The Beginning of the End...and still no Coconut Cake.

Las Ruinas de Copán, Honduras, a World Heritage Site where reside well-preserved remnants of Mayan civilization, temples and giant stone stelae carved with the precision of DNA, is cool. Yeah, I'm not really a Ruins-head. But still cool.

The highlight of the trip from Copán Ruinas to Antigua, Guatemala -- where I was to meet my boy J-Whet -- was a pair of bars somewhere over the Guatemalan border: Bars El Mujeriego, numbers 1 and 2. Which literally translates to "Bar The Womanizer". Classy stuff.

Antigua was a trip. Reunited with J-Whet, my longtime partner in hoopin', Wire-watchin', tree-blowin' and appreciation of the English language, the smile couldn't have been smacked off my face. Though one of those sexy girls strutting around probably should have tried, the way I'd stop on a dime and swivel, following those hips while they walked away, smiling over their shoulder every few steps.

Yes, my game is on right now. And it's so not game. Just gotta drop an "Hola" and stare. Not gonna work in the states. Hell, maybe the game's in my hole-ridden, mud-stained Asics. Maybe little strands of charm are caught in the stubbly beard I'm sporting. Maybe Guatemalans have a healthy appreciation of Kriss Kross, 'cause I'm so de moda in my pit-stained t-shirt flipped inside out. Or maybe it's just that Jackson and I are two Americans walking the streets armed with dos metros, smiles and swag.

And for this I keep defying the rainy season odds, accumulating more kisses than mosquito bites, more at risk for the Human Influenza than malaria. There's the usual clubbing, which usually ends up in sloppy displays on the dancefloor. And then there's the over-40 set, who seem to have a vulture-to-vulnerable attraction to Pat.

Take, for instance, Bethy the street vendor, serving churrascos at the Antigua bus station. Rocking a mustache and a bevy of kids. Jackson and I dined at her stand our first night, lingering at her stand through the meal, beers, and half a liter of Quezalteca Especial, my favorite firewater. Bethy doesn't mind drinking on the job. So Jackson and I promised to return the next day, and upon arrival, already deep into the Quezalteca, I was greeted with a photo. Un recuerdo. Bethy abandoned the stand to buy us a bottle of XL Rum, dragging me along, hand in hand. People in the grocery store kept smiling in our direction, like I was just some visiting John with questionable tastes.

Bethy insisted I take her number. That I take her out to dance. (Luckily I'd already made a date with a married girl.) Eventually Jackson and I managed to pry ourselves away, but Bethy yelled something at a friend about being back in twenty minutes and again left the stand totally unattended, escorting us back toward the hostel. We made it a few blocks and Bethy indicated she'd reached the end. She pulled me halfway down a city block and proceeded to profess love and things of that nature. I sensed she hadn't showered in a while. All of a sudden -- though I pretty much knew this was inevitable -- she enveloped me like a boa and performed her best Species impression, trying lick my lungs. I had to strain to push her face out of mine. When I rounded the corner to find Jackson, a Guatemalan named Carlos laughed loudly and asked, "Did you get it?"

Now I'm back in San Pedro La Laguna, where Jackson is staying with my old homestay family, getting to know all my friends across town, and preparing to study Spanish for several months at my old school. Ah, and trying to figure out a way to get a new bank card or transfer money to a San Pedro bank, thanks to a bus-prowling ladrona who jacked his wallet and ATM card and proceeded to do exactly what I'd do with a stolen card: do some fine dining, Big Macs and fries at McDonalds to the tune of $6. Minimal damage but a hassle nonetheless.

Seeing all my old San Pedrona folk -- mis hermanitos y primos and still more matured women with kids who keep hinting at marriage -- is the perfect ending to this trip. Yesterday Jackson and I ate lunch and then went to the slightly contaminated beach Las Cristalinas with Clarita, Josefa and fam. Amazing people. Amazing Friends. Man, I'm gonna miss this place.

