Días Uno-Tres

For all that I had butterflies in my stomach at O’Hare that morning, and that I’d been questioning whether or not I actually wanted to go on this trip, I knew the whole time that my next big adventure was long overdue. It had been this very abstract thing that solidified over the course of a rapid-fire week—I got my new passport and found remarkably cheap plane tickets, and all of the sudden it was real, not just talk. Today is day three, which seems, in that funny way adventure days do, to have been both a flash and an eternity.

We left Friday, and the butterflies were gone by the time I was settling in for a five-hour layover in the remarkably nice and comfortable Dallas/Fort Worth airport. It happens to be home to a barbeque mini-restaurant where we ate some ribs in memory of Granny, as 6/25/10 marked two years without her. We poured over our Frommer’s guide, determining what we absolutely had to do during our two months in Guatemala. I listed these mini-excursions on a napkin at the airport bar where we were catching the España World Cup game. This adventure was beginning to take shape.

We arrived in Guatemala City around 8:30 pm, and were picked up and brought to the bed-and-breakfast-style hostel where we spent the night. I woke up on Day Two to a battle cry.
“Goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool!”
So the first of my lessons was taught to Silver over a wonderful breakfast in the kitchen and dining area with others who were staying in the hostel, including the proprietor—and gol-screamer—who was decked out the in the orange jersey of his native Holland. Hostels and small hotels have the power to truly make your adventure, to generate the stories and details that add dimension and texture to your experience. Also, it was $28 per person to be picked up at the airport, shuttled straight to the hotel, provided with a comfortable bed for the night, and fed a hearty breakfast the next morning. Beautiful.

Silver’s abuelita and Dennis, who was driving, picked us up after breakfast and the conclusion of the Uruguay-Korea game. We loaded our four suitcases into the back of the truck and settled in for a 4-ish hour drive. Things look different here compared to my solo trip to Guatemala in 2007. The rainy season is in full swing, and everything is proportionately greener. It’s lovely in that sense. It started to rain a bit during our drive, but when we stopped a half hour or so away from our final destination to eat in Mazatenango, the state capitol of Suchitepequez, and grabbed lunch at the quintessential Guatemalan fast food restaurant, Pollo Campero, it began to pour. Remember that rain that we had in Chicago just before I left, that shut down an expressway and crippled the city and surrounding area? Yeah. That went on here for HOURS. We left the restaurant and proceeded to cruise along streets that were absolutely flooded. Water was flowing through the overwhelmed gutters like rapids. Nevertheless, on we drove, as Silver and I periodically turned around to gaze wistfully at our waterlogged suitcases.

I was warmly welcomed upon our arrival at the school/house complex in La Maquina. The house is almost entirely open-air. We drove through the front door/gate, up the little drive, and unloaded our suitcases. A half-wall—and this by a Guatemalan standard, which makes it more like a one-third-wall—surrounds the kitchen and a dining area, where the enormous table stretches across the entire room. The driveway up from the front door/gate goes passed the dining area and up into the courtyard, where chickens, roosters, two dogs, and six turkeys roam freely.

I was given a little tour even though most of the house can be appreciated from a single spot, not because it is small but because the bedrooms and bath are the only areas that boast four walls. We wandered through to the school, which is presently empty for a spring-break type of week off, and Silver showed me around. It kept raining.

We emptied our suitcases and ruefully pulled out neatly folded and sopping wet piles of clean clothes. Wishing I hadn’t spent an entire day on laundry, I placed my clothes on the large shelving unit constructed especially for my stay, and tried to lay things out as best I could to facilitate drying.

Silver’s abuelita fed us, and we sat around the table talking for a few hours. I met both of his aunts and several younger cousins, and did a remarkable job of keeping up with the strictly Spanish conversation.

I worked so hard on Day Two to follow the conversation en Español that I actually felt reluctant to leave my room when I woke up on Day Three. Forcing myself to engage my brain so intensely so soon after waking up was a challenge. However, I was surprised to find that conversation came easier, and that I was participating much more. This was fortunate, as we’ve been confined to the house all day. A tropical storm is hitting the Yucatan and we’re definitely that storm even here on the Pacific side. Day Two’s several afternoon hours of super-intense rain? All. Day. Long.

I woke up on Day Three to both this storm and an upset stomach. I rarely get sick to my stomach, but this transition is fairly dramatic so I’m trying to be sympathetic to my body’s distress. My empty stomach was determined to throw up something, so I ended up feeling awful and having to pass on Guate breakfast, consisting of black beans, eggs, and fried plantains. The third of these was too appealing to pass up though, so I ate some in spite of my protesting digestive tract. Everyone was wonderful and took care of me. I popped a few pills in Spanish-only packaging, which unfortunately knocked me out for the duration of the Argentina-Mexico game. I woke up for lunch at 2pm with a more-than-healthy appetite. This was fortunate as I thoroughly enjoyed both plantains and avocados, the latter of which had in fact been harvested from the family’s farm here in La Maquina.

Thus far I am both very content and very optimistic. My largest concerns—the language barrier and meeting the familia—have been more or less assuaged. I’m starting to think in Spanish, and I know that switching into that gear is what immersion is all about. Thinking a language is a key to speaking it. I’m realizing just how much Spanish I know, too. It’s all in my head; I just need to coax it out. Fortunately, I’ve got plenty of time.

I’m not sure at what point I start to grasp the whole two-months thing. I’ve only taken one of these cool-water showers thus far, and I imagine those could be the catalyst that eventually generates some longing for home. Really though, I’m an excellent traveler. I’m doing wonderfully, and I am very excited about the next few weeks I’ve got ahead of me.