Week 1 in
Am woken up on my first morning in Spanish by the very small, and fairly old, Edwardo (father of the family I am living with) who sports an absolutely awesome white mustache. Eat a breakfast which was essentially exactly the same as supper the night before, plus some food they call moush (oatmal/porridge type stuff but without many oats and with a lot of watery liquid stuff). I virtually crap myself when Edwardo hands me a map and points out my Spanish school (which looks pretty far away), thinking I am going to have to find the place all by myself. I am grateful when Edwardo steps out the door with me.
The school is about a 10-15 minute walk away, which isn’t in itself bad. The fact that there is more traffic here than in Manhattan, but with roads a quarter of the size, and ‘drivers’ who ‘drive’ with absolutely no concern for pedestrians makes it a pretty horrible journey to and from school every day. That, coupled with the fact that black smoke spurts out of every car/bus/van exhaust pipe and hangs in the valley that Xela sits in, makes it unpleasant to say the least. Last point of complaint: the sidewalks are only wide enough for one person to walk along. Locals never move to make space, even if they are walking two abreast, so if there is an oncoming pedestrian or two, you have to get off the sidewalk and step into the road which is a pretty hairy experience given said quality of the ‘driving’.
Arrive at school and see a group of locals outside, whom I assume are teachers. Edwardo shares a few words and one of them speaks to me in Spanish. Another embarrassing effort to explain that I speak no Spanish ensues. I feel a bit better when the teacher says “no hay problema”, which I assume means, it’s not a problem. Meet my teacher, and spend the next two and a half hours desperately trying to speak Spanish with her. It is a struggle, but I assume being thrown into it this way, and having one on one lessons, is the best mode of learning Spanish quickly. A half an hour break ensues where I meet the other students, teachers and staff. They have a ping pong table which I am pleased about, plus bread and tea is provided during the break. It is a welcome food-type, after all this fried stuff I have been served.
Back to the classroom for two more hours of painstaking Spanish. I am given homework and head back to my house for a 1.30 p.m. lunch. Lunch, which happens to be the biggest meal of the day in
Go up to my room/prison cell and try to do my homework. Not a great environment to work in, but at least I have a desk. Realize I am still hungry. The portion sizes in my family are freaking tiny, and it is certainly not the right thing to do to ask for more, given that they, like most families here, don’t have a huge amount of money to live on. Would love to go out and buy some food or eat at a restaurant but come to the conclusion that a) I don’t know where any supermarkets/restaurants are and b) even if I did, I don’t know enough Spanish yet to let people know what I would like. It is a tough situation, but one that motivates me to crack on with my homework so I won’t starve.
I get the picture of what the food will be like here when I have supper. Exactly the same as the night before: friholes fritos (refried beans), huevos (eggs), arroz (rice) and chili (chili, obviously). Am absolutely knackered so I hit the sack shortly after eating, with a kind of “oh fuck me in the face” type of feeling about the next 8 weeks.
The rest of the week follows much the same pattern, except that I get up 5.50 a.m. to go running some mornings before breakfast with another Brit named Mark (Marcos in Spanish) in the same program as me. He is a nice chap and provides some good release from Spanish. Having said that, we attempted to practice our Spanish on each other while running during the mornings. If any locals heard us, they would have probably thought: what a couple of total phalluses, two totally English guys with a day of Spanish under their belts trying to converse in that over their mother tongue. In fact, that is exactly how I felt. Either way, it wouldn’t do any harm I thought. In any case, the runs in the morning are a good way to kick start the day and good training for the marathon I intend to run with my Dad in
By the third night I come to the conclusion that I am no longer going to eat supper with my family because the portion sizes are too small, it tastes like dumplestiltskin, and I would rather slowly eat my own balls. This is good timing because I am beginning to get to know my fellow students, one of whom is leaving so we go out to dinner at a Parisian restaurant in town. I am so hungry that I order two main courses and the others are amazed/disgusted. I tell them that I eat more than anyone I know aside from the man/beast/string bean/streak of piss in the wind/pole that is Rob Neville. The table of students consists of 3 lawyers who had just finished the bar at NYU, Marcos a recently exed UBS man, and me. All are very amiable and have excellent Spanish compared to Marcos and me.
For the rest of the week I either eat with people or by myself at The Blue Angel Café, a very cheap place serving excellent food. I think I ordered Spaghetti Bolognese with garlic bread for four nights in a row, with limonada con soda (fresh lime soda). It came out to just over $ 4 each night, so I can fit it into my tight budget I think.
Still feeling fairly lost in terms of Spanish and my way around Xela, I decide to go out for a night on the town with Marcos on Friday. We hit a bar named, Pool and Beer (in English). The clue was in the name: when we got there, there was pool and beer. I meet an interesting and extremely friendly local named Juan Pablo with faultless English. He is 24 and has a 30 year old Argentinean girlfriend, Maria, who looks about 18. Juan Pablo attended a private local school and has spent the last two years traveling with his girlfriend around
I get the picture that Juan Pablo is fairly well off for Guatemalan standards when he takes us in his brand new pick up truck to the next bar, a bar well known for Salsa dancing. He drops us off, giving me his email address and heads back to his place with Maria. The place is packed, and full of good salsa dancers. Hitting the dance floor would be suicide given that I have no idea how to salsa, plus I have two left club-feet. Marcos, a Canadian guy whom we met named Andy, and I buy another liter of Gallo, the local brew to try to muster up some Dutch courage. When the clock strikes 11, they finally start playing some music that even spastics like myself and the other two tourists can dance to. Fully lubricated with Gallo, we start making knobs out of ourselves on the dance floor. I can’t have been doing too badly, however, because the girls that I met on the bus weren’t too embarrassed to say hello when they saw me, and even surprised me with a four way hug, which was slightly too aggressive in my opinion, given that they made me spill my glass of beer all down my arm. Either way it was fun to see them and to introduce them to Marcos and Andy.
