Antigua

Disaster Strikes

~ TheGentlemanAtLarge ~ 5 Comments

During my time in Guatemala, I have fallen victim to a number of setbacks. My luggage was run over by an airplane and subsequently destroyed, my checking account was reduced to $1.49 by an ATM scam, and I’ve spent numerous hours recovering from imprudent street food decisions. I’ve managed to recover from these inconveniences gracefully, but none so far can compare to the Universe’s most recent affront. Last night my flip flops were eaten and rendered unwearable by the neighbors poorly disciplined and unruly pair of dachshund puppies.

This may seem petty and inconsequential when viewed in light of the crippling poverty that envelopes this country, and the cheerfulness with which its inhabitants lead their lives. Maybe it is petty and inconsequential, but I hate shoes. Even more than I hate shoes, I hate socks. In a way, it started generations ago; I have had the good fortune to inherit my parents’ good breeding. But just as purebred showdogs are sometimes prone to hip dysplasia, I have very sweaty feet. In this tropical climate in which I live the regular donning of shoes and socks is simply unacceptable. I have visited various shops as well as the open air market in search of a suitable replacement, but my feet are four sizes larger than those of the largest Guatemalan. Cursed again by my champion pedigree.
This injustice will not rest until the culprit is broken upon the wheel or otherwise castigated. The trick will be to identify which rodent was responsible. I have a great deal of respect for the right to due process, and have confirmed that it was one of the two neighbor dogs by two concrete pieces of evidence: They are the only dogs who ever have access to my apartment, and they left their criminal signature: they also ate my dirty underwear. They’ve been sneaking into my apartment to eat my underwear for months now, and their indulgence this time will be there downfall.
I guess this is another lesson in the impermanence of material things.

“Bonk-Thirty: The Guatemala Edition” or “A missed opportunity”

