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GUATEMALA 1980

GUATEMALA TRIP, March 20 - April 1, 1980

THURSDAY, MARCH 20, 1980. Up at 5, shower, and frenzy of packing before car buzzes at 6. Airport by 6:20, get ticket, good front window seat at 7:50 over a Manhattan SO spectacular I forget I have a camera! Great Neck, Hart and City Islands, George Washington Bridge, Riverside Church, Columbia University, Central Park, midtown skyscrapers, East River bridges, Brooklyn Heights, Red Hook, Staten Island and Upper Jersey VERY clear and FABULOUS. Clouds at end of 1:30 flight to Raleigh-Durham, southern accents, and I wander airport and at 9:32 off for Miami, cloudy at first and then clear Florida coast LOVELY, boats dragging their tadpole-tail wakes. Land at 11:10, get tourist card for $1, NO good window except over wing, fly at 12:12 over clouded fantasy-city and incredible VEINS in new-forming islands south of Florida. Can't resist trying camera. Captain says 2 hours 20 minutes to Guatemala over Keys, Cozumel, Yucatan, Belize, and Guatemala, so right is RIGHT! Start writing this at 12, $1 Tuborg cooling to dry throat. Lost roll of toilet paper in toilet bowl as I changed from hot red sweater to light blue short sleeve shirt, packed too deep, and phoned Rita collect to say "maybe April 17-29," and she said STAY. Yucatan road ALONG coast, ALL snorkelable! FLAT! But road along coast ENDED. Occasional STRAIGHT dirt roads, to sea, Bay of Chetumal. Turn inland just after: coast here is VERY like off Florida Keys: green and shallow. LONG john wait as pilot says "at left horizon is Honduras," now over Guatemala at 2:15. Hills, no longer grassy but BUSHY, which I guess are trees. Square farms interspersed. 2:20 start down, MOUNTAINS ahead. Tin rooftops twinkle, off NO roads at all. It's 79 outside and is the volcano SMOKING? WILD rocky twisting landing at 2:35. Lovely Guatemalan lady with boy and Roman insurance-selling husband says last time in rain was REALLY rough. Pick up Posada Belen folder, no problem with customs, and taxi for $6 to woman who STARES at me and then says I remind her of someone. She gives me enclosed room 10 and I unpack and read stuff and she maps out my WHOLE trip. I ask for place to sit and watch people, and after walking crowded, noisy, dusty streets, foul smelling with bus and motorcycle exhaust and get TIRED (maybe from the altitude?), I sit at La Mesa Reconda and have SMOOTH Indita con coca, and two tasty bean tostadas for $1 from 4-6, watching Indians and Salvadorians and Mayans and chinless British ladies and big-boobed European women and shorted American men and whorish city women and blank-eyed natives and a cripple who walks on rubber knees and flings his spastic begging hands around. People sit and chat and loaf 2 hours over coffee, so I don't feel TOO guilty with only one drink---two would SOZZLE me. So the CITY is old and scrappy (but for a few modern multileveled cinema-shop complexes in Zona 1 and modern hotels down in Zona 9 and some government buildings in Zona 4), the people poor and dirty, and the rich ones incongruous in dark suits and loud racy cars. Back to Posada and shower and have GREAT dinner 7-8:30 with an oilman from Connecticut with his British wife (AWFUL meat for dinner), and down in a CAMPER from Belize, saying road IS impassible with AWFUL truck ruts, and it DOES rain up there year round, and AWFUL night ride they had to Rio Dulce. They recommend Xunantunich, missed Tikal, and recommend Angel Falls. The Dutch couple, the Brinks, talk of Mauritshuis in their Hague, trips to Sikkim, and I tell of Borneo and Catholics when she talks of Celebesian Catholics. We'll share Quetzaltenango and El Alto, and I'm to bed at 9, tossing a bit before needed sleep and putting in earplugs.

