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.

Quicksand Cobàn / Que dia es hoy?

My conception of time has fully eroded, the names of weekdays some vestigial cranial accessory. I remained in Flores for nearly one week, leaving the tranquil island on the morning of my seventh day, a week expired spent shooting hoops and playing futbol with local teens on the town-center court, exploring Santa Elena's panaderias and market with Canadian co-hosteler Killian, running circles around the island (evaluating posted daily dinner specials) or huffing exhaust straight out the only highway into Santa Elena. One productive run revealed a cheap seaside diner where I enjoyed a traditional Guatemalteca soup, Pepián, a rich tomato- and onion-based broth filled with hunks of carrot and green pepper, rice, and a roasted chicken breast. My remaining daily hours were spent promoting my favorite banana bread baker, who beamed when I deemed her pan de banano "el mejor in Flores," a quote she cited the next day, settling my debate between yet another hunk of banana bread or a slice of fresh pan dulce.

I followed a fun crew of girls to Tikal, the famous Mayan ruins, at 5am, led by a pair of Germans to whom Renè had introduced me, Lisa and Lucia, and superchill Spaniard Lu. (The Guatemalteca ticket vendor laughed when we purchased our roundtrip shuttle tickets, a lone American guy with five non-gringo girls.) Tikal's monolithic pyramids and temples tower above the jungle, the terrifying shrieks of Howler monkeys, impossibilities from creatures so minuscule, tearing through the lifting haze as slivers of sunlight sneak past obscuring stone monuments. We visited the central plaza and nearby main sites, choosing to relax overlooking treetops rather than trudging to outlying temples, the seedier Tikal districts, including one the girls affectionately dubbed the "rape temple" based upon Lonely Planet's warnings.

Climbing cloudward to unrailed vantage points tested my willpower and sweatglands, but I successfully navigated the highest towers; the highest with a cruel interpretation of the word staircase, a sequence of narrow steps that rises fifty plus meters while creeping forward maybe two. Safety standards won't permit ladders to be positioned so steeply (though ladderwise one must scale and descend)! (In fact, every Tikal tourist I've talked to since, including Barry who visited years ago, has recalled, "Oh, you mean the tower with the ladder.")

The quivering, lightheadedness and torrentially sweating hands didn't begin until I was atop the monument, seated a few feet from the sheer face of certain death, my back attempting to tunnel into the stone wall. None of that detracted from the stunning panorama, and I was content at least my final vision would be so magnificent and serene. Our descent was precipitated by a guide-led group beginning their climb, in numbers sufficient that, should we remain, at least one person would fall from the overcrowded lookout. When I touched down on earth with a soft step instead of a thunderous crunch, I gushed with arterial enthusiasm to everyone within earshot my new and profound affinity for terra.

I'd discovered Jackson was in Antigua (also, I'd worded extremely poorly an offer of seat exchange to the hostel's middle-aged british employee during the nightly movie: "Do you want to come inside me?") and it was time to move on...so I headed opposite Jackson to Rio Dulce, a river through the Guatemala's coastal jungle swath near Belize and Honduras. When the chicken bus parked in dumpy Rio Dulce town, I forewent plans to spend the night and followed my British escort, Becky, to the main dock, arranging a lancha onward to Livingston -- an isolated, culturally diverse hub downriver known especially for its Caribbean influence. Latins, Mayans, and Garifina, black Caribbean slave descendents share Livingston with tourists, and Betsy and I crashed at the highly recommended Casa de la Iguana. To my pleasure, Renè was camped there too, still trying to shake a messy stomach bug.

In Livingston I made the obligatory trek through the town, jungle and coast, Belize stenciled on the horizon, to Los Siete Altares, a series of spellbinding freshwater waterfalls cutting through untamed jungle. Our tour guide, Francis, was an Air Jordan adoring treat, recognizing immediately NC as the birthplace of His Airness. Francis was hilarious and informative, quick to joke with me about all the curvacious women sauntering along, exchanging dap to celebrate the healthiness of many a passerby, shapeliness ensuring "she´s eating her yogurt." Daps were also exchanged when we agreed a girl wasn't eating her yogurt. Noteworthy as well was a meal of Topado, a soup of sea delicacies simmering in coconut milk and spices, swimming with shrimp, mussels, crab, and a whole fish, boiled but otherwise unshelled and unmolested. It was a welcome departure from tortilla framed tastes.

After a few days with the bugs and Garifuna and the threat of malaria, I decided to embark for Lanquin and Semuc Champey, essential Central Guatemala. Rather than spend a night in drab Rio Dulce township to catch an early morning direct shuttle to Lanquin, I snagged a lancha to Puerto Barrios hoping for a bus to Cobán, where I could find transport to Lanquin. At the bus station, in the panicked moment I realized the particular busline's routes were all direct to Guatemala City and that my random arrangements of spanish vocabulary would be insufficient to mine the ticket seller for information about how and where to change buses for Coban, concerned a miscommunication could prove suicidal, I was saved by three Spanish-fluent Italians, Paulo, Gilberto, and Jenny, the former two who speak conversational English. And just happened to be from Cobán.

They conversed with the ticket attendant then led me across the street, where we hitched a ride on a chicken bus to somewhere, endured two shuttle rides playing Central America's third favorite pastime, "How many people can we cram into a fifteen passenger van?" and presto! Cobán. Gracious and accomodating to Mother Teresian extremes, I was offered a night in their spacious and charming abode: five spacious rooms, a restroom, and a covered, open-aired dining and lounging area behind a metal doored and barred exterior, down some muddy, rutty street. I intended to leave the next day, but I'm still there something close to a week later. Between the encouragement to speak Spanish, delicious home-cooked meals (and the occasional take-out churrascos as well), and the tall-standing marijuana plants, I don't think they resent my extended stay.

PBA's Nuggets on Inanity

My good ol' work buddy, Mr. New York himself, Baby Fetus Craig, recently emailed me the following quote, which I was recorded (soberly) uttering at work sometime during the past year:

"If pancakes had little arms and legs and walked around like little, flattened, circular people, I'd always carry syrup and silverware."

I've been sequestered in a heavy metal door sealed domicile in the dirt-road backstreets of Cobàn, Guatemala for over a week. I sleep on a cot on the floor in a closet. Hardly a kidnap victim, I'm camped out with a trio of generous Spanish-fluent Italians who saved me from bus station blundering in Puerto Barrios nearly a week ago...maybe a week ago...days no longer exist except to distinguish the newspapers I struggle to read with my morning coffees, toasts and breads. The homecooked meals are fantastic, I sleep comfortably, and my Spanish is creeping toward advanced infant. I keep planning to leave, this was initially but a one-night stay, but I haven't made it out yet. A detailed update is forthcoming.