martes 25 abril

martes, 25 abril

well, this isn’t too bad, feels like ages since I’ve updated this, but it’s really only been a couple days, because I wrote saturday afternoon and although it’s tuesday now, it’s bright and early… actually the couple glimpses that I can get through the trees show me a sky that looks overcast and I hear the grumbling of thunder somewhere not too far away… so it’s early, but maybe not as bright as it could be, which is ok with me because that makes it pleasantly cool despite the humidity which hangs heavily in the air and smells and tastes pungently like the earth herself is sweatily recuperating from a night a amorous indiscretion.

I’m in rio dulce now. well, actually I’m not in the town of rio dulce, which when I arrived there yesterday, seemed pretty much like more of the same sort of place I’ve been getting used to elsewhere, but I am on the rio dulce – almost literally… maybe literally, now as I look now over the ledge and realize that water does seem to go all the way beneath this cabana. I’m on sort of an inlet, not the main drag of the river, very quiet and tranquil, the only sounds so far this morning being birds and jungle noises, which are the kinds of things that a new-age sound mixer might put on a cd to help the city-bound overcome insomnia… for now they seem to be comfortably background noise volumed… say about a three or four, and had I not just woken from a pleasant night’s sleep, maybe they’d cause me to doze off a bit myself.

I’m staying at a place mentioned in the lonely planet, it’s called casa perico, and although it sounded attractive when I read about it in the capital, I had opted against it simply because it seemed sort of isolated. but once I arrived, I realized that when it comes to rio dulce, isolated is preferable to the alternative. I’m not likely to run into many locals here, but there are ten or twelve other travelers around and that seems good enough for me.

I have the upper floor of a palapa roofed cabana. the roof is thatched with a double layer of long sort of palm frondish leaves… long straight shafts with countless leaves shooting off to the sides… since I’m on the top, which I guess amounts to the attic (there’s just one room/floor below) my walls are palapa also, but the roof rises at such a steep angle that it makes for quite a comfortable and spacious living area with a very high ceiling. it’ll be interesting to see how things hold out when the rain comes, apparently the roof must work pretty well, because everything seems dry and well preserved. I have a pleasant breeze running through my loft as both ends remain open, no glass enclosures here, just tall triangular openings revealing trees with pendulous vines like rastafarian hair dangling down to the dark but shallow water below. in the middle of the room are two twin beds with mosquito nets. there is a low table and coat rack across from where I’m seated at a picnickish table with benches on each side. there’s also an anachronistically modern oscillating fan, which I’ve turned off now in the coolness of the morning, but last night kept on – neglecting the oscillation option in favor of simply aiming it directly at myself. I fell asleep blanketless, but sometime in the middle of the night, woke enough to cover myself.

outside now I hear human voices and that must mean that the others are rising and that maybe the kitchen is open and breakfast available. I’ll go find out and return to write more later.

miercoles 26 abril

well, it’s later than I intended when I left off writing yesterday morning. it’s about 26 hours later, although time here travels somehow differently than elsewhere… maybe that can be said for all places/times/people…

anyway,let’s see if I can take a stab at catching this up.

jueves 27 abril

well, clearly I didn’t take much of a stab at that yesterday… I think I got sidetracked by breakfast and then read for awhile and then went for a swim… but I’m getting ahead of myself, or at least ahead of where I’ve left off… so let’s see about backtracking.

guatemala city reeked suffocatingly of car exhaust fumes. they billowed out of the back end of every passing vehicle, invading my lungs like three packs a day in a coal mine. I had a great time there, but was anxious to leave before I’d consumed irreparable quantities of carcinogenic toxins. on the plus side the hotel was run down, but cool. it had big rooms and hot water. it was run by a friendly family, and although the restaurants don’t accommodate vegetarians, there was a market down the street, so I did alright once I gave up on eating out.

