I want to wish you a merry christmas from the bottom of my heart.

Feliz Navidad!
     Although the weather is indicating otherwise, the Christmas season has once again snuck up on me, and by the time I even realize it's December, we're getting ready to celebrate midnight mass and place the baby Jesus in the manger.  This is my first Christmas away from the frozen tundra of Minnesota, and I have to admit that I do miss all my family and friends very much.  That being said, with the Vikings' season going the way it is and Minnesota weather so bad it is making international headlines, I can't help but wonder if this is a good Christmas to miss.

 No, literally.  This is the front page of the Guatemalan national newspaper.

 That reads "snowfall hits the United States"

"Hundreds of drivers were trapped in their cars by the snow in Minneapols, Minnesota.  In the Northeastern (sic) United States"

     Even though I'm admittedly not the biggest fan of winter, I have found it nearly impossible to get into the Christmas spirit without frigid weather and snow all around (and especially without the horribly dangerous Christmas tradition of tobogganing across Highway 63).  True, Guatemalans definitely get in the Christmas spirit, and also true, many Christmas songs translate well into Spanish (who wouldn't want to listen to "Rudolf el Reno" or "Frosty el Hombre de Nieve"?), but I just haven't been much in the Christmas spirit, which I think is a good thing as it has lessened the homesickness around this time of season.  That being said, I'm in good health, and good spirits.  People here are especially happy around the holidays, and the weather has been around 60 degrees during the day, so all in all I can't complain, even if I wanted to. 
     In the spirit of the holidays I'll keep this blog short on words and long on pictures.  Here are some pictures of Esquipulas around the holiday time for your ocular entertainment.

     This is the sandlot where they often have soccer games.  It got all decorated for the holiday season.  On the 23rd the Alcalde (mayor) of Esquipulas put on a big show here.  They blocked off both main streets and had a big stage with music, DJs, dancing, and fireworks.  One of the highlights of the evening was the "lluvia de tamales" which basically meant a bunch of people threw prepackaged tamales into the crowd.  After enjoying this spectacle I returned to the monastery at 8:58 to find that the guards had already left (2 minutes early!) and I was locked out of the monastery.  After wandering around for about 10 minutes I found a guard who didn't have keys, but had the phone number of someone who had the phone number of someone who could bring the keys.  30 minutes later I was able to get back to my room.

     Nacimientos, Nativity scenes, are a pretty big deal here.  This particular one is right when you walk in the living area of the monastery.  I got to help with it a little!  The only downside is that Danilo, the guy who made it, has some strange obsession with the christmas lights that beep out holiday tunes.  I've had "we wish you a merry christmas" in my head for the pas week.

 This one is right outside of the dining hall.  In the main gathering area of the monastery.

 This is the public nativity scene.  The Mary and Joseph are about 3/4 human size.

 It's pretty impressive.  It even has a real water river running through it!  Apparently they pull thousands of quetzales out at the end of every season.

 This is one of the three nativity scenes at a Franciscan monastery I visited.  It's behind bars, but the figures are all about 3/4 life size, and surprisingly detailed.  Apparently they were brought over from Italy.

 Nacimiento in the style of Mayan art.

     The following pictures are all of one of the most impressive nativity scenes I have ever seen.  It was about 10 feet wide and 5 feet deep and absolutely full with figures.  The detail was really amazing.

 Mary and Joseph with all the animals and angels.

 Get it?  "no hay" posada (no room at the inn)... haha, Franciscan humor.

 The magi making their way over one of the mountains chalk full of other figurines.

 Depiction of Antigua Guatemala before the volcano in the background destroyed it.

 Just for an idea of the size of this thing!

     All in all this has been an interesting Christmas season for me.  Although it is far from what I'm used to, I have really enjoyed myself and have learned a lot of new things and experienced a very different culture.  Tonight begins the monastic celebrations of Christmas, starting at 6:30 pm and going straight until 11 tonight, then continuing right on through to tomorrow, which I'm sure will be an adventure!

