A Walk in the Clouds. And Horses**t. Oh, I mean, "Climbing Pacaya."

At first, you think that the boys selling hand-hewn walking sticks are kind of annoying, as they are relentless. But you buy one anyway because those who have gone before you say having one is a good idea--especially on the way down. Plus, buying one gets the kids off your back. Then there are the guys selling bags of marshmallows--yes, marshmallows--and you say, "Thank you, but no, I do not want to roast marshmallows over hot spots in the cooled off lava for breakfast," but they keep asking you anyway, so you think, "Man, is that ever annoying."

Then you decide it is the men on horses who follow your every step, incessantly offering "un taxi natural," that are more irritating. I mean, geez, you haven't even started the climb--do you look like that big of a wuss? And after you start to climb, it is the piles of horse shit that make every step both irritating and dangerous. Who wants to step in that? The first 1/4 of the climb is more about avoiding poop than it is about the climb (sorry about the vague Miley Cyrus reference).

By now, you are working hard; it is after all, a volcano and volcanoes are mountains that ooze, drool, spit and rumble. And you start to think that the most annoying part of the whole experience is Arturo, your guide, who walks up this thing twice a day, every day of the week, and who never loses his smile, his chipper, cheery smile, as he darts ahead, waits for you to catch up and asks, "?todos estan bien?" ("everyone okay?") only to take off again after the last person has caught up.

But then you realize that the young Australian couple, the two people who speak not a word of Spanish, are way ahead of you and seeing their disappearing asses kind of pisses you off. If they slowed down just a bit, then maybe Arturo would, too, so maybe you could catch enough air to blow out the fire that has started to burn in your lungs. 

But no, there is no point in slowing down, because you realize that the slower you go, the longer it will take to get to the top, so you pretend that all of the hours spent running on a treadmill and gliding on the elliptical trainer in order to improve your heart's ability to pump blood efficiently, that all of the times you have hoisted yourself up and down, weights in hand, in order create muscles in your butt, have really paid off. And so you realize that you, in that particular moment of time up there on the side of a f**king volcano for crissakes, are the most annoying thing.

But wait, you are now in a cloud; a cloud! a cloud? Yes, a cloud and you realize you are very close the top, the top of a volcano from which you will not be able to see a damn thing because YOU ARE IN A CLOUD.

So there you are, near the top of the volcano, thinking, "Man, I wish those clouds would go away," thinking that, maybe for Arturo the clouds are not annoying, but he is up here all the time and is probably not impressed with the view, or himself for that matter, not the way you were hoping to be when you told all of your friends about the great experience of climbing a volcano, an actual honestogod active volcano and showed them all the great pictures.

But wait, you are there, finally there at the top! And you think, "Gee, what is that little shack?" and then you see the sign hanging from the roof. "Pacaya Design Souveniers," it says. You realize that even here on top of a volcano they will try to get you, and you look at the ugliest jewelry you have ever seen in your life: little pebbles of volcanic rock glued together and set in silver with price tags that make you marvel a how gullible someone must think you are if they think you would ever consider buying, let alone wearing, dirt for earrings.







Out come the bags of marshmallows that, yes, the Australians have carted up the volcano, and Arturo gleefully bounces around from one steaming hole to another, searching for the right amount of heat to melt sugar. You are in a moonscape created by the last eruption that happened 15 months ago and it is windy and cold and damp because you are still in a cloud.

But the clouds, yes the clouds! are starting to blow away and within the span of one second you think about a) the photos you will now be able to take, and b) the edge fear that has plagued you all your life but for some reason you forgot about when you agreed to (finally!) climb Pacaya.

But there is no time to ruminate because off goes Arturo, Australians close behind, so you do your best to put that edge fear thing away, back in the box it had been stored in, but now that you are climbing down, the direction that gives life to your fear, you never ever lose the sensation that you will now fall off the world, only to land on the sharpest stuff in the universe--volcanic rock.
Finally, you realize that the scree you are now walking--no, not walking, but sliding, surfing skiing--in is the most annoying part of the experience. You think fondly back the the route up, the route that did not go through the scree-covered path of the last eruption, and wish for the sure-footedness of rock covered in horse shit.