the museums were great. I went to the popol vuh on saturday, which was good sized and well presented___ just realized I’ve already told about that, I’m not as far behind as I feel. the museum of archeology and ethnology was really impressive – very large, filled with artifacts (sorta casually and carelessly displayed and identified) from all over Guatemala. I was glad that I’d gone to the popol vuh the day before, so I recognized many of the pieces (funerary urns, those neat whistling pitchers, etc…) even though they weren’t labeled. I had the place pretty much to myself. I walked from the north side of the city, leaving the hotel around 7:30, and got there in plenty of time to be there when it opened at 9. the walk was longer than the day before, I think it must’ve been about three and a half miles, but I’m not certain. by the time I was leaving a few other visitors had arrived, but the place definitely doesn’t seem to be well trafficked, or at least isn’t the thing to do on a sunday morning. it’s weekend hours are from 9-4:30, but it closes for an hour and a half in the middle of the day, I guess so the very minimal staff (a guy at the counter and a heavily armed - but amiable - guard on the front steps) can get some lunch. so, I left at halftime and walked over to the zoo, which is nearby.

the aurora zoo is much more popular on sunday afternoons than the museum, but not uncomfortably so. the wait to enter wasn’t more than a couple minutes and it was only that long because I foolishly got in line behind a group paying with a credit card, which caused some kind of confusion that I could observe, but not quite fathom. once inside the grounds I found a pretty wide selection of animals. it was tough to feel as positive as I would’ve liked, because while the inmates didn’t seem abused, neither did they seem particularly thriving. there’s quite an assortment of primates, who with the exception of one baboon happily receiving a pubic delousing, seemed sorta disgruntled. the other animals seemed accepting of their incarceration and a couple bathing grizzly bears actually seemed to be enjoying what maybe they feel is an extended tropical vacation. los jirafes were stoic as usual, but looked very impressive, being in the same area as the zebras and some goats, whose stature really showed off their height… also, because of the design of the enclosure they’re on the same level as the viewers and so really tower above you… unlike the LA zoo which causes you to look down at them from above. also worthy of mention was an african elephant that was doing a remarkable sort of balance beam routine on the concrete lip of the moat separating him from the viewers… whether she was ex of a circus, simply a bit of a graceful daredevil, or tragically suicidal, I couldn’t tell, but she pulled it off without a hitch… and then calmly turned around and retraced her steps.

I spent a couple hours there and saw pretty much everything they had to offer. the children on the bumper cars seemed to be the exhibit having the most fun, although the parents seemed to like watching the monkeys more. I felt particularly bad for the howler monkeys who were constantly pestered and provoked by thoughtless fathers anxious to have them howl for their childrens’ glee… oh well, couldn’t quite see a solution to that one.

the giraffes seemed ok and the llamas didn’t even notice they were in a zoo… I think. but I’ll bet all the animals look forward to closing time when the people go away.

so that was my sunday. I went back to the hotel, wandered around the markets for awhile and went to bed fairly early in anticipation of my early departure,

the next morning I checked out, had a nice goodbye with the friendly family son at the front desk and headed off to the bus depot. I was sorta dreading the six hour bus ride, after being so tightly squeezed during the four hour ride from san pedro, but surprisingly the bus ended up being very modern and comfortable with bucket seats which would’ve limited the squeezing had the crowd been greater, but as it was, there were at least a few empty seats the whole way.

we arrived in rio dulce early afternoonish, and I think I’ve already mentioned that I pretty quickly caught a boat to bring me about ten minutes downstream to this little secluded paradise. I’ve had a lot of relaxing experiences here, but I think will skip the details for now, but briefly – took a boat downriver to Livingston, which was a beautiful trip and a fun afternoon in town… maybe I’ll get back there if I have time later, but for now it was good for an afternoon to smell the saltwater of the caribbean, and experience first hand how different carribean guatemala is from the rest of the country. been doing a lot of swimming over the past couple days… my favorite place is to simply paddle a canoe a quarter of a mile or so, and tie it off at a floating dock and dive in… very simple and luxurious. I’ve become a pretty accomplished canoer if you ask me.

been drawing some pictures and taking some notes… I feel like I’ll be ready to get to work by the time I get back. the best part of being down here is that there are so few things that I can do most of the time that it forces me to do a lot of the things I probably woudn’t give time to if I were home… I’m looking forward to having expanded opportunities and options when I return to the US… but for now, I think I’m making the best of this.

by the time you read this I’ll be on my way to tikal… unless I don’t get around to posting it until after. and then, who knows where I’ll be… sweeping back down south I suppose.

lunes le primero de mayo

or not – on my way to tikal that is – I did stop off and check my email the other day in flores before heading to tikal, but I used the internet place’s computer and so, I didn’t post this. I’m optimistic that I’ll post it tomorrow though, which is why I’m trying to catch it up a bit tonight… although, I’m kinda beat after a long day of traveling, so I think I’ll skip a lot of details.

