Cochabambina Cool

After a long and arduous journey which included a no blockade dance, bidding on sold-out bus tickets, sleeping on the stranger in the next seat and a midnight snowstorm, I've finally arrived in Cochabamba.

I am so happy to be here. While there aren't really any tourist attractions, there is warm weather and friendly faces, which is exactly what I wanted after cold, gray and conservative La Paz.

Cochabamba has a mild Mediterranean climate and a bright blue sky, only occasionally obscured by instantaneous and torrential downpours. The plazas are filled with park benches, ice cream sellers and shoeshine boys, shaded by palm trees and bordered by lovely Baroque churches. The Prado is lined with open air cafes, perfect for lingering over Cochabamba's famous cuisine and taking a parade of Caporales dancers, which are almost constant in the run-up to Carnaval.

Cochabama is Bolivia's breadbasket. When the Incas invaded from Peru, they were quick to colonize the fertile valley, so the people here are Quechua, as opposed to the Aymara of La Paz and the Altiplano. The indigenous women wear short velvet polleras, sandals, and wide-brimmed straw hats, adding to the air of eternal spring. Moreover, the Cochabambinos seem to be far more open than their highland counterparts. People are always happy to stop and chat, wanting to know who I am and why I'm here. I'm even a little relieved that the catcalls have resumed.

The openness suprises me, because there are an incredible number of gringoes here, some of them incompetent peace corps kids and others overzealous missionaries. At the same time, I must admit, there are some alright faithful folk. As it turns out, I'm living with two Maryknoll missioner boys, Jason and Steve.

We live in a barrio to the south of town, opposite the lovely Lauguna Alalay, which is Quechua for "Oh, cold!" There are stone-cobbled streets overgrown with weeds, walls covered with graffiti murals and plenty of parks for pick-up futbol matches. Evo Morales has a house a few blocks away. Our house is 'medidas aguas' which means that all the rooms open out onto the patio, forcing you to run through the rain and dodge the crazy annoying dogs to go to the bathroom or kitchen. But, between the showerhead shorting out and the pilot light of death, the kitchen and bathroom are somewhat scary. Fortunately my room is bright and airy, and I'm planning to paint it soon.

This gigantic statute, Christo de la Concordia, overlooks the city. At 33m plus it's a hair higher than the Rio de Janerio statue it's modeled after. While display of one upmanship and evangelism would normally annoy me to no end, it orients me when I get lost, so I've forgiven it.

Go to Jail, Go Directly to Jail, Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200

Today, continuing my death-tourism stint, I tried to visit the infamous San Pedro prison. San Pedro used to have a brusque tourism business, but visits were called off after few too many tourists were caught buying cocaine. In order to visit, I had to have an inmate to visit and official permission.

Sebastian, a Dutch tourist awaiting trial on cocaine charges, and a friend of a friend, invited me to visit him. Unfortunately, I was unable to obtain official permission to visit him. Apparently, Sebastian was on some sort of probation, I was suspicious because I was white, and the person I needed to bribe was away on other business.

Instead, the guards let me stand at the gate and talk to Sebastian. Being a white woman and bearing a carton of cigarettes, a bag of chocolates and bars of soap, the inmates clamoured at the iron gate to talk to and touch me. The majority of the men I met were awaiting trial, almost all of them on drug charges. Some of them have been stuck in the stalled judicial system for years.

Inside the prison there are no guards, no uniforms and no real rules. The 1,500 or so prisoners must resolve disputes among themselves. They organize into unions and elect leaders. The prisoners are also quite political. Posters of Evo adorn all of the walls, and candidates campaign inside the prison. Problems that can’t be resolved peaceably are usually settled with knife fights. Prisoners accused of commiting particularly heinous crimes are often killed in vigilante violence. There are an average of four deaths, from 'accidents' and natural causes, each month.

San Pedro is divided into eight separate barrios, each centered its own patio. Some areas are better than others, and each has a hotel-style star rating. While wealthy inmates can buy or rent cells, poorer inmates sleep on crowded corridor floors. Towards the top of the prison, the cells are quite swank, complete with kitchens and bathrooms. One drug-baron, caught with $420 million worth of cocaine, had a second story built onto his cell. On the first floor, the cells are unsafe, with violence, vermin and diseases running rampant.

