Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Does swimming in the lake count as a shower?

well, of course it does! Unfortunately for you, I did nothing of interest today besides lay in a hammock. For New year's, basically we all had a nice dinner, there was some guitar playing, dancing, and one guy had his dreadlocks cut off for charity. Everyone who donated money got to cut off one dread. So of course I did. And I thought about keeping it as a souvenier - like here´s a dreadlock I cut off some guy´s head in Guatemala, but I was talking to another guy who USED to have dreadlocks, and he said that he never used to wash them. There were also fire dancers and a billion stars in the sky. There is this funny mother-daughter duo here from Montreal and they don´t speak a lot of english but they really entertain me. The mother was drinking a lot and the daughter informed me that she wants to go over to San Marco (a town even more hippie than San Pedro - I avoided it) to do mushrooms! And the daughter is like, my mom is SO much crazier than I am. The owner sang a song about Dutch girls and a song about the chicken busses. The local litle boys in town were peering into our party, then a few of the braver ones came in and I wish you could have seen the looks on their faces. They were maybe 8, 9 years old and they were completely enthralled yet terrified of our party. So I grabbed one of them to dance and his friend danced with another girl. I don´t know whether that made them total studs or the butt of jokes forever in the village of Santa Cruz, but it was really funny.
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Today I laid in the hammock and listened to my hangover cure-all, Cafe del mar number 5. It always works! I evesdropped on all the different accents and watched all the beautiful people from all over the world on the deck. I just took a swim in the lake with the Americans, the British couple and some other people. It was cold but now I feel great.
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There is this kid here that cracks me up. He works at a little portable water-potato chip-pop stand outside the Iguana. He is ALL business. He´s like a little mafia kid, and greases back his hair in a 1950s style. He acts like he´s been running that stand for 50 years.now. I really like the Guatemalan kids. They are always eager to talk (well, except for the dead serious kid at he pop stand) and they all have giant brown eyes. Did you ever see that movie a Bronx Tale? One of my favorites. anyhow, the pop stand kid reminds me of one of those little mobsters in training.
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I leave tomorrow to go back to Antigua. An hour ago, I was sure that I was going to Nica next but now I´m changing my mind again. It´s either the corn islands in Nicaragua which are MUCH harder to get to, it would certainly be an adventure, or I go to Roatan in Honduras, which is easier to get to but more touristy. What to do, what to do... what do you think? Nicaragua might mean spending a night in El Salvador, which could be bad yet interetsting and dodgy. There is no ATM on the corn islands and probably little or no internet so you might not hear from me much after tomorrow. Corn islands look like paradise and Roatan doesn´t look to shabby either. I´m not afraid, per se, just might be a little inconvenienced by the money situation, and might have to stay in a crap hotel one night on the way.
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Oh, and in my room of straw, I think there is some bug in there biting me. I have a lot of red scabs and bites. Just adding to my lovely appearance!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Happy New Year!
I'm enjoying reading this part of the trip so much. It's the face of the lake I could not see during my stay. Because I did not stay long enough or I did not look deep enough.
Anyways, back to work for me.
I'll keep reading.
A hug...
Antonella

Anonymous said...

Being purely selfish, I vote for Nicaragua just because I know you will have great stories from there. Bring me home an ouzie. But it sounds like whatever you decide you can't go wrong.

New Years here was a blast, we watched the fireworks from a friends flat who lives right on the harbor, it was amazing. Then we went to one of our favorite bars in Coogee and watched Vanilla Ice preform. He was complete crap but very funny. Ended the night with a late night swim in the ocean and of course McDonald's.

Can't wait to see you back home and swap pictures and stories. I miss you guys!!!

Kate C. said...

Hmm, selfishly I think you should go to Honduras so that I have something to read at work. However, think about it - you've been thinking about Nicaragua for awhile now and I know you would get to Honduras and it would be beautiful and you would enjoy it, but then you'd realize that you missed the opportunity for the challenge and then you might have regrets..

Go to El Salvador, get a bunch of cash and go to Nicaragua. If you run out there is that American woman there trying to get her son out of jail - she might be able to loan you some cash ;-) Just be careful in Nicaragua with that whole trial and stuff....

Also think of how fun the corn islands would be - you could get "cornfused" and ask for directions. You could introduce the game corn hole to the island. You could be a-maized. The possibilities are endless.

Anonymous said...

This Cornhusker votes Corn Islands! The men will be husky. Be careful though. Met Mike Ditka on New Years! I think his sons want me. :) Come home soon! -Kellogg

Anonymous said...

I finally caught up with the blog after being out for a few days. I'm glad you are having a good time, and as always, the the stories keep me entertained. I like the idea of the corn islands. But if you don't go today, you can go tomorrow...right? Corn today, corn tomorrow?
Be safe, remember that Banco Dorion is always open in you need it!
Peace.