Third Place Is Just the Second Loser

By dint of not getting fired for 18 consecutive months, I've earned a major promotion. You should no longer address me as "Third Secretary and Vice-Consul." That's right, your humble servant is now a "Second Secretary and Vice-Consul." I'm a little hazy on the hierarchy, but I think next is "Ambassador Plenipotentiary" or maybe "Senator for Life."

More thorough updates on recent adventures coming soon.

There is Water Underground

The editorial staff would first like to apologize for another extended break in the publication schedule. We know there is a lot of detritus on the internet you could be wasting your time with, and appreciate your dedication in coming back here from time to time.

Our most recent expedition in Guatemala took us to the Cuevas de Candelaria, which is Spanish for "Caves of Candelaria." The area north of Cobán is pure limestone, and it makes for some amazing landscapes. As reported earlier, there are some amazing cave formations in the region. Our deep inside sources reported that Candelaria, another ninety minutes past Cobán, was the best. Even though we're just barely past the halfway point in our two years in Guatemala, your correspondent is already counting up the three-day weekends we have left and prioritizing which unexplored corners of the region merit a valuable long weekend away. We decided the caves would be worth it, even though the agenda for Labor Day weekend wound up being: Saturday - drive; Sunday - see caves; Monday - drive back. Because your correspondent and his wife both have fully acclimated to the insane driving style of Guatemala, we arrived early and managed to have alittle extra time for relaxation on Saturday.

We stayed at a eco-tourism facility in what might as well be signposted "Middle of Nowhere, Guatemala." Instead, the actual sign read, "Candelaria Ecological and Touristic Complex -- Right 100 meters." There was no road to the right, only cow pasture and jungle. It turns out that the most accurate sign might have read, "Candelaria Ecological and Touristic Complex -- Park Your Car in the Rancher's Driveway, and Start Walking Into the Jungle Here." The walk surely seemed longer than it was, because we were prepared for the Middle of Nowhere, carrying food and wine to last for the long weekend, along with your standard clothes, toiletries, and Boggle. Of course, we arrived at the front gate to find that no outside food or drink would be allowed on the premises. In perhaps not our finest diplomatic hour, we stuffed the wine and other provisions in our packs, choosing to violate their rules rather than walk all the way back to the car. This turned out to be wise, because the food was unsurprisingly expensive and of modest quality, and more crucially, they wouldn't serve you at all outside of the appointed breakfast, lunch and dinner hours. And they had apparently purloined all their silverware (at least they stole it from state sponsors of terrorism).

In any case, we had a fine time relaxing in the gardens surrounding the surprisingly nice accomodations, although to avoid being reprimanded for drinking contraband wine we had to spend a little more time inside than might have been ideal. The clean air was fantastic, and the peace and quite interrupted only by bird calls and the rattling dice preceding each time I crushed Katherine at Boggle. (To be fair, she crushed me at card games, but those are a lot quieter, other than my whimpering.)

So all that is prelude to the actual caves. Unlike the caves in Lanquin, there was no electric lighting and no boardwalks interupting the beauty of the caverns. There were a number of natural "windows," letting in light filtered through the foliage outside. While impressive, your correspondent wasn't sure they were that much cooler than the caves at Lanquin -- but in the afternoon we hiked in to another "ecological and touristic complex" where they offered tours tubing through about a mile-long stretch of river running through the caves. For reasons that I though were obvious, I did not bring the camera on the river-tubing portion of the trip. Apparently not everyone feels this way about taking their camera near water, since our pre-teen local guides asked us why we didn't have a camera along. So, again, you'll have to excuse this writer's lack of flair for capturing the breathtaking, uh, awesomeness of the sights deep inside an underground river where the light would slip in through a small opening far above. You would think that after having a week to think about it, I could do better than that.

Return to Pacaya

Among the very small disappointments regarding our apartment (yes, this is the apartment that is too big for us to clean ourselves, and basically has two entire rooms dedicated to storage of a few scattered items) is the view. We have a lovely view of the hills to the east, but we have only obstructed views of the three volcanoes visible from Guatemala City. However, from our balcony one can see the top of Pacaya, and of late that has included a plume of smoke rising off its peak and even a red glow faintly visible some nights. Having climbed Pacaya and other volcanoes before and having been denied any views of bubbling hot lava, your correspondent knew that the time was right for another trip -- and unlike our recently wed friends Paul and Lisa, we would not be defeated by a pile of dirt.

