Guaaaats

5/4/09
11:17
*I wrote this all like three weeks ago and never posted it….my bad

I found a dress and shoes for the ball. Took lots of pics on my top-notch disposable camera…told everyone I’d give them doubles. It was pretty funny to be like, “Don’t forget to wind it! Oh is the flash on?” Funny and obnoxious at the same time. No worries I’ll just get all of Jill’s photos.

So ‘Guats’ in the words of Win. The trip has come full circle. We started out in a Spanish-speaking country, we ended in a Spanish-speaking country. I traveled with Greg, Alicia, Caroline, Lia, and Jill a few days in Spain, I traveled with them for a few days in Guats. I stayed at Cat’s Hostel in Spain, I almost stayed in a hostel called El Gato Negro in Guats. Interesting, eh?

The first day I skipped the diplomatic briefing because I had stayed up pretty late the night before. I’m glad I did, though, because the diplomats just freaked everyone out and made some people not even want to get off the ship. Overall in Guatemala I felt pretty safe. I’m sure if I lived there permanently I would not feel the same, but in my brief time there I was never really uneasy or fearful for my well-being.

At about 10:30 or 11 we got off the ship. There were shuttles running every 15 minutes or half hour that took us from the port to the city entrance, because it was a pretty long walk otherwise. Greg, Alicia, Caroline, Jill, Brendan, Lia, Mike, and I took the shuttle and began to barter with taxi drivers to find a good price to go to Puerto Istapa. There was one taxi service at the city entrance charging ridiculous prices for a ride because they knew we had no other choice unless we wanted to take a long walk into the city. We finally found a ride for $5 a person and we hopped in the taxi van.

We had decided to go to this little city called Istapa because according to the pictures and little excerpts on it given by SAS at the Field Office, it is a nice little town with a beautiful black sand beach and lagoon. Well, either the Field Office lied or something changed drastically since those pictures were taken. The town was tiny, there were only locals and when we got to the “beach”…well do the quotations explain that?

Our taxi driver dropped us off at this little shack on the water facing a sandbar. He gives us his number so we can call him to get a ride back and then he calls over the man who is supposed to take us in one of these rickety, old boats lining the shoreline, across the dirty lagoon to the sandbar where the beach is. The boys had wanted to go deep-sea fishing here, because they had also read that was possible. So while they were checking to see if they could get fishing poles and other gear, all of us girls played with the cutest little puppy EVER. There were so many stray, mangy dogs in Guatemala. So many sickly puppies. It was sad.

Turns out, the boys couldn’t go fishing so instead we just decided to just hang out for a while, maybe get some lunch on the beach. From where we were standing, it appeared that there were some makeshift huts with food signs and benches. They looked empty, but we thought maybe they just weren’t open yet.

Well we reached the sandbar and everything was empty, closed, there was nothing. There were 3 other people on the sandbar. Two Guatemalan fishermen with nets, and one Israeli surfer, who was vacationing here. His name was Aaron and we all chatted with him for a while about his travels and about the area.

Although things hadn’t gone according to plan, no one was fretting and we all frolicked in the ocean and rested on the hot black sand. I wore my new swimsuit. Yeaaaah.

The marine life had it out for Alicia this day. The first time we all took a dip some THING bit her foot. She ran out…or hopped out yelping in pain. It wasn’t a bad cut or anything but I could definitely see bite marks or scratch marks or something. We took a break from the ocean after that and dried off in the sun. We were all starting to get hungry at this point and Aaron had recommended a good pizza place in town. We gathered our things, and Alicia decided to go in the ocean one more time. This time she came running out, looking a bit panicked again. She told us she had just been swimming in the waves, minding her own business, when she felt something on her head pulling her down. She brushed it off and looked at what it was and found a pink squid swimming away. What the hell? A squid? We all laughed at and then sympathized with poor Alicia. I would have FTFOed in that situation. Freaked the F out, for those of you that don’t know the lingo.

It took a little while to get the attention of our boat driver to come pick us up from the sandbar again, but he finally made his way over and we hopped in. Aaron came too and got dropped off in the little beach hut he was staying at. What a cool life: to come and stay in a country for 3 or 4 weeks, explore for a few weeks, surf for one week.

Back on the mainland, we went in search for the pizza place. It didn’t exist or no one would help us find it. So we ate at this tiny little restaurant that was probably no bigger than my living room and only had one cook. She set up a table outside for us under the awning and took our orders. Brendan, Mike and Greg got burgers and fries. Us ladies split a plate of some sort of meat (beef? Very well marinated), chips and bean dip, and tortillas. It was quite tasty. We also partook in some native Guatemalan beer: Gallo. Tasted good with lime.

After lunch we headed back to the ship to freshen up after a sweaty, sweaty, black sand encrusted day. We ate dindin on the ship to save some mula. It was a pretty decent dinner. Spinach frittatas. Soo good. And for dessert: Paris Brests. Yes, breast was misspelled on the label. These Paris Brests were like an eclaire with mocha filling. Three Paris Brests: delicious. Inappropriate and immature jokes that ensued: innumerable and priceless.

After dinner, Lia, Alicia, Jill, Caroline, Doug and I called our taxi driver from earlier and got a ride into Puerto San Jose. We went to a restaurant that probably would have been hopping on a Friday or Saturday, but it was Tuesday and it was empty. Hit songs from the eighties were blaring over the speakers as we all sat at a table and ordered a drink or two and ate some appetizers. Our driver and his friend joined us. After a bit a group of locals came in and they were traaaaaashed. This one flamboyant guy kept getting up and drunkenly shaking his bum or thrusting his pelvis. We loved him. He was a HIT.

After a half hour or so at this restaurant we strolled around the town. Jill really wanted papusas which are some sort of street food she had eaten a lot of in her three weeks in Guadalajara last summer. We didn’t find these, but Lia and her bought some beef tacos from a street vendor. I think we were advised not to eat street food. Pssshh.

Jill bought a Regatone CD from a vendor and then we sat in skatepark with all the locals kids and teens. We watched them play, fight, skateboard, and canoodle. After a bit we headed back to the port. On our walk to the shuttle we heard loud music bumping and the rowdy voices of …could it be? Fellow SASholes? Indeed, there was a restaurant/bar right outside the shuttle pick-up that was swarming with SASers. There was a band playing America hits and lots of dancing and drinking going on. We stayed for an hour or so, but the last shuttle to the ship was at 10:45 so we caught that.

That night Caroline, Alicia and I ho’d it out in Alicia’s room for several hours just talking about the voyage, about our families, about our feelings and thoughts. It got rather emotional. Alicia and Caroline are pretty homesick and need their mommas. I kept reassuring them that we only had one week left. All the while, as I comforted them, I couldn’t help but think, “Only one week?! How? No! I want more!”

It ended up being a pretty late night (3am) and I had an early morning ahead of me what with my adventure to climb A VOLCANO!!!! No worries, I don’t need sleep.

The volcano climb was my last SAS-sponsored trip and I was really excited to hike it and that Jill would be accompanying me on this venture.