To supplement their meager rations, improve their cells and survive the prisoners must earn money. The prison is like a little city, with food stalls, repair shops, shoeshine boys, barbers, billiard halls and everything else you could want. However, the two biggest businesses in San Pedro are distractions from the difficult life: drink and drugs and soccer. Contraband substances seem to flow freely through the prison, the officials easily paid-off. There are cocaine laboratories in some of the cells. Apparently, it is so lucrative that many of the San Pedro guards pay for their postings. Soccer is almost equally important. Coca-cola sponsors the teams, in exchange for exclusive sales in the prison. On big games single bets can reach $1000. Sometimes, players are even scouted out by the wealthier sections.

Family members can come and go freely and some children live in the prison. There are so many of them, San Pedro has its own school. Without other relatives, the children don’t have any options. They offer suffer abuse, and are always stigmatized. However, as one father explained to me, they do their best to shield their kids from the violence and shame, and they are able to provide some stability and normality because they stay together as a family.

The San Pedro prison was an incredibly interesting and ironic place, a microcosm of Bolivian society. The majority of inmates are indigenous, there’s an astonishing divide between rich and poor, and almost everyone is there as a result the War on Drugs. Although I'm glad I visited, I don’t think I’ve ever cried so hard as I did on the cab ride home.

For more information and some excellent photos of the inside check out this BBC article and the Marching Powder website.

Bolivian Politics 101

This weekend Tracy and I were determined to get out of the city. We got up at dawn on Saturday morning and slogged up to the bus terminal, aiming for Sorata, a town a few hours north. Unfortunately, when we arrived at the bus station it was closed. There was a blockade. That's how Bolivians protest. There are so few avenues to power and little access to political infuence, people feel so disenfranchised, that they are forced to drag rocks, trees, old cars, burning tires, and so on and so forth into the streets, blocking all traffic from one part of the country to another and effectively paralyzing it.

Apparently, some Bolivian bus drivers are upset at the aptly named Seguro Obligatorio de Accidentes de Tránsito, or SOAT, an annual transit tax. Actually, all of a sudden, Bolivians seem to be upset about everything. Now that Christmas is over, the population of La Paz seems to have doubled, doubled their pace and doubled their grudges. This morning there were three dozen riot cops supervising the demolition of one of the municipal markets, a la the occupied territories. This evening there was a small protest in Plaza San Francisco. I stopped to watch and listen. A small group of indigenous people were stumping for the controversial new constitution and against the Media Luna autonomy movement.

A bit of background:

Santa Cruz and the rest of the Eastern lowlands, collectively called the Media Luna, consisting of the Beni, Pando, Tarija and Santa Cruz are culturally distinct from the rest of Bolivia. They tend to be whiter and more western than other Bolivians. Without exception, those that I've spoken to have been very kind to me, but utterly and unapologetically bigoted, refering to indigenous people as dirty Indians, swine, and a multitude of other unspeakable things. Unfortunately, these people also control much of the wealth and want to keep it to themselves. In recent years, government revenue has shifted from mineral extration, centered in the Altiplano West, to hydrocarbon extraction, agrobuisnesses and cattle ranching, centered in the Lowland East. So Santa Cruz and the Media Luna have begun rumbling about autonomy, if not outright succession.

On the other hand, Evo Morales campaigned promising a new constitution, one that would concentrate more power in the hands of the poor indigenous majority, concentrated in the Western Altiplano, instead of the whiter, wealthier minorty, concentrated in the Eastern Lowlands. After he was elected he conviened a constituent assembly to draft a new constitution. Unfortunately the opposition, unhappy with the proportional representation system, boycotted the assembly until the last minute. As a result, the legitamacy of the new constitution is in limbo. This is unfortunate, because it's incredbily progressive, focusing on health and education, increasing indigenous participation in government, redistributing hydrocarbon revenues and idle land, reducing the influence of the church and allowing gay marriage, while concentrating a little more power in the hands of the central government.

The political tension over natural resource revenues is mixing with racial tension and Evo Morales' election and constituent assembly is accentuating it, creating an incredibly explosive situation. The opposition has also begun attacking MASista representatives, preventing them from attending the constituent assembly.Youth gangs, called the Juventud Cruceñista, roam the streets of Santa Cruz beating up Cholitas. A few weeks before I arrived a sometimes revolutionary highland group called Los Ponchos Rojos killed and mutilated a pair of dogs on national TV, as a warning to the Media Luna. People are angry and afraid, and there have been a lot of attacks on individuals.

