El Dia de Las Vacas Flacas

Skinny cows, also hard times "tiempo de las vacas flacas".

I've had more crazy stuff happen just walking around Guatemalan cities than I ever imagined.  The people are connected in a way that is reminiscent of the 40's or 50's in the US.  I was looking for somewhere to have breakfast with real coffee and something other than huevos and frijoles. Spotted a little storefront panaderia with a banner advertising cafe y jugos natural.  After my usual tortured order placement in espanol the mujer behind the counter says "english?"  Si, senora.  She and her husband both spent time in the US where she earned a masters in hospital administration.  She got a high paying job here complete with lots of stress and dangerous solo travel by car all over the country.  Last April they dropped out and opened a little bakery in Puerto Barrios where they are making a living and are expecting their first child about the time the panaderia celebrates it's first anniversary.  I inquired about renting a bike or car or moto for the day and they thought that for the same money I could probably hire a driver.  The called their friend Luis a professional guide, who in turn called Manuel an english speaking taxista.

 Skinny cows looking for shade

 Spooky cave reputed to join caverns and underground rivers running from Tikal to Coban

 Rio Dulce, sweet hurricane hole for yachties trying to escape coastal storms

 Castillo San Felipe overlookng El Golfete

 El Mismo

 In need of a "bro" en frente del castillo

 Nice patina on bronze cannon, golden guide Manuel

 Rio Dulce schoolbus, low freeboard

 Mas vacas flacas

 The triumvarate includes Del Monte and Chiquita as well

Taking a dip in the shadow of the freighter

Manuel spent 10 years or so in the US working in Las Vegas.  His sister still lives there.  He was a pro futbal player for the local Puerto Barrios Club.  "Back when we played for fun and the love of the game and a little money, not like today." He pays $15 bucks a day for his cab ( a sweet 5-speed Geo Prizm) plus his gas at $4+ per gallon.  A ride in the city is around Q25/$3 so it's not an easy living.  We spent the day  touring Rio Dulce, and the surrounds.  The country outside of Puerto Barrios is primarily large fincas, formerly UFC plantations, which still produce bananas, pineapples, gum rubber, and milk and beef cattle.  It's lush, hot and humid, carved out of the jungle years ago.  We had a ball, a big lunch overlooking Lake Izabal, and a steady stream of insider observation on the local scene which would have been hard to come by elsewhere.

Manuel's coach would bring the team out here to the rubber plantations where they would drill running the hills and zig-zagging through the trees.  Speaking of futbal, according to Manuel, the elusive Super Chivos are having a weekend celebration in Xela so as the wind appears to be blowing that way its back on the bus.

The Livingston Turnaround

The ferry from Puerto Barrios takes about an hour and a half and costs about $2.75.  Faster lanchas are available for a few quetzales more.  Given the choice between the slow boat loaded with cinderblocks, rice, whiskey and all of the other things which only get to Livingston by water versus the fast lanchas slamming from wave crest to trough its no contest for me.  More boat ride for less quetzales seems like a good deal.  Watching the tropical coast slip past covered with palms and dotted with the weekend getaways of Guatemalas rich and famous while breathing the rich salty air and being gently rocked by the warm carribbean sea keeps the vacation pace in low gear.

The guidebooks refer to Livingston as a different sort of Guatemala populated by afro-caribes who arrived on these shores from St. Vincents.  While that may have been the case at some point in time today it is a pleasant beachside town at the mouth of the Rio Dulce with primarily spanish owned businesses paying lip-service to the Garifuna by way of Bob Marley posters on the restaurant walls and reggae on the muzak.  It looks a lot like any other tourist venue in Guatemala with mayan ladies in traditional garb hawking souvenirs from streetside stalls albeit here they include carved wooden boats and drums and rastafari t-shirts.  Or how about a nice big tortoise shell?  I'm hoping it was natural causes. The main street through town is dotted with restaurants, bars, hotels, and tiendas and with few cars and a fairly courteous scooter contingent its pedestrian friendly.