The climb up Pacaya is actually quite easy, but that doesn't stop enterprising local horse owners from offering rides up the top by trotting up to you on the trail and asking, "Taxi?" It's only an hour or ninety minutes of hiking to the bottom of the recent lava flow, where cows graze near a river of black rock that is a month old but still steaming in places. Another half hour gets you up to where you can see the rocks cracking and tumbling due to the lava flowing underneath. Here and there bright red spots of oozing lava would spill out of the rock, and quickly cool and turn grey. In the center of the river of rock, one could still spot a stream of constantly flowing lava running down the mountain. The staff photographer found it difficult to capture how amazing the sight was, since without the sound of rocks creaking under the stress of heat and pressure, and the motion of the lava breaking through the stones, the volcano looks a lot like a bunch of rocks. Your correspondent's attempt to translate the experience may not be much more artful, but that makes it no less true: Seeing hot lava is awesome.


For many a lava-loving tourist, this was the end of the road, but being the superbly fit and adventurous souls that we are, we continued up the sandy cone to the summit, where views were often completely obscured by the steam pouring out of various cracks in the mountaintop. But the crazy colors and rock formations resulting from sulphur deposits were also noted as "awesome."

The trip back down was much more crowded, as large groups of climbers were gathered near the lava flows. Many American tourists clambered out on the still-cooling lava, often just a few feet away from fresh flows, apparently unaware that in a Guatemalan National Park, unlike Yellowstone, there may not be a sign saying "CAUTION: DO NOT TOUCH BURNING LAVA," or even a fence to protect people from their own curiosity. The Americans were not unique in their foolishness. The majority of the crowd was Guatemalan, and they were doing the same stuff. But your correspondant, who moonlights as an ever-vigilant Vice Consul and Third Secretary, couldn't help but distinguish the two: none of the Guatemalans were going to require Embassy emergency assistance when their five-year-old fell in a stream of burning lava.

A lot of the Guatemalans seemed to be making a day of the short hike, which was a pleasure to see. There really aren't very many safe outdoor spaces in this country, so it appeared that many families were enjoying the safety of the crowds to get outdoors for a day. On the way down, we passed people carrying all manner of things up the mountain. In addition to a couple women wearing flip-flops and carrying babes-in-arms, we saw people hauling up picnic items like plastic grocery bags full of supplies, two-liter bottles of pepsi, and a boom-box blasting out some unidentified soft-rock tune from the '80s in the vein of Jefferson Starship. Those were topped by vendors carrying up baskets of tortillas, pre-made platters with chicken and rice, and one entrepreneur carrying fifty or so bags of cotton candy for sale. Just when we thought we had seen it all, we saw two women carrying between them a platter of souvenir plates reading "Volcan Pacaya" and each bearing what was presumably an actual rock from the mountain. I didn't have the heart to tell them that there were already plenty of rocks on top of the mountain, but I assume they already knew that because they had clearly been up before to carry these very rocks down in order to glue them to the little plates. Even if the letigiousness that would lead to more warning signage isn't present yet, the Guatemalans are surprisigly ahead of us in presenting National Park visitors with convenient consumer opportunities.

Helpless

Yesterday was Guatemala City's Saint Day holiday. I don't know who the patron saint is. There didn't seem to be much revelry in the streets -- it was a pretty relaxed holiday. The important factor in yesterday's observance is that it was on a Tuesday, which is the one day a week that Sylvia comes by. She didn't come this week. This place is a disaster. I have totally forgotten how to operate a broom, let alone the dishwasher. The kitchen floor has a noticeable level of grime. The laundry is piling up -- I had no choice but to wear my 8th most favorite pair of underwear today, which I had totally forgotten existed after going to a steady seven-day rotation. My world is falling apart around me. Why does everything have to be so difficult? Why does fate mock me so?

Your job may suck...

But at least you don't have to carry a table around on your head.

My Day in Court

Your correspondent's current daytime assignment is supporting American citizens who run into trouble here in the Land of Eternal Spring. Mostly, that means replacing passports for long-term residents or those who are pickpocketed or careless. Sometimes it involves more serious trouble, like those who wind up in jail, or worse.

I was recently sent in the role of moral support for an American who was testifying in a murder trial. He had been here once before, but the Guatemalan court wouldn't let him testify because his passport only had one last name on it. Now he was back to suffer through more legalistic wrangling and questioning in what was clearly not his primary language. Because I was there in an official capacity, I probably shouldn't comment on any more details of the case, or present any opinions on the fairness or efficiency of the Guatemalan legal system that could be in variance with the official opinion of the United States. Ahem.

