A journal of a journey to the central-western highlands. |
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| [another cold load of tedious transcribed journal notes - slightly corrected & expanded - a stream-of-consciousness travelogue, hence the curious style - oy - and stay tuned for further idle wanderings of an unexercised mind] | |
16 May 2003 - RANDOM NOTES:* We're sitting outside at Bombay last night. Some kids roll by, laugh, call "Santa Claus!" So THAT'S who I am?!?!? My secret identity is revealed at last! Curses! Malediction! * Street dogs in Pana are very aware of rolling traffic, and are NOT aggressive or threatening to people. Exceptions are probably weeded out very quickly. * Many many many Mayan women (starting as young girls) walk by, handlessly balancing on their heads great bundles, baskets, piles of fabric. Some guys walk by with books or radios similarly balanced on *their* heads. * When I speak of 'Mayas' I don't refer to any 'racial' profile - these indigenous folk are as diverse as any other group - but to a discernible cultural identification, flagged by their CLOTHES. Anyone (except EuroGringos in Maya drag) who wears a noticable fragment of traditional garb, I'll refer to as 'Maya' in these notes. Since they make up 40%+ of Guatemala's population, that's a pretty safe call to make. * Chichi (or maybe Chajul, or Zuni) is the most 'different' place I've ever been in my rather constrained life, but Pana is the most COMFORTABLE different place, even more so than Antigua, the cultural center. And the views are better here. * Prof. Peter saw a walkingstick (y'know, the insect) from the veranda here yesterday. Wish I could stay longer, see more. Sigh... * We booked the Lake tour for tomorrow. We've seen (bits of) the included villages before, mostly in our early Guatemala days. But we've seen a lot more since then, and it'll be good to go back with different eyes, at a different pace, with a different group. And it'll be good to fly across the Lake again, in a bigger boat this time. Lanchas bounce. * I remain very admiring of the Guatemalan people, and very pessimistic about their prospects. This remains a very difficult to transform, and the alternatives to change are hideous. Only cruel gods seem to operate here - the kind ones pick gentler domains. * The official state tourist map shows detailed plans of only Guáte, Antigua, Pana and Atitlán, Xela, Tikal, and Flores and Santa Elena on Rio Dulce. Apparently nothing else in the country is worth mapping for foreigners (although I'd add Chichi if space permitted). * Bananas grow on banana trees, which are common here. Pig out. Don't get caught. * Pana is the most Web-wired place on earth because of a thick cable emanating from the sattelite dishes at the central telephone office, which is just across the road from a veritable phalanx of mobile fried-chicken-and-potato stands. Coincidence, or... ??? * The elder of my sisters sez her tall Panama-raised husband sez my chicken-bus description is absolutely correct. He's suffered on many of the breed. I feel good, being backed-up by an expert. * We've never liked Gatorade, always avoided it. But in Guatemala, to keep our bodies hydrated and electrolyted, we drink it daily. A few days ago we found a local product, Revive (Re-VEE-vay) which doesn't taste quite as vile as the original. Doctor-approved, too. * We've been sick but now we're medicated, tuned-up, feeling good, ready to spend a few more weeks seeing the rest of the Guatemalan highlands. Ha ha. Stateside in days... * The elder of my sisters asked if our recent health travails have changed our future travel plans. Not really, but Maureen thinks that before travelling outside the industrial world again we should have gamma globulin shots to boost our immune systems. And we'll pay close heed to all health advisories. Being rebuilt by nanorobots would be nice too. * I brought along language tapes for studying Spanish - y'know, the ones I should have listened to BEFORE the trip. Haven't used'em here, either - too much else to do, or too sick. But when we get back stateside I'll jump RIGHT ONTO them. Yeah, that could happen... * For daily communications help I carry a small weird Spanish-English dictionary (from Spain) and a military Spanish phrase book (from the Pentagon). At almost any time, one might need to say "Throw down your arms!" (ˇEche las armas al suelo!) or "Don't try any tricks!" (ˇNada de artimańas!) * Another way to know if someone is 'Maya' is, if they giggle or smile or point or whistle or otherwise react to my white-bearded visage. (A village kid even touched it today.) I've taken to rumbling, "Ho ho ho!" to elicit further responses. * Calle Santander is Gringotenango's main drag, 1/2 km long, 5-6 meters wide, not counting sales stalls and stands and booths, pushcarts, signboards, parked cars and trucks and taxis, sleeping dogs and drunks, lounging travelers, trash cans, rubble piles (construction going up or down), and other general impedimentia. It's paved with those ubiquitous concrete blocks and lined with commercial intentions. * Most eateries in Pana are very open-air. Dogs, vendors, buskers (street musicians) and smokers may enter almost anywhere to importune the paying customers. At least in Antigua, dogs and buskers are excluded from most establishments. * Gringotenango's solid businesses, those not operating from temporary stalls, are located in adjacent spaces like a US one-car garage, complete with rolldown steel doors. Fancy establishments have wrought-iron grillwork instead of rolldown doors. Simple places just board-up at night. The stalls? Everything is hauled in and erected every morning, disassembled and hauled-off every night. Manually. On human backs. Over and over.
