Sunday marked my third full week in Guatemala. I am just about halfway through my entire trip! An experience of time so rapid frightens me a bit! It seems I was just pulling all nighters to finish up my second year in the anthropology program and before I know it I’ll be back to the grind, taking classes, TAing, writing papers, and reading, reading, reading. As I’ve learned from all wise folks before, I really need to appreciate each passing moment as a way to enjoy the many blessings of the present.
My Tz’utujil classes have been going well. Through sheer exposure to 5 hours per day of tutorials, study sessions in the afternoons, and overhearing conversations in the street I have developed a decent ear for the language and can now make the sounds pretty well. I have a small arsenal of phrases I use to ask people how they are, to tell them where I’m going, and to say goodbye. My vocabulary is nearly as good as a toddler’s; I probably have 50-60 words memorized. The use of flashcards promises to help me internalize a few more words each day. I’m reasonably pleased with my progress but still impatient when I open up my books in Tz’utujil and find myself incapable of translating more than a few clustered words per page. On a brighter note, my Spanish is improving rapidly. I’m probably at about the highest point I’ve ever been in both comprehension and speech. With a month left to go in Guatemala I hope to improve even more.
Mid-week Antonio and Martha (the owners of Corazon Maya) rented a small van and about a dozen students and teachers piled in at 7am for a journey to Fuentes Georginas, a beautiful hot spring up in the mountains near Zunil. I had been to this place on my previous trip to Guatemala, four years ago, and remembered it well. Our journey took us from San Pedro to San Juan and then up through Santa Clara, which hangs over the lake, and then through winding, climbing roads until we crested the range of mountains that encircles the lake and made it to the main highway. Unfortunately, we ran into some major delays once we hit the highway because of road construction. This spells good things for the country even if it made our short journey to Quetzaltenango (Xela) and Zunil much longer than anticipated. At each stop, we exited the van, stretched, and waited until the last cars coming from the other direction made it through the single lane so that the current could be reversed and we could continue on our way. The amount of black, belching exhaust fumes we were exposed to in the otherwise pristine beauty of this mountain scenery was simply staggering. I went through various stages of headache and stomach upset from the pollution as well as muscle cramps from the tight confines of the overcrowded, Korean-designed minivan. But alas, I finally looked down through the clouds and spotted Zunil below! After three and a half hours of such driving we arrived at the clouded, emerald sanctuary of Fuentes Georginas! It looked just as I remembered it and I quickly changed out of my wrinkled clothes into a bathing suit so I could soak in the much needed warmth of these mineral waters. Few things are as rejuvenating for me as time in a hot spring. I developed a habit of visiting as many such oases as possible some years ago. Fuentes Georginas ranks pretty high in my all time favorite hot springs, mainly due to its isolation and lush setting. As I had remembered from my last time there, you meet a surprisingly diverse collection of people: plenty of locals but also lots of people from nearby Central American countries and an inevitable few from the US, Canada, and Europe. If there ever was a melting pot, this was it!
As is my habit, I soaked and soaked—retreated for just a few minutes to consume a small lunch—and then returned to the baths. The rest of our group exited the hot springs between noon and 1pm while I stayed to soak up what minerals I could and let my road weary frame melt into the greenery all around. I spoke to a few different folks including one kindly old man from Guatemala City who surreptitiously found his way behind me and offered me a massage. I politely, but ever so quickly, denied his offer and made my way to another part of the spring like a crab scuttling away from unwanted attention. Finally, about 2pm I heard Antonio calling my name and was entreated to leave the pools as everyone else had assembled to leave only to find me missing. I toweled off, found my way back into dry clothes, and jogged from the dressing area to the parking lot. We all boarded the minivan moments later and headed back to the highway.
We took a more circuitous route home, going through the center of Quetzaltenango (Xela), Guatemala’s second largest city. We stopped at a huge supermarket that was attached to a medium-sized shopping mall with its own foodcourt (including Burger King) and a range of such useless but ubiquitous stores like GNC. As I variously shopped in the grocery store, walked the mall, and went up and down escalators, I wondered if I had been teleported to Southern California. If this is the future of Guatemala then book your next ecotour to the San Diego Zoo.
As always, it was eminently convenient to go through the fluorescent-lit aisles of the supermarket and stock up on imported apples, chocolate, and Pepto-Bismol. It was a bit surreal to look around at my fellow shoppers and instead of recognizing soccer moms find myself surrounded by traditional Mayans wearing their handmade clothes reaching out for Cheetos and Farberware. If anyone has doubted the reality of globalism before, I challenge them to visit this hunk of southern California strangely set in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. After the mall, we made one more brief stop at a panaderia where everyone stocked up on muffins and various breads. We then headed back to the bogged down highway; again, memories of southern California. The way back offered as many discomforts as the morning had offered and by the time we reached our quiet home in San Pedro La Laguna I felt like the net gain of bodily comfort from hours of soaking just barely surpassed the net loss of being in such a cramped van for such a bumpy, on-again-off-again, return through the mountains.
