One thing that stinks about travelling in a place like India is that everyone speaks English, but almost nobody speaks it well. Therefore, they don't really humor my Hindi, and I have to repeat myself at least 4 or 5 times before anyone can fully understand me in English. The funny thing is, I don't have to repeat it slower. I just have to repeat it rapid fire a few times. This strange custom made the purchase of my Bangalore-Mangalore train quite an entertaining endeavor.


Anyway, lots to update. From my train, I got into Goa state fine, but managed to oversleep and pass my stop for Anjuna. I ended up in South Goa instead, so I just made my way to Benaulim, a beach recommended in Rough Guide, and for good reason. Just look.

I spent a couple days there hanging out and listening attentively while a bunch of local boys tried to educate me on the finer points of cricket.... but all I walked away with was the knowledge that it was a sport that did not involve mallets, and that I would probably never watch with any genuine interest... oh, and also this photo. The horizon isn't straight, but I thought it looked cool. Also, the cricketers couldn't wait to show off for the camera.

From there, I made my way to Anjuna in the north- known to be one of Goa's top party spots. For everyone who knows me at home, I think it would surprise you to know that until I reached then, I hadn't partied almost at all (and in fact, hadn't had an alcoholic drink) since my birthday in Tel Aviv. It was nearly 2 months without any booze, and it felt almost nice--- my body felt great and my pocketbook felt even better... the only part of me that felt horrible was my soul, which was slowly dying day by day. Goa fixed that.

On the way, I met a cute Aussie couple whose photo I'll post here. Poppy and Tom had been traveling for near 21 months when I met them. What makes this particular pair remarkable is that after all that time on the road, they didn't seem at all blasé to places or people. Each place was still interesting and unique, and each person was still worth getting to know, even if it was clear the relationship would only last a day or two. They were even nice to touts. I don't mean nice in the, "No, thank you" kind of way, which frequently becomes automatic... but nice in the, "It's lovely... but I don't think I'm interested... thanks for showing me though!" way. How odd! Anyway, in the Aussie tradition, they drank and partied super hard, and we had a ball until near the end of the first week of Dec, when they left for Mumbai, and I ventured south to Gokarna, Karnataka.

I'm not going to write a lot about Gokarna except to say that it was paradise. That's basically it.

From Gokarna, I was off for Hampi, where I spent 4 days or so doing yoga, relaxing, and taking photos like this one. My sweet German anarchist friend is quite the photographer. Look at how long my legs look! I hung out for a few days with an entertaining mix of Dutch, German, and Finnish folk before I started to get ants in my pants. I left for Mysore shortly thereafter.

I'm going to wait to write about Mysore, since I'm not sure if my recent intestinal drama can be blamed on my street fish there, or whether it's something else. All I'm going to say is that I'm glad I didn't know anyone in the city for a few days. I was in pretty sorry condition.

Anyway, I came back to Hampi shortly thereafter and think I will be here for a day or two more before going BACK to Anjuna for some holiday merry-making. Let me leave off this post (and perhaps the year of 2009) with this photo.


Merry Christmas everyone~!

I don't think anyone else will have any interest in reading this, but I wanted to record it for my own sake...

I was laying in bed this morning trying to go back to sleep, (which was impossible because it's so damn hot, but if I use the fan, it oscillates WAAAAAY too quickly, and I'm afraid that it's just going to fly right off and chop me to pieces...) and I was thinking that I'm too hung over to do anything properly today, but that I'd be bored if I just laid around. Then, I remembered this guy named Tim I met in Maderas, Nicaragua, who said something I found funny at the time, but have remembered ever since with increasing fondness. He said something like "Some people aren't meant to do a lot with their lives. I think I'm one of those people. I'm never bored~ I'm always happy wherever I am." Then I remembered how he would hang out at Maderas doing nothing but sitting with his boombox, listening to music and whistling and having a ball just sitting there... like, all day... no joke.

Tim spent a combined total of a year at that 2 restaurant, one hostel "town" in southern Nicaragua, and was so content just fishing and surfing and listening to his boombox every day~ and even though I didn't know him all that well~ I think the image of him on that bench listening to Jo Manji's "Beyond the Sunset" and whistling will stay with me forever.

I'm here at 8 months, and I'm reflecting on all the people I've met and realizing that the world is fucking awesome. People are funny and interesting and moving and unpredictable, and no matter who you're with- you can always have fun if you've got the right attitude. I spent the whole morning just dicking around and comparing white hairs with the Nepali guys at my hotel and having a ball doing it (even though the hairs are coming in with increasing frequency), and even though I get homesick sometimes~ I'm the happiest I've ever been in my life.

Anyway, that's all I wanted to record. When you have those moments where you look at your life and think about how god damn lucky you are to have the things that you do, it's important to remember it.

This blog is turning all crappy.

I haven't been organized enough to put down a decent entry in months, so I'll try now, even though my tummy is feeling all fluttery. I wish it would just turn into full on food-poisoning. This half and half nonsense isn't working out.


Anyway, I left Rishikesh about a week and a half ago- originally intending to go to Manali, but somehow ending up in Delhi instead. It actually didn't matter too much WHERE I was going as long as it was somewhere warm with a lower concentration of hippies. I also wanted to go somewhere where I could continue to study Hindi. My teacher in Rishikesh was really quite good, and cheap as well- but he started taking to kissing my face when I understood a concept quickly, which was set off my creepy old man siren. Is this an Indian custom I don't know about? Was curling up and running away culturally insensitive of me? I never know. Anyway, here's a picture of the Ganges river at sunset. Beautiful, ain't it?


So, like I said, I ended up in Delhi, staying in a hostel with the most idiotic management ever. I'm used to people asking me if I'm from Korea/Japan/China, etc etc etc... but when I say that I'm not, and produce an American passport, you should really stop asking me how to say things in Korean. I DON'T FUCKING KNOW. There were also always bits of potato in the bathroom sink. I found that to be gross. Anyway, I finished up my Christmas shopping in Delhi and managed to send them seconds before my train to Agra with a couple of cool girls I met in the station the day before.


Amy and Leslie were an interesting duo. I can't remember if I gave them this address for this blog, but I'll write about them anyway. Amy was a Northwestern graduate swimmer who had been living in China for 3 years and spoke (what sounded to me like) fluent Mandarin. Leslie was a Chinese native who loved to extoll the benefits of drinking hot water. It was a funny couple of days. Here we are at the Taj Mahal, acting silly. This photo was actually taken on the first try- props to the small English woman behind the camera.

