Good to Be Working Again, Part II

I commuted from San Marcos for my first half week of work, delaying my move to Tzununa because I met a beautiful woman and wanted to stay nearby to her. By the time Saturday came, I was ready to haul my shit one village over and see how things played out with the girl having a bit of distance between us. There was certainly already some distance between her mindset and mine but that made it interesting.


My first night in Tzununa was awful. Thinking back on my worst nights from all my time spent traveling, this was up there in real shitty ones. It commenced while I was reading in the afternoon. I started Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, which I would recommend to some of my male friends and Michelle Railsback. Music began to blare. There's a church next to the hotel. In preparation for the band a couple hours later, they played song after song way too loud. They had mounted a bullhorn-looking speaker, as if the rest of the amps weren't enough, on the church roof pointing at the center of town right through my hotel room. I read for a while and was actually able to get into the book. Loud music. I took a long walk, bought groceries, and came back. Loud music. I cooked dinner, ate, and cleaned up. Loud music. I read more and got tired and fell asleep. As soon as I got under the covers, I became allergic to the bed. There's two blankets but no sheet. Nothing seems dirty, in fact, I'm not sure anyone's ever stayed in this room, but I would really prefer a sheet.


I woke up at some unknown time later. It was obviously still dark, The music was still blaring. My nose is an itchy, snotty mess. I'm groggy and very unhappy. A bare bulb burning out on the porch feels like an arc welder against my retinas as I search for something to blow my nose into.


I realize when I step out to the toilet that it's no longer the church next to the hotel but the church behind the hotel. I don't know which way their speaker is pointed, but I'm sure their wall of amps is facing me. It's far too loud.


I don't have any tissues, so I use the toilet paper in the room to angrily wipe the snot from my face. My nose will fare worse for this. Calm down. Be angry but wipe your nose gently. It's rough toilet paper. But if you don't wipe with some force, most of the snot remains on the face and mustache. There's no trash can in this horrible room, so I fling each saturated clump to the wall forming a pile that will further depress me in the morning.


This sucks. This reminds me of the torture scene in Zero Dark Thirty. If anyone ever wants to torture me, use the music and I'll probably break. At the end of each song, I pray it was the last, but for hours on end, my prayers have been shat on. OK, what can I do? I don't know why, but that light is killing me. I would certainly trade in the fancy one-way mirrored windows for some regular windows and a curtain. I string up my towel and that's a big help but unfortunately that's it for improvement. It's funny to think about what would happen if I went over to the church and asked them to turn their music down, or off, because I'm trying to sleep and also I'm not feeling 100%.


There's one other hotel in town. Not a hotel like in a hotel sense with reception, etc., but a few extra rooms at a family's house where you can stay if you give them money. Walking up there now, where I'll still be able to hear this music, if not as loud, at this unknown hour on a Saturday night seems out of the question.


Then there's the bed. I can't just become unallergic to this bed the same as the mattress won't magically become thicker and more even. I posit that if I put a couple shirts on and keep the blankets near my waist, it may ease the reaction. It helped enough to fall asleep after a while.


I woke up a bit after sunrise and reveled in the lack of blasting music. I opened up my book and read a few pages when the music started up again. Luckily, the responsible church was off in the distance and the music came in at a now seemingly amateur volume.


Back to work tomorrow. Thursday, we erected the scaffolding using bamboo and wire. There are two crews on site: Walter's and Santiago's. Walter is doing the bamboo so I'm with him and Gerson has been brought in specially by the architect Charlie for his bamboo experience. In places, two horizontal bamboo rods side by side will have a plank laid over and screwed in to form a decent platform. Gerson wanted to walk across one of the single rods that spanned about 10-ft between two platformed areas. He simply walked across. If he fell one way, it would be 20-ft down to hard, sandy, rocky earth and if he fell the other way, it would be 16-ft down to a stone stairway. He made it each time he did it.


