Llegando al país, llegando a San Pedro

Basically I’m a pain in the ass to travel with, at least with a bike. Getting to baggage claim after landing I had to figure out a way to stack a bike box and two bags on a luggage cart, Leaning-Tower-of-Pisa style, while everyone looked at me like I was a huge idiot. So my first experience in Guatemala was feeling like a jerk, because clearly no single person needs to carry that much crap.

But once I actually got on the shuttle to Antigua I got that nostalgic feeling of being back in Latin America. Kind of like Lima, the Guatemala City pollution burns the nostrils immediately. And pasando hacia las afueras de la ciudad, there was that distinctive Latin American architecture and terrible business signage. Concrete box, brightly painted buildings, plastered with signs, rarely displaying the name of the business, but always a list of the services or products offered, and typically a Gallo beer logo or five. You know, those cheap plastic banners that fade from sky blue to white, with neon bubble letters and Clipart pictures of roast chickens or generic looking, vaguely Latin models. Awesome.

Fifteen minutes in Guatemala City was the jolting, but strangely pleasant reminder that I was back in Latin America. Ascending into the mountains and then down into Antigua was the turning point. I started to feel really excited about being here. Speaking Spanish, cheap and good food taken with a chaser of Immodium, and mountains.

After a few laps around downtown Antigua, passing the alley where the hotel was located at least 2 or 3 times, the shuttle driver and I arrived at Hotel la Casa de Don Ishmael. Stacy was waiting outside and I felt the happiest that I’d been for at least two weeks.

My time in Antigua before Kevin is a bit of a blur. I had nearly two full days to wait and it was difficult to suppress my anxiousness and muster the curiosity and patience to explore the city on my own. And when I say explore, I mean to be lost inside the maze that is the picturesque colonial town of Antigua. Most who know me know how impeccable my sense of direction is…. Right?? And of course, I refuse to carry around a book, map or guide. So most of my time was spent walking the skinny sidewalks of unmarked streets while straining my neck to glance inside each open door I noticed. Most of the signs for business or services are flat against the buildings, thus it is impossible to know what you’re walking toward until you’ve basically passed right by it. Every meal I had in Antigua was fantastic, although most of them were shared with a book. I don’t remember a more restless night’s sleep than that before Kevin arrived.

A church in Antigua.

Seeing his head peaking out of the shuttle bus window in the Thursday afternoon sunshine was the pinnacle of the trip- mos def. We walked through the remains of the biggest market day either of us had ever seen, and then visited a legitimately decent espresso bar that I’d discovered during my meanderings. The two employees at Fat Cat Coffee House were super friendly, and I was grateful for their patience as I practiced my barely comprehendible Spanish. I can’t quite explain the nostalgia I felt when I was presented with a rosetta in my cappuccino in Antigua. Even though I’ve only worked with espresso for a year, it was like seeing an old friend in an otherwise unfamiliar place- so comforting. Needless to say, we spent a lot of time there. On Saturday before we left, Fat Cat happened to be hosting their first latte art competition. I think it was possibly even the first competition in Antigua. There were only six or seven baristas competing, but it was so neat to be there. Before everyone showed up, Gerson let Kevin and I pull some shots on the machine. We were rusty, but it was really great to be behind a bar again, if only for a minute. Unfortunately, because they started about an hour and a half behind schedule (Guatemalan time, as Ingrid would say), we had to catch a bus before the winner was announced. But we got some great pictures. [see below]

Gerson, pouring pretty things.

