Hola de Antigua,
The trip down here from San Ignacio was a long one. I caught a bus to Benque, a town near the border. While on the bus I was very fortunate to meet two German girls, one of which spoke fluent Spanish. We shared a taxi to the border and crossed it together. The Belize side charges a $15 US processing fee and a $3.75 US conservation fee to get out and the Guatemalan side charges $3 US to get in. Once on the other side we planned to take a local (read cheap) bus to Flores, but a few men (presumably taxi drivers or working on commission) told us that the buses only run at 4P and 9P in the afternoon and pointed to a sign of a bus company which confirmed it. They told us we could go by taxi for $40 US. It was a little past noon so we didn’t want to wait until 4. However, we weren’t convinced that a taxi was our only option as Flores is the most common destination from the border because there’s a big bus hub there. So we walked down the street another block and turned the corner and, viola (!), there was a local minibus destined for Flores right there, ready to leave immediately for 30Q ea. ($3.75), so we hopped on. I am eternally grateful to Saskia, the German girl who speaks Spanish, because it may have taken me days to figure out how to get to Flores as not one person spoke English.
Flores is a beautiful town that’s actually an island on a lake. The bus station is in the adjacent town called Santa Elena, so you have to take a taxi or tuk tuk (a sort of motorcycle with a cart built around it for passengers) to get to Flores. The streets of Flores are made of cobblestone and all the buildings are bright earthy colors. The island is a small hill, so you have a view of the lake from almost anywhere on it.
Unfortunately, I only had a few short hours to enjoy Flores as my bus was at 4AM the next morning. The bus was supposed to take 9 hrs. but, true to Guatemalan form, it took 11.5, partly because of a flat tire acquired when our overstuffed bus attempted the slow ascent into the mountains. At 3:30P, we arrived and I used the very little Spanish I knew to get a taxi to Antigua for $25. I surely could’ve gotten a better deal or taken a bus instead, but after 11.5 hours, I really didn’t care (plus the school charges $30 to pick you up from Guatemala, so I actually saved $5). 45 min. later, I finally arrived at my host family’s home. The mother, Hilda, and her son, Marlon, greeted me at the door and Hilda showed me to my room right away. I was pleasantly surprised. The room is large, maybe even slightly larger than my bedroom at home. It has a double bed and twin bed in it with a private bathroom and I have it all to myself for 4 weeks, plus 3 meals a day except Sundays, plus 6 hrs of one-on-one Spanish instruction, 5 days a week. All of this cost me the whopping sum of $880. For four weeks! I love Central America.
Spanish school began promptly at 8A the following day. I met my teacher, Lesbia, and we got right to work. Learning Spanish is probably one of the hardest mental tasks I have ever tackled. I am constantly confused and overwhelmed. I get really excited when we read a whole passage or do a whole exercise and I understand everything. Then 5 min. later, I am completely lost again. After two weeks though, I understand most of what people are saying, and can get basic points across.
It gives one an interesting perspective to know another language. All these years of travelling I’ve heard many different languages. Some beautiful, some ugly, and virtually all of them sound like nonsense. As a monolingual American, it’s hard to imagine that these sounds are coming from other humans on the same planet. But once you start learning another language and hearing it spoken everywhere, you realize that these strange humans have words that allow them to share the thoughts and images in their heads, just like English-speakers do. I know this sounds incredibly naïve and ego-centric, but perhaps some of you can relate?
During my first week here, I indulged in all of the activities offered by the school, including salsa dance lessons, visiting a butterfly farm, visiting a coffee production coop, hiking partway up one of the many inactive volcanoes in the area, and visiting a jade factory. All of it was fun, but would’ve been much more interesting if I could understand the Spanish-speaking guide. So this week, I opted out of the activities and focused solely on my studies.
On my first weekend here, I made what turned out to be a bit of a poor decision to visit Samuc- Chempey (where one of the longest natural limestone bridges in the world is found and is pocked with a series of cascading crystal clear pools that are great for swimming), Lanquin (famous for its caves), and Coban (a large cultural city north of here). The tour was arranged by two fellow students. They researched several options and put a ton of legwork in to find the best deal. In the end, they decided to go with the brother of their host-mom as it seemed the right thing to do. The cost for the whole weekend would be $85, $25 more than some of the other companies, but they were told the higher cost was because the only rooms available at the hotel were private rooms with private baths. They were also told that it would take 5 hours one way to get there and we wouldn’t be going in a minivan (but something more comfortable instead) and that everything was included on the tour except meals and tubing on the river and that we would have a private Spanish-speaking guide. So they booked it along with 8 other students including me.