Stating the pure objective facts, it was interesting to see the less-than-imposing courtroom they used, which was your basic plaster-and-flourescent-light office space, with a panel of theree judges, and two lawyers each for the prosecution and the defense each sitting at what looked like 1970's-era standard issue government desks. The lawyers sat on opposite sides of the judges, facing their opponents. The really stylish touch was the sign behind each team of lawyers -- one reading "defensa" and the other reading "Ministerio Publico" (the Guatemalan version of the attorney general's office) -- printed by dot-matrix printer on 8 1/2" x 11" inkjet paper, held to the wall with strapping tape with the glue leeching a yellow cast into the paper, and each bearing it's own Powerpoint-style clip art of a group of men in suits (presumably lawyers). On the Clip-art for the Defense, some long-gone grafitti artist had darkened in the glasses of one of the lawyers, giving their team a certain bad-ass flair.

The event was extremely well documented, with a photographer and reporter there from every newspaper and TV station. They took a few pictures of the accused, and a lot more of the young witness, striking a blow for accurate reporting by thrusting their cameras within a couple feet of the subject's face, in case any of his pores or blackheads becomes a critical detail in the trial. Then they sat around, generally bored, while the judges debated points of procedure, and the prosecution asked a series of background questions. They sprung back into action in unison when the judges announced the decision on allowing the young man to testify even though his passport only had three of the required four names on it (they decided to provisionally allow him to testify for now, but if they could not provide further documentation of his identity soon, the testimony would be disregarded). And when the prosecution asked particularly pivotal questions, the cameras would start snapping, as if the picture of the witness responding to an important question would be substantially different than the hundred other pictures of him they already had.

Several of the key witnesses "could not be located," so the prosecution was given another date in two weeks to get them to turn up, so there was no resolution on this day. So the report will have to end there, possibly to be continued, but given the circumstances, probably not.

We Are About to Begin Our Final Descent

If you thought that we could sink no lower after joining the ranks of SUV owners, think again.

There are certain hardships involved with living far away from one's family, in a strange culture, in a city with a crime rate so high that it makes Detroit look like Dekatur. But when one's cheif complaint about his living situation is that the apartment is so big he can't keep up with sweeping the floors, one can't help but start counting the days until he fully embodies the charicature of the pampered ex-patriate sipping cocktails and complaining about how hard it is to find good help.

To ease the terrible burden of sweeping our own gargantuan apartment (or more accurately, the burden of walking around with blackened feet because we haven't bothered to sweep the layer of settled diesel particulate and volcanic ash off our floor in a week (and further to avoid looking at the grime on our feet and thinking about how that stuff winds up on our floor because it's so prevalent in the air we breathe every day)), we hired a maid. Sylvia comes by once a week, and we pay her a ridiculously small amount to spend a whole day cleaning our kitchens and watering our plants, doing laundry and breathing the toxic fumes of the solvents used to clean a whole bottle of purple nail polish (not mine) off the bathroom floor. And yet if you told the Guatemalan families who live above and below us what we pay Sylvia, they would either pity us for getting suckered into such a terrible deal, or scorn us for driving up wages for the whole neighborhood. Or both. Not unlike the SUV, we wound up hiring Sylvia because one of our colleagues who had formerly employed her was departing. He recommended her highly and we almost felt responsible for what would happen to her without income every Tuesday, and there was that quarter inch of soot lining every flat surface in our apartment, so you can see we really had no choice.

I think we were the only couple in the entire Embassy that didn't have a maid yet. Some families with small children have a full-time nanny plus a maid and maybe a gardener, as well. In fact, fairly often someone either from the embassy or the outside world would want to come by to do some maintenance on the apartment, and ask when someone would be around to let them in. We would reply that we both work, and can't take time off to come hang out and wait for the cable guy, to which they would explain, "You don't have to be there, the maid can let us in." When we revealed that we didn't have a maid, we would get a look of confusion, and then the service provider would just give up, which is why we've been "borrowing" wireless internet from the neighbors for longer than I should probably admit in this public forum.