They were a good pair to travel with for a couple of days, but the two of them continued on to Varanasi. Ordinarily, I think I would have gone with them- but I'd started to really suffer from the pollution. When you start to sneeze car exhaust, you know it's time to leave. So, I went with them to the train station, and bid them farewell... not really knowing where I was headed next. I originally tried to get on a train to Bengaluru, with zero success. I'm not sure how much I like this whole "buying your ticket in advance" bullsh*t. How am I supposed to fly by the seat of my pants if there's someone walking around checking that I have the appropriate papers? Fie on your papers! Anyway, I decided to just let the man with the completely indecipherable English at the ticket kiosk determine where I should go- sometimes it's just easier that way. Anyway, the bastard put me on the waitlist for the Goa Express. WL #399. Basically, that means that I'm paying Sleeper prices to sit in Unreserved (4 thousand people to a car with about 2 wooden benches for the 38 hour train ride from Delhi to Goa). I also had an 8 hour wait before my train was supposed to depart. While I waited, I met a funny little Punjab boy named Praveen. He taught me my numbers in Hindi. Ever been chastised by a 11 year old for not being able to say "ket-thaaliis" correctly on the first try? It's very humbling. Anyway, after he and his mother took off, I started talking to a French woman named Kristen. Every now and again, when I feel my natural American pomp flagging, when I'm tired and my stools are watery, and all I can think about is having just one goddamn cheeseburger, I meet someone who inspires me and reminds me that it's not for nothing. "Be Brave!" she said, "You WILL find a seat on that train, the conductor will see you, and you will give him 200 rupees, and you will sit and have a wonderful journey!" I didn't really believe her, but after an hour or so of soaking up her positivity, I satisfied myself with knowing that 38 hours on a wooden bench with my backpack on my lap wouldn't KILL me. Maybe give me back problems, maybe my legs would rot and fall off, but it certainly wouldn't kill me. No no.

About 15 minutes before the arrival of my train, I decided to wander about and somehow ended up in front of the notice board. Lo! Who got a seat by magical 400-person lottery? Sam M.F. Chu! Lookee!


It was a great journey~ the people in my compartment were clean and courteous. As we went further south, it got warmer, and I slept well. Some blind musicians came on the train, and I listened to them rock out Hindi pop tunes as the chai-wallah came around with hot tea to compliment my dinner of biryani and samosas. Furthermore, around 11pm, when everyone crawled into bed, the one bar I had left on my MP3 player held strong for hours as my train barreled into the night.

Quick post

OK, in India now and liking it quite a bit. Rocked out at a religious festival and think I might actually have an interest in Nirankarianism. The whole worshipping Baba Ji thing is odd, but then again, a lot of it makes sense. Also, there is free food. I like that.

Couple days ago, took leave of the two sexy Finnish guys I was travelling with and made my way up north to Rishikesh, where every hippie-dippy staff-toting yogi from 'round the world has congregated to sit in their yoga studios and talk about peace and then go outside and treat the locals like shit. Seriously.

Anyway, heading up to Manali soon to get my zorb on before heading back down to the beaches. I'll post photos soon...

my back...


this sleeping on trains business has got to stop.

India in 10 days (roughly)

So here's a rundown of things happening with me.

- Headed to India on the 10th of November. I have my visa in my hot little hand and I'm raring to go. The Visa, however, is only for 3 months, single entry. This is bullshit. It means that I need to leave the country (oh and get a visa to whatever other country to do so), reapply, then come BACK. One thing not mentioned anywhere--- if applying for an indian visa in ethiopia (oh my god i hate this computer... fuck spelling and grammar), even though you pay 250 birr MORE than anyone else, you will get only half the amount of time and entries. No exceptions. Fucking stupid.

- STA travel is retarded. I keep emailing them to ask about extending my insurance and buying a flight so that I can prove onward travel when I land in Mumbai. No one has gotten back to me. I want to give them money and they can't even get their shit together enough to take it. OR, they e-mail me back with a phone number to call. THERE ARE NO PHONES. THAT'S WHY I'M FUCKING EMAILING. .. so I'm not sure what I'm going to say to the immigration officials. Either that, or I need to buy a ticket from somewhre else,.


OH MY GOD THIS COMPUTER SUCKS. I CAN' T WRITE ANYMORE>

TREVOR

Trev, I hope you still read my blog every now and again.

These fucking shitty fucking Ethiopian computers won't let me do ANYTHING. I can sign onto facebook, alright, but forget trying to read anything in my inbox/write on peoples' walls/update my status. Oh, and no messenger, no Yahoo, no Gmail Chat, and DEFINITELY no Skype.

Anyway, so I got your message about there being something incredibly important in my facebook inbox.. I just can't CHECK my inbox to see what it is.

I wasn't planning on updating, but hell,... why not? I just finished my first week of teaching English in an Ethiopian school. Observations:

1. I don't hate children as much as I thought I did. Some of them are really, really cute. I have actually taken a liking to one or two in every class. I know it's wrong to have favorites, but they live in Ethiopia, for God's sake. They already know that life isn't fair.

2. Western children are spoiled brats. "Waaah... Billy has better video games than I do" ... "Waaaah... Jimmy took my toy", "Waaaah... I want clean water to drink!" ... ALWAYS complaining. These kids here, in my grade school, play soccer with a deflated basketball. 50 children. One sad little crushed basketball. And you know what? They don't give a damn! They run around playing with it all day long, only stopping to blow it up every now and again. I'm not sure if it's awesome or heartbreaking... but I'm leaning towards awesome.

I will write more next week. I just logged on to tell TREVOR... I CAN'T READ YOUR MESSAGE IN MY INBOX. EITHER PUT IT ON MY WALL, OR SEND ME AN EMAIL.

That's all.

Last day in the Middle East

So I'm sitting in an internet cafe in Cairo, waiting for my flight at 2 am tomorrow morning. I really, really have to pee. Ack! The crappy thing about checking out of your hostel first thing in the morning is that you have nowhere to waste your time until your flight.

Happily, I managed to get quite a bit done here today. I bought some easy children's books for the kids I'll be working with in Ethiopia, washed my laundry (aka, rubbed a bar of soap all over the mound, then hosed it down with the bathroom shower-head... strange that the shower itself is in no way separated from the rest of the stuff in the bathroom), and dropped about 5 pounds off my pack for the flight.

Anyway, before I take off from the Middle East, let me recap the last couple of weeks.

I finished at Bahariyya Oasis, and decided to go to Luxor instead of Dahab (I mean, how many beaches can one person really take, anyway?) and quickly realized it to be the ninth circle of hell. Holy crap, it's hot. Hot and dirty. Also, you can't take photos at like, half of the sites there. Here's one of the few that I DID manage to get, at the Colossi of Memnon. Yeah, I know- cheesy... but it was really hot and I couldn't think of anything less campy. They were pretty cool. I also got a look at the Valley of the Kings and Queens, and Hatshepsut's Temple. No pictures. -pout-

Anyway, after Luxor, I decided to go to Dahab anyway. A series of unfortunate events in Luxor (and the intervention of good old common sense), dissuaded me from trying to stuff Jordan in my trip plans as well, and I spent a few days snorkeling, shopping, and simply BEING. Morgan from Isla de Ometepe was right. Dahab IS paradise. (Reiteration of question phrased above: How many beaches can one person really take? Answer: A LOT.) What makes Dahab, and really, the rest of the Sinai penninsula so different from the beaches in C.A. is that the reef comes RIGHT up to the water's edge. You have about 3 feet of sand, then straight up coral, then bottomless ocean, filled with fishies. Highlight: I think I saw a fish orgy. Lowlight: I saw a huge jellyfish out of my peripheral vision and went berzerk, started to scream, inhaled salt water, fought for the surface, and pissed myself right in the middle of a school of very unhappy fish. The jellyfish = plastic bag filled with water. FUCKING GARBAGE. For my first time (last time?) snorkeling, it was pretty cool. There's a photo of the Funny Mummy restaurant under the 'Egypt Photos' tab. Literally, the reef was RIGHT there.

