Author: TheGentlemanAtLarge

No Surprises.

~ TheGentlemanAtLarge ~ Leave a comment
I’m sorry that I haven’t updated in a while, hopefully this post will be enough to satiate the masses for a time. When I came to Guatemala, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I knew that Antigua is a fairly tourist heavy town, and that my utter inability to speak Spanish would be inconvenient but not debilitating. I knew that I’m not supposed to drink the water. I knew that I’d probably be a little taller than most people. Generally, I wasn’t surprised by much. My Spanish has, and is continuing to improve, and most people in town speak more English than I speak Spanish. I don’t drink the water. And I am significantly taller than everyone. Sure, there were little nuances that I forgot about, but wouldn’t say surprised me. For instance, not being able to flush toilet paper. Upon further reflection, however, I was a little surprised about the extent to which I’m taller than this entire country. The nation’s infrastructure is designed around a mean height of 4’5″. Which is somewhat inconvenient for me. City buses, for instance, have an inconceivably small amount of leg room. Even the buildings are built on a smaller scale, and I’ve included photographs of a few of the things that I’ve hit my head on so far:
This is the door frame in my bathroom:
Here is the door frame to by bedroom:
Here is the door frame of my other bathroom:
Here is the door frame to my closet:

And my kitchen light:

I’ve hit my head on my curtain rod a number of times:
As well as on my shower head:
And my spice shelf:
Really, this is the sort of thing I’m dealing with:

Certainly, I had premonitions of a number of the situations with which I would be met upon arrival to Central America. However, to say that there were no surprises would be something of an exaggeration. Certain features of my apartment illustrate this quite nicely.
For instance, I never expected it to come with a home gym:
Or a Parisian chandelier:
Or a fine North-Asian oil painting:

I can’t but count these surprises as pleasant ones, that contribute to my quality of life on a daily basis. There have been other surprises that have been slightly more disconcerting. A shelf, for example, that seems to have been built from a child’s playhouse door:

It’s possible that this is not, in truth, a child’s door, but actually the door used by a fully grown tiny Guatemalan. This idea is in many ways much, much creepier. The apartment was advertised as furnished, which is indeed the case, and I have also been furnished with a number of ornamental animal skins:

This second piece deserves a more in-depth examination. The fur is accompanied by some sort of alter containing a plastic binder clip, and hand-carved maraca, and what appears to be a broken whitetail mount:

A more rigorous review of the mount, however, reveals that it is not broken, but that only one antler was mounted. And it was done upside down. Only God knows the significance of the binder clip. Perhaps this alter is designed to ward off some ancient curse?

Whoever was responsible for the animal-office alter clearly did not wholly trust their Pagan efforts to keep my humble apartment safe (perhaps from the tiny Guatemalan who’s door was stolen for my desk?), as my toaster is permanently affixed with a statuette of the Virgin Mary:


And, as promised, a video of my neighbor, Bolt:

Meet Bolt.

~ TheGentlemanAtLarge ~ 2 Comments
Here is a video of my neighbor Bolt. He’s not really used to me yet.

This evening I will be attending the art exhibit of my neighbor (on the other side), Jose. He has several more names after Jose, but I don’t know any of them. It is being held in an old Cathedral in, and features him, and 7 other artists, whose primary media is oil. While I’m looking forward to the art exhibit, and especially the complimentary hors d’oeuvre and wine that will be in attendance, I mentioned this mostly as a segue to a far more pressing piece of art news that has just now reached the equator. The preeminent artist of our time (of any medium), ‘Lil Wayne, was released from Riker’s Island after 8 months of his 1 year sentence. Here is an article detailing the event. It’s in Spanish, because I can’t figure out how to make Google search in English. In any event, the art exhibition may be cut short this evening to ensure that all attendees will have ample opportunity to be present at one of the many “Weezy is Freezy” parties being hosted throughout Antigua this evening.