Hospedaje Dona Alida was my home in Livingston.  A short walk from the main drag all of its concrete structures are layered into the hillside above garifuna beach. All rooms are oceanfront with balconys and cooling breezes.  My single with private bath cost $20/nite.  Clean, good beds, unheated shower (nothing here is cold unless its in the fridge), laundry service available at reasonable pricing, credit card acceptance, hammocks, lounging areas, and friendly hosts, it gets two thumbs up on the schmaltzy scale. There are much fancier digs available but none with better views.   It is steamy, sweltering, and probably hot enough to boil a monkey's bum here as soon as you're any distance from the water but on the rare occasion when I have a good internet connection US reports are wintry so let's bake some more and try to forget what lies ahead.

I expected a lively musical scene but it was on vacation, too.  Saturday night there was a brief performance of garifuna drumming and dancing in front of Dugu bar, just up from the docks, which ended shortly after the hat was passed for the performers.  Had I been better acclimated (I'd arrived by ferry from Puerto Barrios that afternoon),  I might have found my way to the actual garifuna part of town where it was rumored a bar did have live music.  According to a local garifuna hustler I met, the spanish speakers arrived during the civl war when it was a remote refuge with little conflict in the immediate area.  My guide to garifunology said he'd been conscripted into the Guatemalan army and spent his portion of the war as an ambulance driver.   When the injured mayans were left to die he said that he and other conscriptees would dress them in dead soldiers uniforms and take them to the army hospitals where they would be treated and released.  He claimed a lot of other things including residency in Livingston by Jerry Garcia who he said paid for his education in the US.  How much truth or fiction lies in any of this will have to wait for better internet connections and fact checking at some later date but for the price of a beer it was an interesting yarn.

Tour operators in Livngston advertise lots of different packages but most require a mnimum of six and although I put my name in for a possible snorkeling excursion to the Belizean Cayes no one else had an interest and I settle for a trip to Playa Blanca, Guatemalas only white sand beach, located about a half hour north of Livingston.  Seven of us pile in with Captain Rone (like "timmay" but with an o) and his mate at 8:30 and once the captain collects our Q100 apiece he can afford to gas the boat after which we slide out of Livingston on a glassy sea and zip up the coast for a stop at Siete Altares.  Leftovers from the era of active local volcanos these natural pools make great swimming holes.  The cool waters of the stream are in sharp contrast to the steamy jungle as we hike the seven falls and although its only ten-ish when we return to the lancha to continue northward icy cervazas are not without merit.

Playa Blanca is a beautiful caribbean beach with no infrastructure beyond a hut which sells water and beer, an outhouse, and a couple fellows who provide plastic chairs and straw mats included with your Q10 admission.  Unspoiled for the time being it is as paradiasical a setting as you're apt to find.  When the shadows start to lengthen we hop back in the lancha which bucks and slams it way back to Livingston over the afternoons waves

Livingston has a couple of student manned eateries where local kids get practical training in the hospitality industry.  Cafe Buga Mama (don't say it out loud) serves up a wonderful vegetable curry which healed an upset tummy I'd been traveling with for a day or two.  While the students service skills are still being polished they do a very respectable job at a reasonable price and the profits go back into the program.  Hotel Rosada is a very cute place with thatched guest houses right on the water.  They have a wonderful restaurant as well although somehow my spanglish ordered (by number) tuna sandwich appears as a tasty vegetarian omelet when delivered by the abuela who took my order.  Hey it could have been a pile of the dreaded leaden steaming tamalitos the locals like.

How many mornings does it take to get tired of waking up to the sounds of gentle surf and tropical birds?  Trick question but don't fall asleep with your balcony door open unless you want to wake up looking like you've got a case of the mosquito measles.  Nothing a little calamine and some anti-malarials won't cure I'm sure but after almost a week its probably time to think about returning to civilization.

