Tag: solo female traveler

Ecuador

Universally Speaking

‘The usual by-passer is a woman sauntering slowly down the road with bundles upon bundles balanced on her head. These woman are pillars of wonder, defying gravity while wearing the ho-hum aspect of perfect tedium. They can sit, stand, talk, shake a stick at a drunk man, reach around their backs to fetch forth a baby to nurse, all without dropping their piled-high bundles upon bundles. They are like ballet dancers entirely unaware they are on stage. I cannot take my eyes from them.’

I am currently reading The Poisonwood Bible, and this quote describes far better than I ever could the way I felt every time I saw the Mayans in Guatemala walking down the street balancing all kinds of crazy things on their heads. I really do miss it.

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Don’t Rock My Boat
Guatemala

Don’t Rock My Boat

This weekend, like a good little tourist, I went to Antigua to see the processions for Semana Santa. Before I say more, please note what is happening with the statues in the picture of the fountain above. Amazing. Anyways, I had no idea that Semana Santa was such a big deal in Guatemala, in Xela all the schools were closed, and most businesses took a holiday as well. When I was walking to school on Thursday morning it was like an atomic bomb had gone off, there were no cars, no people, no open tiendas… for the first time ever even the beer factory had closed its gates.

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Duppy Conqueror
Guatemala

Duppy Conqueror

This weekend in Xela was a good one. Probably the highlight was getting to live  my dream of breaking open one of the fabulous piñatas that I wrote about in my last entry.  One of the maestros invited my friend Laerke and I to her son’s first birthday party, and it was quite the fiesta. They had probably around 50 guests, an endless stream of games for the kids, four (!) different piñatas, and really delicious food. Laerke and I felt like super gringas, we were definitely the awkward interlopers watching everything unfold, but it was really fun. Side note, today I was walking past one of the many piñata stores, and I actually went in and poked around a bit, and some of them are as tall as I am. How awesome would it be to be a five year old and break open a piñata more than twice your size? And so my fascination continues….

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Queen of the Surface Streets
Guatemala

Queen of the Surface Streets

This post should be titled ‘1001 Reasons Guatemala Will Turn Me Into a Gordita.’ This past week I have discovered many food items that have significantly improved my quality of life. Let’s start with the tamalitos de chiplin that I discovered at a little restaurant called Cafe Luna. The photo above is all that remained of my tamalitos, because I scarfed them down before I was able to remember to take a photo, but, they were increible, cheesy and savory and yum.

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Idle Ties
Guatemala

Idle Ties

Last weekend I took a trip organized through ICA to Semuc Champey, Tikal, and the Rio Dulce area.   A group of 14 of us, including our school director Enrique, two maestros, 6  Danish girls, an older Danish couple, and two other middle aged women from the states left Thursday at 5pm in our luxury tourist mini-bus for dinner in Guatemala City. I had just been talking all that day with my maestra Claudia about how dangerous Guatemala City is, she told me about this gang called 18 that frequently kills bus drivers as they enter into Guate, and this other maestra put a crumb on the desk and told my friend Signe that the desk represents Guate, and that the crumb represents the part of the city that is safe… sooo, needless to say, I was a little apprehensive about heading into the city in a big bus with ‘TURISTAS’ printed on the back, but, I guess we went to the crumb, because I felt like I was in any other major city in the world.

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If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out
Ecuador, Guatemala

If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out

I forgot to mention in my last post that I’ll be spending the next eight weeks in Guatemala living with a host family, taking Spanish classes, and hopefully finding someplace to volunteer once my Spanish starts to become halfway decent. The plan right now is to stay in Xela for five weeks, head over to Antigua and continue taking classes while watching the Semana Santa festivities for another two weeks, and then travel for the last week, hopefully seeing Semuc Champey, Tikal, and the Rio Dulce, depending on how ambitious I’m feeling by that point. Right now I’m a little bit worried about safety, I have read mixed reports, although I heard the same things about Ecuador, and I didn’t have any problems when I was there.

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