The speaker was standing under a Whipala, an indigenous flag. I thought it was interesting, and I snapped this photo. Oh, what an error. Immediately, I was surrounded by a gaggle of angry indigenous people, yelling in an unintelligible mix of Aymara and Spanish. "Where are you from?" one of them demanded. "Are you a journalist?" another asked. I explained myself, showing them my passport and pictures, taking care to emphasize my differences with our president and my support for theirs. Once they were sure I was an ally, they were actually quite kind, explaining their positions and posing for pictures. (Apologies for the pun). Apparently, because I was white, they originally thought that I was from Santa Cruz. Had I been, I have no doubt that they would have beaten me senseless and bloody.

All’s well that end’s well and I have learned an important lesson about the liabilities of white skin. Plus, if I’m going to get lynched for a photo, it should be a better one than this.

Textiles and Cholitas

Many indigenous women in La Paz, called cholas and cholitas, have adopted a particularly unique and now ubiquitous costume. It was originally imposed by seventeenth-century Spanish governors, but today it's a fashion, an identity and an outward display of wealth.

The women wear polleras, or gigantic petticoat skirts which emphasize the width of their hips. Over the pollera they wear lacy blouses and colorful shawls, often accented with sequins and fringe. Under the pollera they wear knee-high lace-up boots, or flat slippers. My favorite part are bowler hats, pinned at a jaunty angle over a pair of braids. It's unclear how they came into vouge. Some people say that a businessman imported too many and convinced the Cholitas that is was the latest Spanish fashion.

In general, traditional fabrics have been eschewed by indigenous women in the city as the mark of campesinas and tourist tat. However, I did meet this Cholita spinning in the street, and she told me a little bit about her trade and let me take her picture, which was a rare treat.

She was working with alpaca wool, which is prized over that sheep and llama, but below vicuña wool. She was pulling out clumps of wool, rolling them between the fingers of their right hand and on to a spindle that they keep moving with their left hand in one seamless motion. For everyday threads the spindle is spun counterclockwise. For ceremonial and special threads the spindle is spun clockwise. Eventually, she'll dye the wool with plants and minerals and weave it on a backstrap loom, as she has since she was a teenager and as her grandmothers for generations before her did.

Then she'll sell it for a fraction of what it's worth to tourists who have no idea the back-breaking, blinding work and hundreds of hours that go into their souvenirs.

Bolivia Has the EMP Beat

Today I paid a visit to the Museo de Instrumentos Musicales. While there is plenty of Bolivian guacarock, reggeton, ranchera, cumbia, nueva canción and etc., Bolivia has retained an incredibly rich folk music tradition with all sorts of instruments of their own invention.

We saw lots of charangoes, tiny guitars adapted from Spanish lutes and mandolins. However, charangoes are traditionally constructed out of armadillo shells. There are a few explanations for the unconventional soundbox selection. Some people say that Andean musicians liked the sounds of the Spanish instruments, but could not bend wood into the appropriate shapes and had to use armadillo shells. Others say that the Spanish prohibited Andean music, and that the charango was created because it was easily hidden. We also saw tortoise shell and more conventional carved wood charangoes. Charangoes usually have ten strings, requiring incredibly nimble and slender fingers. They appear and are tuned a little like an ukulele, but is played more like a banjo, and sounds completely different than either. All the strings are tuned inside a single octave, so it creates very full and sustained sound.

We also saw zampoñas, the panpipes so often associated with Andean music. They’re usually made from bamboo tubes of varying lengths. Some zampoñas are taller than the tiny musicians who play them! Pieces of dried corn, or pebbles, are placed in the bottom of the pipes to precision tune them. The pipes are split into two rows, called the ira and the arka, which symbolize the male and female, and together form a full scale. Traditionally, two people play the zampoñas together, but today one musician is more common.

Finally, there were plenty of quenas. Quenas are bamboo flutes played by pinching the top of the tube with your lower lip, and blowing downwards, as I imagine a beaver would. Pinquillo, tarkas, and moseños are similar variants. Other distinctively Andean instruments include the pututu, a ram’s horn, chajchas, a shaker made of goat, llama or sheep toes, and every imaginable size and shape of drum and rattle.

The museum also had a huge collection of non-Bolivian instruments. My favorite was this Peruvian ocarina. Then there were also homemade instruments, including a guitar made out of a spam can, and an exhibit explaining the tin can telephone. Finally, there were some instruments that I can only imagine came from a Dr. Seuss book.

