Mayan Warriors, Beach Bums, and Outhouses

Another update from the wilds of Guatemala...Last weekend we hit up the majestic Mayan ruins of Tikal. We watched Mel Gibson's Apocalypto the night before just for kicks, hoping to get some good historical context. All we got were a lot of severed heads plummeting down the pyramids. We all rallied for the Tikal sunrise tour, which required waking at 2:30am, but was well worth it to experience the sounds of the jungle as it was waking up. You’ve got to check out the sounds of Tikal in the morning, the howler monkies are having a ball getting out of bed.

We've left San Andres after two weeks of Spanish school (and another vain attempt to master the subjunctive) and a great experience with the community. I was sad to leave my host family, their six rabbits who roamed the house at will, and especially my mama Isabelle who took to calling me “Susita”. The simple life agrees with me, and this was the perfect place to just sink into it, as life here was pretty basic, day-to-day, and uncomplicated. Nobody here had very much and there was certainly a collective struggle to make ends meet, yet somehow that didn't correlate with the quality of life (at least as I would define it). A nice reminder for me that happiness has very little to do with "stuff".

Doña Isabelle and the conejitos

Check out the great views...


Fellow traveler and student Gerry pulled out the poi at our farewell bonfire.


Determined to be beach bums for a spell, we hit Livingston for the weekend, Guatemala’s tiny sliver of Caribbean beachfront. We settled into my friend Rusty's new hostel, a good friend I met years ago in Argentina. Livingston is home to the Garifuna, a completely distinct and fascinating Central American subculture with their own language, customs, etc. They’re descendants of a community of shipwrecked slaves and there’s been very little mixing with the natives. Hence, they’ve preserved their distinctly West African features as well as a lot of the customs/dance/music and I swear I could have been in West Africa at times.

We adopted into our group a couple of fellow travelers, Kieran and Mike, and had a pretty near perfect day at the beach playing volleyball and being lazy, a personal favorite past-time. Also went on a river walk where the original Tarzan movie was filmed.

The bustling streets of downtown Poptun

The past four days we’ve been kicking it in the small rural town of Poptun living with families and volunteering at the local school. Living with a family in this sort of community means all bets are off when it comes to amenities and privacy. My house consisted of a kitchen area, outdoor shower and outhouse (not for the faint of heart...or stomach), and a large living area divided in half by a makeshift wall. My room was a curtained-off corner of the main living area, Nate slept on the hammock in the living area, and the parents and four kids cozied up on the three beds in the walled-off area. How’s that for a reality check when I used to complain about having to share a bedroom with my sister? But my family was so unbelievably amazing and welcoming, it was hard to mind the close quarters.

Our Poptun family

And the food. Oh, the food. The families we lived with took turns hosting us for all our meals for a day and pulled out all the stops. Seriously some of the best Guatemalan food I have ever tasted, they treated us like kings. As you can see from the photo, we’re too busy stuffing our faces to smile for the camera.

Johnny teaching English

We were there volunteering at the local elementary school, which was a community-based initiative started and run and largely financed by the community, as there are not sufficient public schools in the area. Organization for volunteering is not usually stellar for these sorts of things and we’ve found you usually have to make it up as you go along. Our students were amazing, jumping right in with English lessons, some Red Light, Green Light action, and in the absence of a proper playground, Armen served as a human jungle-gym
for most of recess.

Armen the human jungle-gym

Jessica

Yes, there’s been a huge gap in the blog, I just can’t seem to find much unique and interesting to write about from the ‘burbs of Washington DC. Nevertheless, it was a great two months of seeing my wonderful family and friends, and the good folks at Weichert Realtors even give me my desk back for a spell so that I could do my damage at attempting to eek my way over the poverty line and into a respectable tax bracket.