Now the good stuff: Israel.

I'm going to add an Israel tab up top, so I'll try not to bog this post down with too many photos... but let me do a quick rundown of each day.

29th of September

- My arrival. It took 1 border, 2 buses, and 3 different trains (stupid Yom Kippur) to get to Nahariya... but when I did, I was greeted with Shiran's smiling face. And food!

- Nothing much for the rest of the day- tried to send some stuff at the post office, but was foiled. Shiran, Shiri, and Shiri's boyfriend came out with me for a birthday drink at midnight. It was nice.

30th of September

-Akko. FUCKING awesome. Very colonial, and mmmm- such good hummus

- Rosh Hanikra. Even better than fucking awesome! There's a photo under the 'Israel' tab. I've never seen water that blue- especially up close... well, except for maybe the Red Sea... but even so- the Mediterranean is better.

-Tel Aviv.... OK- I had planned to have as much fun as I could on my 25th birthday. It's a big one, right? But I had secretly, in my heart, been aware that being away from home, being away from everything that I know- it just wouldn't be the same. This is true. IT WAS BETTER. Of course, I would have loved to have everyone at home in Israel with me... but really... how many times in your life can you get smashed in Tel Aviv, reunite with someone you met in a foreign country two years ago, puke in 4 different locations throughout the city, and get carried home by a mixture of old school homies, and brand new ones? Here's a photo from that night. One of my best birthdays... EVER.

1st of October

- Woke up and immediately went for hangover munchies.

-Shopped all over town, and got to glimpse the seaside. First major city I've been to with beaches that weren't buried in garbage. Here's a picture of me with some hot young soldiers. God- I love a man with a gun... too bad they're all about 18 years old.

-All you can eat dinner just outside of Nahariya.

2nd of October

-The Golan

-The Sea of Galilee. It was really beautiful... but there were lots of people on the shore doing weird stuff. Pretending to walk on water earned me the stink-eye from everyone else there. It was worth the picture though.

-The famous bread-and-fish stone. I'll post the pic under the 'Israel photos' tab that I've yet to create. Too many pics for such a small space, I think. End the night back in Nahariya after scaling the border with Lebanon. Lots of tanks. Lots of fences.

3rd of October

-Ein Gedi and The Dead Sea. Watch me float on my belly! People weren't joking when they said not to put your head anywhere near the water. I got a drop on my lip and felt like puking when I licked it off. It also makes all your fragile parts burn. Stupid salt.

4th of October

-Jerusalem. I'm not sure what I can say to encompass what Jerusalem as actually like. Uhm- Historical? Chaotic? INCREDIBLE? The city itself wasn't all that much to look at... but we took a free tour around the city and it's fucking insane how much such a small plot of land can mean to so many people. Here's a photo of me at the Wailing Wall. I'm thinking of my prayer.

5th of October

-Hiking in Ein Gedi, and my departure. I won't write too much here. The area itself was ... uhm... rock-ish. From what I gather from my two lovely guides, there used to be a lot more water. It was still really pretty though.

This is a long post- whew! Tonight, I take off for Ethiopia, and I wanted to close the chapter on my Middle East experiences before I moved on. It's so odd being right in the midst of the Arab-Israeli conflict and yet meet awesome people on both sides, with such fascinating lives and such a friendliness about them... you can't help but be charmed. Really love this part of the world. Really love the food. Next time I come back, I'm bringing drawstring pants.

Thoughts on Egypt

Gotta make this a quick one (I always say that, don't I?) .. I'm going to be picked up for a felucca ride in about half an hour, so I'm going to limit this post to just a bit of Cairo and Bahariyya Oasis. Here's a photo of some cool mushroom shaped rocks from the latter. I know it doesn't make sense to post it up here... but I thought it would be more aesthetically pleasing balance out the text/photo ratio of this post.

I got in at Cairo airport about a week ago. One thing I want to point out: EVERY TRAVEL GUIDE EVER LIES. I have chosen to go without a guidebook for Egypt as a byproduct of my exasperation with the Lying Planet Central America.... but did a bit of research both online and in the Rough Guide about Egypt. Everything says that it's possible to get a multiple entry visa in Cairo airport. WRONG! I'm no spring chicken to getting scammed... but honest to God, you can't. First you get a regular entry visa, then you have to go to another building in downtown Cairo to get a re-entry visa.. particularly if heading to Israel. An observation: Going to any bureaucratic institution in Cairo city is a nightmare. I've never been pushed and shoved so much in my life... and I went to public school!

Oh, wait... I'm supposed to be keeping this short. Sorry. My first few days in Egypt included the pyramids, the Egyptian museum, and Khan al Khalili market. I posted pics of these under my "Egypt Photos" tab. All were marvelous... but God, talk about a congregating point for scammers. I think I've hit my limit for "friends" taking me to their "brother's" perfume shops due to the museum being "closed at this time... you can go when they open in half an hour". NO baksheesh! NO BAKSHEESH!

Anyway... I took leave after a few days and headed out to the western desert to see Bahariyya Oasis. I stayed at a place called Sahara Camp, which had a common room that looked like this. Pretty cool, huh? The place was paradise, and it was only 3 bucks a night for my own, two-bedded hut! Sweet.

Through Sahara... I met a Japanese guy named Toshi with whom I ventured into the desert. Most of it was pretty, athough uneventful-- just climbing all over rocks and looking at stuff... but nothing was really ALL that exceptional, until we hit the White Desert. There's a photo or two under the tab, but here's a cool one of the site we stayed at... I would have liked to be somewhere a bit more enclosed since sand kept getting in my eyes, and I had to sleep with my sunglasses on... but the stars were sooo bright. It was pretty cool.

Oh, and here's a photo of a desert fox. They came to visit when we layed down to rest. Cute little buggers, aren't they?

An interesting piece of knowedge for Americans headed to the deserts of Egypt. If you tell the police (who have checkpoints every few miles down the highway) that you're an American, ... they will send a couple of armed guards in the car with you. If you lie about being from another country (in my case, the driver told me to tell them I was from China).. they will hassle you and scream in English while trying to get you to show your passport... and then try to put armed guards in the car with you. Lowering your IQ and faking an accent helps.

I managed to get away armed guard free (hooray for my driver!)... but not without sprouting a white hair or two in the process. I think I would have been better off telling them the truth... but once you start lying, going back makes you look like a douche. It's a slippery slope.