~ TheGentlemanAtLarge ~ 1 Comment
As a recreational cyclist, one who moved to Guatemala to pursue a job that relies heavily on cycling, I’m probably due for a post that assumes cycling as its foremost topic. This realization coincides nicely with my first Central American bonk, which is convenient for making a decent story.
The day began innocently enough as I set off in the back of a pick-up truck towards the small town of Santa Maria de Jesus, on Volcan de Agua. My goal was to learn a route that had been scouted several months ago by a different guide and marked with red paint. Kevin, another guide, joined me as far as the trailhead but returned with the truck, as he hates bikes. I dropped into the beginning of the descent extremely skeptically. Up to this point the riding has been decent but by no means noteworthy. The trails are not designed or maintained for riding, and are used almost exclusively by local farmers as modes of transportation between their homes and their fields. Furthermore, the beginning of this ride was littered with household trash that was staggering even for rural Guatemala, and I was already crabby because I was sure that riding in this area alone I would be robbed and have to walk home in riding shoes and a montanacyclocross.com kit. My mood degenerated more when I came to the first split in the trail and found that while the turn was, in fact, marked with red paint, that that paint mark was located directly in the center of a rock that laid directly between the two trails. Rats. Fortunately, two farmers were resting in the shade nearby and through limited frustration, broken Spanish, and enthusiastic gesticulation I determined the proper way. My skepticism of this trail continued for another minute as I was stuck behind two Mayan ladies carrying twice their body weight in corn. However, it lasted only a minute and as soon as I made my pass I was unleashed upon an Eden of singletrack bliss. I was far enough from the town, now, that the litter had diminished to the infrequent discarded Tortrix bag, and there was absolutely zero indication from the quality of riding that this trail wasn’t designed, engineered, and built exclusively for riding mountain bikes. Flowing banked corners were punctuated by root drops and rock gardens before entering into a river of cooled pahoehoe, which through a geologic lens was nothing short of awe inspiring. Short, technical climbs sustained elevation throughout the descent, making the ride almost tantric as it continued despite relativley modest change in elevation. Eventually the singletrack flowed into a dirt mountain road, which through years of neglect and torrential rain had managed to form a series of doubles which were easily cleanable even by my modest (read: essentially non-existant) capacity to leave the ground. Road gave way to road, and by the time I returned to Antigua I was on cloud nine, reveling in this discovery of decent trail. In my euphoria, I set off immediately towards another small mountain town, El Hato, to investigate reports of trail there.
My plan for the day had been to research and learn the ride from Santa Maria. Check. It had taken less time than anticipated, however, and my plan expanded to ride to above El Hato, find a trail to another town, San Mateo, and ride the road back from San Mateo to Antigua. It seemed simple enough, I was feeling good, and my breakfast of two pieces of banana bread and two endurolytes seemed ample to continue fighting the good fight. Incorrect. Perhaps this is a good time to discuss road building trends in Guatemala. The mountains here are very steep, and the “engineers” seem to have been focused on getting the most bang for their buck when it came to paving supplies. There are no switchbacks to speak of, and almost no roads that follow the contour of the hillside. The roads here go straight up, and straight down. The first climb out of Antigua to El Hato is challenging but not entirely uncivilized, and having ridden it before I was
mentally prepared. It’s about a 5k climb and only the first 1.5-2k are very steep. After that it settles into a difficult and consistent grade that is well suited to riders who prefer to settle into a tempo and go. I’m one of those riders, and I generally enjoy this climb. I arrived without Incident in El Hato, which was pretty much the end of the fun part. Recalling instructions from another rider, I continued around a bend and was greeted by a cobblestone hill that I can, with a clean conscience, describe in the same breath as the word “Koppenberg.” I composed myself briefly and assaulted this stone wall with the full utility of my small chainring. I had considered switching my bike to a single speed before moving down here for ease of maintenance. That would have been imprudent. After summiting this road I was battered down for another ten minutes by equally steep, albeit paved climbing. I eventually found what turned out to be about 3k of singletrack which can at best be described as mediocre. A much more interesting discovery happened halfway through this traverse to San Mateo when I realized that I was about fifteen minutes shy of a bonk. Double Rats. I rolled into San Mateo as the lethargy and moodiness began to take hold, and sought out a tienda to replenish myself before the cruise home. As soon as I purchased my Pepsi and fried pigskins, I was accosted by a number of grown men who started asking for money. I gave them the second half of my snack and headed back to Antigua. Then shit got real. The road out of San Mateo, it turns out, is not a simple cruise along the ridge to El Hato. It is a 6k climb of above 20% that frequently exceeds 30%. It did not take long to be become quite clear that the Pepsi was not going to cut it. After what seemed like an eternity of climbing in my granny gear and doing those pitiful little switchbacks from curb to curb (the ones that silently yell, “please run me over with that bus and end this miserable disgrace to my Coat of Arms.”), I made it to the ridge and descended with irresponsible alacrity through through El Hato and back to Antigua. Once there I wallowed for a while in self-pity before ordering two lunches from the nice ladies across the street, devouring those, and passing out with Xela in her bed. It wasn’t until I awoke that I learned of my greatest regret since arriving here.
That regret, of course, is missing a horse race on All Saints Day a few towns over. This is not your regular Kentucky Derby slosh fest, but something special. The sort of thing that might have convinced Hemingway to hold out long enough to have a look. My details of this race are sketchy at best: told third hand over a bar, but are ample to ignite any imagination with a pulse. Imagine, for a moment, that you could combine the Beer Mile with the Italian Palio. Now add that lawless, chaotic din and the irreverent disregard for the provision of life and limb that typifies the Central American third world. Now, you have the All Saints Day horserace. The premise goes something like this: local contestants toe the line next to their horse on one side of town. The gun goes off and the men drink a beer as fast as they can, mount their steeds, and race across town to the other side, where another beer is waiting. The race goes back and forth across town until a winner emerges. And that’s the beauty of this race. I don’t know what sort of time constraints there are on the competitors, but there must be some, because unlike the Beer Mile, or the Palio, or almost any other race out there, the winner is the last man standing/riding. It goes until all but one individual has incapacitated himself and withdrawn, which is a truly beautiful concept. With this race in mind, you can count on my returning to Guatemala during the first week in November at some point in the future. Any takers?

A Rueful Account of the Indignities of Air Travel in the 21st Century.

~ TheGentlemanAtLarge ~ 3 Comments

You will notice that this post will not be accompanied by original photography. More on that later.