Nery from Fat Cat Espresso

The only excursion we managed to fit in two days was also coffee related. We took a two-hour coffee tour of the prominent Antigueno Finca Filadefia. Although the grounds, the estate and the machinery were impressive, the tour (experienced in both English and Spanish) was lackluster. Ironically, one of our fellow tourists happen to graft fruits and flowering plants for a living and seemed to know as much, if not more about the coffee growing process than the guide. Unfortunately, he was from Israel and his English was as good as my Hebrew. It was interesting to see first-hand, the process in total- from seedling to packaging. However, the farm is not organic. They use two ounces of pesticide for each coffee bush per season. Apart from growing, harvesting and roasting coffee, Finca Filadelfia also brings in hundreds of thousands of quetzales with its Canopy Tours (hang-gliding, I think), horse-back riding excursions and two fancy-schmancy restaurants where they host large events and private parties. While trying to concentrate on what the guide was saying about the sun-drying process, I was blind-sided by how much wealth the farm had and how each family outside its gates may never see a portion of that wealth throughout several generations. Kevin and I agreed that the entrance fee was barely worth it, but we learned a lot nonetheless.

Inside Filadelfia´s processing plant, sorting  the beans according to their weight

Now we’re back (for me, at least) in San Pedro, and it’s starting to feel a little like home.

So, we’re in San Pedro, but getting here was a hassle, thanks in part due to the general pains of travel in Latin America, but mostly attributable to yours truly and my insistence on bringing a mountain bike. When the shuttle driver saw the bike box and two suitcases, he almost didn’t let us on…but he did, and after five hours of tailbone bruising potholes, dropped us off with the other 9 passengers at the Panajachel dock in San Pedro, which was conveniently another 3 miles or so from our house.

The highlight of the journey (non-sarcastic amazing vistas excluded) is a toss-up between two moments. One: seeing a guy urinating on the right front tire of a chicken bus while we were stopped in traffic. The urinator just so happened to be the ticket collector for said bus, so I guess that makes it okay. Two: witnessing/hearing the moment when the 20-something female backpacker in front of us realized that her new British boyfriend, who she met in Belize a week or two prior, had graduated from university the same year that she graduated from – check it – fifth grade. This gentleman might just be the UK version of Bill Sirl, though, since he’s traveling through Guatemala, hopefully without the same dietary restrictions.

Back to San Pedro, after getting off the shuttle, with way too much luggage, we mass of gringos were met by a mass of travel agents, etc. hawking hotels and trying to get us to take overpriced shuttles. We opted for a Tuk-Tuk. SAT review time. Bicycle : Adult Tricycle as Moped : Tuk-Tuk. After 15 minutes traveling with Stacy crammed into the back seat, me sharing the front seat with the driver, and the bike box hanging off the side by about two feet, we made it to our house. Unfortunately, the food we were planning on making for dinner stayed in the Tuk-Tuk.

Luckily Stacy’s friend Ingrid invited us over, and she’s been a huge help so far with adjusting to the town, meeting people, and generally getting ourselves situated. We’ve been here together for a few days, and while Stacy’s been in class I’ve been walking around, going to market, and trying to find a work/volunteer opportunity with one of several local development and coffee production efforts. No success so far, but inroads. We’ve also had the chance to visit neighboring San Juan, but there may be more to come on that in a later entry.

Morning view from the bedroom window.

Our house is great, and for me I mean that without sincerely, even though it’s basically a glorified cement block with a pseudo-loft for a bedroom (and a shower, electricity, and gas stove!). The view from the bedroom window is amazing at almost any time of day.

The house was definitely part of a hippy commune though. It’s one of four identical cabins, some with Communist symbols painted on the doorframes, all facing each other, and check out this awesome painting on the inside of our door:

Maybe all this hippy stuff will rub off on me. By the time I come back stateside, I’ll probably constantly smell like patchouli and about-face to that brief period in high school when I thought that wearing a Ché shirt made me look cool.

Anyways, I don’t feel like writing anymore, so that’s it for now…except some photos.

 We also happened to see a guy with a Nelly´s T-shirt in San Pedro. Apparently once you´ve worked at the Bike Rack, you can never really leave the Bike Rack.

San Pedro, with Volcan San Pedro in the background.

Window view again, around 6:30 pm

The rest of the cabaña,s first floor.

Front of the house.

Front of the commune.

Pulling them shots.

Pulling them shots.