Walter really welcomed me into his group right away. He's the 23 year old crew chief who wear s a neon green tank top with “Nudist on Strike” painted on. He involved me and the rest of the guys soon followed suit. It also helped that I joined in hauling bamboo. They help out when I need it, kind-spirited and eager to show off their talents and skills. I hear a lot of “Cuidado Maximo”.


The guys start at seven and take a half-hour for breakfast at 10. Their wives, or maybe mothers, sisters, aunts, or cousins bring their warm food to the site sometime before. It's always a stack of tortillas and something to put on them. We've been breakfasting standing up around a 55-gallon drum and everyone shares. The first day I couldn't scrape much together so I only brought cold tortillas. Walter wouldn't allow that as cold tortillas need either be heated up or given to the chuchos, so I shared in warm tortillas topped with various ramens, spaghettis, black beans and even a bowl of shrimp in tomato sauce. Day 2, I brought some leftover pasta and before I knew it, forks were flying over to give it a try and I felt officially in.


I was hoping working the construction gig would include built-in Spanish practice, but unfortunately for me, it's mostly Kaqchikel spoken on site. Kaqchikel is difficult and almost completely unwritten. I can't repeat a short phrase correctly. I try to repeat the sounds that seem like the important ones to me, but the breathy noises and different mouth action sounds carry great importance as well. I'm not sure how to jump into Kaqchikel but I wish I did.  Luckily, the local children are happy to repeat a phrase as many as 16 times in a row finding great entertainment in my repeated, failed attempts to pronounce correctly.  We worked with trying to nail down the names of two villages above Tzununa up in the hills: Sanxshjomelxsh and Pajomelxsh.



Back on the site, I experienced sheer horror after we hoisted a 7-meter bamboo to stand vertically atop the 2^nd level scaffold. Now out of our reach, Walter and Samuel hugged their bodies into the beam and the beam it would be wired to. I craned my neck looking upward remaining ready to dive out of the way as the rod swayed this way and that in the wind. We don't have a crane or anything like that. We do have a drill. A drill and wire snips and a handmade ladder. It's good to be working again, half days of course.  

Merry Christmas from the Heart of the Mayan World

Happy Holidays and New Year!

It does feel a bit odd to experience the Christmas Season around here.  It's beautiful during these days of the windy season and long-sleeved shirts are only necessary in the evenings when the air carries the faintest touch of a real chill.  Ninety something percent of the local population here has never seen snow.

The locals are excited for Christmas and so am I.  I'm very excited for Christmas to come, and go, so the people can take their lights down.  Very popular here are 'music lights'.  These are Christmas lights with a built in loop of Christmas songs that emit in high-pitched terrible beeping tones that sound like the ringtone from the first, and worst, cell phone ever.  There is an (unused) option to have the lights go with no music, which is great, but there is also the option to play the loop in double-time, not so great.  As I sleep, at the Mirador, I can hear a mixture of two sets of music lights.  In fact, muddling up Frosty and Rudolph may be better than each alone.  As I write this on 21 Dec, I think I can manage four more nights and trust these people to dismantle all their noise-making decorations promptly on Christmas Day.

___________

I feel as though at times I'm being unfair to Guatemala here at The Reprieve Report by speaking about the country with a voice that doesn't match my real attitude.  I write a lot about the funnyisms, sillyisms, oddisms, frustratisms, et ceteraisms, of the land and I may exaggerate certain things (though not much).  While it seems like a completely different world from the land of my upbringing, I absolutely love it here.  The differences make it fun and it's simply more free and less rigid.  It's a dirt poor country in an extreme environment but there is happiness in the people that would rival that of people anywhere, rich or poor.  You learn a ton daily simply by virtue of your presence here.  The landscape is stunningly beautiful and seems to magically change if you walk, or just wait, ten minutes.  After three months around this Lake Atitlan, I'm scratching the surface of a real knowledge base of its contours and villages happy to succumb to its temptation to stay and make a life here.  I encourage anyone thinking about visiting to do so.  I can help with arrangements around the lake and the rest of the country has plenty to offer all very affordable and not nearly as dangerous as books and the internet make it seem.

