Ok, now that that's said (don't you just love when you can say the same word twice in a row and still have it be grammatically correct....oh, lord, I'm such a nerd!), I'll attempt to finish off the long saga that is the first week of my trip here in Guatemala. Weird that now I'm starting in on the third week, and haven't even caught up yet. But here goes.
I believe that I left you, dear readers, at the Hotel Brisas del Mar just off the beach in Monterico. In case you didn't notice in the picture included in the previous (hidden) post, the beach is black volcanic sand, the waves are big, and (ok, so you can't really tell this from a picture) the riptide is fierce. Once we settled in to the hotel....which consisted of me trying to get
rid of the pushy tour guides while Kristian dashed off to the pool for some serious temperature regulation....we headed out to the beach to see the people from the turtle sanctuary release some baby turtles in to the ocean. People had some pretty mixed feelings about the process. To raise money for the turtle sanctuary, the guides sold tickets to sponsor a baby turtle in a "race" to see which would make it to the ocean first. Some people were saying it was bad for the turtles because it made them exhausted being kept at the hatchery before the races, while others said that they didn't get enough of a challenge before getting to the water because they are released so close to the surf. Of course there was a third camp that was just enthralled by seeing baby turtles (they were really cute) and happy that they could donate some money to a good cause. Unlike the turtle sanctuary that I volunteered with in Costa Rica, which had patrols on the beaches to hide turtle nests from poachers, this hatchery basically used donation money to buy turtle eggs from poachers. An interesting quandary, that. It is, of course, good that the turtle eggs are not being eaten, but by buying from the poachers the hatchery is supporting the system of poaching. Just goes to show that no action is without it's consequences.After watching the turtles get washed away by the tide, we headed to what looked like the most happening spot on the beach, Johnny's Place, for dinner. It was there that we were introduced to the Monterico mosquito. I suggest anyone heading down there to bring ample bug spray. I don't care how bad the mosquitoes are at home or how much you think you'll be able to deal with them. Just give in and spray yourself with some big bad chemicals. Those suckers (heh heh) are nasty. And while it is kind of fun for the first few minutes so sleep under a mosquito net, it's not really all that nice when it's ridiculously hot outside and you're not quite sure how the mosquito net should be arraigned (or when the net has holes in it). So bug spray is comes highly recommended. Bug spray and sunscreen.
I mentioned briefly in the previous post on Monterico that the tour guides hounded us a bit. Not only that, but the badmouthed each other in a rather backhanded way. One of the guides spoke immaculate English, while the others had very little English. One in particular warned us against the one who spoke English, telling me that this guy was notorious for taking people's money and not showing up for the tour he offered of the mangrove swamps (which begins at 5:30 am so we can catch the sunrise and so it isn't too hot). He said that for matters of security we shouldn't got with this particular guy. But when we talked to the guy who spoke English, he said we didn't have to pay until after the tour. Since he spoke such good English and I was the only one of the three of us (our Idaho firefighter friend was still with us) that spoke Spanish, we decided to go on the tour with him. I will add that the tour was great and that we never felt unsafe. Plus we go the lowdown about why the other guides didn't like him. Apparently he spoke English so well because he spent much of his youth in Las Angeles. When he was young his mother was killed by gangs and he lived on the streets in LA. He said that he started to get caught up with the gangs, but instead of staying there he moved back to Monterico to get away from the influence of the gangs. Or at least that's the story he told us. The town, of course, knew where he had been, and as this guy explained, once you have any connection to gangs everyone assumes you still have connections, that you're still a gangster. So the other tour guides warn people away. But, like I said, we had no problems with him and enjoyed our tour.
The tour was in a small boat, a skiff really, that he poled along the shallow rivers that ran through the mangrove swamp. We saw all sorts of interesting flora and fauna...ducks
that sounded like frogs, birds that sounded like monkeys, egrets and herons, fish with four eyes (two above and two below the water), and giant ant nests. We almost got to see some Jesus lizards (you know, the ones that can walk on water) but apparently poachers had stolen the nest sometime during the night. Watching the sun rise over the water was pretty incredible, and we got to watch the local fishermen catch catfish and shrimp. To catch catfish, the fishermen lay out a big net in a circle and then use a big stick to thump the water to scare the fish in to the net.After our tour of the mangrove swamps we spent the rest of the say just hanging out in hammocks and walking on the beach. It was pretty hot, and Kristian was still feeling crappy. Poor thing. We had a bit of a scare when the shuttle we thought we were supposed to take back to Antigua told us we weren't on their list, but it just turns out that we were supposed to be on a different shuttle. Which, funnily enough, was not the shuttle our firefighter friend was on but that was occupied by some of her friends from a Spanish school in Antigua that had come down to the beach for the day. Unfortunately the shuttle ride ended with me begging the van driver to stop so Kristian could leap out in a mad dash to the nearest bathroom, but otherwise it was uneventful. After having dinner with the gal we had hung out with in Monterico (we ran in to her on the street soon after Kristian recovered), we turned in early in anticipation of the 4:00 am shuttle ride to the airport. I accompanied Kristian to the airport that morning and then caught a taxi back to Antigua. And I've been here ever since, sending emails, making phone calls, and generally being lazy (and slightly bored).
I'll see what I can do about filling you all in on the last week in the next post. Nothing as terribly exciting as the previous jaunts around Guatemala with Kristian, but it hasn't been a completely uneventful week. Stay tuned...
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