The EMP has absolutely nothing on this museum. They had way more instruments, cooler instruments, tons of stuff to touch and play with. The EMP's only advantage is its amazingly ugly building. Not to be outdone, the Museo had blueprints of charago shaped edifice on display. If only Paul Allen had an interest in armadillo guitar shaped buildings.

Happy New Year!

Unlike Christmas, New Year's Eve celebrations appear to be exactly the same in all parts. Stay up late, get silly drunk. Bolivians generally begin the festivities at midnight, and continue with the drinking and dancing until 6am or so. Paul, Tracy and I weren’t up that much celebrating, so we started a little earlier and went for a more conventional pub crawl.

However, the pub crawl quickly turned into a drunk-girls-in-high-heels-on-cobblestones-can't-find-a-cab-stumble across the city. After a few close calls with me looking up at the lovely holiday lights instead of what was in front of me, oncoming traffic and children with homemade fireworks, we decided to settle on a single club.

At midnight we ended up at Ram Jam, which was apparently the hot place to be, both literally and figuratively. As someone said, if Bolivia had a Paris Hilton, she would have been there. The place was packed with a mix young of foreigners and paceños, in all sorts of bizarre fashions, shaking it to 70s and 80s pop hits. The Bolivians were almost astoundingly drunk, and yet still standing, singing and dancing through the entire evening. There were party hats, noise makers, and streamers that we accidentally caught on fire with a candle. Plus, in a truly ridiculous turn of events we ended up dancing on a raised stage for the local television news.

And despite the incredible, high-altitude hangover that ensued, this New Years, I resolve to take myself and everything a little less seriously, and to let my adventure unfold one day at a time.

And Relaxing at the End of the Road

The town at the end of the World’s Most Dangerous Road came highly recommended, both at home and in Bolivia. Called Coroico, it is as close as Bolivia has to a resort town.

It’s set on a hillside above a beautiful lush Yungas valley. Below you can see a river, lined with coffee, banana, citrus and coca plantations. Compared to the cold of La Paz, it’s the perfect temperature, always around eighty degrees. The square is filled with palm trees, park benches and people selling snacks, making it the perfect place to relax. A short walk along the cobbled streets takes you outside of town and to all sorts of little establishments where you can dine al fresco, overlooking the valley, on all sorts of amazing local and organic food (my favorite being the homemade coffee ice cream).

Coroico was full of Bolivian families on holiday, swimming, playing soccer, chatting and hanging out. There weren’t many other tourists about, so I was left to my own devices. The town boasts hiking, rafting and horseback riding, but I was feeling super lazy, so I spent most of my time relaxing by the pool, reading the last Harry Potter. (Although, to my credit, it is in Spanish). I also got a wicked sunburn and all sorts of itchy insect bites, but such is life.

Coroico was also interesting because it had black people. In this culture, black people are uncommon and a sign of good luck. Apparently, the Afro-Bolivianos are the ancestors of slaves brought over to work the mines. When mining production dropped the slaves were sent to the Yungas to grow coca, where their natural resistance to malaria gave them an advantage. They stayed after slavery was abolished in the 1850s, continuing their farming lifestyle. There are some 35,000 of them in Bolivia, most all of them in the Yungas. While they’ve adopted the Aymara customs and language, they have generally avoided intermarriage with the larger Aymara population. Their subculture also retains distinctly African elements, like plenty of attitude and openness (this family even invited me to take their picture), plus very soulful, rhythmic song and dance. However, not all of the Afro-Bolivianos know of their origins, let alone the existence of the African continent. When I asked one woman if she wanted to visit Africa she asked me where it was!

The World´s Most Dangerous Road

Attention Familiars: This may upset some of you. My apologies. You know me. Anything named the World’s Most Dangerous Something has an unshakeable appeal. Plus, in addition to being the World’s Most Dangerous Road, it’s probably the world’s most beautiful. I couldn’t help myself.

This weekend I went to Coroico, via what has been termed the World’s Most Dangerous Road. The Inter-American Development Bank bestowed the unfortunate name on the road a few years back, when hundreds of people would die enroute each year. In reality, the road is not so dangerous these days. As a result of the title a new $120 million bypass has been built and most of the traffic diverted. Also as a result of the title, there a tourism industry around the road, and most all of the remaining traffic is mountain bikers. All of the towns along the road have been abandoned and there are only a few houses.