OK, I'm out of time.... for real. Off to Luxor!

Books I've Read on This Trip

I first started this account sometime in August/September 2009 with the hope of having read the "Best 100 Books of All Time" before finishing my trip. The idea was that I'd finally read all those novels I was supposed to have studied in undergrad- now that I had time. It didn't happen. Below is a record of the books I DID manage to complete. Most of them are on the list, but many of them are not. One thing that unites them is that they ALL affected the outcome of my trip in some way, and they ALL enriched my experiences (yeah, even the "Twilight" books. Don't judge me) in one manner or another. I also attempted to finish Vanity Fair, but it wasn't working out and I decided to stop and spend the rest of my leisure time musing instead. I'm ambitious- not impervious to boredom.

1. Hemingway's Short Stories - Hemingway

2. 1984 - Orwell

3. The World According to Garp - Irving

4. Emma - Austen

5. Around the World in 80 Days - Verne

6. Middlesex - Eugenides

7. A Thousand Splendid Suns - Hosseini
8. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Kesey

9. A Long Way Gone- Memoirs of a Boy Soldier - Beah

10. The Stranger - Camus

11. Gulliver's Travels - Swift

12. There is no Me Without You - Greene

13. Hamlet - Shakespeare

14. Tender is the Night - Fitzgerald

15. I'm OK, You're OK - Harris

16. Robinson Crusoe - DeFoe

17. The Kite Runner - Hosseini

18. Flowers for Algernon - Keyes

19. The Color Purple - Walker

20. Shantaram - Roberts

21. The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Doyle

22. Garden of Eden - Hemingway

23. Oliver Twist - Dickens

24. Frankenstein - Shelley

25. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - Murakami

26. Life of Pi - Martel

27. Marching Powder - Young

28. The Hobbit - Tolkien
29. Matilda - Dahl

30. Burmese Days - Orwell

31. Eclipse - Meyers

32. Julius Caesar - Shakespeare

33. Motorcycle Diaries - Guevara

34. Breaking Dawn - Meyers

35. Count of Monte Cristo - Dumas

36. Dune - Herbert

37. Jazz - Morrison

38. Love in the Time of Cholera - Marquez

39. A Widow for One Year - Irving

40. The Picture of Dorian Gray - Wilde

41. The Bell Jar - Plath

Going, Going, Gone!

So I'm writing from the first decent computer I've been at in almost 3 months. Man, it's nice to be at my sister's house!

Let's catch up on my last few weeks in Latin America.

I left for San Juan del Sur and spent about a week getting punished by the waves at Playa Maderas by day and partying at Matilda's Hostel by night. Here's a shot of the view from my dorm around 6pm every evening. Man, I wish I'd been able to get that horizon straight and do this shot some justice. 

Matilda's was great, SJDS was great, and aside from puncturing my foot on very pointy rocks on the walk from Matilda's to the actual surfable beach-- I passed all 4 or so days there in absolute serenity.

Before I continue, I should mention that I had some pilferage in my money belt after my time in the BioReserve in Esteli, and followed up by canceling my credit cards. That was almost 3 weeks ago, and I have yet to get one fully functional card. After 5 different phone calls to different Washington Mutual agents, followed by a myriad of e-mails with lord knows how many MORE WaMu (or, rather, Chase) agents, I have a debit card without a PIN. No money for me--- and I fly to Egypt on Wednesday. Huzzah for not having a plan!

Anyhow, I took out enough money to survive until I got to DC in cash, then cancelled my cards and continued on to Isla de Ometepe. Here's a view from the Mirador halfway up Volcan Maderas. Pretty amazing, huh? Too bad it rained the whole way up and the whole way down this 3 hour hike. Was pretty slippery, and not good for the poor Israeli guy with only one functional foot... but definitely worth it for this view.

Spent a few more days in Ometepe partying, relaxing, and catching up on my reading in a hammock until about a day before I flew. I had intended on leaving earlier, but my whole backpack got stolen! The crazy thing is that it happened on a really rainy night from my dorm room in the middle of the jungle. Who would go through all that trouble for some dirty mismatched clothes and a beat up pair of retainers? I mean, really. The pain in the ass it caused for me is at least 20x greater than the value of anything they could have actually gotten out of the bag.

Anyway, I had something of an emotional breakdown that night, and spent the rest of my time on the Isla boozing like crazy. The last day there, I went down to Ojo de Agua with a couple of 

cool kids from my hostel. The day was pretty much perfect. Forget the bag, forget that it was raining the whole way there, forget that Chico was VERY much drunk and we had to keep convincing him to let Ines drive.... floating on my back in the water and watching the rain drop from the sky was one of the most surreal things I've done on this trip so far. Also, taking pictures with Nemo's underwater camera was sweet. Here's a shot from that day. It didn't come out as symmetrical as I would have liked... but still pretty cool.

I thought I might post a photo of me at the airport here. Here I am with all my luggage. You can see all of it in the photo. Btw- passing through customs with a grocery bag containing only one change of clothes, a flashlight and two cans of bug spray will gain you nothing but questions. First time I have ever been pulled into the "little room." Now I know what it's like to be of Middle Eastern descent.

Overall, Central America was great. Had oodles of fun and met lots of cool peeps. I would have liked to have less robbery involved though. Being robbed less would have been great.

So, as things stand now... I'm currently without luggage or money... and I'll be on my way to Cairo in less than 5 days. I'm just as clueless as everyone else as to how I'm going to survive for the next year and some without either of these two things. I'll keep you all updated as I arrive at solutions.

AAGGHHH!

OK, I´m running out of internet time so I´ll make this quick... Bullets!

- Finished up in León with some volcano boarding. I didn´t think I could possibly be so bad at anything, but ha HA! I was wrong.

- Went to Estelí on a whim and spotted Trev from my taxi window. Sometimes it´s great to have a very, very white man for a friend. They invited me to come to the Bioreserve Miraflor with them for a couple days and I did. Since I already posted a photo of me at the Mirador under my ´Nicaragua Photos´tab, here is one of the back of Trevor´s head.

- While in the Bioreserve, we went on numerous hikes, and rode horses all over the place (I find it´s easier to maintain your balance if you don´t expend all your energy screaming like a prepubescent girl). We were also goaded into playing games with some local children. Here is Kyria as the ¨Gallina¨... aka, Blind Chicken. She was not as amused as the children were.

- I am now in San Juan del Sur... got about 15 days left in this region, so I figure I´m going to spend them all surfing. Kinda. Or, at least I´ll spend them all in the ocean with a surfboard attached to my ankle. Close enough, yeah?

Are people having trouble leaving comments here? G. has recently told me that it´s impossible for some reason, but D and J have already left comments on some of my past posts. Let me know if this is the case.

Amoebas, Soccer, and Impenetrable Heat

That´s right, I wrote ¨soccer¨.... I´m an American, dammit!

