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.

Today, I saw a funeral home minivan with spinners. Enjoy.

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.

I’m just beginning to get acquainted with Antigua. My spanish is abysmal but serviceable and improving hourly; the grocery store is terrifying (the market even worse) but I’ve managed to buy eggs, beans, and a burner; it gets dark every day at 6:30, but the sun comes up at 5:30. Up with the eagles. I am a full 18 inches taller than the next tallest resident of this city. Aside from that, the transition to Guatemala has been surprisingly smooth so far. I had my first, and so far my only, “what the hell am I doing in Central America?” moment when I got off the plane and was unable to meet with Miguel Angel, the gentleman dispatched to deliver my to Antigua from Guatemala City (40 murders per week). My apprehension was quickly eased when I saw two men rallying a 100cc 1980 Honda. The passenger was carrying a shotgun and wearing a backwards baseball cap that said simply, “Patrol” in somewhat official typography. So at least I was safe. Eventually rendezvousing with Miguel and escaping the din of Guat City, we rolled into the beautiful Colonial city of Antigua. Built in the 1500’s by the Spanish etc., etc., more here if you care. Descending into the high mountain village we wound our way down an extremely steep and narrow road. Along this road, approximately every 800m is a runaway truck ramp, and these structures appear to receive regular use; they are rutted and have extensive tread marks, giving the impression that the local public transportation coasts in neutral down the entire pass, checking it’s speed at each ramp. In any event, I arrived at my temporary dwelling unscathed and will move into an apartment next week.

After taking a few days to find my way around the city, tomorrow I will embark on my first trip as an assistant guide. It’s an overnight camping trip to a nearby volcano, where we’ll camp in a dormant crater overlooking an adjacent active cinder cone. I’ll check in later with some photos, provided that I don’t encounter the same fate as the last guy who had my job, who apparently was shot in the face with a homemade shotgun by this guy.

Until then,

Horan out.