I was a little too timid ride a bike down the road, so I talked a taxi driver who lives outside of Coroico into taking me there and back for a small fee. At the start of the road there is a gigantic statue of Jesus, as well as an indigenous rock altar called an Apacheta. Travellers pray for protection before they set off. Some people bless their vehicles with alcohol and feed the dogs that stand like sentinels along the road, in hopes of bringing additional luck. There’s also a sign which directs drivers to honk their horns liberally, which made me laugh.

The road itself is no laughing matter. It’s just a dirt and gravel track. Sheer walls rise above the road and drop-offs fall thousands of feet below. The road twists and turns like a corkscrew, into river valleys and out onto ridges. At points, waterfalls flow over and erode the road. Occasionally, they were so strong it was like being in a car wash. Towards the top of the road the clouds close in, and it’s hard to see the edge and the abyss below. The route is so dangerous that normal road rules don't apply. The downhill traffic always travels on the outside, so that the driver with the best view of their wheels takes the greater risk. The road is so narrow, that when you have to pass, the vehicles lean out precipitously over the edge, leaving you wondering if you’re in a car or an airplane. I felt thankful that I was in a tiny taxi, and not a big tour bus. Even so, on particularly tight turns I would involuntarily scoot towards the inside and my driver would ask me if I was alright.

The road is not so dangerous for its quality, which can be safely navigated by a sensible driver, but for the quantity of traffic it received. It used to be the main link between the Northern Yungas and La Paz, and the Brazilian Amazon and the Pacific Ocean. Each year dozens of downhill passing vehicles would fall off the edge and into the abyss, taking their passengers to their deaths. In 1983 more than a hundred passengers in a single camion plunged over the precipice and met their ends.

The road was dotted with constant reminders of the deaths. Crosses, big and small, singular and in clusters of ten to twenty lined the road. There were even a few memorials in other languages. Most poignant was a man with a little red flag, who would stand at a particularly dangerous corner signalling traffic when it was safe. His entire family, wife, children, parents and in-laws, died there in an accident over ten years ago. He lived where they died, surviving on food donations from passing travellers. The Bolivian government, for their part, took far more extreme safety measures, putting yellow caution tape along precarious stretches.

I am often cavalier, and have spoken fondly, of the Latin American safety ethic. Driving the World’s Most Dangerous Road was a reminder of how unacceptable it actually is. In the late nineties they made the road one-way on alternating days, which saved hundreds of lives, but generated so much opposition that it was scrapped. A bit before I left, the Bolivian BBC correspondent was killed in a car crash in La Paz. It’s insane that people drive drunk, without seatbelts, at night, in overcrowded camions over these sorts of roads. I was glad for my driver, who actually snapped at me for sitting with my feet out the passenger-side window, in classic Ally style.

Santa, All I Want for Christmas is Better Spanish

Unlike many Latin American nations, Bolivia celebrates Christmas in a big way. The malls are full of wealthy people, while the plazas are filled with makeshift market stalls selling every imaginable bit of Christmas kitsch. Tinny music, tons of blinking lights, tiny nativities, and Western-style Christmas trees are everywhere. Christmas centers on the Nochebuena, or Christmas Eve. Families stay up until midnight to attend mass, toast the birth of Christ, eat dinner and exchange gifts.

My family didn’t attend mass, but there is the Misa del Gallo, so-named because a rooster was supposedly one of the first creatures to witness baby Jesus' birth. In some towns, especially Sucre, baby Jesus is carried around town, with everyone dancing, carolling and generally adoring him.

For dinner Bolivians have picana, a special holiday soup with a spicy white wine broth and hunks of corn on the cob, whole potatoes, and chunks of lamb, chicken and beef. We also had encholata, a stomach churning solution of beer and coca cola. With the food, the alcohol and the hour I ended up falling asleep before either of the kids.

Gift giving here is straightforward. Adults give children gifts, but don’t really exchange among themselves. While they’re opened at midnight and all the squealing is in Spanish, the flurry of excitement and flying paper is exactly the same as at home. I made my family a basket of wine, chocolate, nuts and cheese, including some swiss cheese, which confused my abuelita to no end.