The Bartman Cometh, and we get it Pupusa Poppin'

I finally dislodged my lazy ass from San Pedro La Laguna, Guatemala, my backside, I'm sure, still imprinted with routine, bearing the faint interlaced piecrust pattern of cushy hammock straps. My departure was a forty-eight hour whirlwind of house-hopping, issuing heartfelt goodbyes through chainlink fences and seated around comals burning dekerneled corncobs, promising I'd revisit my surrogate families...sometime. As I passed out photos I'd had printed from my digital camera, I was overwhelmed by reciprocal generosity, collecting a variety of handsewn items: a belt paved by stretches of majestic blues and a rainbow colored handbag adorned with a tiny wooden figurine of a Mayan woman in traditional dress; most touching of all was a plastic bagful of well-past-well-worn schoolbooks, broken spined and sans covers, loose pages rearranged haphazardly, accompanied by a stuffed ladybug and a photo in a frame crudely fashioned from a clear plate of hard plastic, tape and a bit of cardboard bent into a stand, all tied together with a red ribbon and two flowers with wire stems, shyly imparted by my recently befriended neighbor Rosita. Mildred gave me, in addition to a pile of handwritten cards collected in my final weeks, a fluffy stuffed puppy wearing a red heart inscribed with the word LOVE around its neck, and the puppy's paw-squeeze activated tune wavers lazily for a battery fading after who-knows-how-long-on-the-shelf-at-who-knows-what-tienda.

All the beauty of my departure created a karmic imbalance that was reset when I stepped off the bus in Antigua. As my eyes scanned parque central, the grand architecture and spewing fountain impressive as ever, I noticed a man, filthy, his head lolling about, sitting on outlying steps. His faded and tattered pants were spattered with, presumably, urine. On second glance I noticed his penis resting in his lap, jumping into action every few moments with as it was flicked or wagged, like some oddity peeking from its unzippered cave. That mental illness and public intoxication are ignored in Central America is distressing but, to be sure, the wealth of crazed men stumbling about -- singing and shouting incoherently, urinating and exposing themselves without regard to audience or location, rooting through garbage cans with no intention other than transplanting waste onto the surrounding concrete -- make the region a more entertaining place.

Barry showed up shortly, and we proceeded to waste several days in Antigua, Guatemala stalking the streets, ushered into every panaderia and pasteleria and grocery store by my addiction to pastries and cakes, especially those iced and or filled with creams and jellies and frostings. We sucked down a liter of Quezalteca Especial over two nights, amd I ate two to three market-cheap sapotes every day to fill the spaces of time (and the cavernous void of nutrition) between meals defined by saturated fats and simple sugars, or by grease and cheese dripping, salsa-mountain buried pupusas purchased for spare change at the food stalls surrounding the bus station. Submitting to the power of the pupusa, we finally embarked toward the pupusa heartland, El Salvador.

Minds clogged by cheesy pupusas, we nearly handed away our identities at the border between Guatemala and El Salvador, each extending our passports to the decidedly unofficial "officials" clamoring outside the bus' door. But as the images of the pupusa orgy to come began to flicker -- at the sight of our passports being hustled away to some location and with some intention obscured by Spanish, by guys dressed in torn t-shirts -- we simultaneously recovered our senses and snatched back our lives; more importantly our tickets to pupusa heaven.

Hotel Livingston in Santa Ana, El Salvador was our first sweaty stop, one of the first times in my life I haven't bemoaned a lack of hot water showers. We proceeded to pass two days just as we had in Antigua: exercise defined by the miles of cracked concrete walked to various foodstands and the heavy-lifting of pastries filled with thick custards, usually called leche. Genuinely concerned by my inability to refuse cakes and doughnuts (and packages of coconut-cream filled, coconut-flake covered Dinkis) following my departure from cream-and-icing starved San Pedro, I googled diabetes to determine if I could, in fact, overwhelm my system with sugar and induce disease. It seems, assuming I don't forsake exercise entirely and puff up, soft to the touch like any of my favorite pastries, I'll be safe. The halfmoon shaped, blackbean filled pancakes of Pan de Elote, which we devoured hot from the griddle daily in the central park, I have less guilt about eating.

At the end of each day spent sweating toward pastries, the sugar rush and inevitable crash crushing all ambitions but those of appetites unsatiated by white breads and simple sugars, we crawled the ghosttown-come-sunset toward pupusa stands or, on the second night and accompanied by (fellow Davidsonian, friend and current El Salvadoran Peace Corps volunteer) Jim Hooper, toward a local bar. (MS-13 never materialized, but a pirate and a maybe prostitute and a general excess of alcohol dispelled us from that bar rather suddenly.)

Moving southward through Central America, the women grow progressively more tantalizing while remaining completely impervious to accurate-age-determination -- is she 15 or 30? In Juayua, a charming, touristy mountain village on the Ruta de las Flores, where Jim, Barry, and I relocated for it's famed every-weekend food festival, we admired a couple of cute Salvadoran girls who seated themselves across from us while we sipped beers in the central park soon after dusk. We guessed their ages to be no more than 16, but captivated by their beauty and the giggles they unleashed every time we made eye contact, emboldened by a few beers and the fact that hitting on (even severely) underage girls was nothing that would phase the heavily armed police patrolling around the square, Barry and Jim's urgings were entirely sufficient. I approached the duo and ascertained that the first beauty was, indeed, fifteen. But the second, the more stunning of the two, claimed to be twenty, even after confronted with my barrage of stern "No te creo"s. As it was, I found myself a supermodel of a date for the political party sponsored town dance that evening, and shared two hours on a dancefloor, a head taller than anyone else, boring my partner with the same semi-hip-swiveling motion.