* Every new line of garage doors marks a future business district. Construction never halts.
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Saturday 17 May 2003Up early; fresh breakfast and gourmet bag lunch; down to the dock, onto the midsize boat; off into the blue. Along the northshore, past the highrises, under the miradors and scummy San Jorge, past Jaibalito's kilometer-wide valley, along jungle cliffs just as gnarly as last time, Past Santa Cruz, San Marcos, whatever. We're cruising at a different tangent than our previous voyages, seeing less distinct detail, more big-picture contexts of this shoreline. This 35-foot boat is also much slower than the lanchas darting inshore, giving more time to absorb impressions. A stately passage - we could probably paddle a double kayak at a faster clip. How slow is the boat? The 12 miles to San Pedro takes over an hour. You work it out. Red-tiled villas scattered along the tree- and shrub-lined shore, bare ramparts rising above, the polychrome villages huddled up on the less daunting slopes. Mottled clouds overhead and molding the caldera rim's spires and ridges - it'll likely rain this afternoon. Smoke from isolated fires rising, merging into the clouds. In San Pedro village it's wash day along the shore, market day in town, and evangelical send-a-gang-of-kids-out-to-pick-up-litter day on the streets. Maybe the prods ARE trying to teach sanitation... Maureen relaxes at a dockside cafe while I stomp all over taking pictures and observing. The village is lively today, looks better after a rain, cooler, but no less vertical. Internet rates are even cheaper here than in Pana! Back on the boat, we cruise south towards Santiago through waves of plastic bottles. Prevailing winds must blow'em to this side of the Lake. The stupendous green-sheathed slopes of San Pedro volcano are textured, wooded - farms and orchards on shallower reaches, play-beaches and rocky points below. At least 5 feet of bare rocks are visible at the waterline, showing how far the Lake has dropped somewhat recently. Now, into Santiago de Atitlán. This time: more boats, more tourists, less vendor focus per visitor, thus it seems less desperate. We wandered through a town that now seems relatively prosperous and clean. A nice old church on the square, many communicants outside. Little Rosa guided us for 2Q (and another Q to get back) through a filthy tract to the Maximon shrine: flashing lights, balloons, odd electronic music, wasted worshippers. Guiding visitors to Maximon is a major industry here, along with selling redundantly beautiful handicrafts. Our gourmet bag lunch is somewhat compromised by flies, vendors, and a lack of plastic forks. But we survive, look at more stuff, and fly back to the boat. On this voyage we spoke to couples from the Bay Area (seeing the mid-latitudes) and Holland (world-traveling for 8 months!) From their reports we're anxious to visit Morocco, Turkey, the Greek islands, Vietnam, and avoid Mexico. And be careful of the food wherever we go. And now chugging at the same stately pace ('The Slow Boat To Pana') in this slow-motion stinkpot along the rustic southshore, past the twin volcanos and Cerro Oro - it feels like we're passing a tropical isle on a misty day. It's hot up on deck, I've retreated to the cabin. Not much breeze on this eastward leg and we're just barely outrunning the diesel plume. Ewww... A break in the clouds, San Antonio is dead ahead and illuminated while the surrounding ramparts are blue-hazed. San Antonio Palopo looks better than last time too, but we only walked a fragment of one peripheral street then. Today we climbed through the vertical and fairly clean village of workshops (weavers mostly) and tiendas and tourist shops (fabrics and ceramics) and polychrome pueblos to the nicely reconstructed but rather sparse church. We caught our collective breath, traversed a bit, repulsed persistant vendors, then rolled back to the boat - only a 40 minute stay and we were the last back aboard. Thunder rolled. We coasted north past Santa Catarina, Junkayá, the mouth of the Rio Pana. More thunder rolled. We crawled into the Sunset Cafe for nachos and liquids and Cuban jazz, and left just as the downpour began. Only slightly soggy on the Monterrey's veranda (we took rain jackets) we're resting, reading, waiting for a break in the rain to go for email and dinner, our final night in Pana. Our Antigua shuttle leaves at noon tomorrow. The email's good, we're confirmed for Posada la Merced in Antigua tomorrow. We go for a nice dinner at Bombay but are smoked out. We try many alternatives for something different to send us off from Pana, but end up back at our safe refuge, Las Chinitas. We'll hit them tomorrow for our final good waffles here, then we're gone. For now. | |
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