Hola, soy Mario de Noruega... Of course, one needs an artist's name when travelling, and Mario slid in there with ease, probably the second day here in Todos. Now, this entry has been somewhat delayed, as predicted when things (including myself) began settling down here in the New World. As to physical or psychological extremities to report, I guess not, but there are certainly a lot of interesting quirks around here, many of which I am yet to comprehend fully.
First, a word on my whereabouts; Todos Santos is a town of about 30,000 people, a figure which must be including the rural regions in the municipality. Situated at 2,500m above sea level in a valley in the Cuchúmatanes mountain range, this is the highlands and traditional home of the Maya. Even though the Maya were reduced between 70 and 90 percent by the Spanish colonial conquest, they make up about 70% of the Guatemalan population today, having been able to preserve a lot of their identity (robes, religion, etc.) even through centuries of war and oppression. That being said, they haven't been able to unite themselves politically and seize power, perhaps due to ignorance as well as the diversity (in pre-colonial times, animosity) between them; they speak 23 non-overlapping languages, it seems. Rigoberta Menchú will be running for office this fall, but according to locals she doesn´t stand much of a chance. In Todos Santos, 95% of the population are indigenous, not all of them pure-blood, there's been a lot of watering down through the years. They speak Mam, which sounds sort of clicky, as well as half-decent Spanish; some of the more industrious types speak Spanish very well, including my teacher. I'll be swapping to the school's only (?) ladino teacher once I reach a level where I wanna get into higher-level shit.
About: shit going down around here, random selection: there is the recent road block on the main road out of here, which means people have to ride seven hrs in stead of two and a half to get to Huehuetenango, the regional capital. This road block started a few days ago when citizens of the municipality (or something similar) neighboring on Todos Santos were fed up with not getting the water they'd been promised, initiating the road block with clubs, machetes and god knows what more as a general protest towards the authorities' lack of ability to redeem the situation. Now, the reason why they don't have any water is interesting; some sort of water board, led by a former alcalde (mayor) of Todos, apparently control the distribution of water in part of the region. A few years back they sold off parts of the source to the neighboring municipality for a one-time fee of 700,000Q ($100,000); not accounted for officially, it seems. These times obviously being sort of dry, there is now not enough water for all and the home municipality seems to have priority. For the time being, the ex-mayor - wisely not wanting to face the angry mob - has fled, no doubt along with the money (of course they could be spent, this dodgy transaction apparently took place a few years back). The current mayor of Todos seems to be washing his hands, not knowing how to deal with the situation. Let's hope it doesn't turn violent.
As a footnote on corruption: corruption seems to be so widespread as to be near-accepted by the general population when it comes to most sorts of officials. This fine tradition stems from colonial times, where the crown's local representatives, either Spaniards or Quislings, would suck the marrow of the village dry the short period they were in office. It it still more or less accepted practice; an alcalde never gets re-elected after his four years, "it's just how it is".
Now... this is just the beginning of this entry, but I'll have to stop here as I hate sitting to long in front of the screen; now it's lunch at home, then class from two to seven as usual. Get back to y'all soon.
By the way, an interesting piece of info I came across; according to one scientist, Latin America in 1490 made up 20% of the world's population, concentrated in Central America and the Andes. 1590, the figure was 3%.
Friday, May 4, 2007
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Mucho gusto
- meaning both 'delighted to meet you' and 'I like it a lot' (this food, this country, whatever) - mucho gusto is definitely the new loud, as I've now reached my destination; thus having no more use for my beloved ¿Donde esta la parada para XXXX?; settling in with a local huuuge family yestereve, I am now forced into actually trying to converse with people, who, by the way, are really nice. Currently the conversations mostly consist of me answering Noruega, that being the end of the conversation, as we have little more to talk about that I could possibly understand; the rate of proactivity - that means I pose the question - is about 1 in 20, I guess. The town of Todos Santos really seems off the beaten path; even though there are language schools here, the tourists don't exactly pop out behind every corner - so far I've seen three whites - and what you could call bars seem to close at nine; somewhat limiting the party scene, at least in the form I'm used to. This is hardcore Maya territory, some of them don't even seem to understand Spanish, though there are a lot of Spanish descendants here as well, including my family. The Maya garments are fabulous and colorful, which reminds me, I got the card-reader, but uploading one photo seems to take half an hour or so; the internet connection here is crap and relatively expensive so you'll probably have to butter yourselves up with patience (sic) with regard to photos; all the greater the challenge for me: my writing will have to be the spray paint decorating the faculties of y'all. A vivid and colorful - color?, what color; I really have been Americanised - hey, wait a minute, it seems I'm a swinger - anyone understanding what the hell that was about, five points to you... as I was saying, a colourful description shall be forthcoming tomorrow or something, now I'm sick of this slow-operating shit and will bid you all good day; talking about sick, I just bought my first bogus water, ie retapped, which mens with any luck you'll have me writing the next entry with fever, hallucinations and stuff, all the better for the setback in entertainment value which seems to have struck my blog entries of late.
