It's not Christmas, It's Navidad

As a Jew, my Christmas memories have included eating at the only restaurants open for that night, skiing on an empty ski mountain and one long flight to Turkey last year. It is not an important holiday for me, but when two people invited me to their house to celebrate, I had a huge debate who I should say no to.  I debated between celebrating with Charlie, a good friend I have met from the beginning of my time in Guatemala, or Sarbelio, a construction worker that is part of the organization I work for.

In the end, I decided I would split the night. The last bus to Chimaltenango, where Sarbelio lives, leaves at 7 at night, so I figured I could spend the beginning with Charlie and his family and then spend the rest of the night with Sarbelio. Plans did not work out as I had hoped. Charlie was running around preparing for the night that I only had a chance to see him right before I got on the bus for Chimaltenango. I gave him a big Merry Christmas Hug and then was on my way.

Christmas dinner at Sarbelio's was the calm family-sharing time I had always pictured Christmas to be. Besides the tomales and punch that are typical here in Guatemala, the Christmas dinner was pretty standard. We sat around the table, talked and laughed.

Later, his son, daughter and I went to the center of town. In the US, the streets are empty on Christmas, but in Guatemala, the center is bustling. Surrounding a ferris wheel, vendors sell fireworks, apples and grapes, and people play at game stands, just as if it were a town fair. We went on the ferris wheel that went quicker than any ferris wheel I had been on before. Your stomach dropped as you turned over the top curve, and you just had to avoid thinking that Guatemala does not have any safety guidelines in such cases.

We went back to the house for midnight, and people were sitting on stools in front of their front doors, with a fire lit by pine cones keeping them warm. I joined Sarbelio and the rest of his family outside, and we nibbled on grapes and apples and drank glasses of champagne.

For months of working with Sarbelio, I knew very little of him and his family. The house he lives in is very big compared to what many Guatemalans have. Yet, he told me it took him 20 years to build it up to what it is today. He lived in a sugar cane house before that he rented for 18 Quetzales a month. He comes from an indigenous town, but they fled during the war, and his mother was killed by the army. I later found out they have recently found her body after many years of not knowing where it was.

Right before midnight, a storm of home-owned fireworks exploded throughout the small alleyways where only small cars could pass. Each family had a bundle of their own fireworks, and the streets lit up throughout the city. Some were simple sticks that lit up and others were elaborate lights that shot up in the sky. It was incredible, and I felt more like I was celebrating Fourth of July and not Christmas. When it turned 12:00 on the 25th we all hugged and wished each other a Merry Christmas. But midnight did not mark the end of the night by any means. They continued drinking, the fireworks still boomed and sizzled and they stayed talking until four in the morning. I, on the other hand, went to bed at 1:30.

 Although most had run through their fireworks by 1am, some kids still lit the alleyways in celebration.

It may be my only Christmas I have ever celebrated, but if I am to celebrate again, I would hope it's al estilo chapin, in the Guatemalan style.

The Discovered Paradise

Walking up a steep hill labeled "difficult," I wondered what exactly I was doing again dizzy, losing my breath, as I had been weeks before climbing up the Indian's Nose.  Yet when I reached the top view overlooking Semuc Champey, the turquoise water pools amongst a dense forest valley, I remembered all difficult climbs in Guatemala are worth the head-rush.

The five pools are really just a small dot in the forest that rolls over the mountains continues beyond sight, but they stand out with their bight color as they break up the continuous green.

Our impatient tour guide yawned as he waited for us on the way up. His accustomed legs that climbed to the top three times a day did not want to wait for those slow-pokes like me. But the hike down to the pools from the mirador went quickly compared to the quick paced hike up. We reached the bottom and our guide led the way through each of the pools, sliding down rocks or jumping if the water was deep enough.

Within the pools itself, people splashed around, creating chaos in the calm of the forest. But by swimming backstroke, with my ears under the water and head facing up, I could get a glimpse of the tranquility that once was.