So... first off, I´m going to write that I am excluding one very juicy detail of my last few weeks. I will be of no interest to some of you, of much interest to a few of you, and of great interest to find out to all of you, since I won´t write it here. If you want more, you will need to write me personally so I can evaluate your worthiness for such a story.

And on...

I got amoebas. I´m sure that the majority of you will wish that this had been the part that I had chosen to omit, since this particular week of my travels involved little else than pills and poop, but I thought it prudent to record my illnesses as my trip wears on. It lasted something like a week and a half, and involved something like 8 different kinds of medication. Seriously. No joke. Look at the picture under the El Salvador tab. I managed to escape, however, and I am fully indebted to Uga for his particular role in my recovery. I´m not exaggerating when I say that there was a dark, stormy night, a frantic trip across town to call in a favor from an old friend, and much, much nervous anticipation (at least on my part- I didn´t think I could last another night).


Anyhow, I recovered just in time to receive Kat and Adam on the 25th of last month. There was much tomfoolery to be engaged in, and I will post only this photo of Adam locking himself into their own room to verify my point. The one really sucky thing about this part of the week was that I couldn´t drink. The particular pills I was on called for a complete abstinence from alcohol... so the firt time I saw my friends in nearly 4 months, I had to be Sober Sam. Lame Sam- some might say. Oh well.

I made my way back to El Tunco (don´t judge me) and met up with Stav for a day or so more, before heading southward with her friend Jeff. Since the borders between El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua were only tentatively open, we decided to take the less conventional way, and boat it through the Gulf of Fonseca. This is what we found.

Another astonishing thing was La Unión, a city commonly considered to be El Salvador´s asshole. Hot, Sticky, and, well.. shitty. It was absolutely beautiful. Not in the traditional sense, as in good to look at... because it wasn´t... but the people were wonderful. Here I am posing with some policepeople we met. Aside from the fact that nobody in the town seems to know anything about transportation to or fro.. we found them to be perhaps the nicest of those we met in E.S. ... which is hard to say because everyone we met in E.S. was pretty much awesome. We also joined some locals in watching an intermural soccer game in a school yard basketball court. I didn´t get any photos, but it was quite the experience.





The last thing I want to include is this picture of a cute girl in Potosí Nicaragua. The loveliest lady in red in town! Here she is, befuddled, but standing with her proud father. They both waved merrily as we jostled out of town in an overcrowded bus filled to bursting with puppies, baseball teams, and actual chickens.

Oh, and here´s another picture of me in Las Peñitas, Nicaragua. I thought it artistic although my friend Austin has told me I walk like a lesbian... and it seems to be particularly apparent in this photo. Whatever.

El Tunco, take 2.

So, Kaj and I have been back in El Tunco for the last week or so. It´s miraculous how quickly a week spent in a hammock can pass. In my defense, I have also gone out for several more days of surfing, and have actually caught a wave or two (albeit not for very long). I need to learn how to do push-ups. I have a feeling that that would greatly improve my quality of life down here... or at least minimize my daily salt-water intake.

Another thing I´ve pegged as a priority on this trip is learning how to cook. Here is a photo of Kaj with a fish that we bought in the market. Somehow, while perusing the seafood aisle, we came to the conclusion that -- of course they would gut the fish for us... how could you sell it otherwise? ... and came home with this thing thinking we could just chop the head off and dump it in the oven. My, how very mistaken we were. Did you know that you also have to take the scales off? They don´t do that for you either. I pity the cleaning lady in Papaya´s hostel. I did the best I could to clean up, but considering that in our haste, we began mercilessly beating the thing against the counter, flinging scales and guts every which way... I wouldn´t be surprised if a chair was employed to get the last of the bits off the higher parts of the wall. It didn´t help that the dog got ahold of the bones when we were done either. It made for a very unpleasant morning... especially for the first person to step barefoot into the kitchen.

In addition, I have also spent the majority of this past week trying to learn how to click my heels... a lifelong aspiration that I´ve recently decided to try to fulfill. Here is where I got on my last day before I came up to Santa Ana. Let it be known that jumping around barefoot on a rocky beach is a stupid... stupid thing to do.

The locals had a good laugh though. Man, sometimes I can be such a stupid tourist.

Speaking of interactions with locals, on Saturday night, the lot of us from the hostel went out to the local cantina (the only cantina) to have a brew or two with the natives and try to assimilate with the local culture. The night somehow ended with an angry Salvadorean lady drawing back her arm to punch me in the face. The blow never landed, but I´m really not sure how we got there in the first place. It began with a mistake (or, rather 5 mistakes) on our tab which they refused to rectify. Who would drink Golden when you could get your hands on a Pilsener anyway? Anyhow, lesson learned- do not sass an angry latina. It will not bode well for the future of your teeth.

On the same night, we witnessed quite a bit of local flavor- B-boys, a Michael Jackson impersonator, and one guy doing freestyle flow in English, although I´m not sure why he´d choose a second language, since he apparently sucks at it. I got a little homesick thinking of my friends back home that could rip that guy a new asshole. Anyhow, the hip hop culture down here is really quite the same, except that all the music videos feature the artists fanning themselves with stacks of USD 10 bills. My, how comical an economic divide can be.

Anyhow, Uga is patiently waiting for me outside this internet cafe. Here is a picture of him as a kid that I doubt he´d let me upload if he knew what I was doing. It´s part of a goldmine I found in his sister´s bedroom. I will also add more under the ´El Salvador Photos´tab at the end of the week. There are some good ones.

Juayua

Not too much to update on here. We went to Juayua ... the whole group, for something like 4 or 5 days. We went to waterfalls during the first day, and some others went hiking to Lago Coatepeque, but the main reason for going was the food fair. Here I am eating a frog. It cost 7 bucks and tasted like chicken (doesn't everything?) except more chewy. Meh. The rabbit was better.

Another thing that the food fair brought was a very large pair of underpants. Erin, Kaj and I found them in a dollar bin near the outskirts of the food stalls. After going on something of a wild goose chase involving a 12 year old horse carriage driver, we found some weed and figured we could have some fun with the giant underoos.

... and we did.

We actually managed to fit 6 people in ... Trev climbed in for the finale... but I already uploaded it to my facebook and you all have probably seen it by now.

Although I could have stayed longer, my feet were getting antsy, so I went with Erin and Kaj to La Palma. Here is one of the walls we passed by. Most of the city looks like this-- the influence of an artist.. (I can't remember his name), who has taught everyone this style of naive (I didn´t try to spell ¨native¨here) art in order to generate income for an otherwise impoverished village. It's really quite beautiful.

I'm back in El Tunco now, waiting for Uga and Kat to join me on my simple minded adventures. I will update accordingly as things happen.

Americans and Israelis

I know that, generally speaking, when I travel, I put up with a lot of shit for being an American. I´ve never pretended to be otherwise, and my adamant hope has been that people´s opinions will eventually change, should they know me long enough to consider me to be more than just loud and stupid (two characteristics I don´t deny, but that I hope will be smothered by other, more positive traits).

