Santa Maria

Hi Hi Hi! I woke up at 4.15 this morning and went to the school and climbed in that same micro bus that took us to the soccer place and went off to Santa Maria, which is a big ol dormant or dead volcano outside the city. We (Amaro the X-guerilla, 8 other students and I) got to the trailhead around 5.45 and headed up the trail. It was still totally dark, but I could make out the mountain in the distance and we werén´t anywhere near it. We hiked uphill for quite a while as the sun rose. We finally got to the base of the mountain which I thought was about 600 feet as we approached it, but it turns out the climb in total was, if I´m not mistaked, over 3000 feet. That´s pretty goddamn huge. We climbed, oh how we did climb and I wasn´t having much difficulty for most of the hike, but towards the top, over 10k feet I was having alot of trouble sustaining a pace because my lungs and heart are like those of a lazy american tourist, but fortunately my NOLS legs are still there. After about 3 hours we reached the top and, good god, the view was amazing. There was a group of tough looking teen boys who apparently camped up there and were leaving as we got there with their machetes. We could look down on Xela and see it blanketed in clouds and the mountains to the right (I don´t know what they´re called) which were flanked on their right by an endless ocean of clouds. On the other side of the volcano was an active volcano that was spewing smoke with varying intensity, but we could hear it erupting from far away and it sounded like an airplane. We hung out for a while and took lots of photos and lay in the short fairway.like grass eating and resting. On our way back down there were lots of campesinos (rural folk) who were hanging out atop the peak. I thought it was real rad how a bunch of peasants casually climb this relatively gigantic mountain to hang out for the day while we gringos struggled a great deal of the way. Good for them. There were also a couple groups of young guys who had run up the mountain and ran down it too. The people here are very hardcore. When we reached the bottom of the mountain we took a rest and unlike some too'cool chicagoans I taught the group how to  play energy ball and everyone enjoyed it greatly and I´m pretty sure they weren´t humoring me. So there!  We got to the trailhead and the microbus had returned. I ran into a tienda and bought a glass bottle of orange crush, which is apparently very popular here as many tiendas have the sign hanging above their door, and a glass bottle of agua mineral. It was only 6 Quetzales which is about 88 cents. Incredibly cheap, but the dude short changed me by 1 Quetzal. I didn´t say nothin´becaus
e I´m sure that dude needs the cash and it wasn´t no time to go into jew'mode. Climbing that mountain was probably one of the most satisfying things I´ve ever done. put that in your virtual skullbong and smoke it.