After pool hopping, our guide divided us into two groups to go tubing down the river. We waited as the first group went, watching them pass from our high viewpoint in the hostel. They unloaded the tubes quicker than expected, and before we can say it was a waste to go, we saw them climbing up to the top of a bridge about 20 or 30-feet high, and one by one they jumped in the water.

I was ready and excited for our turn to tube.  However, by the time I stood at the bridge's end, one look down convinced me not to go. I turned around and watched a few more people go. I was determined and stood at the edge to once again turn around. Finally, by the third try after everyone jumped, I tried again. My friend Ron instructed me to close my eyes, hold my nose, shut my legs and jump straight. I listened to all the advice, except the most important: jump straight. I landed in a sitting position, only realizing it when the splash shocked my butt cheeks with an terribly harsh tingle that gave me rosy cheeks as I exited the water. At least I did it, I thought, as I rubbed my bright red bum.

We walked through caves in the last part of our Semuc Champey trip, guided by small candles that barely showed five feet in front of you. Our guide stayed in back, and my friend Annie and I stood at the front to lead the group in a direction where we had no idea where we were going. We started walking through  caves with downward facing points that looked like Gothic style architecture. The further we walked, the deeper the water became, and we had to swim in sections. Yet even the best swimmer could not swim with style because we had to hold the candle above water, leaving us no choice but to doggie-paddle.

A Case for the Shorties

In the United States, tall is in.  We like our leggy models and it is not uncommon to hear girls  complain about their height, making us shorties fell like we, well, come up short.  However, for all the other short stacks out there, a sparkle of hope shines south of the border.

Life is much easier for me and my five feet in Guatemala.  For starters, I stand out enough with my light hair and features, I don't need my height to shout out, gringa!  Plus, the country was made for people like me--Guatemalans average around my height.  The benefits of being a short foreigner are most obvious when you use public transportation.  Ride a chicken bus for just twenty minutes, and you'll be wishing you had that same magic powder that shrank Alice, getting her into Wonder Land.

One of Guatemala's cultural hubs sits right inside American's hand-me-downs, altered with a slight face lift. The same yellow buses we rode in elementary school are painted bright reds, blues and greens, adorned on the inside with the clashing images of American children cartoons and a repeated figure colored in black of a barbie-shaped woman, sitting naked with her large breasts sticking up. However, when it comes to one's vertical (and horizontal) size, the most consequential of the bus' transformations are the seats.

Since American school buses are made for young children, it would make sense to replace the seats, but instead, they are changed to create less room rather than more. Why such a counter-intuitive alteration? To fit more people. This may lead to overcapacity and ignoring any safety measures, if there are any.  But most importantly, more people means more money.

The seats are replaced with longer versions to fit three people, creating little room to get by in the aisles.  On busy routes, the buses fill with three people to a seat and the aisles crammed with squished strangers. Those with claustrophobia beware, personal space is of no concern. If you are sitting in the aisle seat, be prepared to have any body parts slam right in front of your face with nowhere else to go. 

While my traveling counterparts, usually tall lanky fellows that can almost hit their heads on the top of the bus' ceiling, usually struggle to fit in the seats on an empty bus, I'm sitting untroubled with the three inches of leg space in front of me. I can even lean back, push my knees forward a bit to rest my head on the back of the seat. Talk about perks. I have decided god made me short so I could travel the world easy-free. I may not be able to reach the top of the cupboard alone, but I can get a step stool to get me to the top. My tall friends will never fit easily in a chicken bus--there is nothing they can do, short of chopping off part of their legs, to change that. For that, I can stand up tall (well, short) and say, I am proud to be a shorty.

Don't Drink and Ride

Every November 1, the men of Todos Santos prove time and again why it is a good idea that the town keeps its no alcohol policy.  Although Todos Santos is a dry town, it is legal to consume alcohol on el día de los muertos--the day of the dead.

On this day, people throughout Guatemala go to the cemeteries where deceased family members rest.  They remember the dead and bring food and drinks to their graves.  They also fly kites as a way to honor their family members.  The towns of Santiago and Sumpango are the most visited on this day, and hundreds of giant homemade kites line the sky.