I hope all of you have enjoyed this Christmas, and I wish you the Merriest of Christmases, Happiest of Hanukkahs, Sauciest of Saturnalias, Fanciest of Festivuses (okay, that one already passed), and the Wackiest of Winter Solstices.  I hope you are with family and friends, or if you are not so lucky, that you are at least like me, and in a great place with great friends.

La Virgen de Guadalupe

     This last Sunday, the 12th of December brought the celebration of the Virgin of Guadalupe to Esquipulas.  Although, as a few people I've talked to have mentioned, the Virgin of Guadalupe is a Mexican icon, she is still very celebrated in Guatemala.  This is actually a decently unique celebration n Esquipulas because, so I'm told, not many pilgrims come for this celebration, making it one of the only celebrations attended mostly by Esquipultecos.  The celebrations started at around 1:00 and were marked, as always, by hundreds of people lighting off hundreds of fireworks.  The Virgin of Guadalupe is celebrated by some 20-30 people hoisting what looked like an unbelievably heavy statue onto their shoulders and parading her all throughout town.

     One of the more interesting parts of the day was the costumes that people dressed their children in.

 They say they dress the little boys up like this to represent Juan Diego, but I think the real motive might be "Let's see what you'll look like in 20 years"

     This is Carmencita, the daughter of one of the men I work with.  The native dress on the girls doesn't represent anything.  Just a chance to make your kids look really cute.

And what would a celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe be without an army of boys who have painted their whole body with black oil paint?  While everyone I asked seemed to have a different answer, the most reliable seemed to be that these boys represent the slaves and that the Virgen of Guadalupe came for the indigenous and the slaves.

     The procession kicked off around 1:00 with great fanfare.   Fireworks, prayer, chants:  "Se siente se siente, Maria esta presente!" and one of my personal favorites "Denme un M... M. Denme un A... A. Denme un R... R. Denme un I... I.  Denme un A... A, what's that spell?  MARIA MARIA MARIA."  It was a very jovial atmosphere and it was pretty easy to get swept up in the excitement up everything, and before I knew it I was marching right along with everyone!

 (I always wondered why everyone is able to pick me out of a crowd so easily)

     The procession was fun in that the streets of Eqsuipulas were completely packed with all sorts of people all there for the Virgen of Guadalupe.  However, a problem came when the procession (including the immense statue) needed to make a 90 degree turn down the main street, which was also packed full of people.  At first the police came through and tried to clear people out.  Maybe 3-4 people moved.  Then the boys in black paint came through.  To avoid being stained black, enough people cleared to let them through.  Then the police realized that if they worked with the black boys, they could move more people, and a fragile alliance was born.

An alliance which lasted only until someone gave the boys some drinking water, which they though would be best used by spitting it on the police officer.

     This technique moved quite a few people, but not nearly enough to fit the statue through.  It looked as though the procession was at a standstill until some enterprising person through an entire box of firecrackers into the crowd.  That did the trick.

     They say that necessity is the mother of invention.  Well, I'd like to contribute evidence to support that claim.  I mentioned earlier that people were avoiding the painted boys because their paint was nowhere near colorfast.  This was a nearly impossible task due to the sheer number of people and the fact that the boys seemed to make it their goal to stain as many people as possible.  And thus was born the paper towel salesman.  This man never left the side of this mass of black paint and flesh, and sold paper towels for a mere 1 Quetzal each.

He's the man on the right of the picture, holding his paper towels, open for business.

     When the procession finally reached the destination, La Parroquia, and ended with a mass, I was able to reflect a little on this awesome tradition.  It was truly amazing that they were able to get all of Esquipulas together for this religious gathering, and a true testament to the power of faith and tradition in this small Guatemalan town.  Aside from the faith of the people involved, the sheer number of people who came out for this event was really amazing.

 Notice that in the picture above all the people are turned away from the camera, and are facing the camera in the picture below.  The crowd stretched as far as the eye could see in both directions.