Ye olde and withering servant,
Merryus
Ye olde and withering servant,
Merryus
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Into the light
(for readers who don't follow this regularly, ie every day, please read Bible-lenght entry below for background before reading this one)
Ahh. Acclimatization city! After a second night of murderless sleep I am feeling a whole lot more comfortable. The presumed-harmful-guatemalans-rate is now down from about 99% the first day to - well, let's say 2% (at least in daytime), which you can probably imagine gives me some time enjoy myself a little more than what was the case in my previous entry. I was up at 8, on to a marvellous breakfast; it cost a whopping 50 quetzales ($6.50) for eggs, bacon, bread, some vegetables, sausage, pudding, coffee and a lemonade. This would the price of the lemonade - 'twas real lemonade, mind you - in my beloved Norway. An expensive, fancy place, it was, live chilling music and all! Satisfied and - well, energetic is perhaps an overstatement, but at least normalised, I then gladly left my home/prison for the last two nights, the far-from-cozy hotel Shalom. Then there was my first taxi experience, which went well, up to the terminal from where the chicken bus was cackling a welcome to its soon-to-be old friend. I'm actually beginning to enjoy these chicken buses, they're sort of a relaxed way of travelling, and you get to see a lot. My destination (where I am now) was Huehuetenango, which is abot 2 hrs north from Xela on the way to Todos Santos Cuchumatán - that's where I am heading tomorrow for Spanish classes. The ride up here was quite picturesque; forest-clad hills and valleys; scattered population most places, with drought-ridden patches of farmland awaiting next months rainy season; horses and cows grassing here and there, the cows often tied to the stick-and-rope we norwegians only know from cartoons; indigenous women flashing their tits in creekbeds (well, there was one); people in hats, everywhere, yes; indeed this is a nation of hats: pale tourists in stupid mosquito hats - I've not yet bought one; young and grown-up locals in baseball hats or the like; grown-up and older people in indigenous hats or cowboy hats; yes, they actually have politicians on election posters posing in cowboy hats here; hehehehe; I bet what they don't yet have is a local variant of the wonderful american expression "all hat and no cattle", or these guys would be sitting ducks; I'm definitely having one of those cowboy hats. This wonderful two-hour Guatemala documentary - yes, the one outside the window of the bus, stupid - cost Q15 (=$2). Anyway, I'm hungry again. And much less paranoid, thank God. The only thing lacking the first night was a scottish suicidal neighbor going on about a secret city of Mayans deep inside the jungle, where happiness and honey and milk prevailed - providing me with a map before blowing his brains out. It would have made sense then and there, that's what's scary.
Ahh. Acclimatization city! After a second night of murderless sleep I am feeling a whole lot more comfortable. The presumed-harmful-guatemalans-rate is now down from about 99% the first day to - well, let's say 2% (at least in daytime), which you can probably imagine gives me some time enjoy myself a little more than what was the case in my previous entry. I was up at 8, on to a marvellous breakfast; it cost a whopping 50 quetzales ($6.50) for eggs, bacon, bread, some vegetables, sausage, pudding, coffee and a lemonade. This would the price of the lemonade - 'twas real lemonade, mind you - in my beloved Norway. An expensive, fancy place, it was, live chilling music and all! Satisfied and - well, energetic is perhaps an overstatement, but at least normalised, I then gladly left my home/prison for the last two nights, the far-from-cozy hotel Shalom. Then there was my first taxi experience, which went well, up to the terminal from where the chicken bus was cackling a welcome to its soon-to-be old friend. I'm actually beginning to enjoy these chicken buses, they're sort of a relaxed way of travelling, and you get to see a lot. My destination (where I am now) was Huehuetenango, which is abot 2 hrs north from Xela on the way to Todos Santos Cuchumatán - that's where I am heading tomorrow for Spanish classes. The ride up here was quite picturesque; forest-clad hills and valleys; scattered population most places, with drought-ridden patches of farmland awaiting next months rainy season; horses and cows grassing here and there, the cows often tied to the stick-and-rope we norwegians only know from cartoons; indigenous women flashing their tits in creekbeds (well, there was one); people in hats, everywhere, yes; indeed this is a nation of hats: pale tourists in stupid mosquito hats - I've not yet bought one; young and grown-up locals in baseball hats or the like; grown-up and older people in indigenous hats or cowboy hats; yes, they actually have politicians on election posters posing in cowboy hats here; hehehehe; I bet what they don't yet have is a local variant of the wonderful american expression "all hat and no cattle", or these guys would be sitting ducks; I'm definitely having one of those cowboy hats. This wonderful two-hour Guatemala documentary - yes, the one outside the window of the bus, stupid - cost Q15 (=$2). Anyway, I'm hungry again. And much less paranoid, thank God. The only thing lacking the first night was a scottish suicidal neighbor going on about a secret city of Mayans deep inside the jungle, where happiness and honey and milk prevailed - providing me with a map before blowing his brains out. It would have made sense then and there, that's what's scary.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Guatemala o´hoy.
What´s a fella to say; what´s a fella to do? Who knows. Feeling somewhat more relaxed today (not calm, mind you), let me try to recuperate the emotional turmoil of the last 24 or so hrs;
1. The departure and the flight:
Parting with Adam was sort of sad, given that we´ve had so much fun together in Atlanta. I´d really have loved to get to know him better, but hopefully this can be remedied at a later time when he has some time off too. I believe it to be quite taxing showing a guest around town every night as well as working all day. Right now he´s probably sleeping my presence off or watching Aqua Teen Hunger Force or something similar from the depths of his sofa. Anyway, we got up at 0700, both a little sleep-deprived, me off to the airport, him to work. About leaving the US; I felt like a normal person through check-in, security and boarding, as opposed to the criminalization present upon arrival there. Guatemalan security is a little more lax, although they make you fill out some forms and have some nasty-looking MPs (which stands for Ministerio de Policia or something, not military as I first thought). On the plane over there I felt my sympathetic nervous system once again proclaiming its prescence, what the hell am I doing here? How do I get to Xela (Quetzaltenango on maps), where I close to randomly had decided to spend my first night. Suddenly, my up to now-frivolous approoach to this whole undertaking started to vex me, or rather, I started questioning my previous judgements, labelling them frivolous. That´s when the steward came, asking me if I wanted anything to drink; being on a bilingual Delta flight, I answered coke, please, whereupon he asked something in Spanish, it must have been if I wanted ice, coz that´s what he asked me next in response to my frowning 'scuse me; he then proceeded with a ¿No habla Español? and I said, that's right. He went on grinning, saying you will be in (checking watch) ..two hours, and I was much relieved from my previous anxiety. Come to think of it, I think I heard a Moohahahaha, sucker! somewhere in there, as well. After we landed, the man next to me, having first adressed me in Spanish, commenting on the horrendous landing attempt by what must have been a green Copilot or a drunk Captain, whichever one he certainly sped up the plane's need for landing gear technical service - er.. as I was saying, the man next to me proceeded to ask me in English why I was in Guatemala, I replied that 'twas to learn Spanish but he seemed unsatisfied, and demanded whether I was meeting up with any old friends, indicating: why the hell would I choose to come to a crappy country such as his own Guatemala if I had no friends there?