The people that have had the complete lack of social awareness to say these things to my face in pretense of just expressing what they claim to know is true of the rest of Americans, (as if I was somehow excluded from this extremely generalized verdict) almost seem as if they´d never heard their manners questioned as a result. What makes ridiculing someone´s country any more acceptable than ridiculing their family or friends- and moreover, why do people ever feel that they need to tolerate it? It´s every bit as narrow as racism or homophobia- and the people who are too weak or lazy to see America for how complicated it really is should be made to feel as small and ignorant as they are unwittingly showing themselves to be.

Anyway, I have never felt that I should stand for it, and I certainly won´t hesitate to make my opinion known should I ever be made to feel that way. What I had never considered was that there could be another whole country that may not be as hated, but maybe just as misunderstood as ours. For the first time, I´m traveling at length with an Israeli girl with whom I have a lot in common- but what´s most surprising to me is that it seems that we are both confronted with a lot of crappy (but different) stereotypes. For once, I feel that maybe Americans aren´t the most unjustly depicted of all the traveling nationalities, and that maybe it´s Israel that´s getting the shortest end of the proverbial stick.

El Salvador and on...

Sitting in an internet cafe is ok and fine when you´re in a smog-filled city, but when you´re in a beachy paradise, it can make for a pretty sad afternoon.

El Tunco is pretty fantastic. We´ve been here for almost a week, and it´s going to be really hard to leave in a couple days for Juayua (I´m not exactly sure that it´s spelled that way). I had originally planned to return to Honduras to complete my study of Spanish grammar, but those damn military coups keep getting in the way!

Let me think back to the last time I posted. Oh yes, I was in San Pedro for a couple days, basically just pissing around and enjoying the rain before i came down to E.S. I ended up going to San Marcos and cliff jumping down into the lake. There were two rocks, one of which was a little smaller, at about 20 feet high. You can find a picture of me jumping off of it under my ´Guatemala Photos´tab. There was another one that was 30 feet high that I also jumped off of (after a good 10 minutes or so of deliberation). I used that as my profile picture for facebook.

Geert (Daniel) came to meet up with us for Saturday night, and we went for a proper night of boozing. At one point, I was giving Matt a piggy-back ride while Daniel ran in front of me with a rum and coke, goading me horse-and-carrot-like. That night was good fun, but not enough fun to compensate for the next day, which brought Shiran and myself down to El Salvador on bus. It was something like 10 very painful hours, during the course of which I had to beg the driver to pull over so I could vomit. Here is a photo of Shiran and I passing through immigration. We did our best to not look suspicious.

We stayed 2 nights in San Salvador, hanging out waiting for Trev to come while visiting some cool spots. Some stupid bitch in a hostel got lippy with me and I shut her down-- which I feel was a step towards maturity.... or a step back. However you want to look at it, I went to bed feeling satisfied.

We´re now in El Tunco, surfing, relaxing, and coming up with excuses not to leave. You can find photos of me... ahem... ´surfing´ under the ´El Salvador´tab in this blog. I should take more photos of the beach, but here is one of the playa at sunset from our favorite seafood restaurant.

I haven´t accomplished too much here aside from learning how to surf and getting so drunk I end up running naked down the beach-- I think there´ll be more cultural insight in my next entry.

Back in Guatemala

Just gonna quickly update here as I´ve been on this computer for something like 3 hours trying to get my pics uploaded. For real, 3 hours for 15 photos... there´s something unconstitutional about that... but check out this cool pic I took of the rain falling over the lake. Sweet, no?

Back in Guatemala after 2 weeks of hard core studying Spanish in Copan, Honduras. I spent the first two days here back in Antigua boozing until I blacked out. Ohhh, Antigua.... then on to San Pedro (once again) to chill out and take a few more days of language school before I head to El Salvador. My new language school is half the price, but seriously a fourth of the quality of my last one. My instructor rolls into my lessons every day high as a kite and spends the majority of my 3 hour class philosophizing on the existence of shape-shifters. I haven´t gotten a word in edgewise, and I haven´t learned a thing in the last 2 lessons. Ugh.

I´ve been hanging with some cool peeps and running into tons of people I´ve met on my trip. This really is a very tiny region. Having a good time but I think I´m ready for El Salvador next week. Trev, are you reading this? Where are we meeting up??

OK... my head hurts from being on this thing for too long. Here´s a cute picture of a kid in the San Pedro market the day before yesterday. Her mother had a basket full of live turkeys for sale. I amused myself greatly here.

Copan Ruinas

I fucking hate this computer. One hour, 2 reboots (can you make it plural that way?), 15 minutes of frozen time, and one giant throbbing vein in my forehead. STUPID COMPUTER!

I'm going to bullet point to make this fast.

1. Working in a clinic every morning for 3 hours before language school and loving it. I've been jabbing old ladies in the butt, guessing people's blood pressure, extracting parasites out of screaming children, and teaching many horrified country folk how to use condoms.

2. Been loving language school as well--- going really fast through my lessons and learning a ton. I've met some really cool peeps and been partying a bunch... eating lots of street food and getting mauled by mosquitos. I will post a picture of my legs on my next blog. It's gross and cool at the same time.

3. I'm not sure why I'm still numbering... none of these make sense.

4. Leaving at the end of the week for Guat City, and then El Salvador to surf.

Fucking third world internet. OK... I can't handle this anymore. I'll update again later.

La Moskitia

Oh, civilization. Sweet, sweet civilization.

I left for La Moskitia on Wednesday of last week, after much deliberation over whether it would be worth the money and the hardship. I returned yesterday still not having answered the second part of that question. The money, yes. The sweat, bugs, and emotional turmoil... perhaps not. Let's discuss...

Day 1 - Left at 5 in the morning to catch the first bus to Tocoa. Two waterproof bags, one waterproof dutchman, and two non-waterproof New Balance sneakers. We managed to catch the 6.15, and were in Tocoa by roughly 8. We met up with our driver, Fernando, in the mercado, and were escorted to our means of transport by which we were to go to Pueblo Nuevo... the last city before the lagoons of La Moskitia. This is me posing before a 5 hour ride through highway, jungle, and ocean. I suppose it made the most sense to put the able-bodied outside... but four-wheeling through the jungle and driving (LITERALLY) through the ocean while perching on top of several sacks of potatoes which were draped somewhat capriciously over a stove in a box, with nothing to hold onto but a fraying rope is NOT something that should be trusted to a couple of foreigners.

After arriving in Pueblo Nuevo, we caught a lancha out to Ra Ista, our last stop of the day... had a bean and egg dinner, and fell asleep to the sounds of the ocean and the steady hum of thirsty mosquitos.

Day 2 - I'm going to count this in Day 2, even though I'm not sure exactly when it happened... Sometime in the middle of the night, I awoke believing Sjors to be kicking my bed. I opened my eyes to a 7.1 earthquake violently swaying our hut-on-stilts in the middle of the jungle. After teetering around like a bowling pin for 10 minutes or so, we eventually settled down, and Sjors told me that that was the first earthquake he had ever experienced. In the complete darkness of the jungle, in a rickety shack built in floodlands, atop stilts. I give him points.