Now we've had a one-day-a-week maid for several weeks. It does feel like we're living someone else's life. At first, it grated on our American sense of rugged individualism and our distrust of snobbery and noblesse oblige and the Coastal Liberal Elites Who Are Tearing Our Country Away from the Heartland Values that Made Us Great. But it is effing awesome to come home on Tuesdays and have the house spotless and the laundry folded and the dishes done. And to spend all those hours that could have been wasted on sweeping instead on composing a thousand-word blog entry about not sweeping, or other such productive pursuits.

It is, at times, a little weird to find all of the pants, both male and female, mixed in one stack on the Lovely Katherine's side of the closet; or that rather than our fluffy neutral-colored bath towels, the bathroom has been restocked with ratty rainbow-colored beach towels and a golf towel that says "Fox Hill Country Club;" or that we're still not sure where she decided the measuring cups are stored, so your correspondent just figures a coffee mug must be about one cup and wings it at least until we hire a cook. But do not misconstrue such notes as greivances. At least in your correspondent's mind, he has not yet crossed the at-least-internally-important line between hiring help and complaining about it -- I figure we have to maintain some milestones for the second year of our descent.

Another boring church

The facade of the church in San Andres Xecul, a small town outside of Quetzaltenango. Fortunately there wasn't direct sunlight on it or our eyes might have been permanently damaged.

A Superhero for Our Times

Enemies of fried food beware -- Super Pollo is packing a machete! Once he works out the opposable thumb, you're in real trouble!

On the Road Again

We enjoyed a cleverly constructed almost-four-day weekend a few days ago. Friday, June 30 was Army Day or War Day or Tank Day or something. On Thursday, the American People needed me in Sololá, near Lake Atitlán, a couple hours away from Guatemala City. So, I went and conducted the business I had at the Sololá jail (which, like most modern prisons, is practically indistinguishable from a country club) on Thursday morning and then took the afternoon off.

Equipped, as we were, with our new and insufficiently tested mini-SUV, we declared, "Screw the rain and the mudslides." The Highlands were calling our names. We checked to make sure none of the roads we were planning to travel were closed at the particular moment, and after a stroll through Sololá, continued West to Quetzaltenango.

Quetzaltenango, also known as Xela, is Guatemala's second city. It's a fair sight nicer than Guatemala City, with an actual Indian restaurant and an attractive downtown. We enjoyed a quick meal and then headed for Zunil, a small town that's supposed to have a pretty church and their own version of the local idol Maximón. As we passed through Almolonga, another tiny town on the way, we spied ferris wheels over the rooftops, and screeched to a halt to check it out. It must have been the town's annual fair, as the streets were packed with midway games and amusement park rides. We saw a dance performance featuring costumed characters, a performance by Guatemala's most famous modern marimba band, and the candle- and neon-lit church. We also played a quick couple games of Lotería, a bingo game for players of all education levels that uses pictures instead of letters and numbers on the grid. The Lovely Katherine, being a master of all bingo-related games, promptly won the second game. She was awarded a prize of five drinking glasses decorated with a daffodil pattern. She denied that she had attempted to throw the game, and passed on her prize to a young volunteer who had aided her in avoiding some obvious strategic blunders when her victory drew near.

The next day we enjoyed a luxurious breakfast in an almost American-quality coffee shop, and then plotted a course through Huehuetenango for Todos Santos Cuchumatan. Todos Santos is on the far side of a precipitous climb up the mountainside from Huehue, and then a dirt road back down the other side. It is a tiny town in a gorgeous valley, and draws a modest but disproportionate number of tourists because the men as well as the women still dress in their traditional colorful garb. The place couldn't have been more picturesque, nor the residents more tired of having their picture taken. One highlight was a dinner in a tiny comedor, where we ate fried chicken and were joined at the dinner table by one of the main course's survivors.

The weekend had been a smashing success, and wasn't over yet. We went back south along the highway and then turned east to climb another pretty mountain ridge and arrive in Momostenango, which we selected because they supposedly make the finest blankets in Guatemala, and it's a funny place name, to boot. We pulled into Momostenango at about 3:00 on Saturday. At about 3:15, we decided to spend another evening in Xela, and then back to Guatemala the next day, figuring that having a fantastic time at two of our three intended destinations would have to be enough for one trip.

[Photo department note: Due to the new camera, the photo department is taking more pictures than ever, and spending more time than ever trying to edit them. These photos were grabbed for the purpose of illustration, actually carefully selected photos coming soon.]