Then you fall. Then you fall again. And again. Not too hard, though, because after all, you are walking down at a sharp angle so there is not too far to go before your butt hits the scree, but the slide after the fall is irritating as hell. And then you realize that those damn Australians are inexplicably behind you, and they are laughing. You think that you might hit them with your stick, should you ever make it back on your feet long enough to swing it.

Back on your feet, you realize that the climb down is physically much more demanding than the climb up. Your quads quiver from the effort of keeping you erect (an effort that is not fully realized (see last paragraph)), and your knees, especially your left one, is reminding you that tendons are precious things that should be treated with better care than you are currently giving them.

Wistfully, you remember los taxis naturales--the horses--that turned back long ago, and your knee is talking to you:"dumbass," it says. In numb agreement, you move on, or rather, down, one foot after the other. The only glimmer of grim joy is that you are now ahead of the Australians and no longer have to look at their trim, bouncy asses.

There is Arturo. Wait, is he on flat ground? Well, flatter ground anyway, and you know the end is near.
You have made it; you have climbed up and then down a volcano. You have managed to do what you have avoided for fours years. You feel at once silly and proud for having participated in An Experience. You laugh at little to yourself about all the things that seemed so annoying in the moment, but really were only the elements that make the experience memorable.

"Not bad, not bad at all," you think to yourself early the next morning before you get out of bed. And then you do get out of bed and the muscles in your legs, your quadriceps,  sweetjesusgodalmighty hurt more than you ever remember a muscle hurting. And now you know the most annoying thing about climbing Pacaya.

Us with Joseline, goddaughter numero dos (see how brown I am?!?:)); Rico, yo y Juan Antonio, our ahijado; Richard and Susana, la otra (the other)

Richard was here for twelve days. We explored the vibrant city of Antigua Guatemala—its incredible restaurants, many designed to attract tourists, some designed with local people in mind and one really really great one called Panza Verde for anyone who can afford it; we crawled through mercado after mercado, absorbing the ridiculous array of colors; we searched for the best deals on stuff like jade and art; we studied Spanish with phenomenal teachers; we burned our feet in the hot black sand of Monterrico and were privileged to see the fragile, endangered mangrove forest; we met really cool, smart and interesting people (you know who you are:)); and drank some great beer—Gallo for him and the best dark beer in the world, Moza, for me. And if you ask him, which I did, Richard will tell you that going to Nuestro Futuro in Ciudad Vieja to meet our ahijados was the very best part of the whole trip.

Yep. It is a cool place. The library (sans the stupid "donation" of used English classics. I repeat, Billy Budd--really?!?) is fully functioning now with computers for community use and some books, real ones, in Spanish and at all levels. The food is also real food now; the kids get tortillas and frijoles at 9:30 and then a real lunch at 12:30 before they go home, as opposed to the white bread with jam on it from the last two years. A part-time child psychologist has been hired and there is also a curriculum expert. Every day, amidst math and science and Spanish, the kids learn of the great Mayan culture of past days and its influence on modern-day Central America. They also learn of more modern-day heroes, such as Jacobo Arbenz who, in our pathetic sense of knowing what is best, we, the US, had couped (yeah, I know--no such word. Deal with it.) out of office in 1954 because he had the wild idea that Guatemalan land should be owned by, oh, maybe Guatemalans--the people who work it?!? Of course, the terceros aren't getting all of that, but they are learning that, amidst the hardness of life in poverty and living at the lower levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, there are real things to be proud of. And oh, yeah, a second school in San Lorenzo (a kind of suburb about 10 minutes away) has just broken ground, with classes scheduled to start in January. Way cool!!!! There are now 134 students at Nuestro Futuro and I think someone said that 82 now have padrinos. Money well spent on our part (could be on your part, too--just a suggestion:)).

Richard says (again, cuz I asked him) it was humbling to go out to the school and meet our ahijados and see all of the kids doing their thing. When we got there, two volunteer wanna-bes who ended up not really sticking around for more than a couple of days were at organized play with the terceros. Everyone was having a great time, as these kids love love love attention from big people and big people love love love the monsoon of unsolicited affection.