And so, Jimbo, Barry, and I passed the time: feasting at the foodstands for the weekend, spending two to five dollars for plates brimming with mouthwatering, generously portioned delicacies: fried yucca and chorizo to rabbit and shrimp, always with a side of thick tortillas. Hiking to a series of impressive waterfalls a few kilometers from town, where many locals were picnicking and swimming, eating too much ice cream and too many pastries, and passing the nights drinking around the town's central fountain. It was vacation, pure and simple, and quite clear that my life could not be better...unless my gorgeous dance partner, Ingrid, emails me, volunteering to nurture my Spanish language development. That is, assuming, my scribbled email address was even legible...

Jim had to return to work and Barry and I have relocated to the stretch of surf spots spanning the Pacific coast. A few chicken bus changes led us to Bus 80, departing La Libertad for Playa El Tunco. The handful of Bus 80s running the coastal route are the usual chicken buses, but ours had been outfitted with a bassy speaker system that showered unwitting El Salvadorans with uncensored American rap, a deluge of odes celebrating the nomenclature of genitalia and the juicy details of romantic strip club encounters. Or maybe the words had been slightly altered for regional appropriateness: "Pupusa poppin' on a handstand."

El Tunco is a quiet beach with a few hostels filled with surfers, a few restaurants, cheap beers, and enchanting sunsets. Walking the road for twenty five minutes we can eat for half the price, and with the all-important option of pupusas, so we trek a few times daily to the dilapitated stands and in-house eateries at the next beach, sharing hours of postmeal conversation seated in the carport/dining area of our favorite mom-and-pop operation.

My vacation within a vacation continues, and I'm completely infatuated with El Salvador, mesmerized by, in this particular order: it's women; their pupusas; and the delightful citizens always quick to converse with a pasty foreigner butchering their language.

Living the Lake Life

The nicest places hide the ugliest faces; at least straight-shooting shit towns can be commended for honesty. Antigua is regarded as Guatemala's jewel, a safe haven for tourists, an upper class enclave sheltered from poverty by looming volcanos. It is, in fact, a rich and rewarding city. By day. Night, however, introduces sinister elements, exaggerated or not by a litany of accounts of armed robberies and shootings targeting tourists and Guatemaltecos alike. The vibrant colors, crowded calles and avenues are muted at dusk, disparate realities that each forswear the other illusory.

Of all the places I've been, nowhere has an after-hours excursion felt so risky. For first impression's sake, it doesn't help that I was abused and intimidated in Spanish by a drunk thirty-plus thug and his crew of midget teenage minions. It is exceedingly uncomfortable when you're the only non-Spanish speaker in a bar after 1am, the streets are deserted and you have blocks to walk to your hostel, and the only word you understand from the rapidfire procession is "narcotráfico." Each repetition of narcotráfico, which is at least once per breath for the speaker, is followed by crazed stares in your direction and the type of chest-puffing that usually indicates an an alien is busy hatching behind the rib cage. Especially when you're accompanying the one female in the bar -- who is quite attractive at that -- the lone circumstance that has drawn the ire of the ponytail and wife-beater sporting wannabe-kingpin having a conversation through your very solid body, a fact proven when he rather forcefully drops a slice of lime into your chest. When you turn in bewilderment because someone mistook your chest for a Corona bottle and meet a stare befitting the next MTV Reality Competition, Ultimate Mad-Dogging, it's truly comically childish. Or so it is in retrospect, less so in the moment you're drinking just to dull the pain of the inevitable beating.

Poala and I emerged unscathed, hardened for battle with active Volcán de Pacaya, frequented everyday by hordes of hikers who, hungered by the steep, demanding ascent, hope for another's misstep, which, in the presence of lava rivers, amounts to an impromptu barbecue. Lava is awesome. It oozes and glows and flows and radiates heat to roast marshmallows and melt rubber soles, or, given a misstep, takes souls. The climb itself -- loose, rocky footing a broken ankle waiting to happen -- was a cakewalk compared to navigating my treacherous hostel room at Antigua's Black Cat. Simply reaching the ladder to my bunk involved more maneuvers than most Olympic gymnasts have in their repertoires, prancing and dancing around and atop bags and bundles stacked and splayed over the rare floor tile not already covered by beds.

