Awwww... Look at the puppy!

Sometimes it’s easy to get wrapped up in emotions down here, and while I didn’t really care to talk about politics in this blog, I think it’s one of those things that’s inevitable while in a developing country—let alone a Latin American one. Other than that last post, I’ll probably not get too political anymore. So with that out of the way…

The tough life

Harvey and I currently find ourselves literally laying in hammocks, feeling a cool breeze float over the hot black sands, and listening to some pretty relaxing music here in Monterrico. Our hostel, Johnny’s Place, is pretty much the ideal tropical bungalow: tree trunk supports, palm roofs, stiff drinks, and an attitude that says, "Hey stay for a few days because...why not?"

I had come to the beach with the intention of finding some waves that I could surf, but Monterrico is not the place for such things. With no real identifiable point or reef break, the waves are unpredictable at best and deadly at worst. The tubes are fast growing—and they grow very, very big—and fast crashing, and when they crash they land right on the sand. If you find yourself getting caught in the underside of a building wave, I’ve found it’s best to try to not resist it’s power and just try to not land on your head (trust me from personal experience—not fun). What is the most spectacular phenomenon about the waves here in Monterrico is the undertow. The back suction from a receding wave is absolutely unbelievable, and we’ve seen our fair share of unsuspecting people get trapped in the mess of a break here.

With all that aside, there are certainly better times to be trying the ocean than others. Yesterday, Harvey and I spent a good two hours boogie boarding, body surfing and getting our asses handed to us by the force of the Pacific. Being in the ocean is always an insanely humbling experience, and the breaks of Monterrico have certain proven to be the pinnacle of that for me. Hanging out in the NorCal waters has never really been too big of a struggle (local territorialism aside), so experiencing the real force of the ocean has been quite the learning experience.

Another thing that has been a learning experience has been the dogs down here in Guatemala. Everywhere you go in this country you see packs and packs of stray dogs mingling all over the place. Most of the time you will see the dogs in the cities and their only concern in the world is finding any scrap of food that they can. Since Xela didn’t have the most efficient trash pickup service I have ever seen, there would often be large plastic bags of trash left around businesses late at night. It was not an uncommon thing to see 20 if not 30 dogs surrounding a few bags, tearing them apart and fighting over food scraps. When you did see it, it was absolutely amazing to watch—from a distance of course.

Most of the dogs we’ve encountered here have been really, really sweet, beautiful dogs. Since it seems that Guatemala has gotten the memo on the benefits of spaying and neutering their animals, the mutt mixes in this country have made for some beautiful animals. While I would love to be able to take one of these dogs home, for some reason I don’t think my parents or the National Park Service would appreciate my humanitarianism. But overall the dogs in Guatemala haven’t really been any cause for concern, until we got to Monterrico.

When I think about all the travel stories I have heard over the years, there is one that takes the cake for being the absolute greatest. I hope she forgives me if I tell the story wrong, but when my friend Sarah and her friend Colleen were backpacking throughout Southeast Asia, they found themselves being chased by a seemingly rabid Cambodian mutt. Wanting to avoid the consequences of being attacked by a wild dog overseas, they tried to hightail it away from the dog. For Sarah, that choice ended up being a wise one, but for her friend Colleen—who cartoonishly got bit on the butt by the mutt—the end result was not so glorious.

So with this story in mind, I have been very, very careful about my interactions with dogs in this country, but like I mentioned before, I haven’t had any problems. But the other evening, Harvey and I decided to take a romantic stroll with each other down the beach to explore the area and watch the sun set over the Pacific. While walking down, we noticed a little crab scurrying about a conch shell, and I stopped to take a picture. A pack of four dogs mosed on up to the conch shell and started sniffing around it, trying to make something of it. Wanting nothing to do with the dogs, Harvey and I kept walking, talking in a loving voice to the dogs as we passed them (something that we always do). But within 15 seconds of us walking away, we found ourselves getting surrounded by the four dogs, as they barked loudly, showed their teeth and snapped their jaws at us. It was at this moment that I had wished I read that “Worst Case Scenario” book that I always see for 50% off at Borders. Instinctively I decided to react to these dogs as I would if I saw a mountain lion, so I backed away slowly hoping that I would show to them that they had the dominance in this situation. That didn’t work. I looked behind me and saw that Harvey was actually getting away from the situation successfully by walking very fast into the water and allowing the dogs to focus all their attention on me. So while backing away didn’t work, I decided to take the black bear approach, so I lunged at the dogs and started screaming and yelling at them. While they were initially shocked at my reaction, I only pissed them off more. I tried looking around for a large stick so I could fight my way out of the situation, but there wasn’t one to be found. With my luck looking very dire at that moment, another pack of dogs came out of nowhere with their snouts gnarled, barking very loudly at my attackers. This new pack swooped in and diverted the attention from me on to them and the two packs began to fight, as I was able to make a quick get away. Needless to say, we don’t go exploring on the beach anymore.