I'm also excited to pass into a new year 'overseas', which I've never before done.

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, happy other holidays and a very healthy New Year!!

Good to Be Working Again, Part I

11.20.13

It's good to be doing something again. I'm volunteering, for now, so I wouldn't dare set an alarm, but I usually wake up at or before daybreak, around six, and work doesn't start til seven.

My first impressions of Tzununa after half a week of work were good. It's a simple, poor village much like the others, but the people in each village have a distinct look in their faces and skin and a unique, traditional style of dress that the women still wear every day. Here in Tzununa, the base is black. I like it a lot. There are often diamonds or lines stitched in a string in a low contrast color, like a grey. With brighter, more colorful threads, they stitch in lines of other shapes or flowers or birds. The bright colors used here on the skirts and shirt collars are mostly a mix of blues, greens and aquas. I've only been here for a few days, but I'm enjoying the look. The women seem to have attitudes to match their snazz uniforms. Serious and stern: the black. But lighthearted, friendly and kind: the blues and greens.

It's nice to be working again.  Work is the construction of a three-story bamboo hotel here in Tzununa. The ground level has already been built up with stones. Stones are free except for the paying the men who gather them from the river and haul them to the site on their backs. They use a bag and rope system with a strap that goes around and over the forehead. A group will help each other get loaded up, except I suppose the last guy does it on his own. They carry incredible weights, especially for the size of the men, great distances. You have the guys who hike up the mountain, chop up firewood and load it on their backs with a similar head-rope system. They hike steep, rocky trails several thousand feet down. Wellies are common, busted up shoes are common and some old dudes do it barefoot. Rarely does a guy do it in the type of shoes I would wear walking the same trails with a small backpack. Those guys haul downhill.

Construction guys haul shit uphill. It's convenient and comforting to know with certainty that the smallest guy in any crew is well stronger than me. When I'm cringing through a task and give the load over to the small guy, I'm assured that if I was able to do it at all, he'll do it without cringing. After hauling a full load a good distance, maybe 20 minutes uphill, the workers release the load slowly and gradually and sit to rest for at least five minutes. One sight at the site made a big load easily quantifiable. A guy carried up two 50-kg bags of cement at a time. 220 lbs. Maybe it doesn't sound like that much, but imagine giving a 220-lb woman a 15-minute piggyback ride up a mountain. Imagine doing it in flop-flops.

Day 1 involved moving the bamboo up from the road to the site. Handling the six-inch thick, 20-ft length or bamboo was more a challenge of balance and maneuvering than a test of bearing a great weight. I got the hang of it and it was actually harder on Day 2 when those muscles behind the collar bones were so sore that reloading them with more stick was painful.

So it's nice to be working again. I've had two weeks off since my last vacation ended trekking in the Western Highlands. I spent the morning hours of most of that time working on the writing of an instructional, and partly anecdotal, book about travel photography for people who want to stop taking such horrible pictures and showing them to me. I spent the afternoons doing a variety of things that together constitute general fucking off. My enthusiasm for the writing waned after my own camera briefly went swimming in the rio above San Marcos at the little pool where the trail goes over the huge rock. This was the day after I wrote the part about keeping your gear dry and protected. A little probably won't hurt, but try to keep it dry. You can't take pictures if your camera breaks. My camera is fucked. A guy in Panajachel is going to look at it. The last guy I let look at something fixed it. It was this $11 Casio alarm clock. All the liquid crystal displays stopped displaying and the little light wouldn't turn off. I was going to be American about it and toss the thing in the garbage. Just for shits, I brought it to the Casio Authorized Dealer Specialist that happened to be next to the hotel in Huehuetenango. This was probably the third highlight from Huehue after a really good torta at the square and finding an XL J. Crew button-neck hoody at a used clothing store.

