes in 1541. We're at the secure but pleasant compound of some old US expats, friends and fellow-volunteers at CommonHope (see below) with Chris (we're here for Chris and Mayari's wedding, remember?) Tom and Liz are hosting a modest barbecue for our little family group.

From Tom I learn that there are but four (4) 'cities' in Guatemala, and most of the major urbanities and communities don't qualify. There is but one prerequisite for gaining the statues of 'ciudad' here: the town must once have been the national capital. That's all.

(OK, OK, here they are: Iximché {ruins near Tecpan Guatemala} and Cuidad Vieja {old Antigua} and Antigua Guatemala {formerly Santiago} and Ciudad Guatemala {Guáte}. Amaze your friends, stomp their butts the next time you play TRIVIAL PURSUIT, eh?)

We're told today that the big news is the FALL OF BAGHDAD. Baghdad is rather like Phoenix Arizona, but half the size of Los Angeles. How would one "take" all of Los Angeles?

Thursday 10 April 2003

Bouncing outa Antigua at midday - Antigua's cobbled streets effectively destroy automotive undercarriages and suspensions. The huge speed bumps ('tumulos') usually support nearby shock and tire repair shops. But we're told that driving from San Francisco to Guáte, the most dangerous stretch is through Los Angeles. Word to the wise...

This morning we visited 'the project' site of CommonHope, which does very impressive work in health, education, family-building, life-building, community-building. Everyone who reads this is URGED to contribute - THIS MEANS YOU!!! See their page at CommonHope.Org NOW!!! And sponser a kid or three.

Then more bouncing around central Antigua - the area around the main square (Parque Central, "The Plaza") is thronged with tourists, vendors, workers, cops, uniformed students, traffic, whatever. Semi-trucks are excluded from downtown, but enough smaller lorries and pickups and vans and shuttles and other vehicles more than make up for their lack. One may occasionally hear spoken words.

(OK, I'm exagerating, it's not really that noisy, but it IS a very busy place.)

After a fine lunch at an eatery owned by friends of the bride (Cafe Doña Luisa Xicotencatl, one of the most famous feedstops in Antigua) we were trundled back to Guáte for serious business: tuxedo-fitting. Being a distant cousin and not part of the immediate wedding ensemble, I was excluded from this monkey-suit madness; and, after my first cheap shoeshine, I went with a small contingent to pay for future lodgings - which with accompanying transport had been previously booked and lost and rebooked. Business endeavours are rarely integrated here, it seems - various functions are only coordinated via liberal application of shoe leather. The national sneakernet, eh?

The air in Guáte was much better than yesterday, cooler and fresher and thinner and less like murky toxic custard. But I wouldn't want to jog in it, and I feel concern and sorrow for the many bicyclists here.

Midafternoon, Guáte

Business attended to, our party retired to a heavily-guarded walled compound on a canyon-rim adjacent to the international airport. We stopped for snacks at the bride's parents' Guáte volcano-view house (they now reside in San Salvador for business reasons), then around the corner to her grandmother's cliffside abode (a fitting home for a semi-retired professor of law and philosophy) for a "cocktail party". No cocktails, but plenty of savory snacks and wind and rum and whiskey.

Also plenty of the bride's wonderful family and friends. Dozens chatted while standing on the manicured lawn and sheltered patio overlooking the pinlighted canyon, or sat at floral tables under the festival canopy while vagrant winds stole the candle flames, and later retired to the artifact-rich quarters for more compressed discussions. A splendid time was had by all, even the neurotic-but-happy collie.

Friday 11 April 2003

Another day in Antigua. On the news: The Turks are occupying Kirkuk, Iraq (to keep it from the Kurds) but they say they'll leave Real Soon Now. OK, sure.

Meanwhile, another lovely day in Antigua. The early part of the program took us to a nearby suburb to tour a coffee plantation (Museo Azotea, Jocotenango) and cultural center, housing the famous Casa K'ojom music museum as well as De Sacatepéquez textile-costume museum and Del Café coffee museum. The displays and guidance were wonderful; the coffee production tour was vivid; the garden walk was nearly jungular. Free shuttles run from Antigua's plaza to La Azotea hourly - be sure to visit.

Then many of Mayari's (she's the bride, remember?) other relatives arrived - these just in from Mexico and Texas, I think - and our vast crowd lunched happily in a tropical pavilion overwatched by coffee plants, prancing horses and lazy volcanic foothills.

The wedding party underwent a format rehersal in the afternoon; being distant cousins and thus GUESTS not PRINCIPALS, we skipped that. Maureen felt tired and stayed at the hostelry; I trekked across Antigua to a cool quiet Internet cafe (CONEXION.COM in the La Fuente courtyard) to post the prior journal notes.

Downtown Antigua and its approaches are fascinating, a lively realm of economic and spiritual activity. Every other doorway is either a shop in a nook or the entrance to a more-or-less enchanted courtyard. The colors, sounds, faces are a vast jigsaw puzzle; the pre-Pascual processions tootling down the roads are themselves complex and incredible to my Methodist-Quaker-raised honky eyes. All those marching robed children; scores of men hauling heavy sculptural displays; dozens of young girls toting a Marian float; somber men wailing discordantly with brass band instruments to a funereal drum dirge; and civilians pushing across the procession, tourists and messengers and homeward-bound workers, etc.

The Parque Central is filled with the usual street crowds, and traditionally-clad groups from many villages selling their handicrafts, and a grey fountain of squirty-titted nymphs, and... again I am overwhelmed by the sensory inputs, they're hard to process just now.

Friday evening

Ah, the post-rehersal dinner, a huge semi-formal gathering of the clans at a nearby hotel-restaurant (Mesón Panza Verde) that externally looks like nothing much, but inside is just your typical Spanish-Moorish-Disney fantasy castle. A splendid place, MUST take Maureen there - she was too sick to attend, having picked up some sort of the intestinal ailment that had Brad knocked out this morning. So she stayed in and ate oatmeal, and I went out and ate better, much much better. The crowd was wonderful and we'll see'em all toimorrow at the wedding.

'Panza verde' means green-belly and refers to Antigua's residents, specifically to the vast amounts of guacamole ingested here. Not all guacamoles are equal, but they're all worth trying here, so DIG IN! And when you tire of avacados there are always mangos and papayas in abundance.