Yaramaz Went Away

One never realises how thin cinder block walls are, especially afer they’ve been beautifully plasteed and painted. Last night, aside from being eaten aive by very persistent mosquitos, we were treated to an all-night oeuvre of our fellow guests in the posada- at first they started out on the wraparound verandah shared by the three upstairs rooms (we are one of them), with remarkably amplified voices talking and a tinny radio playing cheesy pop, sung along to. After a few hours, D. popped his head out and asked them to turn it down a bit as we were sleeping (or trying to). They did, which was kind. Then, twice, two fellows decided to have vigorous sex in the bathroom immediately next to our headboard. The surround sound quality was disconcerting, and I had to really work hard to not giggle. D. was very pissed off, and after the lock clicked a second time in as many hours and the moaning stared up again, he shouted at them through the wall to just shut the fuck up. Remarkably, they did. At dawn, our headboard resonated with the sound of one of the girls puking her guts out, repeatedly.  In between all these diversions, we had a handfull of mosquitos intent on just humming invcessantly in our ears.

I do hope the other guests are just here for a weekend piss-up and will make their way unsteadily but sexually fulfilled back to their cars and head back to where ever they came from for wok on monday.

Oh, and photos from Guatemala and into El Salvador

Things you can buy in a Salvadorean bus:

*baggies of random, expertly sliced fruit
*bootlegged porn
*little baggies of jello, held in a bigger bag full of ide
*underpants
*neon juice, in a little baggie, with the straw tied into the knot
*individual little boxes of gum or hard candy or gummies
*fried chicken, with an accompanying tiny loaf of french bread, wrapped up on a styrofoam tray, in cling wrap
*pupusas, with a little baggie, knotted, of hot sauce
*miracle skin creams

Things that are good to eat in El Salvador:

*Fried plantains, caramelised, dotted with habanero sauce
*pupusas, little pancakes of corn flous, stuffed with spud or cheese or munched up pork rind or all the above, sealed and flattened and grilled and served with hot sauce and pickles
*frijoles refritos, the black kind, all mashed up with lard and spices and doused in hot sauce
*Maria Luisas (as it said on the receipt at the bakery) or Madeleines (as they referred to them when I pointed to them in the bakery), all custardy and cinnamony, with a sweet crumb bottom, custard middle, and mille-feuille/glacé top doused in cinnamon, all for 50 cents with your 50 cent coffee.

In Suchitoto, in northern El Salvador, blissing out after two chicken buses from Santa Ana via San Salvador (in and out as quickly as possible). Our room is on a wraparound verandah overlooking a lake. The town is calm and pretty and whitewashed and old and men walk around looking tanned and wizened and sporting cowboy hats. It’s lovely.

It’s not often that my body physically rejects an environment so quickly. However, El Salvador was like a boot to my head from the start and didn’t let up until, well, maybe next week.  As soon as we crossed the border into El Salvador, the music on our bus was cranked up more notches than existed on the dial and my ear drums throbbed until we got into San Salvador, where the pollution kicked in, compounded by the fact that our room was on a main street- quite literally. Until nearly midnight and starting again at 6am, exhaust belching buses and mini buses and trucks and taxis roared past, and with each roar, our window rattled and bed shook.  We stayed in last night after we found our hotel (a pleasant, safe one, said Lonely Planet) because it was dark by six and we were advised to not go out without a taxi after dark. Since we din’t have a destination in mind, we stayed in our bone rattling room, nibbling on the tuna and bagels we had briought from Antigua, and watched Mumbai under siege.  I awoke with hot eyes and painful throat and a throbbing headache, exhausted from the rattling bed and rattling window and roar of traffic. We went out to find money, dodging cars and buses, breathing in toxic fumes. We walked down tarped sidewalks crammed tight with women’s tiny pupusa stalls and kept going forward, past roundabouts and empty lots until we found a tiny oasis of calm. A mall. We had a breakfast at Wendy’s, exhausted and shell shocked, then walked back through the chaos to the hotel then out to the bus station. Leaving San Salvador, I looked back and realised the whole city was just like a downmarket, war torn, extended suburb of Los Angeles.

In Santa Ana now, in the beer and whores district. It’s been a long day already. My headache is still waiting in my temples.

(Edit: I finally found a computer that let me put in the correct date)

I have finally started sending out job queries for the new year, something I had been subconsciously trying to avoid doing for fear that it would push me over the edge.  So far, AmidEast in Tunisia has replied in lightning speed with a big red urgent exclamation mark and an almost gleeful followup thanking me for even thinking about them (although they are a very respected group throughout the poorer parts of the mid east, I have a feeling they may only get applications from 25 year olds with one year’s experience in Korea or the like, since people like me tend to the, er, well-paying parts of the Gulf).  The University of Nizwa in Oman, where I’ve been wanting to work for quite a while, has replied that they want to interview me for a position opening in February. And a recruiter for high-paying universities and high schools in China is scouring her books for me as we speak.  It’s a weird feeling applying for jobs again after so many years, especially now that my resume includes university work and a managerial position. The last job I applied for was Bilgi University, back in 2005. I don’t even think I applied for my last job- I remember just calling up Michael and asking him if Levent needed a teacher who was sick of teaching rich prep students. He said he would get back to me after checking with the Suadiye branch where I had worked before. Next thing I knew, I was in. Then suddenly, after just a few months there, I was asked to be assistant director. It was a very strange progression from the cruelty and discouragement of the Bilgi management to the non-stop cheerleading of the Vodafone gig and the unexpected promotion.  My self esteem was very nearly restored to normal.