I left rio dulce friday morning and caught a bus to flores/santa Elena. the ride took about four hours, so I had some time in the afternoon to wander around and check things out. flores is very lovely, santa Elena is not, but both are worth wandering around in, even if the heat was indescribably hot/humid… I pretty much always had a 1.5 liter bottle of water with me, which I would pour in through my mouth and let seap out through my pores, and from there it would either form a slick and shiny liquid coating over all exposed areas of skin, and simply soak through the clothing covering any unexposed areas. weirdly, or maybe perversely, even masochistically I suppose, I enjoyed it… had I not had plenty of rehydrating agua pura handy, maybe it wouldn’t have been as pleasurable, but having my bottle always with me allowed me to feel a sauna-like cleansing… kinda like the euphoria that accompanies having your fever break, but without having to go through the inconvenience of being sick.

saturday morning I went up to tikal. it was of course, amazing. the monuments were everything I expected, and of course I expected them to be, having seen lots of photos and heard lots of descriptions. but what I hadn’t really anticipated was how tremendous the views from the tops of the pyramids/monuments would be, or how much I’d enjoy just walking through the jungle to get from place to place. it was great! needless to say I sweated through more clothing. I spent the night there, but the sunrise was to early to legitimately watch it from the top of the temple because the site doesn’t open until 6 and sunrise was at 5:15, so rather than abuse the park rules I skipped it… but only, I’ll admit, after some moral quandaric soul searching… that and the consideration of the dangers involved in ascending those rickety steps even in the best of daylit circumstances.

spent sunday back in flores. had some fun, made some friends, heard some spanish music. left early this morning and went to sayaxché. I liked it – dirty, dusty, hot, rickety… lots of unpainted board-paneled shacks with corrugated metal roofs – very similar to santa Elena, but smaller and more consistently impoverished… and just as hot. a strange sort of ubiquity of locals wearing “walker texas ranger t-shirts… couldn’t figure that out. I’ve come to expect “puma” apparel and orange crush signs and gallo everything, but the abundance of “walker texas ranger t-shirts” seemed unexplainable. I didn’t see any other non-guateltecos at all, which surprised me because I didn’t think I was that far off the beaten track. there really weren’t that many in flores either and now that I think of it, none in santa elena. of course there were a lot in tikal – mostly german, it seemed, but most of the tikal crowd were Guatemalan, and most of those school groups – having my sketchbook with me led to making friends with some of the students (both high school and college). anyway, I guess the peak tourist season is over – at least that’s what the guidebook says and the scarcity of people and the abundance of rooms seems to bear them out… not that the guidebook is immune to making mistakes… but those are other stories.

the book also tells me that the rainy season starts in may, so it might turn out that I start getting caught in downpours, but it’s hard to picture so far. I made it here to coban this afternoon and have done a little exploring. tomorrow, I’ll wander around some more and with luck, post this update. I’ve been very out of touch with everybody, so will try to catch up on emails too… this traveling phase of my journey doesn’t seem to lend itself to internet related activities as much as the staying put phase did.

so from here, I plan on heading to a sorta secluded sounding place called semuc-champey wednesday morning… it’s supposed to be really beautiful, and if it lives up (or even comes close) to the descriptions I’ll probably stay for a few days.

oh, bytheway I finally found a store (after lots of attempts, and just about giving up hope, and really only trying for the sake of persistence) that stocked the memory card I needed for my camera. it was kinda pricey, but it will be nice to take photos again. in the mean time, friends I met in rio dulce and went to livingston with named eitan and lital, sent the ones I've uploaded here. there are shots of the trip we took down the river, a crocodile that was in livingston, a happy family in livingston and this bonus shot of lital and a traditionally dressed woman (from antigua?) thanks for sending the photos guys!