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.