The rest of the day was spent in a boat headed upstream to the tranquil, one-phone town of Las Marias. This is the view from the balcony.

Day 3 - This was our first day actually hiking in the jungle. I'm not sure what made me think I was up to hiking this. Perhaps it's my I-can-do-anything-a-boy-can-do attitude... but no. No, I can't. I went with 3 guides, heart jungle men that do this shit barefoot at least several times a month, and Sjors... a tall dutchman that I think works as a personal trainer in his gym back home. And then there was me. This is me drinking hastily out of a creek we passed along the way. After mercifully stopping several times for my benefit, we arrived at our shelter about an hour after we were supposed to. A lot of the hike was uphill. Shut up. The cabin was on stilts, like everywhere we stayed by the Rio Platano.

Day 4 - The day we actually made it to the top of Pico Dama. Not much to be said about the actual hike, except that I was slow and fell down a lot... but here is a photo from near the top. Nothing but jungle. Beautiful!


The most exciting thing about this day was when we were about to go to sleep. The next picture is the critter that was dangling above my bed. He is the second monster we found. The first was a spider the size of a dinner plate (no joke). The next half hour or so we spent trying to push him out of the window with the blunt side of a machete. He was about a meter and a half long. We spent another half hour chasing out giant cockroaches, other monster spiders, and baby scorpions.



Day 5 - Woke up feeling like a piece of cargo. This is the barrack where I slept for 2 nights. I wish I could have gotten a photo with me INSIDE of it. There wasn't even room to bend my knees. Now I know what slave ships were like. Except for the urinating on myself, and you know... being a slave part of it. I awoke next to a hairy mass that I originally assumed to be a piece of straw. After further investigation, I found that it was not only a big momma scorpion, but it was all her 14 babies too. That's why it looked hairy... all the tails were sticking out in every direction. Spent the rest of the day getting back down to the river to head to Las Marias again. The shitty thing about walking downwards on wet jungle leaves is that if you slip, you really don't stop sliding until you've gone about 10 meters and lost your ability to reproduce. I fell a lot.

Day 6 - Ra Ista enjoying having a real bed and shower. We saw the sun set over the beach on the Moskito Coast. The beautiful thing about this beach that I've never seen before is that it's completely northward facing, so the sun sets right were the land and water meet. These are some kids we met out there that were total hams for the camera.


Day 7 - Went back to La Ceiba and took the first proper shower I'd had in a week.





I'm in Copan Ruinas now, spending the next couple of weeks taking language school and volunteering at a clinic. I'll update accordingly.

Moskitia

Just a quick note. Doing fine... been in La Ceiba for way too long. Shit this computer sucks. OK... gotta go. Headed to La Moskitia tomorrow. Will post pictures when I get back in a week.

Last day in Guatemala

So here I am in Livingston, Guatemala, sitting in an internet cafe while an oscillating fan scatters the mess of gum wrappers, napkins, and beer labels on which I've written the email addresses of my travelling comrades.

I've been here for 2 days already, and have accomplished exactly nothing. This is after 6 days of laying in a hammock in Lanquin, 3 days of meandering aimlessly among Flores' beautifully colonial streets, and 1 day of pulling (or at least trying to pull) backflips off of the rope swing at La Finca Tatin, a riverside hostel only accessible by boat (or 10 hour hike from Livingston) between Rio Dulce and Livingston.

I suppose the one big thing I've managed to do in the past week has been to go to Tikal... the largest and supposedly most impressive of the Mayan ruins found to date. I wish I could post the photos, but my camera died there (replay of Machu Picchu, anyone?) and I only grabbed a shot or two up top before my month-old camera ate complete shit.... not like it mattered much to me. I was getting the spins by mid-day.. probably a byproduct of my cavalier dinner the night before.. (slices of bread heaped with canned tuna and beans, and constructed through the use of our DEET covered fingers and an expired ISIC card).

We managed to roll into Flores at night the night before Tikal with no reservations or method of transportation, wake up at 3 thirty, walk up to the only other person who was awake at that time, and convince him to give us a private ride in his van all the way to Tikal for 80Q (about 10 USD). We were literally the first people there. From the parking lot, it was a mad scramble to get to the top of Temple 4 before the tour groups arrived.... and, having successfully accomplished that (with only 1 person beating us to the chase)... we had a solid hour of silence, watching the mist lift from the jungle, thus exposing the peaks of all the other temples. Ahhhh...

Other than that, there hasn't been much happening. The bugs are having their fair go at me, which is bothering me less and less as my skin acclimates. However, as my trip progresses, the bugs seem to be getting BIGGER with every successive town I get to. I was having a satisfying squat in La Finca Tatin's impressivly primitive bathroom, when a spider (literally) the size of a sand dollar waded out to make friends. Thankfully, no one was around to witness my bare-assed escape. I have since learned to scout the premesis before making myself so vulnerable again.

Overall, I'm doing okay. No more food poisoning, although a hideous rash seems to be taking over my wrists and fingers. (???) Hopefully I'll get that sorted before heading into La Moskitia, the western part of Honduras that has been considered to be Central America's Amazon. Oh shit, I think the internet cafe I'm at is closing down. Gotta go... Check out my new photos under the Guatemalan Photos tab!

Besos...
Sam

Sam Chu is bad at updating.

I know!

Anyway, Oh... from the waterpark...

Hmm... I ended up staying in Xela for a few more days, hanging out, learning Spanish, being yelled at by mi maestra for not studying, winning lots of games of Basta! ... you know, the usual.

I left on that Friday to head to Lago Atitlan with some girls from my school yet again, to San Pedro to dance to trance, yet again, and to buy the goucho pants I had had on my mind since going there 3 weeks back. It was marvelous! I also met up with a crazy New York lawyer to continue on to Antigua and Volcan Pacaya with.

This is us at Pacaya, an active volcano on the outskirts of Antigua. It takes about 2, 2 and a half hours to hike up, and another 2 to get down. It was pouring rain the WHOLE time up and the WHOLE time down. The only time that it let up was while we were there... thus the stunning pictures. I also coerced a stray dog to follow us up, and there are many pictures of me stroking his gangsta head on the top. Some will be on Flickr, some will be here. I haven't exactly worked out a method for keeping them all together yet. Hehe.

After Pacaya, Dave and I were off to Lanquin in a crazy and extremely long 6 hour minivan trip with a couple of Fins, an insane Italian named Annaliza, and a REALLY creepy old man from Berkeley who kept feeling up on our adorable Italian friend. It was bad news for Californians when that guy decided to go travel. The poor girl was squashed up against the window, curled into a ball of disgust while he stroked her trembling shoulder for 6 HOURS.