In which we surrender

The Lovely Katherine and your correspondent have a long-running disagreement as to whether we live in "the suburbs" or not. In a political sense, we live well within the boundaries of Guatemala City. In an aesthetic sense, there's not much in terms of street-level retail, pedestrian infrastructure, or other markers of true urban living in our neighborhood. In a criminal sense, some not-too-distant neighbors were recently followed into their garage by armed goons and tied up while their jewelry and electronics were stolen, which seems pretty urban to me. (Note to worried relatives: we live in an apartment building with security features that would make such a robbery attempt much more difficult, and thus extraordinarily rare.) In the end, it doesn't matter whether we classify as "suburban" or not, and I keep up the semantic fight just because my inner urban hipster is screaming about the implications of living in the suburbs: that we're old and have had all our rough edges sanded off.

But it's impossible to fight the facts any more. Katherine works at a school a few miles north of the city proper (but decidedly not suburban), and the last bit of her daily commute is on a dirt road that gets pretty treacherous during the rainy season. We also do a fair amount of bumping around the precipitous, unmarked speed bumps and domestic-appliance-sized potholes of Guatemala's highways and small towns. Which is all rationalization, powerless to stop the pure cold facts of our yuppie-dom:

We bought an SUV.

It's a small SUV, but an SUV nonetheless. A departing embassy employee was trying to unload his Kia Sportage before moving back to DC. The car does not meet US emissions standards (and also has windows tinted well past what seems reasonable, but I'm not sure if they would be technically street-legal in the US or not), so keeping it wasn't an option for him, and he was in a mood to sell. I don't suffer any illusions that a Kia Sportage is a particularly manly SUV (especially if you pronounce it in the French manner - "sport-AAAHJ"), it just seemed like a smart purchase in terms of safety. Of course, I'm sure that's just what you would hear from my SUV owning brethren, cruising the highways of America in their Expeditions and Yukons and Hummers.

Trapped in Guate

Our normally frenetic pace of Central American exploration has ground to a halt of late. In part, we've seen everything that's easy to see on a two-day weekend trip. But return visits or slightly more ambitious expeditions have been stymied by harsh reminders that we are in the developing world. Most of the major roads out of town have suffered either derrumbes (landslides onto and blocking the road) or hundimientos (landslides out from under the road, often taking a good chunk of the road with it).

Tropical Storm Stan (also alternately known as Hurricane Stan, because it sounds better though it may or may not be technically accurate) caused many of these roads to wash out, and the Guatemalans responded with an aggressive chewing-gum-and-duct-tape campaign to patch the roads up. Being fair, there's just no money in the coffer to do much else. Be that as it may, it's not surprising that one month of the six-month-long rainy season has already washed away most of their jury-rigged repairs so much as it's surprising that the repairs lasted this long to begin with.

In any case, there is still plenty to be seen, we'll just have to refocus our efforts on the pleasures of the more immediate region.

Big ups to the family

About six weeks ago, I gave up on the visa interviewing bit. Or rather, I rotated into the American Citizen Services section. "What the hell does that mean?" I can hear you asking. Mostly it means that instead of doing interviews to see if Guatemalans qualify for visas, I do interviews to see if purported Americans qualify for passports. This breaks into three types of interviews:

1. Obvious gringos who got pickpocketed or robbed while on vacation, and need a new passport to get home. These interviews are easy and boring.
2. Ex-pats who may look like gringos or may be of mostly Guatemalan blood in for routine renewals. These interviews are easy and boring.
3. Kids ranging from age two to age eighteen claiming that they were born in the US when their parents were there illegally, and then they were sent off to live with Grandma in Guatemala when they were a few months old and now they want a US passport for the first time. These interviews are nearly impossible.

The other part of the job is being on call at all hours in case any American is arrested, hospitalized, victimized, or killed. The two big cases I've had to work on so far have been gentlemen with various forms of mental illness who have been living on the streets of Guatemala for an unknown period of time, and now need help getting back to the US.

(Little known fact for US Citizen readers: if you are destitute in a foreign country, your government will pay to send you home. Until doing the training for consular work, it never would have occurred to me if I completely ran out of money to go to the Embassy and ask for a ticket home. A lot of folks apparently have no such mental barriers, and come in asking for money until they realize that we're going to call their mommy first, then loan them money and cancel their passport for further adventures.)