The owner took the job seriously. He kept it simple stupid; batteries were his first suggestion for the cure. I pointed out the illumination yet hiding in the daylight so he went to work cracking it open, spraying some stuff on the circuit board and viola. What was wrong? It's a “bad machine”. The camera is seemingly fucked, but I'm gonna let this other guy look. His shop is down a hall through a tienda past a couple bedrooms and you never know. I wish I could still take pictures. But I have a lot of other stuff on my mind and it certainly feels nice walking around with no valuable stuff. I'll be excited to finish the book a bit down the road and maybe with some fresh photos.

TBC

Machete Count

1

Sorry for the contentless check-ins.  I´ll try to work up something for the Report as soon as is humanly possible or as soon as I have time or as soon as I feel like it or sometime.  This reminds of both Catch-22, which I´m reading (along side the biography, Bonhoeffer) and Guatemala in general.  Just two days ago I had the following conversation, joined in progress and translated from the crappy Spanish, at a new hotel with the grandfather-aged owner, Diego:

Diego:  For the week, its 200 Quetzales.
Me:  Great. And is there a kitchen I can use?
Diego:  No. Sadly, there´s no kitchen.
Me:  Ohhhh, hmm, it would be a lot better if there was a kitchen.
Diego:  You´d like a kitchen?
Me:  Yes, I´d like to be able to prepare some meals here.
Diego:  There´s a kitchen.  Come with me.

He takes me down one flight of steps into his family´s compound/comlplex and shows us into a fully outfitted kitchen.  Whoever used to use this kitchen is not using it.

Me:  Oh, this is excellent.  This will do just fine.
Diego:  You can cook with firewood on this stove.
Me:  Oh, firewood...What about that stove? (pointing to a normal-looking gas or electric stove/oven)
Diego:  Oh, that stove.  Noooo.  That stove doesn´t work.
Me:  It doesn´t work?
Diego:  It doesn´t have gas.
Me:  I could get a tank of gas for it.  I may be here long enough.
Diego:  You could get a tank of gas but the stove doesn´t work.
Me:  Oh, it doesn´t work.
Diego:  Nope.  Do you want to use it?
Me:  Yes, I´d like to use it.
Diego:  Well you could use it, but it doesn´t work.
Me:  I´ll take the room.  

Sombrero Count

2

La Pala Grande 11.8.13

I took off for Pala Grande without swim trunks.  I had a warm soak at La Barranquita yesterday.  There´s a couple hot spring baths there built into the hill with stone and cement.  There´d be a view of a strong 70ft waterfall if not for a sheet of corrugated aluminum that acts as wall for spray, I guess.  Pipes protrude from the rock face letting the hot, sulfurous spring water fall into the tubs and, keeping a fresh, hot supply, the tubs act as tributaries into the main stream, where the waterfall is.  I had the place to myself for 25 minutes lying in the warmer tub with a comfortable pillow made of rock.

Continuing five minutes down the road, I reached the 300 stairs down to Payeshu.  There I found more hot baths, including a tub of water actually boiling up from the earth.  These were more crowded with local Quiche folks and since I had just soaked and was unsure of the routine at this more popular spot, I simply rested awhile doing my best not to look creepy and took deep breaths in preparation for the stair climb.

I wasn´t sure what exactly the Pala Grande was when I left, but I knew it involved a waterfall.  I relished the idea of taking a walk not carrying anything, feeling assured in the fact that my black boxer shorts would serve as coverage in the event of an irresistable swimming opportunity.  I was light with no heavy pack and planned on making the 2k walk, having a look at the falls, and turning around and coming back to carry on in my book, Children of Sanchez.  I really wanted to finish Consuelo´s final segment of this five-person combined autobiography.  I mean, it was no wonder Papa threw her out of house and no one liked her because in addition to being winy, sickly and bossy, she also attacked Delilah, the widower Papa´s current mistress.  Everyone else pretty much got along if you count yelling, screaming, insulting, beating, fighting, whoring and treachery.  I felt good walking up Calle 3A.  I had on my sneaker sandals with my Barca socks and my brand new hat from the big Wednesday market that morning.  It´s kind of a cross between a cowboy hat and something a little classier with a smaller brim.  It´s an earthy tan.  If I had known what I was in for that afternoon, I´d have worn my safari hat and my real shoes.