Anyway.

Antigua is still good.  We had ginger-chili chicken soup again at Café No Sé, which was marvellous, and just read until we fell asleep.  I am reading a marvellous book I found in a Oaxaca bargain bin, called Finding Mañana, a memoir of a woman’s Cuban exodus.  I dreamed of Cuba last night, and woke up surprised to find myself in Guatemala.

Possibly going to El Salvador tomorrow, if motivation holds up.

In cozy cushy Antigua again after four nights in the wilds of Lake Atitlan. Our ride back was inexplicably nearly an hour faster than getting there, and unlike previous journeys we weren’t perched precariously on the emergency seats and D. wasn’t told that a bucket upended and draped with a towel was a perfectly good substitute for a seat.  On our way to Panajachel, the main mini-port of the lake, we had gleefully managed to secure the roomy front row seats in our minibus coming out of Antigua, only to rear-end a truck whilst picking up the next passenger. The police came, the people from the truck piled out and our driver got into a shouting match. We were shuttled into a tiny tuk-tuk– one of those tiny motorcycle taxis that hold two at best but we were crammed in with the other fellow and his enormous bag– and driven to another minibus on the other side of town, which was full except for one unlikely spot in the back and the two seats next to the driver.  When we finally got to Panajachel, after ignoring the touts who swarmed us on the road to the docks, we made our way down to the boat launch, which involved skidding down a steep and disintegrating sandy rocky slope onto a pile of rocks being lapped at by the choppy lake, with a very rickety wooden dock swaying and juddering just beyond. It would have been all too easy to just tip over and be washed out into the waves.  It was much easier coming back, and strangely enough, 5 quetzals cheaper.  It’s all very random.

Last night we went to a little restaurant up at the top of the stone trail, up in the dusty far end of the village. It was run by a tiny little Guatemalan woman, all wrapped up snug in her pretty lengths of cloth, and inside in the semi darkness, we could see that all the furniture was made of sculpted, huge, wraparound stone and plaster, like in Barcelona’s Parc Guell, all Gaudi and adorned with faces and high curving backs embracing the tables. We sat in the arms of a long-haired shaman, and across the room I could see two woodfired ovens built inside the chests of giant eagles and falcons. I ordered a pizza and D ordered a veggie soup and the old lady shuffled through the lace curtain into the kitchen and I could see her hands dip a measuring cup into a bag of flour and I could hear veggies being chopped. Slow food indeed. The surreal yet familial atmosphere would have made for a lovely evening if not for the old woman’s family who stormed through, spitting on the floor, weaving through to the kitchen with 1 litre beer bottles in hand. Murmurs and soft arguments slipped out amnd the energy was definitely wrong. By the time my pizza was slipped into the fiery eagle’s open chest, the argument had moved out of the kitchen and through our little dining room and into the adjoining room, separated only by bamboo walls. Soft shouting, groaning, imploring whispers and meowing cats and thuds. Domestic violence just a few meters beyond us and we had to wait, very stressed and uncomfortable, for the food to arrive so we could get out. The old lady tried to calm things down and return to reassure us but it was surreal and we felt like interlopers in a very bad moment. The town’s loudspeakers were blaring their long evening sermon as they did every morning and every evening, interspersed with acapella singing and prayers. Huge fire crackers were let off, over and over again.  We got our food and left, shaken.

Antigua was a necessary change.

A lazy Sunday morning in the slowest internet cafe in the universe (the man says there is something wrong with the satellites, up there in the skies so far away). It is sunny and warm and clear. Last night the stars were huge and bright. We walked through the garden at the meditation center and their winding path through their medicinal herbs was pungent and changing from curve to curve. We ate marvelous wood fired pizzas in a tiny restaurant at the end of a very long and winding stone path with a random girl we met who had a million questions about teaching abroad. I am waiting for my adrenals to settle down. D. says I seem a few notches more at ease but I can still feel the energy racing up my back and up my neck and accumulating until I shiver in the hot afternoon. My under-rib area where Nadia was working on me is tender even though she barely touched it and only touched it with reiki softness. I am seriously thinking of coming back here in the new year to do the full moon meditation course at las piramides (I can’t hyperlink from this computer for some reason but their web site is at www.laspiramidesdelka.com ). I think I need it.

This page has loaded, but with errors it says. My font looks like 1940s typewriter font, which it shouldn’t. In San Marcos on Lago Atitlan, all the computers run so slowly that I feel regressed to 1995. It is nice being 21 again.