And indeed, why would I, I started wondering myself. To learn Spanish in beautiful, calm, mountainous surroundings, it was, but at that point I didn't really remember, as the man next to me proceeded with the "trust no one and keep off the streets as much as possible, especially during night"-speech, pulling his lower eyelid down with his index finger as an indication for me to keep my keen elf-eyes about me. Great. Again, my rapidly-firing nerves were readily quelled by the friendly surroundings, and I was good to go, or, rather, crawl my way out of the plane.
2: Intermission entertainment; Merryus scrutinizing himself excessively in public:
Now, it seems, is a good time to clarify the question of my nervousness, as it is essential to convey my frame of mind this last day, and as it may seem to be portrayed as excessive with regard to your probable predjudice with regard to myself. Not so; a few people who know me very well will know that this is, in fact, a prominent part of me, as it is a part of many people - but my nerves are more high-strung than the mean because I enjoy (perhaps not the best choice of word) hounding myself on in an almost masochistic fashion, driving myself to do things I don't know how to. Normally I function well and will have no trouble keeping at least a calm surface and prevailing even under pressure, but this is not to say that there isn't an unnecessary amount of shit going on inside. I don't particularily enjoy this with regard to what makes me happy, it's more of a necessity of life, a part of my personality. I outperform most, not necessarily in terms of what is done or achieved, but with regard to the relation between my general level of neuroticism and the type of challenges I bring upon myself. This is not meant to be bragging; many people do a lot more challenging things with lower levels of nervousness, and good luck to them; I believe having this urge to push my own barriers is often more of a scourge than an asset, because I am surfing on the verge of what's possible for me instead of taking one step at a time. Sensible and harmonious people keep their hands clean if they don't have the soap in sight, and they're probably the smarter ones, that's more or less what I am trying to say (in addition to giving perspective on my own frame of mind). Enough with the self-exploration; I´ll just close this section by saying that I probably am even more edgy now than historically, the reason for this being the exhaustion experienced half a year ago and the ensuing breakdown-buildup period not being fully concluded before my departure. I was tired of waiting, and back to 70% or whatever, deeming it enough to go. The consequences of having less energy can be felt when in taxing new situations such as described in this blog entry, or when jet-lagged as in Atlanta (the second day there I was quite low even though everything was hunky-dory around me; perhaps I will bring you more from my time in Atlanta, but not today)
3: Got me backpack, got me Quetzales off the ATM, set to go!
Engulfed in people speaking Pig Latin, aka. Spanish or Greek or whatever, I plunge through the customs and spot the Salida (exit) sign. Exiting the airport didn't sound too inviting at this point. Now it´s for real, what to do, where to go? I had practiced some phrases, the numbers and hello, but all is quickly washed away when anxiety gets the upper hand. A young, relatively well-kept man routinely spies my shaking hands and asks - in English, can you believe it - if I want to take the (expensive) shuttle bus to Antigua. The fact that I'd heard about this bus, as well as sort of planning on taking it unless something else revealed itself, made me go for this option, which presented itself out of the blue very nicely. It cost $10 for a 50-minute ride, and wasn't really all that expensive, just compared to the other, more scruffy options. Marius, thinking: Wait a minute; am I beeing fooled already? The guy actually picked me up before the arrivals hall, which means the security and everything must be part of the scam if I am looking at torture, rape, and rob here. I explain that I am going to Xela, and he advises me that there´s no point in heading to Antigua for bus changes, because there's an intersection in a town outside Guatemala City called San Lucas (which is not on my huge-scale map) where buses pass all the time for Xela and other places. The driver of my minibus makes a phonecall along the way, I imagine it to be something like idiota gringo heading into the usual San Lucas trap, go get'im fellas. Still, fatigued, I fall miraculously asleep in the relatively safe-feeling and air-conditioned minibus, suddenly awoken by being thrown out (well, not literally), at a dump by the road, a sort of slum-like standard by any comparison I am used to, traffic roaring & horns honking, people shouting, dogs barking, the side of the road lined with trash and dirt and poor-looking locals everywhere with provisional sheds and things, selling some strange-looking food and the omnipresent Coca-Cola (tm) (which, by the way, is a company out of Atlanta, Georgia. Be prepared for stoning if buying the a scarcely-available Pepsi bottle there). Paying my $8, thinking something like Inshallah with regard to my survival, I deliver my first Spanish phrase(the minibus driver not as fluent in English as the slick representative), apart from a Buenos dias(?) at immigration; ¿Donde está la parada? (bus stop). And he points me off to some people gathered a bit back along the road. I'm nervous but catch on; there are plenty of local buses, or chicken buses (more about those later), they're discarded, repainted school buses from the US, and they have people hanging out of them - the door's never closed - shouting out where they're going. Before I can really calm myself, I´m onboard a bus in motion 'cause the guy shouted Xela, or at least so I thought, confirming later by map that we were heading in the right direction. The bus is packed and there's no seats and I feel gargantuous with my height and backpack, disculpeing to the entire bus before settling down, all sweaty, at half a seat provided by two grinning Mayan girls. One of the three guys working the bus (one being the driver) hurls some mumbo-jumbo my way, points at the roof and grabs my backpack. Oh, great, two seconds among the locals, and I'll never see my stash again. They´ve really got it going, these guys, the bus in motion in traffic, still he jumps out and goes to the back of the bus. Lonely Planet: Never lose your bag out of sight when travelling with local buses, and if you do, and if you dooo, it better damn well be locked, at the least. Well, there I was, backpack unlocked, not even able to see if it went on top of the bus; the ladder