I followed multiple directions of ´recto´ until I topped the hill near the cell phone tower.  After a good-sized sleeping chucho woke up and got real angry at me, a road branched off to the right.  There was a sign for Pala Grande but in the traditional Gaute style, someone had placed an even bigger sign just in front of it.  Descending into the valley, I noticed the climate and flora change.  There were riscos here and there, natural stalagmites caused by erosion, not by dripping.  It was beautiful and as I descended further into the valley, I saw a small foot bridge over a stream and a summer-campy kind of picnic table grove but with no picnic tables.  I carried on down the road and came to another bridge.

Always wanting to get as near as possible to the water, I crossed the bridge and took a dirt trail, or camino, to the left.  Moments later, I was able to drop down about 12-feet into the canyon where the stream came through.  Sunlight poked in and lit up spots of the rocks, moss, and skim-milky water.  I carried on up the camino which soon became narrow to pass through some homes.  Here I hesitated for a second before carrying on.  I remembered that caminos often get narrow and pass near people´s home and also I just stopped being a bitch.  Five kids in the trail saw me and I wondered how many gringos had casually strolled up this camino  next to their house.  Four little ones got excited and ran toward the house but the oldest was more interested in getting his kite airborne than paying attention to me. When asked, he casually told me I could reach the bridge further up by going on up the trail.

Moments later, the bridge came up.  The pool beneath it emptied into the pool beneath that via a seven foot waterfall that was just as wide.  One could easily wade in to the small pool beneath the falls before the stream narrowed and turned back into shallow rapids.  The decision to enter the water here was made as soon as I saw the site and the obvious goal was to take a seat inside, behind the stout, powerful falls.  I would´ve been visible, in my black boxers, from the bridge about 30ft back and 20ft up if anyone at all had been around.  I waded carefully into the cold water realizing it never got more than knee-deep.  Standing just before the falls, I pondered how powerful the water would feel.  Testing the gravity with my fingertips caused a spray of water to shower my yet dry face and chest with a shocking blast of cold.  Tough part over, I again tested the force with my head.  Realizing I would not be crushed by the water, I plopped down beneath the falls.  While the ergonomics of the seat were comfortable, it was so loud, intense and still freezing in there that I could only manage to stay under for a few seconds.  I popped out clapping my hands very excited then turned to see two local men watching from the bridge.  Exiting the water, I dried off happy in the spackled sun considering this fine spot on the Earth.

All dressed, escaping the onslaught of the coffee flies at my ankles, I worked my way up the stream on small paths.  I had a cliff-view over the canyon in a spot where the stream S-curved and at the closer crest, a colorfully dressed woman worked on her wash.  My camera, or memory card rather, is on vacation for a few days before being reformatted, so I apologize for the lack of art herein.  Further up the camino, I paused before taking a few steps back toward the water between the outhouse and chicken coop of someone´s property.  I heard one, lone bark from an unseen chucho.  This was a calm bark.  To me, this chucho was saying ¨Gringo, I don´t know you but I´m here and I see you but you don´t see me.  You're move¨  It wasn´t aggressive or threatening, just a hello really.  I tipped my king over and retreated to the camino with no further sounds from the chucho and saw a woman moving by the house above.  She said something incomprehensible to me and I greeted her with ¨Buenas Tardes¨.  She did her quick spiel and I´m really not sure if what she was saying was ¨Get out of here quick, you Gringo fuck, we´ve got chuchos!¨ or ¨Careful, young man.  You are likely to encounter some unfriendly chuchos and you would be best to hasten along the camino out of their territory.  Farewell!¨  She pointed me along the way I was already going, so I went, though not really hastening.  This seemed a good time to gather up a chucho stick but selection wasn´t great.  The first stick I grabbed was a good, strong switch and not too heavy, but really too curved for effectively and efficiently thwacking at chuchos.  I traded that one in for a straight one at first chance, slicing off some small branches with my pocket knife and smoothing out the grip.  I wouldn´t want to add to the inconvenience of a chucho attack a blistered hand.