I, however, took a different route for día de los muertos.  In Todos Santos, a town about seven hours from Antigua, they celebrate día de los muertos with a drunken horse race on November 1 and visit the cemetery the day after.  The tradition is very dangerous, and men have died in the past.  They say if someone does die, the harvest will be good that year.  So either way, it is bad news.

We woke up at 5:15 in the morning to get to Todos Santos from San Pedro on Lake Atitlan.  After about seven hours in three different chicken buses, we arrived.  The center of town was reminiscent of an American town fair.  A Ferris wheel rose high above any other building, merry-go-rounds operated as men pushed them to turn and tents with games and food occupied the majority of the area.

 

People played games in the tents until late at night.

Mmmm.  Chocolate covered strawberries.

We heard of one event for the night, a dance in the town’s gymnasium.  However, we left quickly after learning men had to pay 40 quetzales and women 20.  We decided to walk around town, and would have gone home within the hour if we hadn’t run into Anibol, a Todos Santos native.  He told us of another dance where all the men who would participate in the horse race were.

The party was far from the expected.  From a distance, you can hear the marimbas playing, which sound cheerful and somewhat childish.  But the moment you enter, you realize you are far from an innocent children’s party.  The men were all wasted.  And when I say wasted, I am not talking about a freshman year college party when half the people don’t know how to hold their drinks.  I had never in my life seen so many people so belligerently drunk in one room at the same time.  Men were passed out, scattered on the floor like litter thrown on the ground.  The ones that were still standing had an expressionless look on their faces, replaced by an alcohol-induced gaze.  One man who could barely stand had such watery eyes that I swore it was the excessive alcohol pouring through.  He fell and tried to reach for someone to pick him up, but the surrounding men hid their arms behind their backs, refusing to help.  A few fights erupted for no apparent reason, and the men would knock over a few of the close bystanders.

The men that would be riding the horses the next day dressed in colorful outfits and donned hats with feathers.  The other men wore typical traje with red and white striped pants that resemble pajama pants and a blue and white striped shirt with a more intricate designed collar.
For the most part, only men were on the dance floor.  Two foreign women danced, but the rest stood on the side watching.  Everyone danced with the basic two steps, but their bodies flopped around like a fish dying because they were so drunk.  If the men did dance with a woman, they only held one hand and continued the two basic steps.  As they danced, the men would scream out hyena calls, particularly at the beginning of a song.

A younger man asked me to dance, and I figured it was harmless.  You didn't get too close to one another and everyone was so drunk that it did not matter whether you were a good dancer or not.  When we stopped dancing, another man came up to me to dance.  Then after his turn on the dance floor, a much older man approached me.  This man was a little more touchy than the other two.  Although it doesn't seem much, he grabbed my shoulder with his other hand and pulled me in closer.  I couldn't tell if he simply needed to hold on for balance, but either way, I was not comfortable.  I kept pushing his hand off, but he would put it right back.  When the song was over, I left him, and immediately two other men came up to me asking to dance.  Turned off by my last one, I said no.  The same touchy man came back, and when I rejected him, he screamed "soooolo uuuuuuna!" the way a child does when he doesn't get a chocolate bar he wants.  "Just one more!"  I said no, and the conversation repeated over for a few minutes until I walked away in frustration.

When I did have a conversation of more than three words, I learned the majority of the men had lived in the United States, even a 21-year-old I met.  He was there for two years working, and now is continuing his education.  When I walked around Todos Santos, it surprised me that most of the houses were nice two story buildings, but after hearing about their stories in the US, it made sense.  The men send back money to finance the construction of these houses, and you can clearly see how far American dollars go in Guatemala.

The next day, the men were just as drunk as the night before, particularly those who would be riding the horses.  The races started at eight in the morning until six at night, with a two-hour break in the afternoon.  The men rode back and forth on one street covered in dirt.  Apparently, someone marks down who wins each time, but I did not see anyone keeping track. 

 

Ready. Set. Go!

"Waaaaahhhaaaaaaa!"

Men close by help a fallen horseman.

All the racers wore the feathers on top of their hats.