These gentlemen were true hard-luck cases, and the worst part was that they had nobody in the world who would help them. We contacted each of their parents, none of whom were willing to provide any assistance in bringing their kids home. I guess I was hoping for a somewhat higher level of diplomacy then trying to get mom and son to patch things up when I signed up for this gig. Anyway, a big thanks to all the folks back home who would spot me airfare to get home if I fell and hit my head on the sidewalk in Guatemala, which is sadly not something everyone can count on.

Appropriate Force

Today I felt like a true diplomat. Or was it a cop? I represented our country in formally signing the papers to accept custody of a guy who was being extradited from Guatemala to the United States. The handover happened in a room probably no bigger than 12 feet on a side, which turned out to hold at least nine Guatemalan National Police carrying automatic weapons, wearing helmets, with faces covered, as if there might be a riot in the airport. These nine heavily armed guys, plus a couple of my fellow bureacrats, handed over the prisoner to the US, represented by me and two Deputy US Marshals who were dressed like they were going to the beach. I guess the beach attire made them inconspicuous on the airplane, to whatever extent you can blend in when you're leading around a guy in handcuffs.

In Which We Are Stung by Plants, Accosted by Spiders, and Peed on by Monkeys

Your correspondent has, at various times, described visits to ancient ruins as having a certain "Indiana Jones" flair, whether because of daunting travels to get there or the overgrown remnants of long-lost cultures discovered in the jungle. Over the Memorial Day weekend, your correspodent and three trusted companions undertook an adventure, more Indiana-Jones-y than any previous: A three-day trek through the jungle from two less-known ruin sites to Tikal. Or, at least, the Yaxha and Nakum ruins were formerly in a logjam tie for last among the non-Tikal ruins of Guatemala's northern jungle. Then they were the setting for the Guatemala installment of the runaway CBS hit and bug-eating-for-fun-and-profit extravaganza that is "Survivor." The jungle trek was fantastic, but we did discover almost instantly that if you are scouting locations for appropriately large and disgusting bugs to make people eat, Guatemala's Peten region is not a bad spot.

On Friday evening we flew from Guatemala City to Flores, a charming town on an island in a lake and the base camp for many trips to Tikal, where we stayed the night. The next morning, as we searched for breakfast, we discovered many of the sidewalks to be covered with inch-and-a-half-long beetles that looked to have been washed off the rooves above by the night's rain, although the locals had not acheived concensus on where they had actually come from. Having already seen the required exotic creepy-crawlies and had not set out from civilization yet, but decided to soldier on anyway.

The guide service we had hired picked us up at 8:00, looked at our packs, and gently reminded us that we would have to carry our own packs on the third day because the packhorses could not take that part of the trail. Again we soldiered on, taking a mini-bus to the Yaxha ruins, an hour or so outside of Flores on the road to Belize. We were met by Joel (in Spanish, "HO-el") who would be leading us through the jungle for the next few days. Joel was about 5'6", totally ripped, with veins bulging out of his neck, home-made tattoos on his arms, and sporting a bandanna and a handlebar mustache. He looked more than a little like a pirate. Joel had previously been a xatero, i.e. he made a living hacking his way through the jungle collecting xate leaves, which are used in flower arranging. Currently, xateros make about $5 for a 12-hour day of work.

We took a brief tour of the Yaxha ruins, and took in the view of the lake from the restored temple. I really felt the spirit of "Survivor" in me at that moment. Like much of the Peten, Yaxha is home to howler monkeys (which don't howl so much as the growl like angry pack of dogs) and leaf-cutter ants (which cut huge (well, huge for ants) trails from their anthills to their latest victim).

That afternoon we hiked 10 miles or so -- mostly through thick jungle. Joel carried a machete, which people do here just as a matter of course, but Joel actually used his on many occasions to hack open the path through the jungle. He said the last time anyone used this trail was about two months ago, allowing plenty of time for re-growth and for trees to fall onto the path.

We slept at the ruins of Nakum, which was a more compact site than Yaxha, with lots of trees growing on the old temples, but enough restored or still-exposed sections to make it feel like ruins and not just funny-shaped hills. One of the highest buildings had a tall tree growing off the top with rickety ladders leading up to jury-rigged observation platforms that allowed great views of the jungle and a bunch of wild parrots. (We also saw a couple wild toucans later in the trip, but the staff photographer was a little slow with the camera.)