FRIDAY, MARCH 21. Wake for a few times and up at 6 to pack and out at 6:40 for sullen girl to leave (she turns out to be a daughter) and solo two eggs ASEDO (over) breakfast. Guy I DON'T care for from Maya Tours (who turns out to be the HUSBAND!) comes in to say I'm on FOURTH flight at 10:30. I grumble, check jacket and tie, catch up on these notes and determine to lightwork now at 7:35. Have good session (interrupted by search for tourist card and a shirt) until 9:05 when I pay my bill and make reservations for Jungle Lodge for $15 (primitive rip-off, she says), but I pave way for NOT coming back by asking about Uaxactun and Xununtunich and Sayaxche and other stops. She gets $15 for night and other tour things, and I take sweater (cool in AM) off JUST as Roberto comes at 10 and says we're ready. He doesn't know the name of the fabulous light lavender-blue tree, but I start in on Spanish. Plane at 11, they say, and I find ALL Inter-Peten flights are $10 and there is an airport MARKED at Lacandon for Piedras Negras but no FLIGHTS listed, only for Dos Lagunas, Carmelita, Uaxactun, Paso Cabillos, and Naranja for $25 one way IN WEATHER PERMITTING---and MarieElena said there have been NO flights the last FOUR MONTHS to Tikal? (Verified later, they said they were paving the runway!) Plane arrives at 10:50 and unloads lots of people, and they open BOTH doors of the newly painted Aviateca DC-3 that LOOKS pretty good, but WALL clock seems to be OFF; MY watch had it load at 10:30! Air NOT quite clear, but it's a PINKISH brown of DUST rather than smoke or smog. 11:25 STILL standing at door, disgusted, and a second yellow (but with wing ABOVE) Fokker comes in and it appears THAT goes to Tikal---but so LATE! Board at 11:50 and find it's stopping first at Flores, so there's even MORE of a delay. American woman who farms and had an eye infection that kept her in the hospital 7 weeks (less than that poor kid on the plane with the malignant melanoma that made his face bulge out), and married a Guatemalan and "will die in Peten---but not soon, I hope." They bought these planes two years ago and STILL don't know how to handle tourists. People talking English, French, German, Spanish, and we board FAIRLY quickly. I was thinking of avoiding lunch, but sadly I'm getting HUNGRY. Off at 12:05 and over TOWN at 12:15 and perpendicular road to road linking LARGE town just before going to plains. IS NOT bad-looking from air. Fields get greener at 12:35. Newly built roads IN MIDDLE of nowhere---oil derricks? South of rivers. Start down at 12:40, rivers like lime-green PAINT, NO traffic OR rapids, and WHITE valleys before WEREN'T rapids---but salt? Photo 3-8 at 12:47, land at 12:49, LOTS of construction (new large runway?) and earthmoving equipment and a few private planes. Must be nice. Rev up quickly and off the ground AGAIN (5th flight ALREADY) at 12:59! Land at 1:11 and pilot must have flown DIRECTLY over ruins, since it seems to have been seen from NEITHER side! LOTS of construction. Shout to Jungle Inn, holler when he seems to say no afternoon tour, ask for English-speaking companion at lunch and get sat at table with moody German who hardly talks, and then out on porch to watch local bus from Belize drop off hippies, and finally the safari bus comes around 3:30 and we're into grounds, where we start from Central Acropolis and confusing building complexes and at 4:30 I get to climb my first temple, Temple II, great view of plaza but IV is lost in sunset light and trees, so ONLY good view is toward I. CAN go AROUND it somewhat below top. Then clamber up Temple I when those who have to leave get taken back to bus, taking lots of pictures, and then drive to Temple IV where the sunset is so spectacular that Guatemalan guy and I agree to STAY up there for it, lovely chat with Sigrun Magnusdottir and Tryggvi Felixson from Reynimeg 72 Reykjavik ICELAND. Down to bus in growing dark and jostle back to dinner in total darkness, playing backgammon with Canadian couple overlooked by Cleveland boy, and for dinner (when Canadian couple are 4 at a table for 4) ask to join a bunch of guys from Ohio and women from West Germany, stewardesses whom the guys picked up in Belize City on various cays scuba diving, who then hired a guide-driver to bring them here. End the evening talking about Palenque with couples drinking cider, till they say lights go off at 9, and I dash to shower and unpack but lights stay on until I sleep at 10.