Untested by any chuchos, I peaked a small hump to see a dirt road and a man sitting on a rock at the trail´s edge.  I viewed him in profile and saw him before he saw me.  His caballero hat was on his knee exposing a bald head with a scraggly horseshoe of hair around the sides.  I first noticed the machete, of course, and that this man wore decent, outdoorsy boots, fairly uncommon of locals.  I´m sure they were at least two sizes too large.  I greeted him from 25ft away, and when he responded I deemed him safe enough to move closer.  He summoned me to sit with him on the rock, not an uncommon request, and I obliged.  This rock was in the loveseat family so we were now sitting very close and no one else was anywhere near.

He proceeded to tell me that he was the dueño, which I understand to mean owner or boss.  He seemed to me to be implying that this was his land and I was intruding.  He came off fairly angry.  I figured he had been alerted to my presence and sat and waited where he knew I would show up.  I felt my pulse begin to rise but tried to remain calm as were sitting hip to hip.  He took out a pad and began to write things down, like to name of the barrio and that he was the propietario.  I calmed down as I began to realize he was some sort of term sheriff/mayor figure for the Barrio Santa Ana and I hadn´t done anything wrong.  This man, Silverio, was not dangerous, but he was raving mad.  Picture a cross between Ben Kingsley from Ghandi and Ben Kingsley from House of Sand and Fog and nuts.   I took out my book to write down his name.  I wrote Silverio in my hand then passed the book and pen to him.  I began to chuckle somewhat uncontrollably as I saw what he was writing.  He wrote his name and address, using up the whole page, including the country and even continent and tried my best to conceal my laughter when he finished and returned the book and looked up.

Mixing Spanish with Quiche, mystery facial contortions and hand symbols, he told me he lived deeper into the mountains and there was a nice mirador on the way to his property.  My diagnosis of harmless whack-job already made, I told him I´d be happy to take a walk with him and we set off.  Wishing I had some water, I still enjoyed carrying nothing while he wore a big costale-material backpack full of who knows what and toted that.  I was looking forward to the mirador, but deep down I knew I was hoping to see this guy´s house and see if there was any wife or kids to speak of  He made a good pace up but I was able to keep up for now.  He´d suggest which roads and trails were safe to take and which ones weren´t due to ladrones and chuchos by contorting his lips and face in different ways.  Not interested in his instructions, I wondered whether everything between his exposed teeth was old food or an actual dental arrangement.

Truth be told, the mirador was quite spectacular.  We could see very, very far from here.  Here, and in other spots, he would ask me if I had really seen what he was showing me by pointing to the site and then pointing to me then pulling down his lower eyelid a couple times.  It was a little sickening.  He pointed out the directions of Xela(Quetzaltenango), Totonicapan, Huehuetenango and La Frontera de Mexico out beyond Huehue.  It made me feel safe again when he now told me how I could get back from there via the baths but also offered to show me his house.  He answered that the house was five minutes away and I agreed to go.  Wanting to be able to find my way back, I wanted to nail down a couple navigational details, but he was now too excited and clamped painfully onto my upper arm to pull me along.  The third time he did it I realized I reflexively pulled my arm away from his kung fu grip.