My Tz’utujil classes have been going well. Through sheer exposure to 5 hours per day of tutorials, study sessions in the afternoons, and overhearing conversations in the street I have developed a decent ear for the language and can now make the sounds pretty well. I have a small arsenal of phrases I use to ask people how they are, to tell them where I’m going, and to say goodbye. My vocabulary is nearly as good as a toddler’s; I probably have 50-60 words memorized. The use of flashcards promises to help me internalize a few more words each day. I’m reasonably pleased with my progress but still impatient when I open up my books in Tz’utujil and find myself incapable of translating more than a few clustered words per page. On a brighter note, my Spanish is improving rapidly. I’m probably at about the highest point I’ve ever been in both comprehension and speech. With a month left to go in Guatemala I hope to improve even more.
Mid-week Antonio and Martha (the owners of Corazon Maya) rented a small van and about a dozen students and teachers piled in at 7am for a journey to Fuentes Georginas, a beautiful hot spring up in the mountains near Zunil. I had been to this place on my previous trip to Guatemala, four years ago, and remembered it well. Our journey took us from San Pedro to San Juan and then up through Santa Clara, which hangs over the lake, and then through winding, climbing roads until we crested the range of mountains that encircles the lake and made it to the main highway. Unfortunately, we ran into some major delays once we hit the highway because of road construction. This spells good things for the country even if it made our short journey to Quetzaltenango (Xela) and Zunil much longer than anticipated. At each stop, we exited the van, stretched, and waited until the last cars coming from the other direction made it through the single lane so that the current could be reversed and we could continue on our way. The amount of black, belching exhaust fumes we were exposed to in the otherwise pristine beauty of this mountain scenery was simply staggering. I went through various stages of headache and stomach upset from the pollution as well as muscle cramps from the tight confines of the overcrowded, Korean-designed minivan. But alas, I finally looked down through the clouds and spotted Zunil below! After three and a half hours of such driving we arrived at the clouded, emerald sanctuary of Fuentes Georginas! It looked just as I remembered it and I quickly changed out of my wrinkled clothes into a bathing suit so I could soak in the much needed warmth of these mineral waters. Few things are as rejuvenating for me as time in a hot spring. I developed a habit of visiting as many such oases as possible some years ago. Fuentes Georginas ranks pretty high in my all time favorite hot springs, mainly due to its isolation and lush setting. As I had remembered from my last time there, you meet a surprisingly diverse collection of people: plenty of locals but also lots of people from nearby Central American countries and an inevitable few from the US, Canada, and Europe. If there ever was a melting pot, this was it!
As is my habit, I soaked and soaked—retreated for just a few minutes to consume a small lunch—and then returned to the baths. The rest of our group exited the hot springs between noon and 1pm while I stayed to soak up what minerals I could and let my road weary frame melt into the greenery all around. I spoke to a few different folks including one kindly old man from Guatemala City who surreptitiously found his way behind me and offered me a massage. I politely, but ever so quickly, denied his offer and made my way to another part of the spring like a crab scuttling away from unwanted attention. Finally, about 2pm I heard Antonio calling my name and was entreated to leave the pools as everyone else had assembled to leave only to find me missing. I toweled off, found my way back into dry clothes, and jogged from the dressing area to the parking lot. We all boarded the minivan moments later and headed back to the highway.
We took a more circuitous route home, going through the center of Quetzaltenango (Xela), Guatemala’s second largest city. We stopped at a huge supermarket that was attached to a medium-sized shopping mall with its own foodcourt (including Burger King) and a range of such useless but ubiquitous stores like GNC. As I variously shopped in the grocery store, walked the mall, and went up and down escalators, I wondered if I had been teleported to Southern California. If this is the future of Guatemala then book your next ecotour to the San Diego Zoo.
As always, it was eminently convenient to go through the fluorescent-lit aisles of the supermarket and stock up on imported apples, chocolate, and Pepto-Bismol. It was a bit surreal to look around at my fellow shoppers and instead of recognizing soccer moms find myself surrounded by traditional Mayans wearing their handmade clothes reaching out for Cheetos and Farberware. If anyone has doubted the reality of globalism before, I challenge them to visit this hunk of southern California strangely set in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. After the mall, we made one more brief stop at a panaderia where everyone stocked up on muffins and various breads. We then headed back to the bogged down highway; again, memories of southern California. The way back offered as many discomforts as the morning had offered and by the time we reached our quiet home in San Pedro La Laguna I felt like the net gain of bodily comfort from hours of soaking just barely surpassed the net loss of being in such a cramped van for such a bumpy, on-again-off-again, return through the mountains.
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