Incidentally, Andy has his own website: www.spandyandy.com where you can watch him dance in spandex in various spots around the globe. I recommend checking out this particular video shot in
Definitely worth I look. I’m just disappointed that he didn’t whip out that tight outfit that night.
We stayed at the bar until closing, and were in desperate need of some food to soak up the beer. The only place open was a “street meat” stall, one of the places you should avoid like the plague because they are notoriously unhygienic and the chances of you getting dysentery are about 2:1. Therefore we each bought three tortillas filled with disgusting shit-meat which we downed in about four seconds. Feeling temporarily satisfied, Marcos and I walk Andy to his hostel. It is fairly dangerous to walk alone late at night. For example, the other day we met two girls that had been robbed at knife point just outside the Blue Angel at 7 p.m. the night before. It is good luck that Marcos and I happen to live with families that live next door to each other.
Wake up the next day with what can only be some hybrid form of dysentery. I describe it to my family as an upset stomach, but it was more like a fucking upside down volcano erupting out of my bumhole. I kid you not, one session the eruption was so forceful that it actually displaced some of the water from loo, into the air, and then onto the floor in front of me. It was the most amazing achievement of my dumping career. Spend the entire day getting lighter, as it were, and become increasingly nervous about the hike which I agreed to go on the next day with my fellow students up
At 4.30 a.m. the next day I had to make a game time decision: spend the day at home crapping in my loo, or spend the day on a volcano, crapping on a volcano. I didn’t want to let the guys down (dropping out would have meant that they couldn’t go because the trekking company sets a 4 person limit per guide) so I take the longest dump of my life and head out the door to be met by Marcos. We arrive at the meeting point outside the place we had booked the hike just before 5 a.m., the meeting time, and are met by Jason and Kim, two of the NYU lawyers. No guide. Fifteen minutes later we see lights in the distance, and our guide casually rolls up in his ancient SUV.
A short drive and we are at the base of the volcano. I glance up and it looks fairly unimpressive and small as the sun rises. This is deceptive, as it is a tough three and a half hour hike to the summit, and in my state I struggled a bit. Thank goodness Marcos and Kim were fairly unfit because it meant at least 3 of us walked at around the same pace. Jason, who is a runner, had no problems. I hadn’t been able to buy water the day before because I was so ill, but thankfully the guide gives me one of his spare bottles. I don’t want to drink too much though, because I am scared it will go straight through me and upside down volcano may meet reel volcano.
Even in my weak state, I couldn’t fend off the boyish/immature desire to be the first one to reach the peak, so I started running about 30 feet below the highest point. Instead of feeling elated when I stood atop the tallest rock on the volcano, I felt so out of breath that I thought I was going to faint and crap myself at the same time. The altitude made everything worse. I was standing at 3772 m or 12 375 ft. The view, however, made up for it. It was utterly magnificent. You could see the city of
What stole the show, however, was a nearby volcano which
Another interesting sight on the summit was a group of 30 or so people praying. They appeared to be some Christian group, involved in much wailing and crying. One man kept on crying/saying the words “Padre lo siento…” (father, sorry…). It was a strange sight but I was impressed by the fact that they must have been up earlier than 4.30 a.m. to reach the summit before us.
An hour or so was spent on the top of the volcano, giving us time to take pictures and soak in the wonderful 360 degree view of
The hike down was much easier in terms of strain on the body, but more treacherous because the paths were steep and slippery. We all slipped a few times and I, for one, bit the dust at least once, but we all arrived safely back at the car in one piece. During the hike down I came to realize what an intelligent bunch I was with. They each explained to me in extreme detail the credit crunch, how irresponsible lending was the major cause of this, and about
We decided not to end our action packed day there. After a quick turnaround, we went with the same guide to agua caliente (literally, hot water). We thought these geothermally heated pools of water might make our muscles feel better after our long hike. As soon as we arrived it started raining and we were freezing. A group decision was made to go into the lowest, and least warm, pool first. It was fucking boiling, especially as I had a bit of sunburn on my legs from the hike. After a while we acclimatized and attempted to get into the middle pool. More burning feeling on the legs but it was a good pain. Onto the final pool and I felt like I my legs were being cooked. I couldn’t get in and was afraid that if I did, I would ever be able to have children. But I took the risk and my balls are still in tact. Didn’t want to get wet, so I took out an umbrella to fend off the rain:
It was a fun experience and a great way to relax after a day on the volcano.
And speaking of fun experiences, joy of all joys, that night, Sunday 6 p.m., (1 a.m. GMT) I laid the first solid dump I had seen in 48 hours. Volcano had cured volcano, and I was in the clear.
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