Wake up!  You have a race to win!

Men's typical traje.

Despite the race's repetitive nature, you can’t keep your eyes off the race because the men are very interesting to watch.  I also had less of a chance to get bored because I could only stay for the first two and half hours.  I needed to get back to work the next day, and transportation was limited on the holiday.  Each man has his own specific reaction as he races from one side of the road completely inebriated.  A few could not keep their bodies up, while one man sat straight up and held his hands out in the air.  Several screamed in the same hyena pitched voice we heard the night before at the dance.  The crowd would erupt into giggles and chatter when one made his own original scream, "Waheeeeeowwww!"

How he did not fall off, I do not know.

 

Crowds surrounded the street where the horses raced.

 

Just watching, I was scared for them.

 

The face and belly hanging out say everything.

I witnessed three falls.  A group of men would run to pick up the fallen man, and the race would continue.  The second man who fell lay there for some time, and those around me began to scream in anger, "Where is the ronda?!  Are they sleeping?  The ronda needs to pay attention!"  Luckily, this year no one died.  Let’s hope the crops come out better than the fallen men.

Atop the Indian Nose

Saturday morning, I sat at a restaurant with Connor and Bryan on Lake Atitlan, overlooking the mountain nariz del indio--Indian Nose--that we would stand on top of in just a few hours.  The restaurant seemed to be in no rush to serve us, and we waited impatiently for the food to arrive.  We joked that we could climb the mountain and come back before our food would be ready.  Little did we know the difficulty I would have to reach the summit.

El nariz del indio boasts the best view of the lake and its surrounding volcanoes.  As you can guess by its name, the mountain is shaped like a nose.  The area also sometimes acts as a ground for Mayan rituals, although we did not come across any on our hike.

 

Can you spot the nose?

Within about five seconds of our climb, I was already panting like an old lady who just walked up a flight of steps.  I felt, to say the least, pretty pathetic.  I downed half of my first of two bags of water so quickly that I had to watch myself and make sure I didn't finish both within the first few minutes of the hike.

 

Replenishing on liquid fuel. 

Although the view was picturesque, I mostly concentrated on how tired I felt.  I mean, really, how pitiful!  Every time I do reasonably tiring exercise I realize how much more often I should be doing it.  I felt slightly dizzy, and memories came back from all the times I have almost fainted from pushing myself too hard.  (Emphasis on almost!)  I thought about the one and only capoeira class at New York Sports Club that made me never return again.  My early morning bike ride in which I had little food in my stomach and ended up sitting on the sidewalk to wait for a friend to come get me.  Or how about my middle school gym class when I ran a mile and ended up resting for the afternoon in the nurse’s office.

I was going to make sure I would not make a fool of myself yet another time, especially because I did not want to force Connor and Bryan to wait for me.  So before I began to see black dots, I stopped following their pace and began to take breaks.  At one point, I had to lie on the ground to recuperate.  It was not too difficult putting my legs higher than my head to get the blood flowing since I was laying on an incline.  After a nice rest on the ground, two packs of Chiky cookies and my two bags of water, I was ready to go--this time at my own snail pace.

You don't have to doubt for a minute how good it felt to get to the top of the nose.  The sweat trickles and weak-feeling leg muscles screamed in delight, “I did it!” Our reward for an hour-and-half long hike that turned into two hours because of my stops?  A full view of the most beautiful lake I have ever seen.  As I’ve mentioned in posts before, Lake Atitlan, in my opinion, looks like paradise.  The lush hills protect the blue waters that from a high distance have no sign of the litter and pollution that threatens the lake.  From el nariz del indio, you can see all the towns that sit on the lake’s shore.  The volcanoes across the way do stand taller than the Indian’s nose, but that did not make the view any less spectacular.

 Our full view of Lake Atitlan

 I wasn't the only one who was pooped.  Bryan takes a quick catnap to recharge.

 The volcano across the way and the view of San Jose and San Pedro La Laguna

 The way down was much easier!

 I got a little off track on the way back down and had a chance to practice some climbing.

 View from below the Indian Nose.