Volcano Ipala

I was sitting at the lunch table the other day discussing one of the monks' favorite topics: What I've seen in Guatemala, what I haven't seen, then half-hearted plans made to visit these places.  In the middle of this discussion Brother Abraham asks me if I have seen Volcán Ipala, the volcano with the lake at the top.  I hadn't, but I had heard all about it.  He responded that he would call his brothers and, "si Dios quiere" we would make plans to go Thursday.   I thought it was just another saying, but as Thursday drew near he had made ore plans, and this outing had become a veritable family reunion, with all 3 of his brothers and one of his 2 sisters and all of their families, "si Dios quiere."  Come Thursday morning, apparently Dios quería, because we were on the road.  We made three or four stops along the way to pick up family members waiting alongside the road, and before long we had two trucks full, with more people sitting in the truck bed.  Inside the truck was Abraham's sister, her daughter, and her grandchildren.  It's always fun to meet new people, and it was really entertaining to hear them try and teach the little girl to say "burro:"
-bujo
-no, burro, say rrrrrro
-buyo
-no, burrrrrrrro, burrrro
-budjo
-no, burrro, rrrrro
-si

     With the entertainment in the back, not much time passed before we were looking out the window at what would soon be yet another notch in my belt.

     We had heard that there was a possible back route up the volcano which would allow us to make it all the way up in cars, avoiding the necessity of carrying the huge amounts of baggage his sister brought (which turned out to be a 3 course meal, so I was okay carrying it).  There is, in fact, a road, but it was under construction, so we could only take it to within about 2km of the summit.  That worked out fine for me because I was able to see more of the spectacular scenery around the volcano.

     One of the cool advantage that climbing a volcano has over hiking in the mountains is that often, the volcanoes are the highest points, meaning that the view from the top of the volcano of the land below is really awesome.  While 2km typically isn't that much, 2km up the side of a volcano carrying everything needed for a huge meal turned out to be a little much for most of the party, and they somehow worked out a deal with someone who had a car at the top of the volcano to come down and pick them up.  I decided to press on, and actually made it up before them.
     The lake in the crater of this volcano was just awesome to see.  It smelled just like a real Minnesota lake, looked like a real Minnesota lake, and with the ice cold wind blowing off of it actually felt like a real Minnesota lake, which helped assuage the holiday pangs of homesickness a little.

     While all the monks seem to be under the impression that this is one of the only lakes in a volcano crater in the world, I'm sorry to report that it is only one of 53 in the world, and one of six in Guatemala (meaning that 8.333 percent of volcanoes in Guatemala have a lake).  That being said, it was truly awesome to see.

     I wanted to swim in the lake, but it was actually really really cold up there.  I have no idea what the elevation was, but it was pretty tall, and the wind came whipping through that saddle at the far side of the lake and picked up speed across the lake until a few gusts were almost strong enough to blow people over.  Or maybe those are just excuses I've made up to hide the fact that I'm losing my think MN blood.  All I know is that when they started up the fires to cook lunch, standing around that was a pretty popular place to be.
     Lunch was delicious, and they even remembered to bring the black beans and corn tortillas I love so much!

This is Abraham's sister showing off the meat.  I tried to get the recipe for the sauce, but all they would tell me is:  Culantro, onions, some tomato, dry white wine, mustard seed, olive oil, and salt and pepper.  If you are feeling adventurous, give it a try.  The final product (if you get it right) is absolutely delicious.

     The meal was spectacular, but after a long day of hiking, sightseeing, and battling the cold wind, we were all ready to head out.  The ride home was nothing spectacular, but the sun did come out just long enough for me to snap some farewell pictures of the volcano as we sped away.

How to burn a devil

December 7th 1941, United States of America: a date that will live in infamy.  The date of the event that would lead the United States into World War 2.
December 7th every year, Guatemala: Also a date which will live in infamy.  That is, if you are a giant wooden devil, or the garbage that accumulates in someones house over a year's time.  The annual date in which the lungs of everybody in Guatemala are mercilessly assaulted by toxic garbage fumes.

