I love Guatemala

Well the little island off of Honduras had beautiful snorkeling but, believe it or not, the heat, the not-so-clean water (even the bottled water), and the isolation of being on a tiny island kinda got to us. Didn´t help that between the bad water, the side effects of the allergy medication I´m still on, and my incredibly limited diet, I was a malnourished wreck. So we hopped a ferry back to the mainland in time for Superbowl, and yeah, that was a little depressing. Have to keep reminding ourselves that at least the Bears made it there.

Day after superbowl, we headed back for Guatemala thinking maybe it was just time to admit Honduras was not going well for us. We didn´t quite make it to the border, but stopped in a town recommended to us a while back. I generally avoid antihistamines at all costs except life-threatening situations because I have huge, awful side effects to them. Well, I guess now that the allergy is done with me, the antihistamines had nothing else to do but side effects. By the time we hit the adorable little town of Santa Rosa de Copan, it was like I´d had a fifth of vodka and a handful of vicodin. Dídn´t really even know my name, much less what town, even what country we were in. Alan found us a splurge of a hotel where I slept quite comfortably for about 20 hours. He even got chicken soup via room service.

I´ve thrown the doctor´s instructions out the window, stopped taking those damn drugs and started eating normal food again. Crossed the border back into Guatemala today - a fairly smooth experience now that we have some vague idea how it´s supposed to work, and a few more words of Spanish in our vocabulary. Honestly, I don´t know if it´s because I threw out the doctor´s orders, I just finally got well, the higher altitude of Guatemala´s mountains, or Guatemala itself, but wow, I feel almost normal for the first time in a week and a half.

I love Guatemala! Seriously, there is a noticable difference. There´s a certain amount of poverty where everyone works very very hard just to live. There´s a lot of that in Guatemala. But then there´s a kind of poverty where people just don´t have enough to eat, where you just can´t be healthy, where corruption undermines people´s spirits. And that seemed like Honduras. We met a lot of wealthy (by Honduran standards) expatriates and foreign investors, plus a few peace-corp or missionary or NGO types. All kinds of private investment in real estate going on - lots of houses with security systems and guard dogs, but the water still isn´t clean and a lot of people have AIDS and education is only available through 6th grade at best.

We don´t know enough Spanish to understand a teeny fraction of what´s going on around us, but there is just a different feel to a place where there is corruption and a huge disparity between a wealthy minority and a very poor majority. Like I don´t know anything about the economics of Atlantic City, but I only spent a couple hours there to find it disgusting. I´m not being very coherent here; it´s a very intangible thing I´m talking about, and really I´m too ignorant to find any insight in it.

Anyway, very happy to be back in Guatemala. Maybe it´s the mountains. I love the beach, but in Central America, the highlands just feel healthier. Less standing water I guess.

We´re in a little town just this side of the border called Esquipulas. There´s a huge basilica here, and apparently people have been making pilgrimmage here for 500 years to worship the Black Christ at the basilica. We´re going to check it out tomorrow. No disrespect for Jesus fans out there, but I´m a little tempted to go crazy buying up souvenirs ... the Jesus paraphernalia here is just so very very kitsch.

And there´s a crisp breeze here ... like in the 60s. Yeah, when I said brisk breeze, I really didn´t mean a windchill anywhere near, much less below, zero. We´re planning to come back up the Pacific side of Mexico and pass through Southern California to visit friends and family. If winter hasn´t eased up in Minnesota by then, we´ll just have to hide out in San Diego for a while. Because my blood has thinned back out now, and all you Minnesotans sure don´t want to hear me whine when I get back.