SATURDAY, MARCH 22. Up and breakfast with the man from Cleveland who went to Uaxactun with his 10-year-old son, real HORROR story of too-long trek and too-sad ruins, so I cross THAT off my list, and decide to WALK to Temple of Inscriptions to see things on my OWN. Pleasant walk, lousy inscriptions, but I feel I miss people, wandering off onto fading paths with no one to bail me out, and take photos and then at 9:40 continue notes: watch ant-trail bearing leaves as truck passes and causes chaos. Hard to see what makes a causeway a causeway---no "stone rails" and no "flooring" and no mounds lining sides, just rutted roads and, following a cut to the left, concrete troughs for draining rain---one of the potholes has moist mud at bottom. Only from mist this AM? (When I woke to TREMENDOUS rattle of parrots outside that I'd rather hoped were howler monkeys, reminding me of Clevelander's tale of being pelted by them, and then running out of water and having to BOIL it for hours and letting it cool, which it never did!) Sole Japanese takes his own jeep, driver, and guide to Temple of Inscriptions. One 4-INCH blue dragonfly on side trail from Maudsley Causeway. SUDDENLY ALL THE DRAIN WAYS AND HUGE TRENCH NEAR CAMP hits me: they're draining the rain forest to try to solve the WATER-supply problem! But how MUCH will it change the WEATHER? If rains don't soak into soil, will forest die out? If it goes into reservoir, will it evaporate faster than usual? If it evaporates AND is used, will it change clouds, temperature, weather, heat, and thus hasten destruction of the very ruins that caused the spillways? As "causeway" rises, I wonder, could THESE have been spillways? Complex G: I wander up a ladder to too-steep climb, find other way up from INSIDE. Lots of work going on: plastering, digging, covering, putting up blocks, piling up blocks. Large door says "Prohibido" and I flash light down on a SKELETON, brown as dirt, with a mirror under his jaw to show something about jade-inlaid teeth! Guide SEEMS to say both tunnels are connected, and I clamber to top and write, looking at single rooms dug out on TOP of an acropolis as yet untouched. Hideously, a hum of HORNETS makes the acropolis of group H HUM! And across the side, a swarm of FLIES in the sun echoes the hornet hum and shadows a stream of ANTS across a pillar under a TERMITE nest, and I write as I hear a BAT squeak from an inner room! Meet two guys from Dayton, one from New York, one born in Guatemala, who I think are gay and we chat and climb Temple V and get Jungle Lodge bus back to lodge at 1:30, and guide Dutch couple to museum after they don't have much lunch and have to fly off then, and return to ruins to pick up northern section, falling in with the German guy, who says they won't let him into BELIZE! We meet and part, there's another sunset from Temple IV with Americans spouting macho banalities at each other---there's a squirrel going up a tree!---and no clouds at ALL to give sunset-drama. Down and walk out increasingly dark road from 6:10-6:40, lots of people still in ruins, and pass a number of places I still haven't seen. Shower after a WELCOME beer and to dinner with people from Greenpoint, LI. Nice chat (lucky in this except for FIRST silent lunch with German: camper New Yorker from Wisconsin and group of 6: 3 American guys and 3 German girls with guide from Ambergis Cay in Belize, breakfast with Cleveland man and Adam as they tell me of water-processing walk to Uaxactun, lunch with two guys, dinner with LI, and then get to bed QUITE quickly at 9:30, surprised as lights flash on, as I'd been jolted out of bed when ROOM lights flashed back on at 9:30---I hadn't shut the switch ALL the way. Quickly to sleep, tired but not TOO sore, feeling only slightly sunburnt on forearms, liking Tikal enough to stay 2 nights.

SUNDAY, MARCH 23. Wake at 5:45, having needed just over 8 hours sleep, sad to hear no squeaky-toy parrot chorus this AM. (Forgot shock of flashlight from museum guard as I sauntered into clearing to see BRILLIANT stars and 1/3 moon last night). Dress and pack and sit on porch at 7 to write this, and proprietor comes out at 7:15 to check me out, verify that the bus to Flores is at 1, and says breakfast is served. Horrible croony music sweeps out of kitchen and I down 8 pills with canned orange juice as German couple from Temple IV last night sit across from me. Happy Sunday, one week before birthday, 3 of 13 days gone. Start breakfast alone and joined by Dutch couple, he ending up saying "I envy you"---and I STILL like to, but didn't yet, get their address for Joe. DID get the Hess's address on Greenpoint when we both got to entrance at same time and I found to my chagrin that I'd left my wallet in the red pants that I'd PACKED. She gives me $1 and their address, saying "Come visit," and I take off for Temple III, where I cut my right palm, sit on top of the North Acropolis, talk to lovely Arnie until Anne whisks him off, and at end search and SEARCH for East Plaza and Complex F, which I FINALLY find by bushwhacking and take a final picture, only 2 reels to go. Back at 12:15 to water-wash face, then unpack to get wallet for $1 for beer, then get soap and REALLY clean up. Have an orange drink and a lime drink and the German puts on a bandaid so I get one from him for my hand. Then manager says "Maybe the bus stops down below," and I go down and there it is! Load up, squeezed in back, and we go around village and get to starting point at 1:30! Down new dusty bumpy road (hear airport was closed because they were blacktopping it---making this an international airport now) and after an hour stop for lunch for 20 minutes where I just have 2 sodas. Back in bus that gets fuller and fuller and American voices macho curses and bellyaches and talks of Belize City and Cocker Cay and the Mermaid and renting scuba stuff for $30, including boat. The awfulness of the road (though we have to take detour---ANOTHER bus that got permission to go across the new airstrip into Flores got there in just under 2 hours) makes the trip almost 4 hours. Cab to airport for $1, guy waits, charter and nothing else to Guate, then cab for $1 to Patio, full, debate lugging to Flores, decide on Maya International, and find it's $10, $5 for dinner and $2 for Marie Brizard Cherry to watch sunset. Shower and change and walk to Flores, GREAT picturesque island, and boat back, and walk rocky road to hotel at 7 for dinner with Larsens of Oregon with Mara Nazda, Christ is Risen, flights with Seventh-Day Adventists (they're having fruit only) and they tell of Peptun and AWFUL 14-hour drive, and I get to bed at 9, tired, having been told tours to Sayaxche filled up. Lake is rising, only one inch below my floor, and first floors of "duplexes" became boat docks!