We’re spending our last day in Monterrico with some newly made expat friends, taking dips in the pool and staying out of the sun, as the two of us have some of the worst sunburns we’ve ever gotten. Now I can hear all of you saying to the computer, “Brien you need to put on sunscreen,” and in response let me tell you that I reapplied three times yesterday but it didn’t matter.

We are in the process of deciding whether we want to chase the surf South to some nicer beaches in El Salvador or head up to Honduras for a few days. We’re getting pretty excited for a large boat party this upcoming week in one of the most beautiful lakes in Guatemala, so the future is looking bright. Oh, and Harvey’s birthday is on Thursday. Good times ahead, I hope everyone is enjoying life back home.

Also, kudos to everyone in Madison standing in solidarity, as it is very neat to see videos and photos from the protests in the Capitol Square.

In Sickness and Health

After a long struggle with multiple days of good parties, a little bit of sickness, and quite the journey on a series of chicken buses, the back of a pickup truck, and a boat trip through the thick mangroves of the Pacific Coast of Guatemala, Harvey and I have survived the Xela experience and find ourselves in the serene and beautiful beachtown of Monterrico.

Our time is Xela was absolutely fantastic to say the least. Spending two weeks getting to know not only the city but many of the people was an invaluable experience, and Jamil and his roommates hospitality can never be overstated. My time is Xela was mainly spent navigating the markets, looking all over town for a guitar store (didn’t find one), befriending both gringos and chapins alike, jumping in the deepend of street food, and drinking what is quite possibly the greatest booze ever created: Quetzalteca.

Quetzalteca is an aguardiente, which is similar to rum in the fact that it is a derivative of sugar cane, but very different in regards to the fact that a liter of it costs about $3.50. Now back home when you think of any booze that would cost $3.50—let alone an entire liter of it—you probably would make a face of disgust and vow to never, ever try that cheap, harmful liquor. It is with this sentiment that Quetzalteca will blow your mind, because this liquor not only mixes PERFECTLY with just about any mixer but I have yet to have a hangover from drinking only Quetzalteca. In fact, I feel great the next day. I’m not sure if this is a good thing.

So after a few nights of making fools out of ourselves trying to learn how to dance salsa, we were able to catch a few nights of live music. While the dance clubs are a lot of fun in Guatemala, this country is obsessed with maybe five songs and it seems as if those are the only songs that get played. So some live, original music was a nice relief from all of that. We were able to catch one salsa band that absolutely set the dance floor on fire (for everyone else—not our gringo asses), and watching seasoned salsa dancers at their best is one of the coolest things to experience. Moving across the floor with movements that resemble water, the men spin the women around, contorting their bodies in a way that defines not only the beat of the song but oftentimes gravity itself. But being gringos that haven’t had enough practice to tear it up on the salsa floor just yet, we needed to find some enjoyable music more our speed.

This past Saturday seemingly all of the youth in Xela packed themselves in a small club to witness the energy of latin reggae artist Dr. Sativo. Originally from Guatemala, Dr. Sativo made a name for himself not only playing with his former band, Barrio Candela, on the streets of Barcelona, but also releasing an ode to his homeland (a song aptly named “Guatemala”), which received quite a bit of praise in these parts of the world. Dr. Sativo’s nine piece band drew up a new definition for the word party, as seemingly every Spanish speaker in the room knew every word to every one of his songs. Sharing one of our last evenings in such a spectacular city with just about all our friends that we’ve made in this country was beyond blissful, and it will defiantly go down as one of the top highlights in this country.

Then we woke up the next day.

A little beaten and battered, we all went out to breakfast to enjoy some greasy hangover food and hot coffee. Not feeling the best (due to a bit of a sickness that had been bothering me for a few days), I took a heavy dosage of vitamins and Dayquil to help battle my illness.

Due to the sheer amount of pollution in the Guatemalan cities, I haven’t really felt close to 100% since being in the country. While it seems that a bit of my asthma from my youth has made a slight comeback, really I can’t imagine anyone (asthma or not) not having a difficult time breathing with so much diesel exhaust in the air.

While my self medication allowed me to make a quick recovery in under 24 hours, Adam, did not fair so well. In addition to feeling a bit affected by the pollution, Adam also unfortunately thinks he ate a bad piece of meat at a BBQ we had prior to the Dr. Sativo concert on Saturday. His stomach didn’t fair too well, and in an effort to combat his sickness with as much haste as possible, we visited the Xela Red Cross for a little checkup.