is in the back, the back doors shaded and I want to look as cool as possible, not turning my head all the time and scrutinizing the perhaps friendly bus crew too much, even though I'm about as fucking far from a cool operator as can be at this time. Still, at least the guy made a show out of it, we could feel the weight of him and the backpack climbing the bus, throwing something heavy up there - I couldn't tell whether it went back down with him into a neighboring car or whatever. Again, I was getting a feeling of where the Inshallah - now, this expression has many facets, but the one I'm referring to is this part: if it works out, it works out, no sense in worrying about negative consequences or making too much of a travesy out of preparing for something. Where this attitude stems from, an attitude also prevailing in Guatemala, I don't know, but this newfound sentiment was trying to get ahold of me as a counterweight to my nervousness. After all, what's the worst that can happen? Well, probably me stuck in the middle of nowhere without any belongings, surrounded by a Greek-speaking population with nothing to spare for a stupid gringo stranger but contempt. Then again, everything was fine so far! It's fine! Still, I wasn't about to fall asleep on the 4hr (according to LP) bus ride. It was all planned, well not all, but at least I had read up some and was counting on arriving in Xela around 5pm, early enough to find a hotel. Now the bus ride was far from fucking 4hrs, even though the driver did his best to kill us by disregarding the existence of traffic rules alltogether. This is where the chicken bus part comes in; somewhere I had read how this really was, but I forgot how it was; the "chicken" part not referring to live chickens in cages riding with the locals on the way to the market, as I always thought, but rather the fact that the bus drivers drive pedal to the metal on winding roads, disregarding whether they're in the right or left line or whether there are continuous lines indicating no overtaking. Even when traffic was jammed because of the frequent road blocks - they seem to be rebuilding the entire strech - even at blocks, our bus proceeded to drive in the left lane, driving into the ditch (but not far enough to tip) sometimes because of meeting traffic. To summarize, the bus constantly plays the chicken game, where, being the meeting car, you'd better slow down and adapt yourself, coz this crazy fucker ain't gonna yield. Even the locals seemed to like the excitement, and I too welcomed it as a relief from general anxiety into something particular. Actually I wasn't very nervous about the driving. Having ridden with Per Kristian Johansen in his early days as a chaffeur, as well as the likes of Alexander Silnes and Judith Johnsen, it takes quite a lot to bother me as a passenger.
Now I've really been sitting here a few hours, writing incessantly, and perhaps going into too much detail, and the wrong kind. Again, comments or wishes are appreciated. I'll just wrap up yesterday and today;
Some beautiful mountain-and-valley scenery (between 1500 and 2500 mtrs all of the trip, I think); some fog; several types of markings on rock along the way, what I took to be guerilla marking their territory is possibly political parties; some clouds of dust from the traffic driving madly on roads under construction, providing my hair with texture and my boogers with a blackish tint this morning. Thrown off after ca 5hrs at Cuatre Caminos, a crossroads with the surroundings described at the first throwoff, only more rural. Still, they were polite enough to point me out, saying I should get off here, and once again I got to use my favourite phrase; ¿Donde está la parada para Xela?, this time to the guy next to me before I went out on the streets to get my backpack! If it weren't stolen I was sure it'd fell off the roof from the insane driving on bumpy roads, but neeeuuu! It was just dusty, adding character to me and my adventure. The guy on the roof even warned me before he was about to throw some tires off the roof, me on the side of the bus checking my stuff. From all the yelling and traffic noise going on there, he even had to wait, since I didn't notice him until he went Hey, mister! with a Spanish accent. What a friendly people so far, I feel ashamed about fearing them. Besides, now I've learned the polite form of gringo, it seems! From there there were other buses going the rest of the way, and I caught one immediately, being thrown off a half hour later after actually having been helped by a Mayan guy next to me stopping the other from ripping me off pricewise. Now it was getting dark and I was pretty uneasy again, not having eaten since the plane (a loong time ago); still wise enough to sceptically buy half a litre of agua off one of the kids going through the buses at all times near bus stops. I wanted to get to a base before eating and drinking, although I could have done something of the sort in Cuatro Caminos; it looked sketchy lingering there as well, though. I REALLY didn't really want to be stumbling around in Xela with a huge backpack like a sitting duck after dark. I got into a minibus with a guy yelling Parque, because I knew the parque centroamérica was the place to be in Xela I gathered that was a good deal. When we were there, there was no park or street names in sight, and I was nervous about hesitating, not wanting to be standing scratching my head looking at a Lonely Planet map at every streetcorner, I went into the very first and best hotel (not mentioned in LP) and got a crappy room (¿Habla inglés? -Si....No, habla solo español (oh, lord, not again). The room will be up for viewing on occation, as this was the only place I actually dared flash my camera, taking a photo of my exhausted self. I didn't go out of there until today, being afraid of this place after dark. That ment no food and drink, the crappy hotel not exactly being the serving kind. Luckily I had a brownie from the plane which tasted really well, and I got some comfort from Fox Sports en Español on the television(!), guys beating the hell out of each other on UFC or whatever it's called, the only sport where blood is commonplace. I was afraid of sleeping, the place being crappy and the lock being girl-shoulderpower-penetrable, still I got many hours of sleep, ten till seven with occational wakeups accompanied by frights because of sounds (woman screaming: horror flick real loudly on telly in reception, echoing in the yard; Woman screaming II: either girl having a really huge orgasm bordering on pain or porn flick somewhere, I'm not sure; Dogs barking violently, taking over the streets at night here; Motorbike entering the yard, loud man and girl arriving, could be source of woman screaming II).