But I made another quick escape and here I am again in Guatemala with a new crop of students for three months traipsing through Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Honduras with LEAPNow. I got my incredible co-leader Nate back and instead of the traveling caravan of 14 like last time, this time we are an intimate family of 6, which creates a very different dynamic…so far a great one. I must confess that at times it feels strange and as though I’m being unfaithful to my first stellar crew of students from last semester, but they have since gone on to other things like working with whales in the Canary Islands, working as a dive master in Australia, a few are traveling together in South America, and several are hitting the books at university. I do miss them and remember them often, but my four new students are rock stars in their own right. Armen, standup comedian from LA; snowboard instructor Amanda from Minnesota; Johnny from LA, future Harvard grad whose parents created the Fresh Prince of Bel-air; and artist Jessica from Colorado who used to have her own talk show on NPR. I think it’s safe to say that my students are way smarter and way cooler than I ever was at 18…or perhaps ever will be.

We’ve just wrapped up a four-day orientation at Finca Ixobel in the jungle Peten region of Guatemala. The landscape here is exactly as you would imagine out of tropical storybook fantasies…lush green splendor everywhere. In between orientation sessions about healthy group dynamics and how to avoid spending the majority of the trip on the toilet, we went caving/swimming through an underground river cave (not a life jacket or hard hat to be found as we traversed some pretty dangerous ground…safety precautions don’t so much exist here), went into town and saw a funky local parade and bought ingredients from the market to whip up our own guacamole, and had a movie night watching Borat, a very culturally relevant and enriching film.

Now we’re in the middle of two weeks of Spanish school in a small, tranquilo village on the banks of Lago Peten. I live in what can accurately be described as a large shack with running water…sometimes. My family has a dog named “Espot” (Spanish for “Spot”) and there are the cutest little rabbits that live on the back patio. I inquired in hushed tones (so that the rabbits wouldn’t hear) if the rabbits were pets or for eating, as the later is usually the case with other housebound wildlife like chickens and pigs. Happily, I will not be enjoying rabbit stew for dinner anytime soon. The same cannot be said for the pig with whom Amanda has been sharing a courtyard at her homestay. She woke up this morning to find it hung neatly (as neat as a carcass can be) on hooks around the house in preparation to go to market, having somehow blissfully slept through the massacre that had just ensued outside her bedroom door. She promptly informed her homestay family that she was a vegetarian (not true).

Nate chilaxing on the boat to San Andres

Armen doing a swan dive...

So apparently George W. and Lady Laura were in Guatemala a few days ago. Had no idea until my homestay family told me, to give you an idea of how isolated I am from current events. We watched the highlights on TV that night, the triumphant entry, Bush kissing Mayan babies, carrying boxes of produce in a factory, the Bushes and the Guatemalan President and his wife walking together in awkward silence as neither speaks the others’ language. The people here like to joke that after his visit, all of Guatemala’s problems will be solved.

We just went to a Guatemalan zoo where a lizard fell on me from a tree and attempted to dive down the front of my shirt and a baby leopard projectile peed on me from inside his cage. Bad karma?

On a happier note, I’ve got a decent base tan going on and I couldn’t tell you what day it is to save my life.

Rolling into Antigua always feels like coming home of sorts. I've come and gone from this place so many times, but the excitement I feel when I experience the jolt of the cobblestone streets beneath the bus wheels and the lights of Central Park has never diminished. I met a great couple from New Zealand, Shane and Sarah, on the seven hour bus ride from Copan, Honduras...they're at the tail-end of a one-year honeymoon around the world. We scope out some digs and, as it's late in the evening, the only viable option ends up being the very place in Antigua I swore I would never return...the memory of being awoken suddenly by the sensation of six little cockroach legs scurrying across my bare shoulder in the middle of the night when I was staying there two years ago is still vivid. C'est la vie.

We located my dear old friend Rusty and his girlfriend Christy and headed to my old haunt Cafe No Se. I wasn't there long before the owner John thrusts a guitar in my hands and it was just like old times. We also had a visit from Eminem's protege, a white kid from Denmark who rocked the original rhymes like I couldn't believe. As I stood in the crowded little space, a cerveza in hand, good old friends to my left, some new ones to my right, the thump of the standup bass backing up Nick's wicked-clever rhymes, I had to smile...it's always good to be back here, at least for a little while.

