Utatlan Spanish School

Dear Readers,

Some of you may already know that when I was in high school I went to Spain for a year as an exchange student and consequently learned how to speak Spanish. Being able to speak Spanish has been a great asset on this trip. (Although, I do have to say that a lot of travelers seem to be getting by with little to no Spanish.) Even though I had some Spanish skills prior to my trip, in the many years since high school my Spanish has become like a prom dress; worn once and then stashed in the back of the closet. What I´m trying to say is that my Spanish was a little bit rusty, which is why I decided to go to Spanish school and polish it up a little.

I chose Utatlan because someone recommended it to me back in Antigua. Also, it happens to be one of the least expensive schools. Some people argue that cheap schools don´t pay their teachers very well. I don´t know if this is true or not. It´s a possibility. I do know that a more expensive school doesn´t necessarily pay the host families any better for housing students.

My private tutor at Utatlan was a very friendly and kind woman named Martha. Because we didn´t have to start with the basics, most of my tutoring time was spent practicing my conversational and comprehension skills. Every once in a while we would review a verb tense. The best part about Spanish school was that Martha would tell me all of these interesting tidbits about Xela, Guatemala, past students, etc.

I also liked the family I stayed with, but I felt that the living situation was not well suited to someone who really wanted to immerse themselves in to the language and culture. My room was located in an apartment above the families', so, apart from mealtimes, I didn´t have that much interaction with them. Also, though it wasn´t the case at the time I was there, this family´s livelihood depended on hosting students, and so at times they would house up to 10 students, which is not ideal if you want to be forced to speak Spanish.

The best part about my home stay was that their mealtimes were heavy on the vegetables, which was a nice healthy respite from my usual diet of chicken, rice, beans, and tortillas. Some other students I talked to were not as lucky, and were being fed diets that were heavy on hot dogs, or light on food (for two little Japanese girls to say they didn´t get enough food, you know it must have been extreme).

I can´t say that my Spanish is perfect now, but it was definitely helpful to be refreshed on conjugation and verb tenses. I would definitely recommend a little Spanish school for any long term traveler in Latin America who isn´t already fluent. It´s a good way to get to know the people of that country on a more personal level, especially if you opt to do a home stay with a local family.

Next Time: Chichicastenango

xx,

gwen

(My host family´s homemade see-saw.)

Quetzaltenango was too hard to say so we shortened it to Xela

Howdy!

The fun part about traveling on the local buses is that you’re almost never quite sure where you´ll get dropped off. I don´t mean that it´s likely to be kicked off the bus; left to defend yourself on some desolate country road. I mean that sometimes the bus stations are unclear. Sure, sometimes the guide books will give you a little map with symbols on it that indicate bus stations, but good luck if you can figure out which one you’re actually at. In some cities it’s easy, and all of the buses come and go from the same spot. In some of the larger cities things get much more confusing and buses for different destinations leave from different spots.






I arrived in Quetzaltenango (a.k.a.Xela--pronounced Shay-la) on the chicken bus and realized I had no idea where I was. Of course, I was immediately accosted by several taxi drivers who wanted to help me figure out where I was and to offer their services in to town. It turns out that I was at the Terminal Minerva, which is also a large market on the edge of town. Even though I turned down the offers to be taken to my hostel for the “low price of $7,” the cab drivers were still nice enough to tell me that the buses into town were just on the other side of the market. I looked out at the chaotic market, with its single narrow lane, and thought how hard can it be? I was so wrong. Trying to roll my backpack through the market while people squeezed past me in both directions, while also circumnavigating the large push carts loaded down with goods, was more than I bargained for. (BTW, you read correctly; I roll my backpack. I used to be one of those poor suckers with sore shoulders, lugging around a giant backpack on my back. Not anymore. For this trip I bought a backpack with wheels. So far, there have only been one or two instances where I actually needed to wear it like a backpack, the rest of the time I’ve been able to roll it. Maybe having a rolling backpack is a sell-out move, but it’s allowed me to bring a nicer camera backpack, and to avoid the dreaded pregnant turtle look [wearing the big pack on the back, and a little daypack in front].)