Today; crappy but relatively hot shower, a bit nervous about laeving my backpack in the close-to-unlocked room; found the Parque easily (asked for directions!), nice and hot surroundings, really, really hungry; went for the McDonald's by the park, an institution I normally don't frequent even at home; but then again, I started to feel like one of Hamsun's timeless characters (quiz for you, Adam) and a crappy BigMac with MacDonald's fries has never tasted better. From there to internet, where I have now been sitting most of the day rambling down this shit. This means you better be appreciative, folks, hope I managed to convey some of my feelings sourrounding the last day. I look forward to getting out of here and start learning Spanish, but I decided I needed a day off from the travelling.
That's all for now, folks.
Post scriptum: Notes on a scandal: The anxiety surrounding the application of English upon arrival in Atlanta may sound ridiculous to some readers. To clarify: My oral English is in no way comparable to the written due to lack of practice; still, it was mostly due to the context - despite marketing myself as the nervous type recently, I don't have Anglophobia.
PS II: Sorry 'bout typos, it was written pretty hastily even though it took hours.
1. The departure and the flight:
Parting with Adam was sort of sad, given that we´ve had so much fun together in Atlanta. I´d really have loved to get to know him better, but hopefully this can be remedied at a later time when he has some time off too. I believe it to be quite taxing showing a guest around town every night as well as working all day. Right now he´s probably sleeping my presence off or watching Aqua Teen Hunger Force or something similar from the depths of his sofa. Anyway, we got up at 0700, both a little sleep-deprived, me off to the airport, him to work. About leaving the US; I felt like a normal person through check-in, security and boarding, as opposed to the criminalization present upon arrival there. Guatemalan security is a little more lax, although they make you fill out some forms and have some nasty-looking MPs (which stands for Ministerio de Policia or something, not military as I first thought). On the plane over there I felt my sympathetic nervous system once again proclaiming its prescence, what the hell am I doing here? How do I get to Xela (Quetzaltenango on maps), where I close to randomly had decided to spend my first night. Suddenly, my up to now-frivolous approoach to this whole undertaking started to vex me, or rather, I started questioning my previous judgements, labelling them frivolous. That´s when the steward came, asking me if I wanted anything to drink; being on a bilingual Delta flight, I answered coke, please, whereupon he asked something in Spanish, it must have been if I wanted ice, coz that´s what he asked me next in response to my frowning 'scuse me; he then proceeded with a ¿No habla Español? and I said, that's right. He went on grinning, saying you will be in (checking watch) ..two hours, and I was much relieved from my previous anxiety. Come to think of it, I think I heard a Moohahahaha, sucker! somewhere in there, as well. After we landed, the man next to me, having first adressed me in Spanish, commenting on the horrendous landing attempt by what must have been a green Copilot or a drunk Captain, whichever one he certainly sped up the plane's need for landing gear technical service - er.. as I was saying, the man next to me proceeded to ask me in English why I was in Guatemala, I replied that 'twas to learn Spanish but he seemed unsatisfied, and demanded whether I was meeting up with any old friends, indicating: why the hell would I choose to come to a crappy country such as his own Guatemala if I had no friends there?
And indeed, why would I, I started wondering myself. To learn Spanish in beautiful, calm, mountainous surroundings, it was, but at that point I didn't really remember, as the man next to me proceeded with the "trust no one and keep off the streets as much as possible, especially during night"-speech, pulling his lower eyelid down with his index finger as an indication for me to keep my keen elf-eyes about me. Great. Again, my rapidly-firing nerves were readily quelled by the friendly surroundings, and I was good to go, or, rather, crawl my way out of the plane.
2: Intermission entertainment; Merryus scrutinizing himself excessively in public:
Now, it seems, is a good time to clarify the question of my nervousness, as it is essential to convey my frame of mind this last day, and as it may seem to be portrayed as excessive with regard to your probable predjudice with regard to myself. Not so; a few people who know me very well will know that this is, in fact, a prominent part of me, as it is a part of many people - but my nerves are more high-strung than the mean because I enjoy (perhaps not the best choice of word) hounding myself on in an almost masochistic fashion, driving myself to do things I don't know how to. Normally I function well and will have no trouble keeping at least a calm surface and prevailing even under pressure, but this is not to say that there isn't an unnecessary amount of shit going on inside. I don't particularily enjoy this with regard to what makes me happy, it's more of a necessity of life, a part of my personality. I outperform most, not necessarily in terms of what is done or achieved, but with regard to the relation between my general level of neuroticism and the type of challenges I bring upon myself. This is not meant to be bragging; many people do a lot more challenging things with lower levels of nervousness, and good luck to them; I believe having this urge to push my own barriers is often more of a scourge than an asset, because I am surfing on the verge of what's possible for me instead of taking one step at a time. Sensible and harmonious people keep their hands clean if they don't have the soap in sight, and they're probably the smarter ones, that's more or less what I am trying to say (in addition to giving perspective on my own frame of mind). Enough with the self-exploration; I´ll just close this section by saying that I probably am even more edgy now than historically, the reason for this being the exhaustion experienced half a year ago and the ensuing breakdown-buildup period not being fully concluded before my departure. I was tired of waiting, and back to 70% or whatever, deeming it enough to go. The consequences of having less energy can be felt when in taxing new situations such as described in this blog entry, or when jet-lagged as in Atlanta (the second day there I was quite low even though everything was hunky-dory around me; perhaps I will bring you more from my time in Atlanta, but not today)
3: Got me backpack, got me Quetzales off the ATM, set to go!