The good times in Antigua continue...front-row seats to a concert featuring a Buena Vista Social Club original from Havana, Cuba. The dancing was fierce, the music exquisite.

Also attended The Burning of the Devil (La Quema del Diablo) with Shane and Sarah...the annual burning of a plastic devil every December 7th. Not quite clear on its origins, something about burning away your sins before Christmas or something, felt a bit like Guy Faulks day in England. Eh, great fun nonetheless. Do note the Esso (Exxon) station just a few feet away in the background, and another one just to the left that you can't see in the photo. I love that they choose to hold this ceremony which involves massive amounts of gasoline and a bonfire precisely in the one area in town hemmed in by gas stations. I love Guatemala.

I hear Christmas caroles in the air and Christmas lights everywhere and I swear they're playing a practical joke as I stroll around town in a tanktop and flip-flops. And the money seems to be flowing through my fingers like water these days. It's the first time in several months that I've actually been financing myself...gone are the days of writing everything off on the LEAPNow bill!

Antigua By Night

And then there were two...

I did the 3 hour slog by bus to San Pedro Sula and rendezvoused with Liesl at the hotel, who had flown ahead with the rest of the group. She's my lone last crewmember who is sticking around to study Spanish in Copan for a couple more weeks. Our first act was to find an agreeable spot for dinner and to take back our God-given right to a beer whenever we please. (Um, did I ever mention that these past three months have been completely alcohol-free?) We then met up with some of the volunteer teachers from BECA where we had volunteered several weeks before who happened to be in town. The Bohemian wine bar turned into a poetry reading as the night wore on...Latin Lovers waxing eloquent about unrequited love and Latina vixens...good times. Round midnight Liesl and I headed back to our hotel, encountering on the way a 10-piece mariachi band in the street serenading a newly engaged young lady named Jeni on the otherwise deserted streets.

There it is ladies and gentlemen...Susie and Liesl's first beer in three months...a monumental occasion.

14 empty beer bottles honoring our missing comrades. It was hard putting them all down, but somebody had to do it. It was for the kids. (And if anyone actually believes for a second that I can put away that much booze, you don't know me very well. I'm as light-weight as they come.)

We blew out of San Pedro as soon as we could the next morning and headed to Copan, where I will leave Liesl to study Spanish and I will head to Antigua. We roll into Copan and not 10 minutes after arriving are shown into a dorm room and happen upon Joel the Aussie who we'd hung out with quite a bit the past week on the other side of the country in Utila. (I know I should be used to it by now, but it never ceases to surprise me what a small world Central America quickly becomes.) Joel was attempting a nap at 5pm in the evening, I think he'd previously had a rough night, but we managed to convince him to abandon that plan to go drink beer in the park instead, a very classy backpacker thing to do. Still giddy as a schoolgirl to be able to crack open a brewski whenever I want, tee-hee. :)

We had dinner with my old friend Carlos Castejon who I met back in 2003 when I used to live in Antigua. He runs a great tourist gig to his family's finca outside of Copan (if anyone is ever passing through, you must check it out! www.fincaelcisne.com).

I bid Lovely Liesl goodbye the next morning...onward to Antigua...

The Long Way Home

A week of scuba diving in Utila off the costa of Honduras has come and gone and all of a sudden our last night was upon us. We splurged on hotel rooms with cable TV and ridiculously amazing hot showers (first in several weeks) for our last night together in La Ceiba. Also splurged on a nice dinner and shared absolutely hilarious and clever 20-years-from-now prophecies that we had done for each other with equally clever gag-gifts. We wrapped up the evening crammed into one of the hotel rooms and Pat and I did our last sing along..."Closer to Fine" and "Rock Me Baby Like a Wagon Wheel" were of course on the repertoire, bringing the trip full circle from our first night at Earthlodge overlooking Antigua and her volcanos, lazing in hammocks and passing around the guitar.