He set off on a trot downhill toward his home and I stopped to urinate without telling him.  He realized I had fallen behind and yelled at me to ¨vamos!¨.  Again setting off running, we passed over several small roads and trail splits and I knew I´d never be able to find my way back this way alone.  We reached the house, a nondescript cement double shack with a little grassy courtyard in between.  After pulling a beautiful flower and presenting it to me, Silverio rolled up and pinned the chainlink fence covering the entry to the courtyard.  He undid the huge padlock to the house and opened up.  It was a dark, dusty shithole.  No wife or kids to speak of.  It didn´t get too much better when he opened a couple windows but it did allow me to see a little more.  It was disarray, stuff was strewn all about.  I saw a curling bar at the far end.  He excitedly showed me everything and demanded ¨Esta bueno?¨.  My friends know me as pretty honest and I wanted to say ¨Look, Silverio, I think this place could use a bit of tidying up and organization¨, but instead I told him it was nice.  He began to fart audibly at will and one of them was so long and drawn out that it outlasted his sentence creating an awkwardness much like the interview scene in the film Step-Brothers, but of intercontinental proportions.  He did have a nice table that would´ve been great for a dinner for four or maybe even six.  Silverio must have, not too recently, decided it would make better use as a caballero hat rack so he had it upside-down.  It held a hat each for three legs and the fourth was on his head.  This was the only actual interior design he had implemented besides throwing whatever wherever.

The outdoors, on the other hand, was magnificent.  He owned 32 acuerdas and had beautiful corn, fields of wildflowers, and a great view of his valley.  I gathered up my flower and chucho stick and told him I should really hit the road because it was, truthfully, getting late and I had a decent walk back.  He didn´t resist too strongly.  We had a good amount of miscommunication regarding my way out, but then he warned that on the path I wanted to take there was ¨mucho chucho¨.  He ran back to grab his machete and came with me for a spell, which I was hoping he would.  I was pretty happy to get away from him but glad I´d experienced his tour and I think he was happy with it as well.  Later, I decided what I first thought was anger at the trail edge was strong, serious pride.  This is where he was born back in 1955 and now he was an authority figure and he had every right to have excessive pride in this beautiful land.  Maybe my new hat caused him to treat me very seriously.  At home, I can detect differences in how I´m treated by strangers with respect to how long it´s been since I shaved.  When I travel, a hat can change things.  My trusty safari hat usually reads very friendly to strangers and I´m still gauging how the new hat comes off.

I was excited to give the lovely flower to a nice señorita, but I got nervous a couple times and ended up giving it to a nice family on the steps down to the baths.  I found the road there with instructions from a friendly young man and was a bit of a spectacle to locals walking the road as a casual, lone Gringo.  Hours and miles since beginning, I finally came the La Pala Grande, where another waterfall fell near the hot pools.  These were, again, quite crowded, and I simply passed through.  The Quiche men, women and kids bathe together.  The women wear bath dresses and a pair of boobs or some man ass may pop out here and there but it doesn't cause much of a stir.

I passed through the bath area and paced myself up the steps on the other side.  Eventually, I reached the road.  Just across the way is where I had originally gone left.  Pleased with my wrong turn, I made the climb back up over the ridge, enjoying some agua pura from a plastic pouch.  Descending back into the center of Momostenango, I watched as the last of the sunlight crawled up away from the tops of the taller buildings.  I approached a fried chicken stand directly (Q7, with fries) for a nice appetizer before the real dinner.  My Spanish suffered ordering dinner as I thought ahead to that night´s sleep and a nice, hot soak early the next morning.

Todos Santos Cuchumatan to San Juan Atitan Hike 11.4.13

After four nights in Todos Santos, I left on foot early in the morning yesterday for the 10-mile walk to the village San Juan Atitan.  I've been waking up very early, usually just before dawn, because I've kept my sleep schedule from the Yoga Forest as well as all the roosters and turkeys sounding off.  People also shoot very loud bombs into the sky and the last few days being Todos Santos' biggest holiday of the year, they begin shooting these bombs quite early in the morning.