MONDAY, MARCH 24. Wake a few times, once at 3 to shit moistly and take my medicine, then up at 5:45 and dress to watch sun rise to change to pink to orange to yellow to white between 6:04-6:20, and pheasants squack and yellow-winged blackbirds wade on grasses growing from lake bottom and birds fly around and fish bubble for flies and cat wanders and dogs bark and cocks crow and maybe a few mosquitoes buzz---frog on road last evening. Breakfast with Francisco and Astrid from Secaucus, but they don't bite on 2-day tour to Copan and Quirigua. Wait to 8:15 for boarding passes at 8, then we're escorted to airport to meet guy on way back and write this at 8:35. About 100 people waiting for HOW many planes at 9? And who knows who goes first? Well, it turns out that the RED tags go first; SOME sense! Sit next to Denver woman taking Spanish at Chichi, who refers me to January Atlantic Monthly for the best article about Guatemala, talks of cheapness of living ($30 for course with $2/hour for PRIVATE tutor, and $25/week to live with a family, including food and laundry), and says NEWSPAPERS don't publish much---this regime doesn't want to be as BAD as Somoza, but hired killers are from EVERYWHERE. Francisco says I can call him for a trip to Copan if I can't get 2-day trip to Copan and Quirigua. Get into taxi and taxi stops for someone else and guess who it is---them! They're in the Camino Real, the best in town, and driver soaks me for $5 when I really want to give him $4. Madame grins at me and asks if I liked Tikal. She starts planning other things and I really PUSH for 2-day tour, saying I'll go with OTHER couple if it's only Copan ALONE. She's willing to wash clothes for tomorrow, which is nice. She says Popol Vuh is open all day, take bus $2 on 8th Avenue. Long wait for a 2, get on one, got 4 blocks, piercing bang and whistle: flat tire! Off and woman looks at another $2 with something in window, asks "Avenida Bolivar" and gets negative. I get on next 2 which takes a LONG time to come and ends up WAY out in Zona 5, trying to tell myself this is interesting. I'm seeing the city and the people and how they live, but I don't convince myself. Guy says "Tre-see" which I THINK is 3, then see a 13, and check to find "tre-see" is 13, so then NO bus comes. After half an hour (start at 12:15 on this excursion) I debate crossing STREET for 13's going THAT way, but finally a 13 comes, people put out hands, it goes past---behind schedule? I look for taxis, A in license, and see NONE. Another goes past, empty; a third, full, and even the other hand-wavers are exchanging expressions of disgust with me. Two MORE pass and one stops, and I have to repeat "Museo Popol Vuh" three times before he says yes. Stand, take seat, at last turn onto Bolivar, and I look but not ALL streets CROSS or have SIGNS. Finally see 14th and figure stop after next---it stops, at 15th! I bang bell and he goes way to next stop and lets me off around corner. Thanks. Over to Popol Vuh steaming at 1:30, over an hour on the road for 10, to find hours are 9-12:30 and 14:00-17:50. DAMN! But she had the right DAYS, anyway! Sit and write this till 1:45, verifying that a 2 does go UP 8th (though heaven knows where it ENDS) and listen to grating burr of mopeds and smell awful exhausts and watch busses and cars pass and only BEGIN to feel hungry. She says she'll find out if my trip goes by 4, and the Lazatins are meeting friends at 6:30, so I should hope to have time for planning if I have to. WOW! In at 1:55 and I don't CARE for it (see notes on sheet. It's academic, not spectacular, too folk-artsy, ill-lit, and none of it sexy). Buy books and out at 3:10 to AGAIN wait for 2, and ring bell too late and go WAY around a corner again. Botanical garden is somewhat depressing with lack of plantings, but still the fragrant bells of the Plumeria, branching up multi-fingered like coral, the lagarta-barked Ceiba with its fat blossoms, fallen, so THICK they feel like a crushed rodent underfoot; and the towering acararuna that's a monkey-tail run wild, scattering its base with scaly whips that it would be a PAIN to be hit on the head with. Old gray mistress talking amorously with shiny-faced sexy Guatemalan teenager, for what reason I'm not sure. She could be only giving orders for gardening but she LOOKS like she'd like to get laid! Youngster probably cruising, sitting spraddle-legged on bench, while a solemn bookman pores over his loves against one wall. LOTS of traffic noise, but with a breeze and not such a hot day it's not BAD at 4:10. Back to Posada to try eating out with the Brinks, but they're tired for the day so I latch onto the teachers from Seattle and their friend the auto repairman. Beat the economics teacher with two games of chess, then they agree to local restaurant, then we're up to La Mesa Reconda via a slot-machine place where they BOTH win jackpots, where she loves the marimba, and then we're to the top of the Ritz for drinks, good view, then by jitney to the HUGE marimba palace, drinking more, and the people are just AWFUL with their insults and then lavish purses, and then we're down to Camino Real (where I'd called to say I'd GO with the Lazatins) where I finally leave them, falling into bed about 2, leaving a note for the Brinks.