Christmas day is a more subdued affair. Some families attend mass a second time, but we were having none of that. Instead, we slept late, ate leftover picana for lunch, and then relaxed around the house. Because we live in Zona Sur we’re at a significantly lower altitude than La Paz proper and we had wonderful weather today. It was about eighty degrees outside, and we sat in the garden and talked politics and economics while the kids rode their new bikes around us.

Festivities continue through New Years and until the 8th, El Dia de los Tres Reyes Magos, when the wise men come and it’s time to put away the tree and nativity and start making good on those resolutions.

Feliz navidad, próspero año y felicidad a todos. I miss and love you all and I hope you’re having a merry Christmas. Know that I’m happy and healthy and all the rest.

Into the Yungas and Onto the Aqueduct

We woke early on the second day of the trek, anxious for and early start, food and clean water. We had reached the edge of the yungas the night before, but today the trail plunged downwards and into the steamy swale below.

As we descended it got warmer and more humid by the minute. The vegetation grew taller and more verdant and the wildlife more abundant. The air had a sweet floral scent, with eucalyptus trees abounding. Bird and cicada sounds competed with the roaring river below us. The Precolombian paving disappeared, overgrown by the flourishing foliage.

We wound up and down the mountain sides, in and out of the river valleys. When we crossed the Rio Takesi for the last time, over a dam, we began hiking along this aqueduct. We had beautiful vistas out over the lush subtropical landscape, down the river and into town.

We hiked though a gold mining camp called Chojilla. It was astounding to see the rape of the landscape; the bright green turned a dingy brown, a sulphur smell permeating everything and dirty water draining into the river. Look for another entry on the effects of mining sometime soon.

After Mina Chojilla we continued on to the tranquil little town of Yanacachi. In Yanacachi, everyone was out and about in their Sunday best. There weren't any busses running from Yanacachi but some of the local kids offered to show us a shortcut the highway. They lead us down a footpath out of town, through their families’ banana, coffee and coca fields, peppering me with questions about the States, Santa Claus, and my sunburn, which made me look somewhat like Rudolph myself.

When we reached the highway, we flagged down a bus headed for La Paz. The drive back felt like an extension of the hike, an exposed dirt track, winding around the mountains, with cliffs and gorges extending thousands of feet above and below us. An extension of the hike, except that we were speeding down the hill at 100kph, able to smell the brakes. Imagine my surprise when I learned that we weren’t on the world’s most dangerous road. That’s next weekend’s adventure.

Trekking Takesi

This weekend I was determined to get out and explore Bolivia. As it is Christmastime there aren’t a lot of other tourists around. It’s a blessing, since you get the sights to yourself, but it’s also a curse, since there aren’t any organized tours. I ended up hiring a private guide to take on the Takesi trek. The two-day trek links the highland altiplano with the lowland yungas through a low pass in the majestic Cordillera Real mountain range.

The owner of the trekking company drove us up to the trailhead on Saturday morning. We got stopped on the way there, outside of the town of Ventilla. I know this sounds silly, but I was really excited to see my first Bolivian roadblock. However, in reality, it was road construction. There was one fellow standing in a ditch, chucking stones into a wheelbarrow, while another one laid them up on the road, using the same strategy the Inca had hundreds of years before.

We began trekking off of an access road for Mina San Francisco, where wolfram and tin are extracted. The rocky trail climbed steeply, and at altitude, I was quickly exhausted. The only respite was the short distance to the summit. As we rounded the last switchback to the 4600m Apachetas Pass a gigantic ornate iron cross came into view. It was so ironic, because all I felt like doing was falling to my knees and begging for more oxygen. We stopped so I could leave a stone I carried all the way from Seattle. In the Aymara tradition it's good luck to bring stones from lower elevations and leave them at higher elevations, in piles called Apachetas.

Unfortunately, there was no reprieve after the pass. Instead, there was an absolute whiteout on the other side. So instead of resting, we began running. Eventually the snow turned to rain, and then to sunny skies, and we slowed down. I found myself in some of the most breathtaking countryside I have ever seen. We were in a valley with steep, smooth, stone walls on either side. Waterfalls ran down the rock faces and into a little river that wound down the basin the basin. Everything was a bright emerald green, accented with splashes of gold groundcover, and it was amazingly lush for the altitude.