Engulfed in people speaking Pig Latin, aka. Spanish or Greek or whatever, I plunge through the customs and spot the Salida (exit) sign. Exiting the airport didn't sound too inviting at this point. Now it´s for real, what to do, where to go? I had practiced some phrases, the numbers and hello, but all is quickly washed away when anxiety gets the upper hand. A young, relatively well-kept man routinely spies my shaking hands and asks - in English, can you believe it - if I want to take the (expensive) shuttle bus to Antigua. The fact that I'd heard about this bus, as well as sort of planning on taking it unless something else revealed itself, made me go for this option, which presented itself out of the blue very nicely. It cost $10 for a 50-minute ride, and wasn't really all that expensive, just compared to the other, more scruffy options. Marius, thinking: Wait a minute; am I beeing fooled already? The guy actually picked me up before the arrivals hall, which means the security and everything must be part of the scam if I am looking at torture, rape, and rob here. I explain that I am going to Xela, and he advises me that there´s no point in heading to Antigua for bus changes, because there's an intersection in a town outside Guatemala City called San Lucas (which is not on my huge-scale map) where buses pass all the time for Xela and other places. The driver of my minibus makes a phonecall along the way, I imagine it to be something like idiota gringo heading into the usual San Lucas trap, go get'im fellas. Still, fatigued, I fall miraculously asleep in the relatively safe-feeling and air-conditioned minibus, suddenly awoken by being thrown out (well, not literally), at a dump by the road, a sort of slum-like standard by any comparison I am used to, traffic roaring & horns honking, people shouting, dogs barking, the side of the road lined with trash and dirt and poor-looking locals everywhere with provisional sheds and things, selling some strange-looking food and the omnipresent Coca-Cola (tm) (which, by the way, is a company out of Atlanta, Georgia. Be prepared for stoning if buying the a scarcely-available Pepsi bottle there). Paying my $8, thinking something like Inshallah with regard to my survival, I deliver my first Spanish phrase(the minibus driver not as fluent in English as the slick representative), apart from a Buenos dias(?) at immigration; ¿Donde está la parada? (bus stop). And he points me off to some people gathered a bit back along the road. I'm nervous but catch on; there are plenty of local buses, or chicken buses (more about those later), they're discarded, repainted school buses from the US, and they have people hanging out of them - the door's never closed - shouting out where they're going. Before I can really calm myself, I´m onboard a bus in motion 'cause the guy shouted Xela, or at least so I thought, confirming later by map that we were heading in the right direction. The bus is packed and there's no seats and I feel gargantuous with my height and backpack, disculpeing to the entire bus before settling down, all sweaty, at half a seat provided by two grinning Mayan girls. One of the three guys working the bus (one being the driver) hurls some mumbo-jumbo my way, points at the roof and grabs my backpack. Oh, great, two seconds among the locals, and I'll never see my stash again. They´ve really got it going, these guys, the bus in motion in traffic, still he jumps out and goes to the back of the bus. Lonely Planet: Never lose your bag out of sight when travelling with local buses, and if you do, and if you dooo, it better damn well be locked, at the least. Well, there I was, backpack unlocked, not even able to see if it went on top of the bus; the ladder is in the back, the back doors shaded and I want to look as cool as possible, not turning my head all the time and scrutinizing the perhaps friendly bus crew too much, even though I'm about as fucking far from a cool operator as can be at this time. Still, at least the guy made a show out of it, we could feel the weight of him and the backpack climbing the bus, throwing something heavy up there - I couldn't tell whether it went back down with him into a neighboring car or whatever. Again, I was getting a feeling of where the Inshallah - now, this expression has many facets, but the one I'm referring to is this part: if it works out, it works out, no sense in worrying about negative consequences or making too much of a travesy out of preparing for something. Where this attitude stems from, an attitude also prevailing in Guatemala, I don't know, but this newfound sentiment was trying to get ahold of me as a counterweight to my nervousness. After all, what's the worst that can happen? Well, probably me stuck in the middle of nowhere without any belongings, surrounded by a Greek-speaking population with nothing to spare for a stupid gringo stranger but contempt. Then again, everything was fine so far! It's fine! Still, I wasn't about to fall asleep on the 4hr (according to LP) bus ride. It was all planned, well not all, but at least I had read up some and was counting on arriving in Xela around 5pm, early enough to find a hotel. Now the bus ride was far from fucking 4hrs, even though the driver did his best to kill us by disregarding the existence of traffic rules alltogether. This is where the chicken bus part comes in; somewhere I had read how this really was, but I forgot how it was; the "chicken" part not referring to live chickens in cages riding with the locals on the way to the market, as I always thought, but rather the fact that the bus drivers drive pedal to the metal on winding roads, disregarding whether they're in the right or left line or whether there are continuous lines indicating no overtaking. Even when traffic was jammed because of the frequent road blocks - they seem to be rebuilding the entire strech - even at blocks, our bus proceeded to drive in the left lane, driving into the ditch (but not far enough to tip) sometimes because of meeting traffic. To summarize, the bus constantly plays the chicken game, where, being the meeting car, you'd better slow down and adapt yourself, coz this crazy fucker ain't gonna yield. Even the locals seemed to like the excitement, and I too welcomed it as a relief from general anxiety into something particular. Actually I wasn't very nervous about the driving. Having ridden with Per Kristian Johansen in his early days as a chaffeur, as well as the likes of Alexander Silnes and Judith Johnsen, it takes quite a lot to bother me as a passenger.