Yet "humbling" seems a strange word to use in describing the experience. We are typically humbled in the presence of greatness, brought to the realization of our own puniness on the face of something much bigger, grander than ourselves. What is so grand about 34 kids, many in raggedy-ass clothes, and many chronically malnourished, doing what all kids do--laughing, learning, crying, running, fighting, making up, flirting, tattling, joking, helping, goofing off, struggling and on and onning? I asked my new BFF, Harriet, volunteer extraordinaire from Holland, this question, and we mulled it over. We agree, working out at Nuestro Futuro has humbled us both, yet we struggled to put words to the reason why. We came up with stuff like, "Oh, we have some much and take it all so very for granted and seeing people who don't have all that we do nonetheless moving forward is powerful," but this doesn't quite work because it still assumes that there is something grander about our own lives, which in many, many significant ways is very true. I guess "grander" does not mean the same thing as "more important," and maybe that is what is humbling--the realization, not that we are puny, but that neither are those 134 kids, skinny and short though many of them may be.

Anyway, I think Richard's experience was really good and I also think he now has a better sense of WTF I am doing when I come down here. Maybe now he can explain it to me:).

I have two weeks to go, but maybe only one more at NF, as I am kind of tired and am ready for a vacation (yeah, pathetic, I know, but remember that I am still studying Spanish in addition to the time I spend with the kids, plus I have been doing a bit of SSCC work, as well. Okay, poor me. I get it. I will stop now.). Belize is close by and I am thinking of treating myself to a couple of days on a Caribbean beach--one where I can go in the water!

Paz a todos.

Photos from the mangrove. I can't figure out how to arrange the photos as I want them on Blogger, so pretend that you read before looking!
The black lumpy thing in the branches is a termite nest. The last photo is of the road we walked to get to the boat launch. I think you can figure out which one is the boat launch.

Whewww! Last week I got sick on Rico's last day here. I thought maybe it was dengue or malaria, what with our trip to Monterrico where even the 98% deet (yes, really, 98%!!!!) did not stop the little a-holes from chopping away on my delicate self. But fortunately, I was improved enough to allow Richard to slip out the door at 4 AM, Sunday morning. I was, not, however, up to writing, and then the school week started up (I am studying/in class for 4 hours in the morning (I have read an ENTIRE novel in Spanish--Once Minutos by Paulo Cuelho--and am very impressed with myself) and then I go out to Ciudad Vieja for 4 hours of little kids in the afternoon), so no writing for me. But now I have a bit of free time, and thus here are a few thoughts and images:

Monterrico is a black sand beach on the Pacific coast of Guatemala. It is an easy 15-20 degrees F hotter there than here in Antigua, and I was happy to take my sun-loving, surfer-wanna-be husband to a place that did not have the exact same crappy weather as Seattle. As I mentioned last time, we couldn't go in the water because of the undertow, so we will definitely not be retiring in a place that entices only to tease. Still, the heat was a good change from the 65-70F with rain in both Antigua and Seattle, and the pool at our hotel is advertized as the best in Monterrico. It certainly worked for us.

Besides the sun, walks on hot black sand, and the great pool, the other really cool thing to do in Monterrico is to get up very early and take a guided tour in a pole-powered boat through the mangroves. At first R. did not want to go; he found the part about 5:15 AM off-putting. But I won (it happens a lot:)), and so off we went. Our guide met us in the still dark outside the hotel gate and walked us through the town where the street is lined with little shops and restaurants, into the back roads that are mostly dirt and mud, and finally to a launch where a handful of boats was lined up waiting to slip off into the river. Describing a mangrove forest is challenging, so I will show probably more than tell (see pictures above), but one thing pictures can't really convey is peace and tranquility. Gliding through the water with only the power of strong arms as they pull, push and lift a long wooden pole to send us forward is a sensation that is a bit foreign for those of us who rely on cars, ferries and buses to get places. Even cycling is not the same because the mangrove itself is so very silent.