I embarked upon my return to my native land last Thursday morning at 0900 when I set foot onto the Chicken Bus and set forth towards Guatemala City. I had been coached on the finer points of bus travel in the City: keep your bag close, pay attention, and don’t sit too close to the driver. With all of these things in mind, I left the comfortable safety of Maribel’s watchful eye and began a one hour bus ride that looked something like this. Without noteworthy incident I was deposited outside of the main shopping center where I hailed a cab, and we engaged in the formalities of discussing the fare. It went something like this:
Me: How much does it cost to go to the airport from here?
Guat Cabbie: Q60.
Me: Clearly, sir, you are debauched. It’s not worth half that.
Guat Cabbie: Ok, ok, Q45.
Me: I apologize for the state of my Spanish, perhaps you did not understand that I refuse to pay more than Q30.
Guat Cabbie. Ok, sorry, Q40.
At this point I began to walk to the next cab, which incited my Guat Cabbie friend to capitulate.
After a brief cab ride to the airport I checked in with relative ease (carry-on only) and proceeded towards the security checkpoint. Upon arriving I was informed that I had not yet paid my security tax and was redirected to the currency exchange where I was relieved of 20 Quetzales so that I may be more effectively degraded and inconvenienced in the name of air safety.
With that out of the way, however, I was pleasantly surprised by the cleanliness, quiet, and free WiFi in the GUA terminal, and began to mentally prepare for my reintroduction to American life. Travelling in this 3rd world country had, up to this point, been very hurried and chaotic, but without incident and generally not an unpleasant experience. It wasn’t until I began to fly domestically within the United States that the quality of my travel experience declined.
I should mention now, that I hate flying. Perhaps I should have read Ryan’s account of how to enjoyably fly on a budget before leaving, but I did not. I think that it is degrading, uncomfortable, expensive, and it brings me into intolerably close proximity with a demographic with which I generally decline to embrace, that is, the American public, especially those flying to or from Houston, TX. I have an uncanny knack for sharing a row with the most loquacious and obese customer on the flight; such that the age old “Arm Rest Cold War” is frequently rendered moot by my neighbor’s corpulence crossing that plastic Rubicon into the seat for which I paid. This said, I will continue my epic.
Upon boarding my flight from Huston to Denver my legally sized and carefully packed carry-on was snatched from my hands by a stewardess who informed my that there was no longer any room on the plane for carry-on luggage. I refrained from asking her if this development may have been a direct result of her employer inducing exorbitant checked bag fees and quietly removed my laptop and book from my pack with an acquiescent smile. I asked her if my bag would be available upon disembarking the plane, and she replied that it would be available in baggage claim in Denver. My final destination was Wichita, KS. I related this issue to her and she made the appropriate changes by writing “Wichita” on the tag and sending it below the plane. I decided that I would probably never see that bag again.
My middle seat on this flight was flanked by a very nice old Guatemalan lady, and a young American man living for the time being in Antigua. Neither of them had the slightest respect for the ancient law of “if I’m wearing headphones it means I don’t want to talk to you,” clearly detailed in Hammurabi’s Code. I answered a question to the old lady that I work with a Canadian (not my choice), which induced a 35 minute soliloquy of every story that she could relate having to do with Canadians, Canada, or quizzically, Geoffrey Rush. The young man went so far as to invite me to dine with him in the concourse, and incessantly tapped my foot with his. The affronts to my dignity continued on the next flight when I was wedged between a man large enough to necessitate re-stowing the hold of our 737 and an individual without the wherewithal to appreciate that it is entirely unacceptable for a grown man to play video games in public.
Upon my ultimate arrival in Wichita, I was surprised to find that my mis-checked bag did arrive, and to my chagrin had apparently been run over with a plane. The bag was ravaged, as well as several of it’s contents, appropriately, only the expensive ones. The bag, coat, camera, and cell phone which fell victim to a force powerful enough to crush my toothbrush into six pieces totaled several hundred dollars in damage.
In the end, I was made partially whole by my airline of choice, as they were forthcoming with an admission of fault and check for very nearly the cost of replacement. I will, however, continue to drive whenever feasible, and frequently when it’s not.

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.