Nadia, the bulgarian all-purpose holistic healer I have been calling on, has determined that my large intestines are all bunched up in a stressful corner of my belly and my adrenals are in overdrive, manically pumping out adrenaline which is causing my everpresent state of being on edge, my roaring reptilian brain being pushed to the forefront, snarling a bit unnecessarily. It’s also causing my hair to come loose far more than I am comfortable with but nothing too worryingly alopecea-ish. She did some brutal full-body neuro-adrenal massaging yesterday, followed up today by some more focussed belly-centered reiki. Feeling a bit saner, but not wholly.

Where we are is calm and lush and the whole village is a few stone paths winding up from the half submerged wooden dock. There is a big metaphysical retreat centre partway up the path, where people sleep in little wooden pyramids amongst very pungent growing herbs (it reeks of sage in places). They offer a one month meditation course, starting every full moon. They also offer shorter courses on past life regression and astral travel. We are further up the stone path, past the tiny Mayan fruit ladies with their piles of limes and avocados and such. They are all small and delicate, wrapped in sturdy, pretty cloth from the waist down, belted with a pretty bright woven belt. Tucked in to their sturdy woven wrapped skirs are flouncy Edwardian blouses, with lace and wide collars that spread down over shoulder and back, in bright mad unEdwardian colours and designs. Flowers everywhere- on the blouses, on the trees, in the bushes. We are further down a side trail, in amongst a lot of greenery and jungle arbors.

At the back of our leafy yard, deep amongst the thick bushes and trees, is a Mayan sauna- something that looks more like a pizza oven than a sauna. Shaped like a pyramid, fashioned of stone and seemingly plaster, with a little wrought iron door at the end opposide the woodstove that juts inside like the old barrel-shaped one from my shildhood slammed onto its side. You can just barely crawl in through the door, into a small room with built-instone and plaster benches, painted randomly with a combination of mayan hieroglyphics and happy faces. There is a small faucet on the wall, and an old yogurt container to fill with water to splash onto the face down stove that juts in. There was something herbal in the wood being burnt. I could smell it on our skin even this morning.

We have a new cat for this room- D. named her Nightshade and I named her Marcia. D. feeds her Ranch flavoured potato chips and she crunches them with a glee I have never encountered in a cat eating chips. I woke at 3am to find her sleeping beneath the covers between us. Unlike every other cat I have ever met, Ms Nightshade Marcia actively enjoys being covered by blankets.

We may be leaving tomorrow, or maybe not. The direct bus goes to Antigua every day but Sundays. Tomorrow is Sunday. I have no idea what we will do. We are now halfway done.

I had started to write, just a few minutes ago. Then the computer suddenly shut down without warning. The boys running the travel shop-internet café chortled and pointed to the on-off button on the computer, which was placed exactly where one’s knees go under the table when seated. I was obviously not the first to knee myself out of a session.

We are now at the end of our first month of travelling- as of tomorrow it will be exact. We are both quite tired from the past week or so of non stop movement and have just collapsed in Antigua, mentally and emotionally fatigued. D’s neck pain is back and clicking as though preparing to snap at any moment. His tummy is worse than in Turkey. I just feel quite blue and listless, having had far too many hours staring out the windows of crowded mini buses crossing various countries, too much time to think, to meditate, to dwell. I have had moments of gut-tugging revellation that a certain treasured letter or photo or book or memento was one of the things I accidentally left behind in Istanbul. The list of things i forgot is growing. I need to let it all go, but it is hard. Things that seemed fine to leave behind during the weekend frenzy of packing and repacking and repacking even more lightly now feel lost and missed and regretted. A lot of things are feeling regretted these days- I miss my Istanbul flat, my friends, my streets. I have flashes of specific street corners or down alleyways or down steep winding hills and I know every inch, every shop, every absurdly high curb or tired tree. I feel quite lost here in the middle of Central America, bouncing around between cozy Gringolands and harsh reality.  Maybe I need this therapy. Maybe I need this time to overthink and let go. I just feel drained and sad and lost at the moment. 

The lira has dropped another 2 cents in the last hour or so. Ugh.

I feel like I need a month is a silent retreat, with meditation done not with my head bouncing against the minibus’ glass window as we speed around blind corners in the oncoming lane with the pavement disappearing into rutted pot-holed gravel and dust when you least expect it. 

Still in Gringolandia, in the Antigua once inhabited by Guatemalans but now overrun by everyone but. There is access to non-Nescafe/whitener caffeinated beverages in cafés playing Diana Krall through well-placed wall-mounted speakers; there is access to very good Italian food and posh little cakes and tarts in display cases; there is cheap internet on every block, punctuated by tour agencies and language schools and gift stalls all carrying the same selection (I bought a pretty little embroidered shoulder bag to replace my badly disintegrating ancient Portuguese bag). We had toasted bagels for breakfast yesterday.  I feel like I am in a backpacker district of Barcelona. Everything is clean and tidy and polished and strangely expensive, like suddenly finding yourself in Europe rather than central America.  It is calming though. We have hot water in our shower. Our beds are comfy beyond belief. We have no goals or objectives for the day, except for regaining calm and balance.  

The lira has dropped again, massively. It’s distinctly unfun having your life’s savings in a currency that was doing quite well until you needed to make use of it. It has gone from 1.17 to the dollar to 1.67 to the dollar in just a few months. Bugger.