 Carefree carfree Livingston calle (don't look under the bridge)

 Working waterfront

 View from room 5 at the Dona Alida

 Siete Altares

 Shrine where the Q25 entrance fee to Siete Altares is collected

 Rare Guatemalan white sand beach, perhaps 25 people this weekday

 Tapado

 Bob watching the indians sell food and drink

Delicious tuna sandwich

Coochi-coochi, cucarachas, capybaras y borachos

 Long lonely porch

 Branding is key

Underutilized palapas

Did you hear the one about the guinea pig who married the ground hog?  Me either but I've seen their offspring and they will not be winning any beauty contests.  Thank god it was daylight and I hadn't been swilling beer.  Capybaras (don't believe everything traveling evangelicals tell you, they appear to be agouti's) run free on the grounds of El Hotel del Norte in Puerto Barrios.  Adults can reach 200 pounds but these little guys are more in the 10-20  pound range.  Begging from tourists and upping the ante on rodents like grey squirels many hundred-fold they appear to be harmless but unsettling nonetheless.


Hotel del Norte is a large wooden structure built 120 years ago.  It has a refreshingly cool swimming pool surrounded by lovely shaded areas to sit, eat and drink, while gazing out over the caribbean or watching the action on the malecon.  The second story rooms have louvered double doors opening to a wide screened in porch which encircles the structure.  There is a more modern wing with hot water, cable, etc., at $35/nite.  I opted for the original with 12 foot ceilings, private bath,  double screened doors behind the louvered ones, fan, two tired beds and lots of built in shelves and workspaces for around $12.  The United Fruit Company's visiting executives used to reside here while visiting their operations and pulling strings in the original banana republic.   Today it's a shadow of its former self but with the edition of some new mattresses and pillows could still be quite comfortable in a Bogie and Bacall sort of way.  My first visit to el bano gave me time to get positioned with feet spread before the flourescent lighting's starter kicked in.  My little friends never had a chance.  The combination of 200 pound man, ceramic tile floors, hard soled shoes and a quick tap dance resulted in corpses which must have discouraged the troops as I had no more visitors.  It is, after all, really and truly a jungle out there, and there are bugs.  From what I've seen they inhabit much fancier places and are bigger on Roatan.  


I liked the old place and probably would have stayed another night.  It's location, directly on the newly constructed malecon, is hard to beat.  A big new restaurant/bar complete with thatched roof and a palapa over the water has just opened next door.  On a friday night the little concrete strip next to the sea was hopping.  Food vendor's carts, pony rides, kids with their car blasters pumping reggaeton, and drinking and peeing in the park, and me with an almost invisible perch on the porch above.  What a great show.  Much better than Guatemalan cable TV from my POV.  I had a couple beers with a friendly local at the new place next door.  Pedro resided in LA for 20 years and worked in the hospitality industry.  He met Al Gore (great guy) and Arnold Schwarzenegger (total dick) while working there and picked up much better english than my espanol.    He now works for some gringos speculating in Rio Dulce real estate as a foreman/translator.  I'm always a little wary of locals with good english as they often have an agenda.   My new amigo casually mentioned that he could get girls, not putas but really nice girls who would act like putas but not overcharge me.  He could provide other services as well should they be needed but I thanked him and retired to mi cuarto where with the insertion of earplugs I was out like a light. 

I was surprised that with 20+ rooms available on the second floor they gave los chicos the one adjacent to mine.  The pool party started about 3:00am with cannonballs, drunken shouting, and frequent trips to the room for???? About 4:30 the yelps turned to pain instead of pleasure as someone apparently got a little friendlier with their concrete surroundings than they'd planned.  Too bad. With the party over its back to sleep till 5:00 when a cell phone, which must've been in a pair of pants hanging on the opposite side of the large resonant wooden boards seperating our rooms, starts to sound an alarm.  Los chicos son muy borrachos and don't get up.  After five or ten minutes burly man in recently donned boxers has had enough and I'm out on the porch hoping to find the phone and send it to the bottom of the pool but no such luck, instead I shake their doors violently till someone shuts off the alarm after an indignant grunt or two.