     December 7th in Guatemala is the annual Quema del Diablo "Devil Burning" event.  It is always the day before the feast of the immaculate conception, or as it is known in the particularly long winded prayer services "Fiesta del immaculada concepción de la bienaventurada virgen Maria, madre del Señor."  The original purpose of the event is to clean your house of anything that might cause you to sin during these last weeks of Advent, and to burn these "devils" in the street in front of all your neighbors.  Over the years it evolved into this:

Streets full of giant pillars of Satan burning in effigy.

     In preparing myself for this event I'm afraid I fell prey to "build up syndrome:" A syndrome I just made up to describe the feeling when people tell you wondrous stories to build up your hopes about how awesome an event is.  Hopes which are utterly destroyed when you see the actual event.  In the days leading up to this devil burning ceremony everyone told me stories about the great fires and plumes of (I'm assuming sulfurous) smoke rising into the night sky.  The image I had in my head was that of the picture above, giant devil statues burning to the ground.  They forgot to mention that this is only in Antigua, Guatemala and in the capital.  What we have in Esquipulas could be more easily summed up as "lots of fireworks, with juvenile pyromaniacs lighting small bonfires everywhere."  So... 4th of July in the USA.

  
     When I returned from my less that awe-inspiring mission to see the devil burning, I expressed my slight disappointment to a few of the monks.  The Guatemalan monks I asked about this all seemed a bit sad and almost unanimously lamented that the people of Esquipulas are losing touch with their traditions and cultural heritage.  However, one monk (originally from the USA) put it in a different light:  He told me that the people are beginning to realize that burning plastics, furniture, and tires all through the night is very dangerous and contributes to lung cancer.  I guess not all traditions should be kept.  That being said, Guatemalans are not a people to give something up easily, and instead of avoiding this dangerous night, they traded this unseen and long term danger of poisonous gas for a more immediate threat of car crashes, sever burns, and death by shrapnel.  It seems that one of the games is working together with your neighbors to light the fires in a maze pattern that the cars driving down the road have to swerve all around to dodge.

This can be seen here as a car and motorcycle swerve around one devil pillar after narrowly avoiding the one right behind the motorcycle (that can't be seen here)

     The festivities also included throwing quite large explosives into your devil fire and watching as everyone in the street runs for cover to avoid the resulting burning shrapnel.  Extra points if you can cause a car crash or knock a person off of his/her motorcycle.  

This is a picture taken right after aforementioned explosions.  Notice the burning garbage scattered throughout the street.

     To get a good idea of this event, imagine fires all throughout the streets, cars swerving wildly, and explosions everywhere.  Definitely an exciting event.  The "highlight" of the night came when Willy (you might remember him from "this IS a beautiful country") and I were walking around a corner when a group of kids lit something on fire right at Willy's feet and ran the other direction.  I had a flashback to all those countless hours of Goldeneye on N64, and grabbed Willy's coat to drag him alond as I ran for cover, holding my arm up to guard against the blast.  I then heard a whistling, which  was sure was the M80 about to go off, and looked over my shoulder to see a little whistling firecracker spinning harmlessly on the ground.  At least the children got a kick out of it.

     While different than I expected, the "Quema del Diablo" was definitely an exciting experience.  My only regret is that my camera battery ran out right at the beginning, and I was only able to take 3 pictures.  Instead of owning up to not charging the battery, I'm just going to go ahead and let the devil (bad luck) take the blame for that... after that night, I'm pretty sure he's not around to defend himself anyways.

    

They "made" us renew our visas

     As we were very keen on pointing out during our trip, we get "paid" (meaning we get enough stipend to afford to go to Belize) monthly, and the Guatemalan Government has told us we are not allowed to stay in the country for more than 90 days at a time.  Belize is the closest country that we are allowed to flee to. Therefore, this beach vacation was actually "work" for us.  As you read this blog remember, for better or worse, this was a work trip for me :)