Hacking through the jungle that day, we were attacked by at least two families of spider monkeys. Upon hearing people approaching, the spider monkeys start jumping up and down and shaking tree limbs to try to scare away potential attackers. They pursue this tactic for about a minute before they mix in throwing sticks and branches and urinating on anyone in range. They are well known to throw their poo, as well, but nobody in the party could confirm any poo-related injuries. On that day's hike, we brushed by some plants that instantly started burning and left huge welts on our arms, and a bug that our guide said had urine that burned as well. Apparently burning and peeing are the jungle's two defense mechanisms, and this bug had combined them into a kind of super-jungle-attack. We were careful to provide him no reason to use it.

Speaking of burning, there was no organized campsite the second night, so Joel cleared out a spot that someone had used before and "sanitized" it by setting palm fronds on fire and then sweeping them over the dirt. We slept in hammocks with a thankfully unnecessary tarp slung over us.

The last day quickly changed from the first two when we ran into a flooded spot in the trail, requiring hiking for a while though standing, and quite smelly, water. The muddy conditions continued, which allowed for spotting a number of turtles and tons of jaguar tracks, but also allowed us to spend hours of the trip clinging to the less-flooded high ground along the sides where the trail met the jungle, or hopping from foot-sized island to island along the trail in a kind of long, tiring version of Frogger. It was all worth it though when we saw the coolest piece of wildlife of the trip (well maybe second to the acid-peeing bug), a huge tarantula. It's body was even bigger than the three-inch cockroach we had seen a day before. Actually, we saw two tarantulas, the larger of which was hanging out on the only passable piece of the flooded trail, a slippery log. Your correspondent's arachnophobic companion impressed all parties by calmly stepping over the tarantula, which our guide unconvincingly promised was "more scared of us than we were of it."

After a hike that took a couple hours longer than promised due to the slogging and the island-hopping and such, we finally made it to Tikal. We were almost too tired to actually go see any of it, but as we always do, we soldiered on. It was a gorgeous day, much sunnier than the previous trip, with great views of and from the temples.

Thoroughly exhausted, we took the shuttle back to the Flores airport, ready to leave the giant cockroaches and giant spiders and giant beetles and mushrooms and such behind us. In their wake, we managed to keep a piece of the Peten with us: your correspondent was still finding ticks on his person two days after our return. (If anyone knows more than Google about whether there's Lyme Disease in Guatemala, feel free to Holla Back.)

Genuine draft flavor

Those of you still looking for a reason to come to Guatemala can stop your search. Our most recent visitor and jumped right in to the local culture by having a delicious Gallo beer -- "the pride and tradition of Guatemala," it says right there on the bottle. We recently learned about one link in the chain that the Gallo brand uses to maintain its stranglehold on the Guatemalan market. They hold the Guatemalan copyright the names of virtually every other beer. So if Guinness or Bud wants import their products while maintaining their quite substantial brand, they have to give the Gallo company an apparently prohibitive cut of the profits. So, by and large, Gallo it is here, but fret not: Rob Onorato, who has had a beer or two, declared that Gallo tastes like "Nat(ural) Light -- but Natty Light from a keg, not from a can." Get the ad wizards working on that one!

Sadly for those of you in America who are don't get to enjoy the taste of Natty Light on tap as often as you would like, don't be fooled. Another Gallo company -- the one run by brothers Ernest and Julio -- holds the copyright for "Gallo" brand alcoholic beverages in the US, and prevents you from getting a bottle of Gallo properly labeled in the States. Rather, it is sold under the name "Famoso," so keep your eyes peeled. I've actually seen it at one of the liquor stores on 14th St NW in DC, although the sign next door promising fast wire transfers to Guatemala may have had something to do with that. It's not clear whether the Gallo company here learned this copyright skulduggery from the Gallos in the US, or if it was what the Guatemalans call "karmic payback."

In non-Guatemalan news

The editorial staff tries to keep this journal focused on items that have some Guatemalan angle, in an effort to keep the content interesting for US audiences and distinguish the publication from the millions of "what I did today" blogs out there. Thus, the occasional large gaps in the publication schedule when nothing of uniquely Guatemalan import happens. This entry is an exception.

I scored 131 points on a single word in Scrabble last night, crushing my opponent's will to continue playing. Now I know how the Redskins felt in Super Bowl XXII. Feel free to "Holla Back" if you can top that -- I know it's possible, as there were no Q's or Z's in my word.