Now I've really been sitting here a few hours, writing incessantly, and perhaps going into too much detail, and the wrong kind. Again, comments or wishes are appreciated. I'll just wrap up yesterday and today;
Some beautiful mountain-and-valley scenery (between 1500 and 2500 mtrs all of the trip, I think); some fog; several types of markings on rock along the way, what I took to be guerilla marking their territory is possibly political parties; some clouds of dust from the traffic driving madly on roads under construction, providing my hair with texture and my boogers with a blackish tint this morning. Thrown off after ca 5hrs at Cuatre Caminos, a crossroads with the surroundings described at the first throwoff, only more rural. Still, they were polite enough to point me out, saying I should get off here, and once again I got to use my favourite phrase; ¿Donde está la parada para Xela?, this time to the guy next to me before I went out on the streets to get my backpack! If it weren't stolen I was sure it'd fell off the roof from the insane driving on bumpy roads, but neeeuuu! It was just dusty, adding character to me and my adventure. The guy on the roof even warned me before he was about to throw some tires off the roof, me on the side of the bus checking my stuff. From all the yelling and traffic noise going on there, he even had to wait, since I didn't notice him until he went Hey, mister! with a Spanish accent. What a friendly people so far, I feel ashamed about fearing them. Besides, now I've learned the polite form of gringo, it seems! From there there were other buses going the rest of the way, and I caught one immediately, being thrown off a half hour later after actually having been helped by a Mayan guy next to me stopping the other from ripping me off pricewise. Now it was getting dark and I was pretty uneasy again, not having eaten since the plane (a loong time ago); still wise enough to sceptically buy half a litre of agua off one of the kids going through the buses at all times near bus stops. I wanted to get to a base before eating and drinking, although I could have done something of the sort in Cuatro Caminos; it looked sketchy lingering there as well, though. I REALLY didn't really want to be stumbling around in Xela with a huge backpack like a sitting duck after dark. I got into a minibus with a guy yelling Parque, because I knew the parque centroamérica was the place to be in Xela I gathered that was a good deal. When we were there, there was no park or street names in sight, and I was nervous about hesitating, not wanting to be standing scratching my head looking at a Lonely Planet map at every streetcorner, I went into the very first and best hotel (not mentioned in LP) and got a crappy room (¿Habla inglés? -Si....No, habla solo español (oh, lord, not again). The room will be up for viewing on occation, as this was the only place I actually dared flash my camera, taking a photo of my exhausted self. I didn't go out of there until today, being afraid of this place after dark. That ment no food and drink, the crappy hotel not exactly being the serving kind. Luckily I had a brownie from the plane which tasted really well, and I got some comfort from Fox Sports en Español on the television(!), guys beating the hell out of each other on UFC or whatever it's called, the only sport where blood is commonplace. I was afraid of sleeping, the place being crappy and the lock being girl-shoulderpower-penetrable, still I got many hours of sleep, ten till seven with occational wakeups accompanied by frights because of sounds (woman screaming: horror flick real loudly on telly in reception, echoing in the yard; Woman screaming II: either girl having a really huge orgasm bordering on pain or porn flick somewhere, I'm not sure; Dogs barking violently, taking over the streets at night here; Motorbike entering the yard, loud man and girl arriving, could be source of woman screaming II).
Today; crappy but relatively hot shower, a bit nervous about laeving my backpack in the close-to-unlocked room; found the Parque easily (asked for directions!), nice and hot surroundings, really, really hungry; went for the McDonald's by the park, an institution I normally don't frequent even at home; but then again, I started to feel like one of Hamsun's timeless characters (quiz for you, Adam) and a crappy BigMac with MacDonald's fries has never tasted better. From there to internet, where I have now been sitting most of the day rambling down this shit. This means you better be appreciative, folks, hope I managed to convey some of my feelings sourrounding the last day. I look forward to getting out of here and start learning Spanish, but I decided I needed a day off from the travelling.
That's all for now, folks.
Post scriptum: Notes on a scandal: The anxiety surrounding the application of English upon arrival in Atlanta may sound ridiculous to some readers. To clarify: My oral English is in no way comparable to the written due to lack of practice; still, it was mostly due to the context - despite marketing myself as the nervous type recently, I don't have Anglophobia.
PS II: Sorry 'bout typos, it was written pretty hastily even though it took hours.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
US uv A
Tuesday, April 17th, Atlanta, Georgia
(Monday):
The vastness of the northern regions of Canada, the neverending ice and snow and forests and rivers, was a magnificent view from the sky coming down across Greenland and the Atlantic; this spectacle was well mirrored by more manly institutions upon arrival at Atlanta international airport, to be sure; anyone trying to catch a "connecting" flight the same day should allow at least five hours inbetween, or you're fucked. Luckily I was at my final destination for the day, but still with the 17 hrs of travel behind me without mentionable sleep I was really rather grumpy when I saw the immigration line, stretching beyond what any man can comprehend, much like the Universe or the aforementioned Canadian Northern territories. When you actually get to the counter, they're like; left index finger. Thanks. Right finger. Thanks. Look at the camera. Thanks.