The mangrove in Monterrico is an internationally protected area. Yet ecotourism is a lucrative business all over the world, and even though Monterrico (as is true in a lot of Guatemala outside of Antigua) hasn't really caught on to the very polished and highly organized methods of selling experiences as though they were tangible products, there are many people who have lived their lives on the banks of the swamp who now rely on tourist dollars from the early morning tours to pay for the cable satellites that sit in the yards of their very humble homes. We shared our school here in Antigua with a woman working on her Anthropology doctorate studying the effects of ecotourism on indigenous populations; it is not such a pretty picture, as people give up what is natural and sustainable in order to make money--money that is never quite enough to truly provide adequate substitutes for what is naturally available.

And of course, the effects of the much-maligned human foot print have not been so great in many places that are natural, delicate wonders. While the presence of very small, human-powered boats does not seem to yet be leaving such a huge mess in the mangrove, soon someone will figure out a way to multiply access, and what will result is anyone's guess. So I am conflicted: I am so very glad to have seen the mangrove and so very aware that I bought an experience that maybe participated in a very small way in the demise of an essential ecosystem. Richard's observation was that the mangrove is a birth center. Fish of all kinds swim there and many, many kinds of birds and aquatic life rely on the mangrove to live. In addition, the two types of mangroves whose roots start in upper branches and sink into the shallow mud provide stuff that an ecologist/biologist could better explain than I, stuff that makes a difference well beyond the banks of the swamp.

But man, it was so cool!

"Plastic plastic every where nor any drop to..." oh, wait, Coleridge was talking about sea water, not plastic, right? Last weekend, Richard and I went to Monterrico on the Pacific coast of Guatemala and there was plenty of sea water there, too. While we were not interested in drinking it, we did wish we could have swum in it, but alas, the surf there is VERY strong with an undertow that could probably pull an army tank into the water. So we settled on wetting our feet and then swimming in the pool at our hotel when we got too hot (I am very tan now:)). But I digress. (More on Monterrico in the next post).

Last year when I was here, I met a guy who was doing graduate-level work in Germany studying plastic (Hi, Max!). I can't remember a whole lot about what he told me, but one thing did kind of stick: the trick now is not so much in creating more plastic, as it is in finding better ways to use the plastic we have already created (so sorry, Max, if I have misrepresented what you explained to me). I remember, too, trying to explain that scene from The Graduate wherein the new college grad Benjamin (the character played by a very young Dustin Hoffman) receives the sage, one word advice from one of his father's cronies: "Plastic." I guess you had to be there. I don't think Max was able to see the humor in a 1960's movie about the disaffection that intimately nuzzled the neck of a generation old enough to include his elderly aunts and uncles, if not quite his grandparents.

But yeah, plastic.

As I said, plastic, plastic everywhere. This country relies on plastic in oh so many forms. Ask for a packet of gum and you get a sheet of plastic-lined foil with individual pieces of gum secure in little bubbles of plastic. No Wrigley's foiled-wrapped sticks of gum here. Every little purchase at the grocery store, the mercado, or even the little tiendas that line the streets is handed over in plastic bags (no, "Paper or plastic?" here). They have them in many sizes, from the size of the afore-mentioned packet of gum on up to big enough to carry groceries. This is, after all, a VERY wet country. Gum that is not so packaged is unchewable after a matter of hours because it is inextricably stuck to the foil wrapper. Purchases that are not carried away in plastic bags are likely to be soaked from the frequent yet oddly unpredictable rain. The bags are thin--there are no Target-strength bolsas--and given to tearing easily, but they are nonetheless very valuable. Trash baskets (yes, I do mean the ones next to the toilet for you-know-what, as well as the ones for regular trash) are lined with the bags and get changed pretty much on a daily basis. Figuring out why the one in the bathroom gets changed regularly isn't too hard; the others get changed because, should there be any food waste in them, an infinite number of little teeny tiny ants swarm to carry bits of food back to wherever they hang out when they are not marching around the room.