The morning after climbing the volcano and conquering the unlit journey into my bunkbed --also after realizing delicious, inexpensive eats by food cart arrive in Antigua only during holidays -- I bused to backpacker favorite Lago de Atitlán, taking a lancha from Panajachel to San Pedro La Laguna. Atitlán is a massive lake in Guatemala's western highlands -- San Pedro sits at over 1600m -- picturesque towns sprinkled about its shores, all encompassed by pristine green peaks and climbing volcanoes, often cloud-enveloped, the dramatic landscape studded as if with prehistoric terrestrial welts from Pterodactyl-sized mosquitos tasked with exaggerating the earth.

San Pedro is an interesting blend of Maya and drug cultures, with more hippies than I'd prefer. Hippies who run restaurants touting renditions of the favorite international food, proving universally bland, but simple appearance on a menu sufficient to convince stoned munchies, thus the proliferation of shit restaurants stealing tourists' dollars from local establishments. I'm pround to report I support the Q$6 Papuseria, which qualifies as international cuisine by a single border, but is authentically executed. Likewise, I support the Bready Bunch, a pair of smiling kids accosting all whiteys with baskets brimming with mini-loaves of fresh-baked pan: de coco, banano, zanahoria y manzana, of which the fruit-chunk-filled manzana reigns supreme.

Since arriving in Antigua, though, I've adhered to a steady 50% bread diet, which is threatening a mid-intestinal traffic jam, not to mention a previously unimaginable indifference to pan. I plan to refrain from loaves for a few days, which should be easier after moving in with a host family today, beginning at least a week of Spanish language instruction (Corazón Maya Escuela) tomorrow morning. Even though the daily meals will invariably feature tortillas, I'd have to eat foot-high stacks with each meal to even compete the pounds of pan I've been downing daily. My banana fix will meanwhile be satisfied by Q$1.50 chocobananos: frozen bananas covered in millimeters of chocolate and affixed with bits of nuts, a healthier, cheaper, regularity-encouraging alternative.

Churrasic Park

Stretching a single planned night into a stay longer than a week, I left my Italian (and Spanish and German) friends and hosts in Cobán, reluctantly departing Guatemala's capital of Churrascerias. Churrasco: delicious plates loaded with slabs of grilled, seasoned meat (puerco my carne of choice) and, depending on the vendor, some combination of rice and beans, hunks of baked potato slathered in sour cream, grilled tomatoes and onions, accompanied by garlic bread sometimes and tortillas always. My favorite comida corrida churrasceria loaded styrofoam plates with all the preceding less the rice and beans, for an absurdly low Q$15. The tough meat worked my jaws, but was so succulent I never ventured into Churrasic Park, the scene of central Cobán's nightly churrasco competition, a series of churrasco-selling carts lining one long side of the zócalo.

I caught a shuttle bus to Antigua yesterday morning, en route enjoying a joint, then a liter of milk and a divine slice of chocolate-caramel cake, reunited and sharing hightimes-hilarity with Paola, a lovely Italian I'd met in Livingston weeks before.

Not only that, but two North Carolinian girls inquired about my Davidson sweatshirt, kickstarting a conversation in which I realized I'd had beers with one of the girls at the Brickhouse, a restaurant-bar back home, a week before this travel began, that she is a good friend of my (currently displaced) fellow adventurer, Jackson, and his sister.

Antigua is a beautiful city, architecturally spellbinding, but it is far from a real representation of Guatemala. Money reveals itself in European sports cars and candlelit dining, a far cry from the favela buildup lining highway hillsides through Guatemala City. Still, my first night here I was offered a job at a restaurant gearing up for tourist high season, so swimming through this volcano-encircled tourist sea for a few months is an option. There is a fabled bakery here, offering an assortment of breads, most importantly pan de banano in cinderblock sized loaves. And cheap dining exists lining central park -- food carts steaming and smoking midday, meat sizzling and tortillas frying, crowded by camera happy tourists and hungry locals jostling for cartfront position. Yesterday's lunch cost me Q$18: a pupusa con queso covered in a colorfully piquant chili of chunked onions, carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower; and two tortillas hidden by black beans and steak, then covered with their own array of sauces, topped off by a generous portion of the aforementioned chunk-veggie chili, a popular condiment throughout Central America, often offered jarred on restaurant tabletops.

Today I'm hiking Volcán Pacaya, Antigua's active volcano. Safety regulations don't exist here, and a tourist in the lava is as quickly forgotten as a stench-free fart, his money collected pre-trek.