A Day at the Beach

I had better tuc-tuc luck this morning. A driver named Luis showed up at 6:45 and got me to school in time to meet the van going to Monterrico, a tiny fishing town on the Pacific. I went with four other students and our teachers. The drive was interesting. We passed:

• Three volcanos
• La Cuidad Vieja, the second capitol of Guatemala that was destroyed in 1541 by a flood of water from what’s now called El Volcan Agua
• Sugar plantations
• A scattering of impoverished villages
• A loofah farm
• A mangrove swamp

I forgot to bring shorts. It don’t know exactly how hot 35 degrees centigrade is but my blue jeans were Not Okay. Silvia and I walked to the town’s three tiendas, but at each one our request for something in my size was met with looks of incredulity. “No, we don’t have anything that large.” I felt like Sweet Marie, that thousand-pound woman at the circus (“the prettiest, gentlest, kindest fat girl in the world”). Desperate and thus persistent, I finally discovered that I wear a Guatemalan man’s size large.

This appealing little girl, daughter of one of the store owners, wanted her picture taken.

I didn’t find our ultimate destination too interesting — a beach that went on forever, with big waves and dangerous undertow, home to three species of endangered tortugas and to paunchy, old, drunk, sun-dried American hippie guys with young, bikini-wearing girlfriends — plus a few locals”¦

What I really wanted to do was to rent a little rowboat to explore the mangrove swamps, but there wasn’t quite enough time, which is why I don’t like traveling in groups. Instead, I visited the small nature preserve which featured some sample turtles and caimans, and an iguana with too much makeup.

There was also the most beautiful butterfly I’ve ever seen but it simply refused to sit still for my camera.

Everyone had some kind of seafood for lunch. I had camarones con ajo (garlicky shrimp). That’s Silvia, second from right. Lunch for both of us totaled around $10.

I don’t think I’ll spend much more time with my fellow estudiantes. One young guy, about to enter med school to become an orthopedic surgeon, was annoyed with his teacher for correcting his pronunciation. “I know when I pronounce it wrong it changes the meaning, but people should be able to tell from my context.” There was also an old, wrinkly doctor who (like me) needed to think a lot before finding the right Spanish words. But instead of thinking silently, he stretched out each word really long till he could think of the next one, all at eardrum-busting volume. He turned a simple “at 2:30″ into:

“AHHHHH-LAAAAAAS-DOS-EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-media!!!”

I wanted to kill him.

Instead, I rested, as did a few others in our group.

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