I thought I would never see the light of day, but eventually the market spat me out into the bright sunshine, just as lost as ever. I didn’t see any buses and I had no idea which direction I should go in. Once again my lost tourist look betrayed me, and I was approached by taxi drivers. The price they were offering was a little bit lower, about $5. Internally I was debating whether or not I should just take the taxi. On one hand, I was tired and confused. On the other hand, I had just paid less than half that price to travel a much greater distance. I just hate feeling like I’m getting ripped off. I took the taxi.

My impression of Xela as a city is a good one. It had the big city feeling that I’ve been craving, without the constant feeling of immediate danger that you get in many major cities. It was the first time in a while where I felt like I was witnessing the real lives of the people of Guatemala, and not just some touristy version of it. What I saw was normality. The lives of most Xelans do not revolve around getting a piece of the tourism pie. Of course, Xela is not without some tourist trappings. In Xela, there seem to be a fair number of restaurants either owned by expats or catering to tourists, but the lack of hostels appears to be a real indication that this is not just another stop on the Gringo Trail. For most backpackers Xela´s main draw is its bounty of affordable Spanish schools. My week long homestay with a Guatemalan family, which included three meals a day and my own bedroom, plus five four-hour one-on-one sessions with a Spanish tutor was only $120.

In general, Xela appears to be a much more affordable city in comparison to many places I had been in Guatemala. On my first day there I had a huge bowl of chunky delicious chicken soup, complete with rice, tortillas, and a drink for about $2.50. The internet was about $.50 an hour, or less. Beer was a tad bit cheaper than in other cities. (BTW, Xela is where they brew Cabra beer, which is, according to many backpackers, Guatemala´s best beer.) Xela is also home to Bab´s Bakery, which is owned by a Canadian woman, who makes some of the best chocolate chip cookies I´ve had in a while. Some of her other confections are a miss, but the chocolate chip cookies are a must try. She has a version which is labelled ¨Canadian Chocolate Chip Cookie,¨ which is basically like the normal version except almond extract has been used instead of vanilla extract. I don´t know if Canadians really make cookies like that, but it´s surprisingly tasty. Mmmmmmmmmmmm. All that talk about cookies, makes me want to go find some.


Next Time: More Xela!

xx,
gwen

Xela is cold, but apparently not cold enough.

Kentucky Fried Chicken Bus

Dear Readers,

Today I´d like to write about my first true Guatemalan Chicken Bus ride, and I’m sorry to say it was completely boring. I’m both relieved and a little bit disappointed that there were absolutely no chickens to be found on the bus. The bus ride itself wasn’t even that uncomfortable. The roads were in decent shape, and the bus was never full. In fact, for most of the trip I had a seat to myself.


For those of you wondering what a chicken bus is, let me explain. A chicken bus is the backpackers’ nickname for the local bus system in many Central American countries. Much like the buses I took in Belize, in Guatemala they use old American school buses that have been made over with a bright and exciting paint job and the loudest horns on the planet.

(My chicken bus today was decorated with Winnie the Pooh stickers and religious inscriptions.) Unlike Belize buses, they are sometimes filled beyond capacity with both human and livestock passengers, and feature a man leaning out the door shouting the buses´ destination for anyone within ear shot. ¨Guate! Guate! Guate!...Guate! Guate!¨


At the end of the day, I’m mostly happy that I didn’t have a crazy horrible experience, but a little part of me is sad that I won’t be able to add a crazy chicken bus experience to my list of travel horror stories. Although, I still have so many countries to go that the future is filled with possibilities.


xx,
gwen


p.s. I leave you with a couple more chicken bus photos from Antigua.

Check out the sweet hood ornament.

These buses can eat you for breakfast.

Lots of buses. I bet they are all going to Guate.

what rhymes with Santiago?

Howdy!