TUESDAY, MARCH 25. Up at 5 and out with a lucky cab-call at 5:30 to meet the Lazatins at 6, driving over AWFUL roads to Copan, which is quite a disappointment with smooth-surfaced multicolored walls looking newly reconstructed though they're from the 30's, a humpy tourist who causes me to gnaw at my heart, and HEAT that exhausts us after 2 hours there, so that we're ready for the middle of town and the museum better than Tikal's, then at 2:30 over the terrible 14 kilometers to the border, over in jig time compared to the half-hour getting through, and back to Auto Mariscos for dinner and I catch a jitney back to the Posada, rather exhausted from the whole day.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26. Back to the Camino Real at 9 for the long drive to Puerto San Jose for Camarones del Rio, having them after taking a detour to Likin for the $2.00 ferry to the black sand beach and NO river shrimp, but a sexy-suited Spanish coming from the pool to talk to us, then back to Las Mariarro for the lobster-like creatures, then drive back through what seems to be a volcanic eruption to Lake Amatitlan, quite destroyed, and then back to hotel and dress for the Ritz for dinner, getting the last meal at 9 pm, and wander street looking for the cruising I'd seen on Monday, but I'm still tired so I get back to the hotel to sleep for tomorrow's trip.

THURSDAY, MARCH 27. Bus late to Camino Real but we make good time to Chichicastenango, having a lavish breakfast in the Brinks' hotel, where I leave a note I'll meet them at 11, and we see them in the market, then I take pictures and get bored with the market and meet the Brinks and we get out to chat and drive to Huehuetenango and to Zacaleu, where it clouds up as if for rain, and then drive to Quetzaltenango, where I write the following notes: They're tired (Syka and Joop Brinks) and leave me at 6:15. I go buy BOOTS after trying about 5 pairs on and taking the only pair that FITS for $35. He insists banks are open till 8 and I find a busy one (after I thought he was lying) and write this while waiting for a $50 check to be cashed. Guy ahead has about 2" of ones. Strange dark quiet city, though SOME people could be cute. Wander dark arcade with no fear. The HAIL was the big thing of the day, taking photos of it and exclaiming over it with the Brinks. Huehuetenango rather a bore, but Zacaleu good for a few shots under darking skies. Take a hitchhikerette to town center and get lost in Quetzeltenango, or Xela, pronounced Shela---SheLAH? Haven't done a full lightwork session in DAYS. Interested that being ALWAYS with the Lazatins or the Brinks will NOT meet me NEW people---but maybe ugly professors of "the night out" turned me off. Chichi good ONLY for NICE hotels and market, next to San Francisco el Alto. Last few days at Atitlan have been CLOUDED, they say. Find the brooding volcano we've seen so much of is Santa Marta. ALSO passed the Natural History museum at 7:05, open till 7, and go up to see NICE fabrics (?) and lots of shards and bits of things by turning on my own lights. Took about 5 minutes. Will give boots to Brinks to give to MariaElena: they volunteered. Now for a BIG bag for SOUVENIRS! Blankets for $25, hangings for $10, shirts for $5, COULD get one of EACH---and something for Amy and Dennis and Mom? Think only of ME, which seems bad. Someone who SEEMED to be behind me just shook hands with the teller, so now I'm last, standing after 10 minutes. Getting rather tired of Guatemala, but will have to see if the trip turns out positive on the whole or not at the end. We eat in tacky hotel dining room and I get to bed, maybe to come with feeling.

FRIDAY, MARCH 28. Up early for breakfast, filling, and he gets car and we drive (partly wrong way down one-way street through next town) up to San Francisco el Alto, where I have SENSORY OVERLOAD! Sights: colors of cloth, acidity of plastic sheen, plume of smoke from Santa Marta Volcano, sunlight through sunshades, candles reflecting faces in church, abraded backs of piglets in rope halters; sounds: scuff of bare feet on stones, wails of miserable babies, babble of Indian dialects, flops of chicken wings, grunts of passing people, pleas of vendors, squalls of terrified pigs; smells: onions, fresh vegetables, stale animal shit, piss from "sanitarios" which don't seem too sanitary. NO smells from people; more sights: papooses munching mango seeds, vendors in church selling in pews. Then back to car about noon, having had QUITE enough, not having bought anything, hoping to get stocked up in market in Guate. They cart me to Los Encuentros where I try hitchhiking to no avail, but a quick bus takes me (with a hippy who says she's lived in Panajachel for a month) through the market swirls of color in Solola down to the backfire-rattling slopes down the mountainside to the delta on which Panajachel is built. Don't get off the first stop, but follow the hippy girl off at the second, to find myself in the "center of town" so I check into the Maya International Hotel for $7 in a windowless room with hot water, unpack, and wander to Soup Kitchen for lunch with two bottles of soda and the 25 indispensable guide to Lake Atitlan. Dash down to the lake to find the boats for San Pedro filled already, so I wander roads and write postcards (no, this is the NEXT night) look at people passing the Poco Loco until 6:30, when it's dark, and I go inside, amused at the Oregonian owner and his Guatemalan lover, then the evening flip-flops as I meet Lennart Roos and Osten, two Royal Swedish Navy numbers who are just about to celebrate their first anniversary of a trip around the world that started with an incredible 16 BORING days on the Siberian Railroad, working in Australia, and other adventures until HERE, where I started with $54, bought $4.40 film and $3.60 cards and $1 stamps for $9, and LEFT with $33, so $12 spent on their drinks---an incredible evening in Poco Loco, Risian, and Japanese place TRYING to make them and they're on the make (and not to mention STRAIGHT) and I have about 6 beers from 6 pm-12:40, and I might have ended with a MEXICAN podgy fellow with mournful eyes or the cute CHARLEY! Despite Len's seductive "Whatever you do, we'll have our---consummation"! AND my premonitory "I could REALLY enjoy EACH instant, knowing it may be the last."

