I'm starting this post from Il Giardino in San Marcos la Laguna, Guatemala. I've abandoned Shambala because the poor cafe has succumbed to a bazillion flies and the pandemic of shit internet. So I'm exploring my other options. Which are scant, but not totally nonexistent.
What I would give for Main Street Bagels right now. A sumptuous Cuban cremosa, a muffin, a view of Main Street, a questionable but comfortable couch, and internet that works. Not intermittently. Just. Works.
Blurgh.
I have nine days left at The Forest.
Nine days.
Girl be down to single digits.
And Girl be stoked about this. S-T-O-K-E-D, fucking stoked.
"ONLY NINE MORE DAYS OF PEEING IN THE DIRT!" I hollered at Tammo inside the tent. As I peed outside the tent.
It's going to be an odd adjustment. Having dinner and not talking about parasites and scorpions and all that jazz. Talking about normal people things. Like books, movies, the bar that has the best live music in town.
"Tammo," I garbled through toothpaste foam. "If you want this scorpion to survive, you have to get it now," I gestured to the inch and a half long black bugger perched on the wall of the circus tent. "And you have to take it far away. So it won't just crawl back inside. Otherwise I will slay it."
I have a sinus infection again, but that's hardly news. I've spent about half of the last two years in the throes of sinus infections.
Immune system, where have you gone? Why have you forsaken me? You used to be so great. Did I accidentally leave you in France somewhere? Abandon you near that glacier lake in Iceland? Did you find Italy to be so grand that you decided to jump ship and settle down in Tuscany?
...
Please come back?
What is more newsworthy is that Tammo and I went to Xela last weekend. We took the lancha to San Juan, met up with some of Tammo's climbing buddies, and then flagged down a chicken bus bound for Xela. Once in Xela, we met with still more of Tammo's climbing buddies (my tentmate is very popular) who were all crashing with Chofo.
What a great name.
Chofo is a Guatemalan climber whose little home on the outskirts of Xela had somehow been transformed into a crashpad for the gringo climbing community.
We dropped off our things, then ventured out into the wet weather to purchase groceries for dinner. After which I spent hours in the kitchen, creating some manner of ragu and (of course) bananas foster.
It feels so good to be in a home again. In a place with photographs on the walls. With the story of a family written into the chairs, cupboards, floorboards.
I obnoxiously turned down all help offered to me, so thankful to be chopping vegetables and cooking again.
I've missed this. So much. So. Damn. Much.
When I went to bed that night, I felt my throat and a bit of pressure in my nasal cavities.
Here we go again...
Sure enough, the next day I roused myself from my pad on the floor feeling like absolute shit. And not only because I hadn't managed to sleep a wink. Because my face was slowly filling with fluid.
My head feels like it's turning into a water balloon. Blurgh.
"Tammo, I don't think I can go climbing with you today. It wouldn't be good for me to go out in the cold right now, and it wouldn't be fun if I'm feeling this crappy."
So Tammo headed out with his friends, and I spent the morning in Chofo's home, using the internet (AMAZING), dreaming about Europe this fall, and chatting with a French girl (whose fiesta-ing family of parasites had also kept her from climbing).
By 11:30, it was warm enough for my beleaguered sinuses, so I headed out into Xela.
If I can't climb, at least I can enjoy the city a little and take a few photographs. Since I'm here anyway.
Google maps predicted a 45 minute walk from Chofo's to city center, but I'm pretty sure I took a slow, sweet hour and a half.
The city was dirty, but colorful. Cluttered, but characterful. I found myself smiling and noticed a spring in the step of my sick body.
Sometimes it's nice to remember where I am and what I'm doing. I'm currently walking by myself through the second largest city in Guatemala, in the VERY non-touristic areas, and feeling totally confident and calm. Like, this is my normal.
I like that this is my normal.
I stopped to buy underwear (my supplies are running dangerously low) from a little old lady who, if I had to pick a Guatemalan abuela, I would want it to be her.
I lingered in a park for a moment, watching lovers cuddling on benches, men smoking cigarettes, boys shining shoes, girls selling bags of sliced fruit.
As neither Tammo nor I had slept well at Chofo's the night before (Tammo on a couch, me on the pad on the floor), we decided to book space at a cheap hostel for our final night in Xela. So after dropping my things at the hostel in city center, I meandered back into the city, heading towards the cemetery.
Because cemeteries are amazing.
The chicken bus back to Lake Atitlan the next day was horrendous. We caught a taxi to the bus stop, then were guided onto a bus we were assured would take us to San Juan.
That was easy, I thought. Prematurely. As I climbed into one of the uncomfortable row seats of the former American school bus.
The bus driver was batshit crazy. We took turns at an UNGODLY amount of kilometers per hour --
HOW AM I STILL ALIVE?
-- and everyone in the bus seemed to think it was a great idea to keep their windows wide open. Hence, exhaust, other kinds of pollution (there's a vast variety in this part of the world), and cold air hurtled into the bus (you didn't know that pollution could hurtle, but it CAN). My sinuses screamed in pain, and I probably looked like an abused puppy as I desperately clung to the metal bar in front of me. For dear life. Not an exaggeration.
Tammo reached into his backpack to pull out my puffy jacket. Which I couldn't put on, because I couldn't remove my hands from the seat in front of me in order to stick my arms through the sleeves.
It's like trying to put a jacket on while riding a roller coaster. Without a seat belt.
An hour into the journey, the driver motioned to Tammo and me, telling us to get out of the bus.
"Pero necesitamos ir a San Juan la Laguna. Esta San Juan?" I blurted my comical Spanish at the driver.
"Si, si, aqui," the driver continued to motion for us to leave.
This. Is not San Juan.
So Tammo and I sat on the side of a random, dirty street in a random, dirty city in Guatemala, waiting for another bus to (hopefully) arrive to carry us to San Juan.
Eat peanuts, Bourget. Just eat peanuts.
Because we had not, in fact, been left in San Juan. Even though Tammo had paid the full price for us to be taken to San Juan.
I snacked on peanuts, reminiscing back to the time Tessa and I were hitching through Eastern Europe. And we told each other we could EITHER get stressed OR we could eat peanuts. Not both.
We were finally able to board another crowded chicken bus, which dropped us in San Pablo. Where we took a tuk-tuk back to San Marcos.
Central America. I will not miss your abysmal transportation system.
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