On my last day at Lake Atitlan I decided that I should go check out the nearby town of Santiago, which is easily reached by ferry. I didn’t know much about Santiago except that it had a market and Maximon. Maximon is Santiago’s version of San Simon. In Guatemala, San Simon is thought of as a saint (though, not officially recognized by the church), but he is really a mixture between some Mayan gods and what may have been a person in real life. Supposedly, Don Simon was a rich drunk, who did good things for others, so now when you bring him gifts of alcohol or cigarettes he will bless you with love or prosperity, depending on what you ask for. Somehow this person, if he existed, got combined with the practice, amongst Mayans, of preserving their religion by concealing the worship of their deities by disguising it as worship for Catholic saints.

I’m not sure that I, or even most Guatemalans, completely understand the real history behind San Simon. What I do know is that many people here really have faith in him. Many towns in the Western Highlands have San Simon effigies that reside in someone’s house for one year. During the festival of San Simon there is a huge party where the effigy moves to a new person’s house for another year. Unfortunately, I wasn’t around during one of these fiestas. I hear they get pretty crazy.

I arrive in Santiago, and I immediately become weary of all the street kids who come up to me asking for money to take me to see Maximon. I probably should have let one of them take me there, but I wanted to discover the city and find Maxi for myself. What I discovered was a city that I didn’t really like. I don’t know what it was about the place that made me so tense, but I felt it lacked charm and beauty. I bought a couple of souvenirs in the market.

This is the woman I bought the souvenirs from. (See what I mean about lacking charm?)

Then I went in search of Maximon. It took me a while, but I finally found him by following some other tourists. I pay the steep $2 entry fee to see him, thinking, “This better be a really interesting idol or that perhaps just paying him a fee was like an offering and I should be immediately blessed.” I step inside the dark room and I take out my camera. Hold it! There is a picture taking fee, which I pay. Maybe it was all the fees, maybe it was my sour perception of the town, but I was not impressed by Maximon. The effigy of Maxi consists of a scary mask with a hat on, and a bunch of scarves for a body. Creepy.

After visiting Maximon, I was happy to get back to the tranquility of San Pedro, where I would rest up for my early morning bus ride to Quetzaltenango.

Next Time: Chicken Buses

xx,
gwen

Can Can you Lake Atitlan?

Welcome back,

I´m glad that you´re still reading this despite the fact that I´m a very slow blogger, and it might take me 4 more months after my trip to finish my travel tales. Those who stick with it will get a prize for braving the months of bad punctuation and text wrapping. A bottle of hot sauce, perhaps? (Yes that says Mayan Viagra)












In my last blog I was on my way to Lake Atitlan in Guatemala. I had booked another shuttle (I love to tempt fate) to Panajachel, which is a popular tourist destination on the lake´s edge. This shuttle ride went extremely smoothly. I had the luxury of sitting in the front seat and enjoying the supremely beautiful view. The sky was a bright blue sprinkled with puffy bits of cloud. It was the perfect backdrop a we wound our way up along the mountains (or volcanoes?), through harvested corn fields, and endless numbers of flowering bushes. I´ve never seen mountains with so many flowers on them.



When I arrived in Pana I made my way down to the dock, where I would take a water taxi to San Pedro on the other side of the lake. There was no specific reason for staying in San Pedro, other than that I had heard, from other backpackers, that it was a nice place to stay. I waited for more than half an hour for the water taxi to fill up with enough passengers to make the trip profitable. I think it´s possible to go directly from Antigua to San Pedro, but I really liked the boat ride. It was a nice introduction to the lake. The water was a glassy cerulean blue perfectly framed by the surrounding volcanoes. I could immediately see why people come here to relax.

Upon my arrival in San Pedro I was immediately accosted by a ¨guide¨ who wanted to show me places to stay. When I found out that my first choice was booked up, I reluctantly let him lead me to another cheap place to stay. Some of you might be thinking, “Oh Gwen! Please don’t tell me you fell for the scam where they tell you the place you want to go to is full, and then they take you somewhere else where they get a commission.” Don’t worry. The Lonely Planet (a.k.a. Backpacker’s Bible) warned me about these schemes. I actually checked out my first choice and found out first hand that they were full. The guide led me to a very cheap hotel. This place was a little sketchy looking. The room consisted of four cinderblock walls with a double bed in the middle. The bed was not against any of the walls, and I had a feeling the sheets hadn’t been changed. I was still feeling weak from my sickness, so I decided to just go with it for one night. After throwing my stuff in the room, I took the money I saved on housing and spent it at an overpriced restaurant with bad service. Then it was back to the room for a nap.