A full IV, antibiotics, and two and a half hours later we were able to leave the Red Cross, but his sickness led to the three of us to make a decision to postpone Chiapas, Mexico and head to the beach. However, the only problem with heading to the beach is the fact that you have to take the stomach-turning chicken buses roughly seven hours to get there.

We made the decision to head that way on Tuesday morning, and after boarding a chicken bus early, it did not take to long for Adam to realize he probably wouldn’t make the journey in one piece.

To be honest, there are a lot of things in Guatemala that aren’t for everyone—and you learn that very quickly down here. Being crammed into a chicken bus with sweating Guatemalans literally sitting on your lap while they slurp off every bit of meat off the chicken that they just bought through the bus window, is not something I would recommend to too many people. Hell even sitting on a chicken bus without it being crammed is not for too many people, especially if you get tense when driving. Some of the street food, while delicious, may look sketchy at best, and without being too graphic lets just say that just about everyone battles with their stomach at some point while visiting. However, I’ve found that pushing through these things are what makes the struggles worth it.

It’s very easy for someone to come to Latin America and go to the places that make life easy and seem like you are in the States. But while you can do these things very, very easily down here, I always wonder what is the point? What can you learn about the people, the culture, the way of life of the people in Latin America if you stay within your comfort zone? What do you learn from your fellow countrymen/women and global citizens traveling abroad when you sacrifice everything for adventure? Hell, what do you learn about yourself?

This book: Don't read it while
in Latin America. 

I feel a lot of people in America are quick to say that we live in the greatest country in the world, but when only 30% of the population has a passport and only HALF of that travel to a place other than Canada or Mexico, you have to ask: what the hell do we know? In the context of traveling around America and seeing a lot of the things that I’ve seen, I’ve come to realize how special my upbringing has been and how lucky I am to have the family that I have. You can read about poverty in the developing world in as many books that you can until your head explodes, but it isn’t until you see a child gathering water from a hose that is dripping out onto a dirt road covered in sewage and trash can you really put a face on something like that. And it’s not until you recognize these faces and the families that these faces go to and the struggles these families push through, do you really understand how stupid arguments against “illegal” immigrants really are. Who the hell are we to put ourselves on a pedestal of greatness when the only reason we are who we are is because we have stepped on numerous people—hell an entire continent—in order to get there. If anything we owe these people a solid look in the eye to realize how lucky we are, and taking the time to do that isn’t for everyone. Taking the time to realize our true impact on the world isn’t for everyone.

There aren’t enough words in my vocabulary to show the amount of respect I have for those down here, on the ground making an impact. I have the deepest, deepest respect for those I have befriended not only in Habitat and the Peace Corps down here, but those who are traveling, volunteering and writing back home about these places (not only in Guatemala but throughout Latin America—especially anyone reading this in Haiti).

My biggest regret of this trip is how little I have felt I have done. There are a million and a half excuses, but none of them hold up to the truth that I have just been lazy with my time. There is still time left, and I hope I am able to give back more than just a few quetzales, a “thank you”, a smile, and my story. I hope to learn this language in the future, because without it you can only get a glimpse of the life down here. Also, for the record, Guatemala isn’t just a life of struggles and have-nots, but also a place of culture vibrancy, smiles, and an unbelievable willingness to help outsiders—a willingness that I really have not felt in too many places through my travels in the United States (unless, of course, money was involved).

Going through the struggles down here, while living through your own personal hell of a sickness is not something I would wish upon anyone. Due to his sickness (and after a few days he looked like he lost quite a bit of weight), Adam made the decision that it was his time to go, and I’ll defiantly miss having him around. I had more than my fair share of apprehensions about traveling down here, and I almost didn’t even come. But it was because of his persistence and my faith in his judgment that I made it down to this country, and for these experiences that I have had and for these friends I have met, I cannot thank him enough.

Adam leaving has certainly started a new chapter in this adventure for us, and while we will miss him, Harvey and I plan to push forward. When talking to Adam, he stated that being abroad for an extended period of time really makes you realize where your boundaries are and you really learn something about yourself. For me, I’ve learned that this experience is only the beginning, and I thrive in these environments. I’m thriving in the unknown. Thriving abroad.

A side note: I want to mention that technology is pretty cool. For $20 I purchased a little mobil modem for my computer that works all over Guatemala (even on black sand beaches). Why would I do something like this is such a pristine area? Well, Radiohead has a new album out, and I'll be damned if I can't hear it while the sun sets over the Pacific Ocean this evening.

The surf is breaking, and the ocean is calling my name. I miss everyone back home, and I hope they know it. I’ll try to catch a wave for all of you down here in the hot Guatemalan sun.