SATURDAY, MARCH 29. Wake and get down to Hotel Tannjuyu for luxury breakfast for $3 and then onto boat, meeting Erv Shukoff and Lynn Miller for the second time, enjoy semi-sunny trip across lake, washers in Santiago Atitlan, bargaining for beads, beers for resting after wandering back pathways, then back to boat for sunburn-time coming back, looking at blond-red-haired guy who ends up at Poco Loco with woman. Wander with them through town, then encounter Len and Osten again, who invite me for beer, and I figure there's NOTHING here, so I leave and write cards and buy stamps and see church and figure to leave tomorrow. Didn't watch dubbed "Love Duet" (or whatever) with Dick Van Dyke last night, but watch "Charge of the Light Brigade" with Gary Cooper that's NOT dubbed tonight, with the couple, after sitting with them watching the bargaining this afternoon, and they treated me to Chinese dinner for my birthday tomorrow, and I was so tired I left them at 12:05, anxious NOT to get sucked into the Swedish nets again! But surely the Poco Loco must be the most interesting bar in Guatemala!

SUNDAY, MARCH 30. Notes: Kid wants to hold Daddy's hand, about 3 years old, father slaps away hand "Camino comme hombre!" "Hippie" walks through market with bag of mangos, oranges, and stalks of celery. "I could possibly live like that." He climbs into a dirty Mercedes and races away. Remembered the WEDDING procession the previous evening. Wake at 5 to two voices singing raucously---glad I left bar at 12:15 and found them NOT there. No conflict on their attraction now. Wake again at 7 and out to look at Mass at 8, priest good microphonic voice, and cute tourist watching. Sit on shady wall and take pictures and look at view. COULD I live like this? Then decide to leave, pack and leave at 9:15 to wait for bus for Patzun. Seems I DID see bus for San Andres, but NOTHING passes but typical Solola. At 9:40 decide to wait only until 10:15, and then a vendor tells me there ARE no busses to Patzun, Sunday market or not. I reluctantly believe him and go across for the next mini for Solola. Then BACK across (how I WISH I'd stopped the car from Minnesota that was going the "right" way) to get on an EMPTY bus for the marketplace again, and it quickly fills up for Solola and I have a decent seat for the spectacular ride out of Panajachel. Wish I had about a dozen photos of various views from the road down to the towers, the water skiers, the now-visible DOUBLE volcano that I think was obstructed yesterday, and the clear view of the single one. Views of the "double" volcano should be VERY spectacular from lakeside villages, and I can see the road along the south and figure they'll connect Aldea to the BOTTOM delta and connect the two deltas for a super-spa. With smaller (though still there) haze, photos would be good down over the tree-shaded roads and lanes of Panajachel. Into Solola and have to change buses. He asks for 30 and I have 1/2 note and he doesn't have change. "Thirty centavos?" he asks again and I dig out purse to show only 5. "OK, 5," he says and I smile and shrug and dump 5 into his hand. Bargain for a bus! Again get window seat, though on only wide RIGHT seat, since I really can't take a seat so narrow my knees can't fit into the space. Write to this at 10:55 as people grunt and crawl in back and sarcastic American female voice from front laughs and says "We're sardines" and "I gotta sit on the floor?" and "Want me to work some of the pedals (KM 104 on CA1, right side from Pana---waterfall with nude male bathers!) for you?" Side isn't bad anyway, and get to Las Encuentros to thumb for a bit and have CHEAPEST Crush ever: 18. Bus shouts for "Guate" and I get on GREAT empty bus that tootles over CA1 to Chimaltenango at 1 pm---face feeling VERY windblown and sunburned and start thinking about trip with Andre (if he's well) April 17-30, AVOIDING overnights. Why NOT Merida/Puerto Rico/Haiti/NYC? Leave "off" places like Guadeloupe and Trinidad for OTHER trips---LONG time in Guatemala OK. Hoping to get to Antigua in time for lunch, but with sunburned face, windblown hair, road-dusted shirt and jeans and boots, I'm NOT presentable for Palacio de Dona Leonora. But bus starts up at 1:07, GREAT! Into Antigua at 1:45, STUMBLE onto Tourist Office, where GREAT guy gives me map and hours and locations, and dash to Palacio de Dona Leonora and DON'T understand what they say, but ask for lunch, leave bag, and go upstairs to have them MOVE table out of sun and they serve BEST meal in country for $6 and 50 for mineral water and $1 tip = $7.50. Great LIMED BROWN SUGAR on cantaloupe; GREAT oxtail soup with egg yolk and white pieces, LOVELY strong taste; beef roast with carrots and celery replacing gristle, GOOD pieces of meat, PEPPERED mashed potatoes, good squash (overcooked) and GREAT cinnamoned and creamed banana fritters baked GREAT, and coffee in a crock. Dash out at 2:45 to the Aurora to find THEY are full, and leave bag to get to La Merced and HOPE Dona Leonora gets WATER, so I can stay THERE, finish this at 3:20, broiling in sun but with cool breeze, waiting for procession to start. After stunning tableaus of purple Arabs, orange-red Romans, green-garbed Christ, and black-veiled women with the female Santas, run into Arnie Bernardette, the sexy guy from Temple III, who gives me his address on East 89th Street and says he'll continue telling me about political situation. Back to Aurora and find they DO have a single room for $7! Unpack and walk to farthest restaurant after not finding anyone to eat with in Barbara's, but it's closed, so BACK to Barbara's, passing parade numerous times, for a good meal for $10+, then out with Sophia (or whoever) to see flower-carpet, and back to hotel exhausted at 12.