Another very common use of plastic has to do with the street vendors. Every day, Mayans cart their goods to the streets of Antigua in order to hopefully earn enough money to make the effort of creating and carrying worth it. Many vendors have little wooden stalls where they carefully arrange their merchandise; sheets of plastic are carefully rolled up like theater curtains, ready to drop at the first hint of water. There is one mercado where merchants lay huge sheets of plastic right on the street and arrange their stuff in equal artistry. Piles of incredible hand-loomed fabrics, jewelry made of jade and silver, wooden flutes and bowls--all painted in the vibrancy of the Guatemalan spectrum--cover the plastic, and there the merchants sit, exclaiming "?Que buscas?" (what are you looking for?) and, "un buen precio para ti," ( a good price for you) over and over again to anyone who even slows in step, let alone makes eye contact. And then the rain starts. Out come more plastic sheets, some large enough to cover small swimming pools, and the carefully arranged treasures are covered, unmolested. Then the rain stops, and off goes the plastic. And then the rain resumes, and again plastic is unfurled. I am not sure how many times a day this pattern is repeated during the rainy season. But I do think that plastic has allowed these people a better opportunity to make money.

Plastic furniture is also every where. I am sitting in a green plastic chair right now while Richard sits a few feet away in one studying Spanish with his teacher, David. Many of the smaller restaurants and most of the language schools (tons of them!!!) have the same chairs as well as matching tables (although the tables here at the school are of rough-hewn wood). The mercado is filled with cheap plastic toys and hair trinkets--kind of like at one of those horrible things called "dollar stores." Food stalls of course hand out flimsy, incompetent plastic forks with meals piled onto styrofoam plates. Plastic is cheap and lightweight (if not always durable), and thus fills needs and makes life easier in many ways. Even the Antigua gym, where I go every morning to sweat--oh, wait, I sweat here all the time. Why do I go to the gym again?!?--anyway, the gym has a beautiful, wooden floor laid over what was once a courtyard and is ceilinged (neologism:)) by a huge tarp. The tarp is patched with duct tape and is also very leaky, so the floor is most often covered with, yep, one of those huuuuge sheets of plastic.

And then, of course, there are the water bottles.

As any northern traveler who ventures to the southern parts of the world knows, drinking water down here is Not a Good Idea. Some people blame the local food for traveler's diarrhea, and others blame mysterious, "foreign" viruses, but most often the reality is that a water-borne bacteria that we do not have in northern water messes with our alimentary systems, as we have no natural means of dealing with it. I wrote about my own intimate, dark-of-night relationship the toilet that didn't flush two years ago. Gross. And thank goodness for Cipro. Of course, most travelers do their homework and know not to drink the water. (Even though somehow some of us still get hit hard, no matter how diligent we are when brushing our teeth or keeping our mouths closed in the shower:(.) So "agua pura" is sold everywhere, absolutely everywhere. Here in Antigua, precautions are taken: restaurants that exist on the tourists' money know to make ice and licuados (the most incredibly delectable drink of fresh pureed fruits--kind of like slushies but ohmygod so much better!) with purified water, and they wash the veggies in it, as well; homestays have water filters attached to their faucets, as does the kitchen here at Centro Linguisto where I study and live. But travelers are often a wary breed, so even while we in the States are weaning ourselves of the ridiculous habit of buying plastic bottles of water at extortionary sums, in Central America, bottled water is a still-booming business. And also necessary. Outside of Antigua and other very popular tourist centers, the water served in public is not very carefully monitored. Just ask my friend Jason who spent a weekend at a hospital somewhere near Lake Atitlan, and then spent the rest of 2010 trying to rid himself of the water-borne parasite that settled comfortably in his body. Again, gross.

In short, plastic is now essential here in Guatemala. The main industry--tourism--is dependent on keeping things dry, keeping travelers safe. Plastic provides shelter and protection to people and things.

Troubling, though, is that, while plastic things are often vulnerable, plastic itself seems to hang around forever. Like I said, plastic plastic everywhere.

Richard leaves very early Sunday morning. We have had a really good time crawling around Antigua and going to the beach. My plan is to write more about Monterrico, as well as our trip to Ciudad Vieja where Richard got to meet our 3 ahijados ("godchildren") and the rest of the kids at Nuestro Futuro, on Sunday. Pictures included:).

Paz a todos!
Jali