With Alison at the farewell fest

The next day we arrived at the airport in plenty of time to make their 3pm flight (I was staying behind) only to find that the plane was actually leaving at 1:30 and was in the process of final boarding. Fantastic. So no time for long goodbyes, and just like that, I bid a tearful farewell to this truly exceptional group of people who had been my family for the past three months...Alison, Cakki, Nick, Ada, Liesl, Mariana, Flora, Devin, Peter, Jessie, Hope, and Patrick, and my fearless co-leader Nate. I hugged and waved goodbye, they hurried through the security line and suddenly they were gone.

I sat down on an airport bench and absorbed the strange silence, let a surge of melancholy wash over me, and wondered what the heck to do with myself now. There were no per diems to hand out, no doctors visits with students to determine what in the heck that strange rash is about, no group dinner to attend, no budget close-out to do, no endangered turtles to save. What now?

Nate, my fearless co-leader.

Alone again, I stoically strapped on my pack, headed out of the airport, and hiked out to the dusty highway to catch a cab to the bus station. I quickly hailed a cab and hopped in. And in an act that seemed nothing short of perfectly choreographed, I roll down my window, look to my right and the prop plane carrying my crew rises up next to me out of nowhere in stride with my taxi for a moment before shooting ahead into the clouds. They were a fantastic group of people and it was a phenomenal experience and I have no doubt I'll see many of them again.

So I decided months ago not to fly home with the rest of the group to take advantage of more time in my favorite part of the globe while I was here anyway. My loose plan is to take the long way home through Mexico, stopping in Antigua and Lake Atitlan to visit friends and recharge. So the show goes on...

Cereal Feast

When you're away from home and familiar things for so long, you get excited about the most seemingly simple things...for example cold milk over a bowl of your favorite cereal. Yesterday the group got to talking and then salivating about our favorite sugar cereals. Golden Grahams, Fruit Loops, Frosted Flakes, Lucky Charms and Coco Crispies made the Top 5, in no particular order. Rice and beans for breakfast everyday are great and everything...but after two months, some cold milk over those melt-in-your-mouth Lucky Charms marshmellows sure would hit the spot. So today, our cook having fallen ill with Dengue Fever and no one to make lunch, and having discovered that the tiny grocery store just up the street carries all manner of things American (gotta love Costa Rica), we decided to give into our urges and held a raging cereal feast for lunch. Lucky Charms never tasted so good.

Incidentally, from our cereal discussion followed many entertaining stories of childhood sugar cereal rivalries with siblings, of which I definitely had plenty to contribute. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that my family wasn't the only one to have to strictly ration sugar cereal in order that it not be plundered by voracious brothers in one sitting.


I digress...so we're in Costa Rica (and the internet is now four times more expensive, so this will be a quickie). We're living in a tin shack on the beach and taking three hour shifts patroling the beach at night in search of endangered leatherback turtles coming ashore to lay their eggs on the beach. The project keeps an eye on the eggs to make sure they have the appropriate conditions to hatch and to protect them from poachers who can score a pretty penny for the illegal eggs. It's a pretty amazing site to see, we got lucky and saw one our first night out. 4 1/2 feet long by 3 feet wide, laying about 100 eggs twice the size of chicken eggs...never seen anything like it.

Cigars, Cockroaches, and Capture the Flag

Mariana and her Cofradia kids

We have bid Guatemala farewell and now find ourselves in Cofradia, Honduras for a couple of weeks working at a really wonderful bilingual school here. I was asked to stand in as a music teacher for the Jr. High girls one day last week, we learned a little Bob Dylan and could sing Amazing Grace in two-part harmony by the end of class, not bad. This Thursday I am booked to teach YMCA with body movements and all to the 5th graders. Aren't I quite the exporter of American pop-culture?