MONDAY, MARCH 31. 8 am wake weary of travel, decisions, doing, going, thinking, deciding. "Lament" for my conversationless yesterday: only after-midnight goodbyes from Irv and Lynn, morning chat with vendor on buses, talk with tourist director, hotel manager, restaurant captain around Dona Leonora, long chat with edible Arnie, talk with U.S. tourists in Aurora on restaurants, and talk with Grace and Barbara from Chicago at Barbara's. But that's not being WITH! I ask myself what I WANT and out pops LOVE first. Yes, Dennis and Amy and Pope and Spartacus. But I also want LUST, but FILLABLE lust (not Arnie, for example) of BEING with someone more and more---that delicious torture of "I can't get ENOUGH of you, can't get close ENOUGH to you." So then filters in "contentment." (Not money, though I DO think of making a will, say $10,000 and what he wants of THINGS to Dennis, rest of THINGS to Arnie and Pope, and rest to Mom, if alive, or Rita, who with Denny shouldn't NEED it. Funny how gays whose lives are spent ONLY on themselves and lovers leave all to FAMILY whom they might dislike, RATHER than lovers and friends. As for "contentment," I guess I DO want to be home. Then I find I NEED session (not really a FULL one since the first in room 10 at Posada Belen!), so finish this and start at 8:06. Thinking too much leads to ultimates: What IS the ultimate reason for travel? But that's like asking the ultimate REASON FOR A DELICIOUS MEAL? You enjoy it! You DON'T do it to be able to say "I did it." You don't do it (except for Lutece and La Goulou) to tell others about it, you do it for PLEASURE. Being with people relieves me of the pressure of THOUGHT. Being alone SUBJECTS me to it---only as I ALLOW it, true, but I DO allow it. Stop at 9:15. Out after packing and OUR dining room is EMPTY. Around a number of corners to Posada Don Rodrigo, a NICE place where LOTS of people are still eating at 10:15, and order Sandia, to find it's WATERMELON. $3.50 for ham omelet and lots of toast and coffee for first half of day's consumption. Out to Capucines to find, gratefully, it's open Mondays and buy THE book on Antigua for $4.95 and walk rather listlessly around taking pictures. I'm glad the trip's over and ending, but Antigua IS unique. Over to find the flower carpet BURNT and swept up, so back to hotel to check out and lug heavy bag to bus station, thankfully THIS side of HUGE new cement-block market being built. More ruins than you can shake a viewfinder at, and they DO suffice. Sun comes and goes in clouds and radio in bus is Spanish disco, ruining it AS the transistor radios and mopeds and screaming kids ruin the tranquility of Antigua. Off at 12:15 in fairly empty bus that USUALLY fills WAY up as we go. Would LOVE to have an OVERHEAD view of city into those walls over which BANKS of red and purple flowers cascade. Stop for diesel fuel and it's only 99.5 compared to $1.92 or so for regular gas. My nose feels SCARRED from burn---awful! Gets just over 21 gallons for $21+. To crowded bus station and try to find local bus, but end up taking cab to Posada, and back to room 11, and get down to market to find they won't cash traveler's check, so I have to walk WAY back UPTOWN, where it starts to rain, and I meet Erv on the street, and then down to buy lots of stuff, back to show to Irv and Lynn, and then we change and get down to Palacio Royal for Chinese food, bothered by kids at next table, and drink wine and beer and jitney back and fall into bed early.

