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January 28, 2003
from san pedro, guatemala
san pedro is on the beautiful lake called lago de atitlan, yesterday i hiked the volcano san pedro to the top, got an amazing view, went with two german friends, hope to get a foto of me on the top on here soon enough. today went for a walk around the lake to san marcos, a yoga and raike hippy village, as soon as we walked into the place you could hear reggae playing. had an overpriced veggie dinner that was tasty, then ran into maureen, an irish chick i met first in zipolite, then san cristobal, then tulum, and now here in guate. i guess that stuff happens when you´re on the gringo trail, a song i´m helping to write with two crazy badass new brunswickers, pierre and jenaul, they hitched all of canada then took busses down, they´ve started to teach me the important french canadian words, i.e. the slang, tabarnac is a highly common one, apparently it´s the little box they hold the host in, the host being the hostia, the catholic bread that represents the body of cristo. i´ve taken to saying ¨tabarnac!¨ at appropriate moments, pascual would be proud. might run into him in the bay islands, going tomorrow with my new travelling crew, which is good but nothing compared the the zipolite gang, to antigua to wreak havoc, then heading up towards coban and the ruins around tikal, which is said to be touristy but worth it.
today i was riding back to san pedro in the back of a toyota truck that had about 10 other people in the back, racing down and slogging up hills, the sun was setting, the wind was in my newly cut hair (thanks to heidi, canadian badass full of good advice) and the stars were starting to come out, and i had the same big goofy grin i always get when i realize how lucky i am to be doing this and how much i´m enjoying the hell out of it.
one other thing, another observation, that there´s something about these countries, where everything moves in balance, there´s no social safety net and people generally get enough to eat, dogs move out of the way right before busses hit them, our toyota truck slows down just enough that we don´t head on with another truck full of people coming in the opposite direction, just this eery harmony that you start to see at work, it´s quite amazing.
Posted by bendan at January 28, 2003 06:08 PM
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Comments
i remember thinking how odd it was that considering how badly everyone drove in jordan, there weren't more accidents. the next day, just after we'd dashed across the street with a group of people i heard a skreeching sound then looked back and saw a guy get hit by a van and go flying 20 or 30 feet, totally limp. the driver and passenger get out of the van take a look at the guy, then run around back grab a strecher, throw him on it put him in the back and turn on their siren and drive off.
Posted by: andrew at January 31, 2003 04:32 PM