As a dirty little port town, still handling tons of bananas and a lot of other fruit on its way to north american tables, Puerto Barrios gets a lot of sailors and truck drivers.  What's the first thing they want when they hit town?  I know, you're thinking clean sheets and a good connection to phone home and let mom know they're ok but not the case.  They want girls!  I'll avoid allegories but there are probably almost as many puta bars in Puerto Barrios as there are bananas.   I believe that even if they had truth in advertising requiring their signs to show overweight single mothers with less than full sets of teeth instead of hot models they'd still be busy.  On the bright side they also have a perfectly acceptable marketplace where I bargain, amongst the fruit, veggies, and room temperature meat, for sandals and a couple of "Pierre Cardin" (si, son reales) sport shirts for my trip to Livingston on the mornings ferry.  Sandals Q35 ($4.50) Two shirts about $20 (Pierre Cardin, senor).   

Down to the coast

                                                                     The big green bus

                                               My waiter looked and dressed like Uncle Ben

                                                                        Bananarama

Where the capybara play

                                                                End of short malecon

                                                            Nightclubs who say "nigt"

One of the last things I see leaving Guatemala City are two young men driving a herd of goats down a city street. It's a six hour ride on a luxurious Litegua double decker Mercedes bus complete with uniformed pilot (tested daily for blood alcohol level according to company literature), uniformed steward, and two american action hits on flat screen tvs (Runaway Train, and some Tom Cruise flick, neither of which appear to lose much without english dialogue).  I look out the window and groove to i-tunes.  The countryside starts out god-awful dark side of the moon ugly, then turns to Arizona desert with jagged mountains on either side and lots of cactus, and finally a lush flat river valley filled first with cane and fruit and then lots of cows and Guatemalan cowboys.  Next to one huge sugar cane plantation is an equally huge and apparently thriving Coca-cola plant.  Real sugar in the tasty stuff not our better living through better chemistry high fructose corn syrup (I suppose we should update that to better living through bigger government subsidies for corn farmers).

Over the six hour trip we lose 5000+ feet of elevation.  From my perch on the arriba level of the Mercedes I discover that the huge canvas covered trucks of produce carry passengers in the valleys formed between stays.  Some of them awake catching the breeze in the sweltering humid lowlands, others catching some zzzzz's.  I can't help but wonder what happens in a panic stop or swerve but as usual I appear to be the only one worrying.  No two hour early arrival or baggage hassle on either end combined with the truly wonderful ride of the big bus and the gracious service of Litegua make a good case for cheap sensible intercity transport.  Six hours, 5000 feet, $12.50, not bad.  Now if you could just match that to a good highway system.

La Ciudad de Guatemala

After yesterday's rocky start the sun came out this morning and things looked pretty good again.  I didn't see any flying pedestrians although I caught some kids smoking weed on La Sexta with both PNC and city police close at hand.  Am I the only one who can smell that?  Had a wonderful breakfast at a local chain called Los Cebollines (the scallions or something to that effect).  Don't know why but it seems like all the local chain eateries play US pop tunes in english for background music.  I got my pot of coffee, pan tostada, and fresh fruit with granola and yogurt, and then the muzak hits me with "I touch myself".  What's up with that?  Way too early!

Did the downtown museums today and put a few miles on the sneaks.  Tried to hit the Presidential Palace but was turned away till after lunch and never made it back.  It is a huge green edifice befitting the nastiest military strongman replete with the mandatory balcony for reviewing the troops.  No president has lived in it since the 90's but they did entertain dubya there when he visited in 2007.

A few blocks down the street is the National Museum.  I paid 50q. (about $6.50) and had a private tour guide who tried her hardest to speak slowly and in simple language so I could follow along (asi que esta hablando con un nino, por favor).  It's not a must see but I did learn a lot of Guatemalan history that I was not aware of before.  Really liked the part about the deposed leader's head being on display in the central plaza for three days after it parted company with the rest of him complete with artist's rendition.