(By the way, I'll put in a little plug here for the school. If anyone knows of anyone looking for a wonderful volunteer experience down here as a teacher, go to www.becaschools.org for more info on the application process. It's a well-established non-profit organization and the recruiting process is pretty rigorous, the new school year starts next September. It's extremely well-organized and supported by the community and they're always looking for good volunteers.)

Our little crew has been absolutely amazing, helping out as classroom assistants, painting, gardening, and basically getting their hands and everything else imaginable very dirty without complaint. As we hear horror stories from our friends leading other trips around the globe, Nate and I have never ceased to be amazed at the maturity and general awesomeness of our group of students. LeapNow runs a pretty tight ship, especially when it comes to drugs, alcohol and general trip participation and students are sent home on the regular for breaking the rules. We were warned to expect having to handle pretty intense discipline issues as part and parcel of the job. The discipline part of this job was the one I feared most and I have yet to have had to crack the whip. We keep waiting with swords drawn and have found nothing but this lingering calm and harmony (aside from a few minor cracks here and there). Are we in La-La land?

One of the bigger tasks has been keeping on top of health issues, however. Stomach bugs have been plentiful and at one point 6 of 14 had fallen ill at the same time. There have been many a visit to sketchy clinics in one-horse towns and a magical injection in the buttocks seems to follow as the cure for most anything in these parts. But they always seem to do the trick, so I can only go so far in my jest. I myself have until now been completely exempt of any health issues (and therefore buttock injections) by some small miracle.

Pat on his sickbed

On that note, I had a most unique experience this week. I got closer to Nico than I ever hoped I would (no offense, Nico). We had to take him to the emergency room for sudden illness and the magical shot was of course prescribed. We were leaving town the next day, so all of a sudden I found myself taking a crash-course in buttock injections by the doctor, who treated it as the most normal thing in the world that I would take over in his stead. But the role of trip-leader is indeed a loosely defined one and I picked up the torch and did what must be done. I did it for the kids. Sorry for the PG-13 photo, but it's priceless, had to post it.

Part of the objective of LeapNow as a program is that our students learn how to become independent travelers. As such, we've been assigning different tasks to the students throughout the trip, such as figuring out transportation from Point A to Point B, making hotel reservations, deciding where to go for the weekend and all the details therein. A convenient residual is that it makes our jobs a heck of a lot easier! For example, we headed out to the beach this weekend and the students took care of each and every detail without a hitch, from figuring out where to go, to where to stay, to navigating the three bus transfers and 4 1/2 hours of transit time, and keeping it all within a pre-established budget. I just sat back and enjoyed the ride.

We landed in a little Garifuna town on the coast called Triunfo, which is populated by a group of people of African decent that came here hundreds of years ago and have stayed gathered around the costal areas all up and down Central America. Very little racial mixing has occured between the Latinos and Garifuna and I might as well have been in Africa by the looks of the people and my surroundings. The contrast was extreme and facsinating. There was essentially nothing to do in Triunfo except lay on the beach and hang out with each other and the Garifuna kids who decided to befriend us, which is exactly what we were looking for. At night our new friends came by and put on quite a drum and dance show, again, straight out of the Africa tradition...I forgot I was in Central America for a moment. We also played a wicked game of capture the flag on the beach by the light of a full moon, I lost a hundred Limpira ($5) in a poker game with Alison, Devon, and Nick and we were also entertained by Peter as he attempted to blow up the very large cockroach he had captured in a plastic bag with a string of Black Cat firecrackers he just happened to have on hand. It was pure carnage.

Making friends on the beach

The Garifuna Hoe-down

Peter playing poker with the boys...

Liesl the Mermaid

On Friday we hit the "vacation" portion of our trip: Two weeks on the beach in Costa Rica searching for endangered giant seaturtles and free-traveling, then a week in the Bay Islands back in Honduras scuba diving. Yes, my job is rough.

We hit up the amazing Mayan ruins in Copan on our way here, here are a few photos.