So the real travesty here's not, as I thought it would be, the scrutiny by immigration officials - that's actually taken care of before departure and by the filling out of forms - the real test is whether you snap or not in the fucking line, sleep-deprived and perhaps knowing you are already late for your next flight, the line never-ending, hardly moving.
Anyway, I made it through that, then customs, then the rechecking of baggage, whatever the point of that is (you personally pick up your luggage on one carousel and put it into the huge security system, then pick it up AGAIN at another carousel; beats me). What remained now was a place to sleep for the night. I was a bit nervous about this, because my Couchsurfing friendly stranger Josh had not gotten back to me and the other one, Adam, wasn't expecting me until Wednesday. Feeling tired and a bit nervous, having never seen the couchsurfing system in practice before, where you actually trust a total stranger to take care of you and your things for free, and he trusts you, a total stranger, into his home and onto his Couch.... Anyway, feeling somewhat American by virtue of having landed or something, I changed a dollar bill into quarters, found a payphone and phoned Josh, who I knew a) didn't want me there (which was sort of strange, having been positive in our first correspondence) or b) hadn't checked or gotten my mail. Either way I felt like I was intruding, and I have to tell you, the remainder of my childhood fear of calling strangers was conquered then and there, jet-lagged and hungry, the phones situated in the noisiest spot inside the terminal, having to ask a stranger what the hell was going on in a foreign language I haven't practiced for real in years.
Anyway, he was real busy and a bit confused about this business with me and I said I'd call Adam in the meantime and get back to Josh if THAT didn't work out. Adam was wonderful, just come right on in, and in I am, central Atlanta in a really nice neighborhood, sitting in an apartment more fancy than my parents' in Oslo on a Mac that's built into an old arcade game, listening to Modest Mouse while my clothes are in the washer in the closet beside me. Meeting Adam was like "thank you, Lord" and "this is to good to be true", looking over my shoulder for hidden traps, all at once. The level of trust involved in me getting a key and code, him going off to work, have washed away the remainder of any doubt. His doubts, if he has them, will be washed away by his Macs and stereo still being here in the evening, along with me.
Closing notes; Last night we had burger & beer at a local place, and participated in a quiz there afterwards. Americans are really friendly so far, and my prejudiced view on beer (making love in a canoe and all that) and whisky selections have been thoroughly crushed. We had three brands of dark, delicious American beers and a Macallan cask strength, the top shelf of the bar being filled with Scotch delight as far as the eye could see. Thank thee, Lord.
Closing notes II; heard in immigration line, loudspeaker: "Spanish to 32, Spanish to 32".... three minutes later: "Italian to 47, Italian to 47".... some time later: "Jap to 31....er.... Japanese interpreter to desk 31, please".
Closing notes III; See the cartoon series Aqua Teen Hunger Force, it can probably be found on the net for resourceful people. I saw one episode, and was close to death by laughing even though the English went a little fast sometimes. See it. Jaksland, Mikkelsen, Bjoerkheim and similar people especially.
Closing notes IV; why the hell am I writing in English? Next to none of the (possible) readers will be English. Hell, I don't even know, but it has something to do with getting into the travelling frame of mind. Besides, you'll be spared the aa ae oe, which can be somewhat taxing even to the aesthetic of such an illustrious writer as Sveinung Mikkelsen. By the way, some photos are already taken, but I'll need to buy a memory card reader to get them published. So long, y'all.
Friday, April 13, 2007
Blastoff
Aight, it's off to explore the world!
Before moving on to uncharted waters, our friend (that's me, in the 3rd person, sounding all the more cool) has landed in Copenhagen, visiting his ol' buddy Anders Køber and his party-loving family; this is my third time visiting Køber in a year, the first being last summer when I was invited to Ditte's (Anders' girlfriend) mother's birthday, a garden party in lovely Roskilde. Last fall I was there a weekend and there was Anders' mother's birthday party one night and his brother's birthday party the following day. Today I'm going to Anders' grandpa's birthday and tomorrow Anders' father's new girlfriend's birthday. Phew.
I have some ideas about the reported diminishing Danish competitiveness. Moving on, I'll try to squeeze in my lovely cousin Nina (studying architecture in Copenhagen) inbetween the family business, and monday it's off to Atlanta where I'll hopefully be trying Couchsurfing (see http://couchsurfing.com/) for the first time, and get out alive. My friend Sveinung had considerable success with this concept last summer, getting to sleep on the couch of a beauty queen from Tel Aviv. As for myself, I stick with guys.
Before moving on to uncharted waters, our friend (that's me, in the 3rd person, sounding all the more cool) has landed in Copenhagen, visiting his ol' buddy Anders Køber and his party-loving family; this is my third time visiting Køber in a year, the first being last summer when I was invited to Ditte's (Anders' girlfriend) mother's birthday, a garden party in lovely Roskilde. Last fall I was there a weekend and there was Anders' mother's birthday party one night and his brother's birthday party the following day. Today I'm going to Anders' grandpa's birthday and tomorrow Anders' father's new girlfriend's birthday. Phew.
I have some ideas about the reported diminishing Danish competitiveness. Moving on, I'll try to squeeze in my lovely cousin Nina (studying architecture in Copenhagen) inbetween the family business, and monday it's off to Atlanta where I'll hopefully be trying Couchsurfing (see http://couchsurfing.com/) for the first time, and get out alive. My friend Sveinung had considerable success with this concept last summer, getting to sleep on the couch of a beauty queen from Tel Aviv. As for myself, I stick with guys.
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