     The trip started at a corner in downtown Cobán at 6:00 am, due to some advice that that is the only time that buses leave for Flores.  I'm personally skeptical about the data but, if wrong, it would definitely not be the only flawed information received on this trip.  This particular leg of the journey marked my second microbus ride, Gabe's first, and Connor's first in Guatemala.  It definitely lived up to expectations.  Far more cramped and uncomfortable than my first, this was also almost twice as long, a little over 6 hours.  At one point all the bench seats designed for 3 were made to fit 5, and there were 10 people standing in the bus.  Gabe pretty succinctly summed it up after we got out: "Dude, that was SO horrible."  After this ride from hell we arrived in Flores to find (from a man who owned a bus company leaving for Belize City the next morning) that there were no more buses to Belize City until the next morning.  In our defense, he was literally the only person at the bus station to talk to, so even if he wasn't legit, we had no other options.  The lack of a ride forced us to stay the day in Flores, one of the more famous places in Guate because of two special traits.  It is the stopping point for any trip to Tikal, possibly the most famous Mayan ruins in the world, meaning that almost every tourist to Guatemala passes through, and it is one of the three well known lakes in Guatemala.  We didn't have money for Tikal, and, although I find them nice, am less than blown away by the concept of a fresh water lake.  I've seen a few before; I have no need to pay for a motor boat tour of another one.  Therefore, Flores didn't have much to offer us.

In its defense it was a nice lake

     Although the scenery was pretty nice, there was not much to do on the island of Flores.  We got a cheap hostel, and chilled for the rest of the day, which was probably for the better because Gabe got pretty sick with some stomach problems, and we had a bus to catch at 5:00 the next morning.
     The bus ride into Belize City was quite a bit more comfortable than any I have taken in Guatemala thanks to the law in Belize that you can only carry as many passengers as there are seats in the car.  Seems like a pretty reasonable law to me.  The comfort of the ride allowed us to catch up on some sleep, and when we arrived in sunny, dirty, crowded Belize City we were ready to hit the beaches.  That is, after a 30 minute boat ride to Caye (pronounced Key) Caulker.  Somehow, in the hordes of people and hotel owners and people trying to carry bags for a tip, we found a pretty cool guy who owned a hostel near the center of the "town."  We got ourselves a little cabin for pretty cheap and began our beach vacation.  As a true testament to our serious dedication and skill, we managed to spend the next 3 days doing almost nothing.  We lounged on the beach, met people, and drank plenty of Belikin, Belize's most famous beer.  It's not a spectacular brew but, as they say: when in Rome, drink cold beer on the beach.  Or something like that.
     Thanksgiving happened to occur while we were on the island, and although it was not necessarily a traditional thanksgiving, it was definitely one to remember.  While there was no flag football game or dog shows on TV, the beach served as a pretty acceptable alternative. Instead of turkey, all we could find was Chicken,

 but we definitely made do with that!

and the new found friends had to serve as our impromptu family, but we made it work.  We even went around the table and said things we were thankful for.

 All in all, it was a very successful Thanksgiving thanks to all the great people we had to share it with.

     Besides lounging on the beach, we also met a lot of people, on the beach, in the bar, and at the hostel.  Lot's of very cool people, from the Iranian who had been at the hostel for 3 weeks to the Finnish guy who had been traveling the world for 14 months after quitting his job as a truck driver.  I had some pretty awesome conversations with these people, ranging from the Iranian telling me that it would be better to use my physics knowledge to build bombs than alternative energy for third world countries because we shouldn't be meddling with peoples lives and forcing our way upon them (blowing them up is somehow better), to a German and me discussing common prejudices against each others countries.  While there were many interesting people and interesting stories, by far the most numerous comments we got were on how rude Americans are and how bad our government's foreign policy is.  It turns out that quite a few people in the world have very strong opinions about Americans that they are not afraid to share.  I even met one Canadian girl who, after finding out that I was from the USA, spent a full 5 minutes telling me how Americans are so rude and every time you travel you can tell who is American.  Obviously MN manners are different than Canadian manners, because that in itself actually seems rude to me... oh well, chalk it up to cultural differences.