I stopped for some breakfast of fruit and breads after the first big climb out of Todos Santos by the cell tower.  The options were left, right or straight and I wasn't sure what to do, but as keeps happening, someone came along at just the right time.  A friendly local man was going the opposite way with his wife and son and pointed me where I needed to go.  While we were talking, I finished my banano and flung the peel into the brush.  As he was leaving, he asked for ´¿un banano, por mi hijo?´.  I had bought two bananos the previous day because I like having two bananos and I knew I would want to eat two bananos, but I couldn't refuse so I parted with my second banano.  ´Bueno, un regalo¨, a gift.  No really, I was happy to do it.  I set off for lower ground as the weather took a rapid change for the worse but stopped soon later for my ¨morning glory¨ a few steps off the trail.  I covered my offering with an elegant and natural-looking arrangement of very long, red pine needles and as I walked off,.the sun was shining again.

    I passed this chucho along the way.  In the excitement of the long holiday weekend, someone had    painted him blue.

I flirted with the edge of the cloud forest for some time before the cloud finally enveloped me and I spent most of the walk in very low visibility.  I'm sure the view would've been lovely but it was also nice in the cloud with the road and my own thoughts.  I stopped for lunch on the cement covering of a municipal water intake.  Just after sitting down, a chucho came by alone, threw me a quick glance, sipped from the stream over the road, and continued on.  15 minutes later, I looked up to see two more chuchos in the road staring at me statuesque.  They were reading me, judging me, deciding whether or not to come beg for food.  There certainly wasn't any meat but rather only canned refried black beans on bread or leftover tortilla and some fruit.  I should note here that passion fruit is delicious and is now in my regular repertoire. It is extremely tasty, juicy and crunchy all while very neat and easy to open.  Its the design a pomegranate should've been given.  One chucho decided it wasn't worth it, sipped from the stream, and continued on.  The last chucho, the smaller one and the one who may have had to try harder for his calories, waited it out.  I was staring into the eyes of the chucho, each of us sizing up the other, when I had to avert my glance to see who was now coming down the road.

In front was a caballo loaded down with lleña, or firewood.  A medium-aged man and his grandson were driving the caballo.  The caballo carried on by himself because the niño was wapping the side of his ass with a twig but the older man asked me ¨¿Para donde?¨ and we began to chat while the niño played in the small stream.  Like just about everyone, the man was extremely friendly and after a while, he did ask after his other two chuchos.  I took their photo which is a real testament to how cloudy it was; they were only about 6 feet away when photographed.

I walked another hour and met a crossroads and was unsure which road to take.  While I pondered and again reviewed my vague map/directions, another lleña toting caballo approached, this one driven by a lone 13-year old.  He pointed me down the road I would've guessed and we walked together for a while.  He made it home and I carried on.  I was feeling good and strong, walking downhill through the outskirts of my destination pueblo.  I was summoned ¨Venga!¨ by a group of about seven young men and boys under a little hut by the roadside.  I was a bit past but when I noticed the oldest was holding a pool cue and there was a pool table beneath the hut roof, I made a sharp turn for their hut.  I was asked in Spanish if I played (yes) and if I wanted to play (yes) and was told to put down my mochila.  When I said ¨pool¨, they all almost fell apart laughing and I thenceforth was confused by their humor because when I broke (pretty decent break), they all laughed and when I made a good shot in, they all laughed, but when I missed it was silence.  As you can see in the photo, this hut was built for mountain Guatemaltecos and it was not over designed my any stretch.  I bumped my head more times than I bothered to count and each time, they all laughed.  I took two out of three off the first guy but the next guy, the traditionally dressed man photo-center, beat me twice before I resumed my descent.  The table was not regulation and I blame my loss on the strange curves and nuances and have to place each loss under protest or at least chalk them up to home court advantage.



Thankfully, the sky opened up as I rode down from the village to the Pan-American Highway for the bus into Huehuetenango.  It was a toss up between microbus and pickup and I'm glad which one came because standing up in the back of a pickup truck is a great way to make a 3000-foot descent surrounded by gorgeous mountain faces.