In which I impart my knowledge of the lively arts to the benighted locals

The Guatemalan print media offer a broad array of journalistic styles, appealing to various segments of the reading public. Just like Americans can choose between the lunchpail directness of the New York Post or the bourgie semi-sophistication of the New York Times, Guatemalans can choose between the near-New York Post-level sophistication of the Prensa Libre, or the sub-literate-level sophistication of Nuestro Diario and many options in between. It is left as an exercise for the reader to decide where the Holla falls on this scale. While the Prensa Libre tends to feature pictures of congressmen staring off camera in important hearings, the Diario tends to feature young women staring directly at camera in as little as possible. The common ground that unites them all is the evergreen of Guatemalan photojournalism, the picture of someone recently murdered in the street with a family member kneeling nearby, their grief made public for the country by the valiant free press.

In an effort to inspire the Guatemalan photo corps to stretch a little, the Embassy has started an annual contest for the local photogs, awarding prizes in a variety of categories. As an American who the Press Officer has spotted holding a camera before, your correspondent was invited to serve as a judge. After wading through and eliminating all the pictures of murder victims on the street, there were some excellent, striking pictures (and a few not-so-striking pictures) left. Considering that the camera used by a staff photographer at the Greeley Tribune is probably worth what the Pensa Libre photographers make in a year, plenty of slack was allowed on certain technical dimensions. But even in categories with titles like "Extraordinary Citizens," "This is My Country," or, "Teamwork," half the pictures were of dead people and mourning relatives, some more artfully shot than the others. Despite the subject matter, it was a bit odd to think that your correspondent, who routinely takes pictures like this, was judging the work of these dedicated professionals.

At the end of the evening, they announced winners by name and sometimes by title of the picture. Unfortunately, they didn't announce them by descriptive phrases like "The picture of the helicopter dropping aid to disaster victims," or "The one with the sunset and the fluffy clouds over the volcano," or "The portrait of the President of Guatemala and Ronald McDonald" (all actual pictures -- the last of which was a finalist in the "Extraordinary Citizens" category, by default), so this judge left the competition having no idea whether his opinions corresponded with those of the expert celebrity judge (a University of Texas journalism professor). The winners and their friends all seemed delighted with their prizes, and thus the event seemed to be having its desired effect for both the Embassy and the invitees, so it seemed for the best that I not shatter their illusions of competence in the majority of the judging pool.

Meritorious!

Today was the Annual Embassy Awards Ceremony. It was long, and lacked any edge-of-the-seat suspense, but it was a nice day to be outside and it was unanimously declared to be better than working. Because we're the government, and because Congress keeps telling us to do more stuff while tightening the pursestrings, none of the Guatemalan employees got a raise this year. So, in a backdoor effort to keep morale high, they give just about everybody some sort of award, ranging from recognition for 25 years of service to one full year of driving embassy vehicles without an accident (actually the latter is probably more impressive, given Guatemala traffic and the levels of incompetence required to be fired by the government). It seemed that everyone in the embassy shook the Ambassador's hand at some point today. You might think that the Special Olympics everyone-gets-an-award approach might limit their value in the eyes of the recipients, but it seems like mostly everyone likes to be told they're great and they can quickly forget that everyone else was great, too. Of course, my award was different, as I fully deserved a little recognition for all my hard work saving lives back when Hurricane Stan breezed through the country.

Of Our Attractive Balcony

Today at 9:00 in the morning, the young gent who works the front desk at our apartement building called to see if the guys who are painting our balcony could come up. Seeing as it was the first we'd ever heard of it, we had some further questions about what exactly they would be painting (the exterior wall) and whether they needed to come through our apartment (yes) and whether they were sure they needed to come through our apartment (still yes).

Yesterday, while sitting on our couch, I had seen the bottom half of a ladder dangling from above. Maybe I've lost my sense of childlike wonder for ridiculous workplace risks; I didn't even get up to investigate. Just as well: Today we witnessed their strategy firsthand. Two workers arrived, one tied himself into a harness, then tied himself to the ladder. The other guy secured a second rope to the ladder, which they then swung over the side of the balcony. The ladder -- not the rope. Non-harness guy wrapped the rope attached to the ladder around his foot a couple times and then stood on it to keep the ladder from falling any further. Then the other guy climbed down the suspended ladder and painted the outside of the balcony. I'm sure they were making about 15 bucks a day to take these kind of risks in service of a building that didn't seem to really be in that desparate need of painting. We drank our french-press coffee and ate garlic-and-tomato omelettes and watched.