     Despite the less than warm greeting by a few people, most people we met were really awesome, and the beach kind of speaks for itself, this was a really great vacation.  However, all good things must come to an end. 
     I decided to take an alternate route back to Esquipulas, both in order to see more of the country, and in order to avoid those really horrible microbus rides.  Because of this I decided to leave the beach a day earlier than my travel buddies, just in case I had problems and needed to spend an extra day on the road.  I was told (yet another piece of dubious information) that the only bus to Punta Gorda was early in the morning, but that for an extra $2 it was possible to get one that went direct to PG without stopping all the time. actually, from the central bus terminal of Belize City, that there are no direct buses, but that they do leave Belize City all day until night fall.  I could have slept in.  It actually ended up being for the best that I planned for an early departure.  I caught the earliest sea taxi from the Island, which was 8:00 am, and from there, after wandering around the city for awhile, got conned into paying a guy about what a taxi would've cost me to walk with me to the station and show me where it is.  I got there at about the perfect time though, 30 minutes before the bus left, so I was able to settle in nicely.  The bus ride was longer than expected, and I arrived in Punta Gorda just after nightfall.  It turns out PG does not find many uses for streetlamps, and I ended up walking dark streets with all my stuff.  I stopped in the first hotel I found, and I think I payed to much for it due to my obvious desire to get my stuff stored somewhere safe before exploring any more.  It was my first ever solo stay in a hotel though, so C'est La Vie I guess.
     After getting everything put away, I decided to explore everything that PG had to offer.  It turns out that can be done in about 10 minutes.  So I had a nice dinner at a deserted diner where the three workers were very nice, and bored,  and kept me company while I ate.  Upon returning to my room I realized that I had left the key inside.  To make matters worse, the night guard had lost his keys, and the evening worker had left without leaving the extra keys within arms reach of the window so he could grab them in an emergency (apparently that's their back-up system).  We waited around for awhile trying to get a hold of the boss, who would not answer his phone, when finally the guard asked me in desperation, "don't you know how to break in or something?"
Well thank you for asking sir,  I don't think so, but I'll definitely try.
And try I did.  It turns out someone else had had the same predicament in the same room (maybe) because the window panes were held in place literally with only scotch tape.  They were easy enough to remove, as was the screen, and viola, within minutes I was back inside my room, determined to not leave anything valuable inside if ever I decided to wander again.
    Due to yet another piece of dubious information, I was under the impression that the only boat to Puerto Barrios Guatemala was at 12:00 noon.  So I decided to wander the city and catch the sunrise before heading back to the room for a mid morning nap.  As I was heading to the room I caught sight of some people getting onto a boat.  Turns out they were getting on the 9:00 boat for Puerto Barrios.  oops.   I ended up on the 12:00 boat, which broke down twice on the way, and got into Puerto Barrios around 3:00.  This was notable only for being the first time I've entered a country by boat.  Kind of a cool accomplishment.  I felt like one of the discoverers of the new world, except instead of a sailboat I had a twin motor sea taxi, and instead of coming for copious amounts of gold and land, I'm volunteering for free. 

A shot of the Guatemalan shore in the distance

     I was assured that after yet another 5 hour microbus ride (this one surprisingly comfortable though) I would be able to catch a bus from Chiquimula to Esquipulas (about 45 minutes away).  The microbus driver who told me this apparently forgot that it was Sunday and there are no buses to Esquipulas.  Whether or not he knew this at the time is irrelevant as I found out after waiting for a bus on a street corner in Chiquimula for about 45 minutes.  Eventually a half drunk Italian sailor who spoke 5 different languages (English included) wandered by and decided to befriend me.  After admonishing me for thinking about traveling at night (it was only dusk when I started waiting at the corner) he gave me all sorts of tips about this part of the city, which he knows well because he's living at the "hotel buen precio" (roughly translates to cheap hotel) and working as a tattoo artist. I eventually decided that, even though I was so close to home, dark had settled over the city and the street corner's population was taking a turn for the worse so it was becoming necessary to get off the corner and find a place to hunker down.  Hotel Buen Precio it was.  For the rest of the night I dodged cockroaches and bed bugs, and caught some sleep before the 6:00 am bus into Esquipulas.   My travels successfully concluded with my first meal of beans and corn tortillas in about two weeks.   I can't really say I missed that.