A Day Out (with tacos)

~ TheGentlemanAtLarge ~ 1 Comment



Checking in after another trip to Acatenango. My first trip there was graced with favorable weather, numerous eruptions of Fuego, and tolerably pleasant group chemistry. While this weekend’s trip wasn’t altogether miserable, it was marred by horizontal freezing rain, hubris, and altitude sickness. However, the trip was not entirely for naught, and I emerged from my bed this morning with two quotes from the weekend still resonating strongly with me. The first was the use of the phrase “singing Terets” to describe a guide who would frequently, spontaneously, and without catalyst, burst into song. I thought of Chez, and diagnosed him. The second quote was in regards to drinking a sufficient amount of water. The summit of Acatenango is over 13,000 ft., which is not a staggeringly high peak, but is ample to induce some mild altitude sickness, especially if hikers are not accustomed to the elevation and are not drinking enough water. This is a point that we hit very hard in our pre-trip meeting, and continue to reiterate throughout the hike. The conversation went something like this:

Guide: Ok, everyone should have had at least 2 liters of water by now. Has everyone done that? How much have you had?
Italian Guy: None.
Guide: You really need to be drinking more water. You will get sick.
Italian Guy: My body is like my Vespa: the perfect machine.
Guide: Whatever.

Naturally, our Italian friend spent twelve of the next twenty hours throwing up, with a splitting headache. No one felt bad for him. He also refused to eat anything but the chocolate that he had purchased in town. When he bonked 1 hour into the 3 hour hike out, again, no one felt bad for him. I should mention that while the Italian Guy was perhaps not entirely adept at hiking, he did ride his 1971 Vespa from New York through Canada to Alaska, then through The United States and Mexico to Guatemala, which is pretty incredible. His itinerary eventually leaves him in southern Argentina, and I have nothing but high hopes for his journey.

Today, I spent $1.85 on this:

Until my first (inevitable) parasite, I will not be cooking.

Still Haven’t Starved.

~ TheGentlemanAtLarge ~ 1 Comment

Well, it’s raining. So rather than ride, I’ll take a moment to update my intrepid blog follower, Ryan. I left you on the edge of your seat, ascending from tentative homelessness into an unknown of bandits, pyroclasts, and ice cold Coca-Cola Classic. We set off at 5 am to stock up on coffee and breakfast before we left Antigua and started hiking. There have been a few problems with bandits in the past, so we bring security along on these trips. In that past we’ve used an established tourism security firm, but I guess they were a pain in the you-know-what to work with. As the story goes, the last straw was when they dispatched a morbidly obese man with a shotgun to escort ten reasonably fit young people on an eight hour hike. It quickly became clear that this guard was a complete liability, and the trip was canceled at a loss. Since then we’ve used Lionel, a nice and personable 20-somethings guy with his dad’s .22, and Xela, the usually affable Rodesian Ridgeback who is losing friends at an alarming rate by menstruating all over everyone’s stuff. Here’s a picture of Xela:

We made it to the top and camped, overlooking Volcan Fuego:

Which sometimes erupts:

We woke up the next morning before dawn and watched the sun rise over Volcan Agua:

What this picture doesn’t show is that everyone is hungover from wine and altitude. A truly miserable group, at 5 am. However, we ate breakfast and descended, and spirits improved.

I’ve been marking my time in Antigua with a series of small accomplishments. First, it was not getting murdered at the airport. After that it was polite conversation in Spanish with Maribel, the housekeeper at my hostel and temporary housing. I worked my way up to tackling the grocery store, endeavored to venture into the open air market, and most recently, rented an apartment. I’m living alone (sort of) in an apartment rented by a man named Manuel, and his wife Irma, and their entourage of small loquacious dogs. I say “sort of”, because the American tradition of 24 hours’ notice before a landlord enters the premises is apparently unheard of here, and Manuel and Irma come and go as they please. This is by no means unwelcome, and after the acquisition of a Spanish language textbook and daily small talk with my new neighbors, I may emerge from the monolingual crutch that was bestowed to me by the American public school system relatively unscathed. Here is the view from my kitchen:

There are two volcanoes up there in the clouds, which are usually visible in the mornings. I’ll do my best to furnish a photograph in due time.

In the future, keep your eyes peeled for a post devoted to the nuances of the gastro-intestinal acclimation to the Central American lifestyle.