And now we're in Lanquin. Dave reckons he'll be off to Flores soon, but the sleepy pace of this place has sucked me in. We went to Semuc Champey yesterday with another American and two Israelis. This is Semuc Champey. Probably one of the most beautiful places I've ever been in my whole life. The pools are turquoise green (the pictures don't even do them a shred of justice) and the river partially flows underneath this natural limestone bridge, and the part that flows up top goes from pool to pool, cascading down in waterfalls from each while thousands of tiny little fish circle your body. Paradise!

The ride there was rough though. I'm not going ot lie. The way there, they packed us in the back of a pickup truck with 19 other people, including a baby whose mother sat him on the floor (of the bed of a pickup truck) for the whole 45 minute ride. He somehow managed to eventually get to sleep, disregarding the (numerous) times when one of the 19 other people standing in the bed of this truck would step on his face. This includes Dave, who wears a size 13 shoe and is over 6 feet tall. Guatemalan babies = Gangstahs.

The ride back would have been maybe decent, but Bret decided at the last minute that he wanted to jump off the bridge over the Rio. This was at least a 40 foot drop, so Rotem (our militant Israeli friend) had to scout the depth of the river in several places. After we had scouted out a spot (I'm not sure why I'm saying we... I sat on the sidelines eating cheap Guatemalan chocolate), we had to wait for Dave and Li to load their cameras, Bret to build his nerve, and loads of astonished Guatemalans to gather. He jumped twice. And still has legs, although from what i know of the first drop, that may not have been the case had he been a couple feet over. Anyway, by the time we were done, we had loads of great photos, smiles on our faces, and a story to tell.

We did not, however, have a ride back to Lanquin.

We managed to catch the VERY last ride back after waiting for about an hour. This was in a milk truck with about 40 other people.

Guess who rode on the roof of that milk truck for 45 bumpy minutes?

I don't think I've ever been so aware of wayward electicity lines in my life.

Anyway, that was yesterday, and I'm spending most of today in a hammock. I'm so happy here, I've considered working for this hostel... but I reckon it'll be time to get going around next week. Flores calls!

WATERPARK!

I was not aware that there was a waterpark 45 minutes away from Xela by Chickenbus.

Holy Skipping Out on Class, Batman!

Really quick post here... still in Xela--- can't seem to get myself to leave... was originally going to post out of here on Sunday, but I reckon I'll be staying for a couple days more. I think I'll continue my lessons until Wednesday, then to Antigua on Thursday to hike Pacaya ... hopefully the same day. Then off to Coban and Semuc Champey! I want to post pictures, but every time I hook my camera up to a computer it seems to make all mechanics involved shake violently. Quite honestly, I haven't been taking that many anyway.. going to school is pretty yawn-inducing, and I doubt any of you care very much.

I'll write again after my weekend trip to Chichicastenango (MAD shopping). Love---

Food Poisoning. Episode 1

Don't worry... I don't plan on going into detail. Not because I have any heart and would want to spare you the horror... but because I was out of consciousness most of the time and can't remember most of it.

Wednesday at some point, I ate a sandwich with "cheese". Mistake #1. I followed this up with much too much of a questionable tea-like substance. Mistake #2. I then overobligated myself throughout the day with much too many things which were much to far away from any conceivable bathroom area. Mistake #3. Oh, the twisted cosmo of mistakes.

I'll keep it short and just state that I will never... ever go travelling without a hearty supply of trash bags again. I missed about 48 hours of waking life, not to mention all of my lessons and volunteer obligations at the center.

Anyway, happily, my friend Spencer from Berkeley came to meet me on Friday (when I was feeling a bit better) and has been kindly helping me get back on my feet these last couple days... at least up until HE got food poisoning last night. Oh, Guatemala.

On a slightly happier note, I took charge of my first Saturday off school and went to Zunil and Fuentes Georginas in my first combination of chicken buses (old American school buses painted to look gangsta, and filled to the point of bursting with both people and the chickens they carry along with them) and collectivos (pick up trucks that pack as many people as they can into the bed) and had a marvelous time. In Zunil, they have this thing called "Maximo" (also called San Simon, and likened to Judas on many occasions)... a creepy stuffed doll that wears sunglasses and a sombrero and is supposed to be the god of debauchery. You'd think he'd be fun and interesting to look at, but really, he just scared my pants off. I refused to go inside.

We really only spent a little bit of time there before heading to Fuentes Georginas to swim in the hot springs. The hot springs are fed by sulfur vents in the volcano, and therefore smell like poo (in some spots). The guidebook doesn't tell you that. They're also suffocatingly hot, and after about 5 minutes or so of swimming around, you have to hop out and dance around on the pavement for a bit to cool off. I spent most of my time hanging out on a rock and drinking a beer. The American Way.

Overall, I'm doing well. I have to say I wasn't doing so well a few days ago when all I did was watch the ceiling spin and wish that someone, anyone knew I was dying alone in a grimy hostel room by myself.... but we all have our humbling moments.

Maced in the Face

Ugh.

Just finished my 3rd day of language school here in Quetzaltenango (Xela) and DAMN I've got a lot of homework! Whatever happened to siestas in latin america? Mi Maestra is pretty awesome... really understanding and she doesn't push too hard, but there's a lot of homework involved every night. Pair that with volunteer work and student activities, and I find myself pooping out at about 8pm every night.

Overall, I'm doing well. Met some cool people that I'm volunteering and studying with, and I'm staying in a hostel that has private rooms for 4 bucks a night. Not bad. I think I'm coming down with something at the moment though... my stomache feels... odd. It may be because I drank about 5 cups of tea this morning trying to stay awake through my lessons... Or it might be because I've been eating street food... a big no no in the hygiene department.

Whatever the case, Xela is one of the bigger cities in Guate, and I'll be able to get medical attention should I really need it... I hope.

Anywho.. I ended up going to San Pedro this weekend with a couple of guys from Colorado. It was FUCKING AWESOME. I'll post pictures as soon as I've got a minute to grab my USB cable. There were a lot of expats.. primarily Americans, but it was still a sick spot to spend a day or two. Except for the hippies. Too many damn hippies.

We ended up going out both of the nights that I was there. 5 Q for a cuba libre. 8.1 Q= 1 USD. 10 dollars = trashy smashy. Both nights, we ended up at Freedom Bar, which hosts a fat rave party every night. Imagine lots of Europeans dancing to trance back when trance was still cool... circa maybe 1986? I didn't mind though... it was still a rockin good time, except for the end of the night.

Instead of turning on the lights and telling people to get out, like we silly Americans... they just pepper spray everyone in the fucking club. At first I thought they had unleashed a cat upon us (which would have been about on par for both originality and cruelty)... but after speaking for a moment or two with a very irate bartender, we had come to find that this is the general means of doing business. I think the Guatemalans win in the efficacy department.

Blerg! Ok, my stomache feels really shitty. Gonna go curl up in bed for a few minutes... and then it's off to go teach art at the local high school... I'll post pictures when I don't feel as likely to puke anymore.

Besos.