After a somewhat restful nap, which was achieved during those moments when I wasn't thinking about how gross the room was, I decided I couldn’t stay more than one night in that musty hole. I spent the evening walking around checking out other places to stay. I found an awesome deal at Casa Lola. A private room with a bathroom, hot water, tv, and free drinking water for only $7.50. Sure, it was double what I was paying at the other place, but it was so worth it. Casa Lola was immaculately clean and bright. The hallways continuously smelled like fresh laundry. Did I mention the hammocks? Ahhhh...

That night I went to sleep content with the knowledge that I would not have to be in that room for another night. I woke up early the next morning (already fully dressed because I wanted minimal skin contact with the sheets), and went straight to my new hotel. The next couple of days were spent mostly gaining my strength back, watching made for tv christmas movies from the 90's, catching up on internet, and sleeping. Not very interesting, but very relaxing. I did manage to walk around the town a bit, so I'll leave you with a few pictures.







Statue used to scare the local children. "Come here my pretty."

I also discovered the sweetness that is Squiz.

Do you see the nose (and face) of the Indian? (I'm not being racist, that's what they actually call it.)

Next Time: Santiago and Maximon.

xx,
gwen

My First Taste of Antigua

Dear Readers,

When I last left you I was on a fun day trip to Semuq Champey. I had such a good time at Semuq that I decided to stay another day at the El Retiro Lodge in Lanquin. Little did I know that the beautiful weather wouldn´t hold out and that the next day was damp and grey. Because the weather was bad I ended up spending most of the day hanging out with this English girl, Natalie, who was not feeling well. Little did I know that her sickness was contagious. Actually, I don´t know for a fact that we were sick with the same bug. It could be pure coincidence that I got sick a day after she did. Long story short, the next day we both went to Antigua, and later that evening I started feeling extremely sick. Then Natalie and I spent the next couple of days in Antigua being sick, and stupidly not going to the doctor. It took me a full week to fully recover and then a week after that my bug returned to haunt me on Christmas. I finally decided to go to the doctor, who told me that I had a parasite. She gave me some bright orange miracle pills and I immediately started to feel better. My doctor´s visit plus pills cost me $7. Lesson learned: don´t put off going to the doctor´s.

Backtracking. The trip to Antigua was made in another long and ardous shuttle van journey. From what I had gathered from my fellow backpackers, traveling to Antigua via local means was not that much cheaper than just taking the tourist shuttle, so once again I found myself in one of those vans. This shuttle ride was not quite as bad as the collectivo ride I had from Coban to Lanquin, but it definitely rates up there on my list of worse transportation experiences . The drive to Antigua is about 5-6 hours long, which is a long time to be cramped into a small van, but at the very least I had a normal sized seat and wasn´t totally squished. Not being totally squished is why we tourists pay the extra amount of money to go on these shuttles. But nothing can ever be certain in a land where there is no fear of litigation.

An hour into the trip, just outside the city of Coban, we made an unexpected stop at the side of the road. We looked out the window and saw a girl standing there with a suitcase, pillow, and a crate. The shuttle van was already completely full, and every actual seat was occupied. I did not like where this was going. The driver hopped out and started to load the girl´s bag onto the top of the shuttle. All of the passengers started murmuring and wondering what was going on here. They couldn´t possibly be trying to put another person in this van. Could they? Oh no! They definitely were trying to add this girl to the passenger list. The driver opened the back door to the van and pulled out a toolbox, which he then jammed in between the bench and the seat of the backrow. He then set the girl´s pillow on top and told her to hop in. When the reality had fully hit us, we immediately began to argue with the driver about the craziness of the situation. He told us that the girl had a need to get to Antigua and that we needed to oblige her. We argued that we had paid a lot of money for this shuttle and that it was already full, so she should never have been promised a seat. Maybe if were in the middle of nowhere it would have been more conceivable to take on this lonely passenger, but we were right outside the city with lots of buses going to her destination. The funny thing is that this girl just listened to us argue with the driver and never really said anything. I think she really just wanted to get in the shuttle. No offense to her, but there were already three tall European boys sitting in the back, and she was not a petite waif who could easily slide in among them. It would have been a very tight fit. Amazingly the driver gave up and sent the girl back to the city in a taxi. Everyone sighed in relief, because we had no idea that the fun was just beginning.