TUESDAY, APRIL 1. Wake and write notes, Yesterday not as lacking in companionship as Sunday: dinner at Royal Pavilion Chinese with Irv and Lynn for $8 and then down to MacDonalds for THEIR good coffee and MY shake and manzano (apple) pie. Back on old jitney and to bed at 10:15, to sleep INSTANTLY. Did a GOOD session yesterday and settle down after shower (and solarcaine bothers my eyes) to good session at 7:50, when I write this. Janic, the British cloth EXPORTER (she SELLS, not buys; talks ONLY to government people) tells me of 10 am procession at La Merced. Procession, sawdust carpet, and mucho shopping later I'm back to the Posada with MORE material and a HUGE rope bag, which I hope will be small enough to carry on. Then, at 12:30, decide I CAN see Kaminal Juyu. So the bus takes till 1:30, the back-and-forth finally COMPLETE tour takes till 2:30, and get back to hotel at 3:15 for a BIG fuss---they insisted I stayed the 23rd, when I was in Flores. But they ALSO put "$48 refund" on my bill, which I said was the Shukoffs'! He writes receipt, calls cab, and I pack HUGE bag! Plane due off at 4:54, cab comes at 3:54 and we get to airport. Must CHECK bag with release for "poorly packed": release for damage AND loss of contents. I put a sigil over it, hoping (nothing is gone). Then $5 exit fee, he won't take check. Down to cash $20, pay fee with LAST paper quetzals but for souvenir OLD one, and cash ANOTHER $20 for a $6 Cherry Marnier 26 oz and extra for cab, if I need it, not to mention CASH. Rush down hall at 4:45 for seat assignment and find it's DUE to leave NOW at 5:10. GOOD. Get left front window seat, as desired, and finish this wishing for piss at 5 pm. Though stewardess says we're boarding in 2-3 minutes, I get down NEXT stairs to find a seatless, paperless, everything-else-less john and am back at 5:07, STILL waiting to leave---JUST as rows 23-27 start boarding! On, snacks, stop in Miami to lug bag through customs and endless corridors, see a reasonably good "Hero at Large" with John Ritter in a lot of flesh, and over brightly lit cities until we land JUST on time at 12:15, and I spend whole time in solo cab looking for KEYS, which I can't FIND, so I buzz Dennis and look at my stuff and talk until I'm REALLY exhausted, to bed about 2:45 am!

MISCELLANEOUS NOTES FROM NOTEBOOK

Restaurants from the Lazatins:

Peking House on Mott, instant Peking Duck.
Pengs, 44th St., off 3rd, General Chou's Chicken Lemon
30th and 6th GOOD Korean restaurant
Siamese Garden---53rd and 3rd

Sigrun Magnusdottir and Tryggvi Felixson / Reynimeg 72 / Reykjavik / Tel. 24037

Bill and Caroline Hess / 395 Gillette Dr. / East Marion, N.Y. 11939 (sent $1 4/7/80)

Mr. F.L. Lazatin / 160 Sandcastle Key / Secaucus N.J. 07094

Arnie Benardette / 221 E. 89th St. / N.Y.C. 10028 / Telephone in June (Pediatrician finished interning at St. Vincents and wanting a practice of his own---married (?) to Anne (?)

Prices: 2 pieces: shirt and HUGE piece which "cost 20," $24

2 tablecloths, started at $12 each, ended for 2 for $16

Amy's shirt "cost" $6.50

Black hanging, started at $12, probably biggest rook: $7

Three pieces HAND-sewn, $30

Blanket $30, though he thanked the Trinity in prayer afterwards, NOT a good sign!

Erv Shukoff /Lynn Miller / Apt 60L; 141 Somerset W. / Ottawa Ont K2P2H1 / 234-9480

That BOOK for taking notes cost 69 in Florida!! 60 3x5 sheets!

Financial figures: spent $1238, or $95/day for 13 days:

1. $30/air ($385+5 exit tax)
2. $10/Tikal ($95 flight + 30 Tikal nights)
3. $15/hotels (probably evens out)
4. $20/souvenirs ($150 material, 45 books, 35 boots, + beads)
5. $10/food
6. $10/miscellaneous (film, boat rides, drugs, boozed, etc)
$95/day

8 flights

1. NYC - Raleigh-Durham
2. - Miami
3. - Guatemala City
4. - Flores
5. - Tikal
6. - Guatemala City
7. - Miami
8. - NYC