The first surprise was when we were picked up . . . in a minivan. The second was when the ride took 8 hours. The third was when we arrived and were told the kitchen was closed even though our guide assured us he’d called ahead to make reservations. The fourth and biggest yet was our rooms. There were four rooms for 10 people. Only one had a private bathroom and it had two beds. Another had 3-beds. The last two had 2 beds and one of them was a loft. To get to it you had to walk down the hill to a hut, climb the stairs to the porch of the hut, then climb a ladder to an opening guarded only by a poorly fitting curtain. To get to the bathroom, you had to go down the ladder, across the porch, down the stairs, follow a path to a set of about 25 stairs and go up them. Not that big of a deal, but kind of a pain in the middle of the night. Not to mention slightly dangerous after a couple of drinks and in a groggy half-asleep state. I was in this room. It did have the advantage of boasting a great view of the river and of being close enough to the river that it lulled you to sleep (though this could also be a curse given the bathroom situation).
Anyway, we quickly realized we’d all been taken. Such is the chance you take when you book plans through people you’ve met in developing countries. We do it with the best of intentions, but they, unfortunately, do not. The next day, there was so much confusion about what the plan was, that we only managed to make it to Samuc-Chempey for a hike and a swim (which was very beautiful and very nice) and then tubed down the river to our hotel. It turns out our “private Spanish-speaking guide” was our tour guides father and served in no way whatsoever as a guide, although we all thought he was adorable and were impressed by his ability to climb a steep hike at 81 years of age. When it became obvious that not everything was included, we got upset and one of the men who had booked the trip took the guide aside to have a talk with him. Apparently, the guide didn’t appreciate that because when we arrived back from tubing, he was waiting there with his sister (the man’s host mother) on the phone and she promptly gave him an earful. Our guide disappeared for the rest of the night without telling us the plan for the next day. So we got up early, tracked him down, and then all left, skipping the caves and only stopping in Coban for ½ hr. on the way home, which took 9 hours.
When I got home, I went to charge my camera battery and promptly dropped the charger on the floor. It broke. Again. (I had to replace it in Malaysia for $40 after a power outage in Indo fried it). It was $40 to replace it. Again. Then, I had a small dinner and began to feel very ill. In the middle of the night, my stomach decided to swiftly and violently return all of the food deposits of the day (and judging by the sheer volume of it from the night before as well). The next morning my stomach was on fire and I was in a lot of pain, but I sucked it up and went to school so I wouldn’t miss my lessons. There I learned that at least 4 other people from the trip had been sick and one of them went to the hospital with appendicitis. I’m not sure if this was related, but scary nonetheless. I made it through a little over an hour of lessons, but I just couldn’t focus, so I decided to go home to bed and make the rest of the lessons up by upping my hours to 7 for the rest of the week.
The next night (Tues), the school had a fiesta, based on a very odd tradition. Apparently, someone steals the baby Jesus of another family (I guess every family has one?). A few days later the entire family and relatives and friends go in a procession down the street, go into that persons home, bind and blindfold the thief, and then bring them back to their home, along with the recovered baby Jesus. There they return baby Jesus. This is normally followed by half an hour of prayer or so (though our teachers mercifully halted after ten). This is followed by music, dancing, and refreshments. At the end of the fiesta, egg shells that have been emptied and filled with confetti are cracked on everyone’s heads. It was all very odd, but slightly entertaining. I ate ham by accident. It was in a salad I was eating in the dark and a teacher had specifically told me it was vegetarian (I asked in Spanish). When I moved into the light I was horrified to find that there were mounds of it on my plate. I got sick again the next day. My stomach is just now recovering from the last week. I am told this is very normal for travelers here.
So, this weekend, I opted to stay in Antigua and take it easy.
Here is the photo link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2911009&id=8369089&l=125882dbde
Love and good thoughts to you all.
Sierra