We started driving again and everything seemed to be okay until someone had to go to the bathroom. It was at this point that the driver decided he was an officer of the karma police. For not letting the poor girl on the shuttle we would be punished with absolutely no stops on the way to Antigua. He said that we had denied this girl her need to get to Antigua and therefore he would deny us our need to empty our bladders. This time the guys in the front had the unfortunate job of arguing with the driver. The driver really didn´t seem to care if we peed all over his van, or if he lost his job. The arguing went on for over an hour until finally in a huff the driver pulled over at a gas station. I was so glad that he pulled over because I did not want to find out what would have happened if he didn´t. When we all piled back into the van tensions were still high. This man was a loose canon and who knew what he might do next.

After some exhaustive hours later we finally arrived in Antigua. I was feeling incredibly weary and just wanted to have a hot shower and lie down, so instead of hostal hunting I followed some of my fellow shuttlers to A Place to Stay. ¨Where,¨ you ask? No, that´s what it´s called, A Place to Stay. A Place to Stay is a friendly little hostel located right across from the market, which unfortunately means it´s located right next to where all the local buses leave from. Convenient if you´re hopping on a chicken bus, annoying if you can´t tune out the noise of someone incessantly shouting, ¨Guate! Guate! Guate, Guate, Guate!¨ all day long. (Guate is short for Guatemala City). Buses for Guate leave from this street every five minutes all day long. We get it. Stop yelling. I think the main reason this really got on my nerves was because I was sick and lying in the hostel listening to this yelling all day long.

Once I was all cleaned up and rested I set out to explore the city a little bit. First I went to the market and checked out the large array of goods. I bought a Peruvian style knit hat because it was cold. (This turned out to be a very good buy, because I was cold for 75% of the rest of my stay in Guatemala. ) As I was walking around the city I noticed that all of these little kids were dressed up in costumes that looked like what I imagine is the traditional style of dress from the colonial times. The little boys were dressed in white cotton pants and tunics, with red scarves tied around their necks, straw hats, and their upper lips decorated with eye liner mustaches. So cute! The girls were dressed like little Mayan women with their flowered shirts, and traditionally patterned wrap skirts. After several inquiries I was told that I could find the fiesta at the Yellow Church Plaza (this should be it´s name, because it´s much easier to remember than the real name of the church). At the plaza I found a lively scene of street vendors selling food and toys to parents toting dressed up children. Today was Children´s Day, which apparently is celebrated in Guatemala by dressing your kids up and making them eat questionable street food. I had some of this street food. I started feeling sick a couple of hours afterwards. Maybe my friend Natalie was not the culprit after all. Actually it´s probably an act of love to expose your children to street food early on. Hopefully, in this way, they will develop a tolerance to parasites and other bacteria.

In this plaza I also discovered the reason all the kids were dressed up. Along one end of the plaza were all these lovely little country scenes set up so that the kid could stand in it and have their picture taken. (The Guatemalan equivalent of sitting on Santa´s lap.) Each set up had the same theme, but each one varied wildly in authenticity and elaboration. Some had live animals. Some had Santa. I´m sure no matter which one the parents settled on they received a very cute memento. After all, no one can resist a child with a drawn on mustache.

It was good that I got out that first night, because, as I said before, I spent the next couple of days sick in bed. When I felt well enough, I tempted fate by booking another shuttle to the town of Panajachel on Lake Atitlan.




















Next Time: San Pedro la Laguna.

xx,
gwen