New Jams

Last night after classes a bunch of students and I climbed into a microbus and headed for the other side of town to a semi indoor soccer field that´s about 1/2 size and lit with chain link fence around the perimeter. We split up into 3 teams and played with some of the locals who are friends with the director of the school, Carlos. They were all a lot better than we were, but we had a rad time. The team that got scored on would sub out and the team on the sidelines would come in. I realized that I´m not very good at soccer, but I had a lot of fun for the 1st hour, but my gutz were acting up a little so I chilled for the second HOUR. Yes, we played for 2 hours. My lungs and throat burned like crazy either because the air´s real thin or the pollution is awful combined with the fact that I´m pretty out of shape. About 45 minutes into the game the power went out and we were playing in the dark with the help of the microbus´s headlights shining down the field which made it real tough on the far side to see with the blinding lights in my goalie eyes. The power came back on pretty quickly, but the lights above the field didn´t come on for 20 or so minutes. There were little kids on the other side of the fence lighting off black cats, or the central american equivalent and throwing them wherever they pleased, which sometimes, was through the fence near us. Those kids were jerks, but I guess if your only entertainment were throwing firecrackers at gringos you´d do the same. Good timez.
This morning I ate a hasty breakfast and went to the school at 8 to go on a trip to this market called San Francisco that´s about an hour´s busride away. I went with 2 other students, Karl and Eileen, and our guide, Amaro who is an X guerilla and lived in the mountains for 8 years fighting the man. Fuckin´rad. He doesn´t speak a word of english so our communication was limited, but Eileen speaks pretty well. So we went to a place where all the buses leave from and hopped on a ¨chicken bus¨ which is a pimped out bluebird school bus from north georgia with all kinds of gems. For starters it had a rad stereo system and the driver who looked no more than 23 pumped the hottest jams from this area the whole way. It had all kinds of tinsel on the inside and people crammed in. You know how when you rode the school bus it was a huge pain to actually fill your seat with 3 people, even if you were a small person? Well, here, 3 to a seat goes without saying and people cram in the aisles. Fortunately everyone here´s pretty reasonably sized and not a lot of cram jamz occur. When we got to the Market (and several other times) Amaro reminded us to watch our money and cameras and zippers on our bags for thiefs. We got off the bus and we were in ¨the biggest market in central America¨or so some say. You can buy just about anything you need there, except hi-end electronics. Cows, pigs, birds, dead birds, bird guts, spices, watches, bird feet, toys, shoes, kittens, herbs, clothing, belts, hats, food, small children, JK JK JK, and lots of other crap. There were some other gringos there aside from us. There was one section of the market where two paths intersected and, good christ, there was a lot of shoving and a text book cram jam. There really wasn´t anywhere to go, but you had to push if you wanted to get out of the mess and the hardest pushers were little old ladies 3/5 my size. Fucking insane. I almost fell over at one point, but the little old lady in front of me fell instead and all was well. I picked that broad right on up. It was the least I could do being from the country that so badly fucked up hers. I ended up buying two fabric belts that have some neat embroidery on them and 3 bananas which I´ll eat tomorrow on my way to the volcano that we´re climbing. I avoided getting pickpocketed or stabbed or whatever and feel great about it. After a while we left and got back on the bus where this dude came on and went down the aisle tossing packs of gum or peanuts into people´s laps and then gave them a moment to think about actually giving him a Quetzal for it or letting him retrieve it himself on his way back down the aisle. That´s how it´s done in this here city.

Gutz in Xela

So last night there was a fiesta a la escuela and a posada which is a parade where a bunch of people carry candles on sticks and a nativity scene around town. All the host families were invited and they came and we went on the posada to the parque central then back to the school where they served a dinner of some rice dish and chicken. I asked if they could make me a plate without meat and they said yes, but of course my plate only had less meat than the others and I gave it to my host mother, Rosa, but I still ate some of the chicken sauce and my gutz are a little weird now. After that a bunch of us estudiantes went to a wine bar and hung out then I went home around 10 because I was really hungry. I ate some granola and went to bed. This morning I met up with some pals and we went to a weaving co op owned by the weaving women and bought some souveniers. The lady there was really cool and there were bargains everywhere. Then we went to a restaurant called Baveria and I had an omelette because , for some reason I only got some oatmeal and bread this morning. Usually I get fed better at home, but maybe the food gods have been fighting each other in the last 24 hours and I didn´t get to stuff my face. Apparently my familia owns a tienda, which is a corner store (there are more than you can count on any given street) and there was a whole bunch of pringles and other convenience stoore type food on their kitchen table last night and this morning and I was told that they package the food at their house because there isn´t enough space at the tienda. My Spanish is coming along and I´m able to communicate my thoughts ingeneral with a lot of pauses and thinking and some dictionary use. I don´t yet know the conditional and subjunctive tenses so I probably talk like a 3 or 4 year old. Tonight there´s a soccer match between our shcool and the mountain school somewhere, i´m not sure and I´m looking forward to some running around. On saturday there´s a school trip to some volcano that takes a few hours to climb and I´m really excited about that. I got my hiking boots and everything. The second class busses here are pimped out school busses with crazy paint jobs and chrome plating wherever possible. There´s tons of exhaust in the streets and there´s one intersection on the way back to my house from school that a few students and I call the intersection of death because your chances of getting hit by a car are probably 10 in 100, much higher than most places I´ve been. I´ve crossed that intersection 15 times so far so I´m bound to get hit sooner or later. I´ll write more when more incredibly exciting things happen. Bust out that skullbong and pop this fatty nug on in.