The Ugly Americans

Wow, I’m even thinking in Spanish now. Like when something annoyed me today, I heard myself say, Ay, crap-o.

Today’s advice for travelers: don’t take a mug of tea with you in a tuc-tuc.

During class this morning there must have been a cataclysmic event inside the bees’ next at the edge of the arch that is my classroom. For fifteen minutes hundreds of abejas swarmed, and then suddenly were gone.

I ran home at lunch, gathered things for the hike to Pacaya and walked back to town.

Please tell me I’m not the kind of tourist like the ones I was fated to spend the afternoon with. Take David (“Call me Dah-VEED”), for example. He was one of a small group gathered to await the van that would take us to the head of the Volcan Pacaya trail. Across the room a Guatemalan toddler was having a meltdown. Dah-veed was, apparently, irritated. “No CRY!” he bleated to the temporarily insane child. Fumbling for his dicionario he asked, “How do you say ‘cry’ in Spanish? Here it is. Okay: ‘lul-LOR.’ He stood up and aimed himself at the kid. “No lor-or! No yorr-OR-oh!”

And then there was the born-again American who asked a Guatemalan woman:

— “Where can I buy celery?”
— “No comprendo,” answered the Guatemalan politely.
— “I said, WHERE-CAN-I-BUY-CELERY?” (Louder this time.)
— “Lo siento — no comprendo.”
— “Celery!” (An eye roll.) “CE-LER-Y!”

Anyhow, we finally piled into a 10-person van and 1.5 hours later arrived the teeny town of San Francisco.

Packs of dusty, serious kids hawked walking sticks for five quetzales each. Fifty feet up the trail, the price dropped to two for five.

The wooded trail was slippery and steep. I suddenly felt a blast of hot air at the back of my neck: horse breath. Its rider called to me, “¿Taxi, Senora?” Despite my requests for him to pase, he stayed right behind me for a quarter mile of switchbacks before finally giving up.

We encountered a gaggle of fat, drunk Americans on horseback, burping their way up the mountain, led by patient local guides.

Here’s where we all were headed:

The 20-year-olds and the guide surged ahead while the smokers and over-forties lagged behind. Though tiring, it was pretty hike. I was in between, enjoying the trees and the quiet when suddenly I realized it was too quiet. I was alone. Not a safe situation, and I was nervous till I caught up with the others.

When we finally walked onto the active flow, conversation went quiet and all I heard around me were choruses of “wows.” It was humbling, all that fire and smoke and heat. In the strong wind I started to notice the scent of burning rubber soles.

You’d never be able to take a hike like this in the U.S. The cone was brittle and treacherous. A false step could land you in a glowing crevice.

Once again I lost sight of my group amid the scores of people who were creeping around the top. I guess it was the heat, but I started getting dizzy and staggered fifty feet down to cooler air.

Half an hour later, I still saw no familiar faces so I descended to solid ground and hung out with the starving volcano dogs who turned up their long noses at my offering of nuts.

It turns out that the others had been roasting marshmallows over a little vent somewhere.

It was dark as we slipped down through the clouds. I didn’t know there were lightning bugs in Guatemala: pequeí±as in the mist.

At the bottom we rested long enough for water and cerveza. A friendly woman named Ginny invited me to sit with her. She lives in Antigua. I innocently asked why.

“I was standing on the street on day, over by the arch, when suddenly the Lord spoke to me and told me to move here.”

“Oh. Uh, how did you know it was … the lord and not — you know — your imagination?” I asked with as much earnestness as I could muster.

“Actually, it was hard to tell the difference at first, but I’ve learned to tell them apart. For one thing, I never wanted to live in Guatemala…”

She works at a coffee shopped called Higher Grounds, and asked me to stop by for Bible study one day.

P.S. I talked to a delightful young guy from Aguas Calientes, Mexico, where they have a museum I must visit: The Dead Museum, aka El Museo de la Meurte. He said it has historic Dí­a de los Muertos things from all over Mexico. He also suggested I visit the nearby town of Puebla and said that Zacatecas is worth a visit. I’m writing this here so I don’t forget it later.

Next Central America entry >>

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