Los pies carried me fifteen or twenty blocks south to the Museo de Ferrocarril.  Lots of old trains and railcars on display along with the history of rail in Guatemala.  Spoke with some former gringos there who have been saving souls up in Chiapas, MX for the last twenty years and were in Guate to pick up a visiting pastor.  So many souls. so little time.

La Sexta (sixth avenue) is a pretty cool pedestrian mall that runs for a dozen or so blocks south of the central plaza.  There are both PNC; scary quasi-military guys in four door trucks with lots of big guns, and cute friendly local police on scooters patrolling it but they still roll up the sidewalks between 7:00 and 8:00.  In the more modern gringo-friendly part of town things go on till one but all the old stuff downtown makes it a must see for me.

 Presidential Palace anchoring one side of the central plaza

 El Correo's front entrance, I'm sure if Pam shows this to her landlord he'll want to do something similar

The mailman doesn't like to fight traffic so he has this nice pasarela above the fray

Lots of good looking stuff happening downtown through an initiative to revitalize el centro

Crutch supporting tree shading lovely alcove suitable for reading while doing laundry in one Hotel Spring courtyard

Born in Philly retired in GT

Ceasar didn't plan ahead and still has to work as an ex-pat (Pam recently wondered why he wasn't stateside)

One tough rooster when it comes to fighting dirt

I'm staying at the Hotel Spring, two blocks off La Sexta.  It's very colonial with at least three interior courtyards and fifty or so rooms.  My $23/nite single has wi-fi, cable, hot water, and is a very doable walk from all of el centro.  Sin cable is $18.  Tomorrow it's a double decker bus to Puerto Barrios and then on to Livingston and the garifuna part of GT.

Wherein there is a bump in the road to Shangri-La

Doctor, lawyer, beggar-man, thief
Philly Joe Remarkable looks on in disbelief
If you want a taste of madness you'll have to wait in line
You'll probably see someone you know on Heart-attack and Vine
                                              Tom Waits 

I don't know.  He could have been a drunk. Perhaps he was nudged from the curb as the throng pushed to get past a street vendor's cart hogging the sidewwalk.  Maybe just fooling around with friends.  Probably somebody's dad.  I heard the screech followed by the thud and then the sickening slow motion arc of the rag doll tossed into the air and coming to rest in a heap in front of me in the middle of the intersection.  The PNC were immediately on the scene.  I kept walking.

Guatemala City is dirty and gritty.  I put Pam on a plane this morning and moved from the burbs to el centro to see what life is like in the capital.  I look both ways before crossing.  I suggest you do the same.  Laundry and museums today.  Las afueras manana.

Colonial Disneyland

There is nothing not to like about Antigua.  Getting there from San Pedro was another shuttle cluster kind of a thing.  Somehow a japanese mini-van is factory equipped with five rows of three abreast seating the outboard of which is a folding jump seat with little in the way of back support (guess who got one of those). We only have twelve aboard as we pull out of San Pedro so we spend the first hour of our journey winding and lurching our way over the mountain's folds to San Marcos la Laguna, maybe a ten minute launch ride across the lake, where we complete our contingent with three more hearty travelers.  Last night was a little bit over the top and now its time to pay. Switchbacks and tumolos make for a lot of braking and accelerating as our poor Nissan van carries its burden out of the caldera.  I applaud when we reach CA-1. It's premature as we come way too close to being the meat in a sandwich between two heavy-duty trucks, one stopped and turning off, the other behind us and going as fast as our van trying to make up for lost time.

Valentines day in Antigua

Almost as famous as McDonalds

The most beautiful square in Central America (according to the books)

The view from our room at Casa Cristina

Another eruption close to Antigua has made for a cloudy afternoon.  The wonderful folks at Casa Cristina have a room waiting for us with a great view of Volcan de Agua.  Antigua is beautiful; flowers, incredible architecture, wonderful food, lively entertainment, lots of gringos and gringo prices.  Not why I came to Guatemala and as it is the most visited spot in the country I'll let the guide books tell you more about it.