Equally as amazing as the surrounds was the road. We were walking along a Precolombian paving, constructed by the Incas. The trail was a vital economic and political link between the altiplano and Yungas. It’s one of a number of such trails, which archaeologists believe may have been linked La Paz and the Beni at one time. Indigenous highlanders still use the trail for everyday transport, and we passed a number of them on their way to La Paz for the holiday. The road was perfectly paved, often accompanied by culverts and low stone walls. It was awe inspiring to see such engineering and effort, and the way it has lasted. However, the Inca were not so concerned with ADA accessibility. The cobbles were super slippery and I did a lot of falling down.

We walked through huge herds of llama and sheep. I was extremely excited for the animals, and insisted on stopping to take pictures of every last baby llama. This irked my guide to no end. The livestock belonged to the residents of Estancia Takesi. The town consisted of a dozen or so small stone huts with thatched roofs and stone enclosures for the llamas and sheep. Most of the buildings had been co-opted from the original construction, by the Incas, if not earlier. It certainly created a sense of history to see structures inhabited continuously for the last half-century.

We hiked out of the highlands, and down into the yungas. (More on that in the next entry.) The trail traversed around the Loma Pali Pali, high above a river gorge. We stopped to camp in Estancia Kakapi. Normally, there are a number of basic alojomientos in the village, but it being Christmastime, the town was closed. Everyone had gone to La Paz for the holiday and there was not a soul in sight. Just vicious dogs that we fended off with sticks and a sad little donkey. We found a level spot, set up our tents and got out the stove to make supper.

It was at this point that my guide realized that he had forgotten matches. We had no way to light the stoves, cook dinner, or breakfast, or, most importantly, purify water. Instead, we had the crusty bread that I had been carrying, and water from the Rio Takesi below. And while drinking out of the river was beautiful and picturesque, I’m not as excited for the giardia that I probably got. Check back soon for an update on the state of my stomach!

Mercado de Misterio

For this afternoon's adventure, I went to the Mercado de Hechiceria, or Witches’ Market. Innocuously tucked into a couple of back calles, you would never guess the mysteries that abound. It’s an absolute cornocopia of magical items. Tiny stalls and shops overflow with herbs, sweets, incense, candles, liquor, talismans, tiny colourful trinkets and all manner of animal products and parts.

Traditional healers called Yatiris put assorted items and animal parts appropriate for each situation into packages called pagos. They bless the package and then burn or bury it as offering to one of the many spirits and ancestors in the Aymara cosmology. Pachamama, the earth mother, and Ekeko, the household god of abundance, are particularly popular patrons. You can ask for luck, protection or a cure for any sort of ailment, physical or spiritual. The lama fetuses pictured here are usually buried under new construction to bless the house.

The Yatiris also tell fortunes by through coca leaves. While the fellow I met would not tell my fortune, he explained a little bit about what he was doing for a few Bolivianos. The Yatiri spreads a handful of leaves out on a sheet, and divides them into four quadrants. They represent the past, the future, the world above and the world below. Based on their position and distribution, the Yatiri divines your fate in all sorts of aspects of your life.

There is plenty of real medicine mixed in with the magic, and the line between the two blurs. The stall keeper I was chatting with offered all sorts of herbal remedies for everything from headaches to getting pregnant. I eventually settled for a tiny bottle of charms, which are supposed to keep me safe from automobile accidents.

Coca, the Bolivian Cure-All

This afternoon, I ventured over to the Museo de Coca, a hole-in-the-wall exhibit expounding the wonders of the leaf, to learn a little bit more about all the mate de coca I've been drinking. Mate de coca is a tea, drunk by all ilk of Bolivians, which does wonders for altitude sickness. According to the museum coca also increases tolerance for exertion, dilating bronchial passages, acting as an anti-coagulant, regulating insulin levels in the body and providing more nutrition than most cereals. It's a little acidic and bitter, but it creates a warm, tingly feeling in my tummy.

Mate de coca is a less intense alternative than chewing coca leaves. When you chew the leaves you place a wad of destemed leaves in your cheek and allow them to soften up. After ten to fifteen minutes, you add a catalyst like lime (the mineral), and sometimes some banana peel. Then you masticate the whole mess to a pulp. The juices anesthetize your mouth, and give you a mildly euphoric feeling.

Chewing coca has been a part of indigenous Andean culture for centuries, at least since 2500BCE. Coca was the first domesticated plant in the area. As such, chewing coca is an essential part of the indigenous identity. According to the museum approximately 90% of rural and indigenous Guatemalans chew coca. Coca is a medium to see sacred and the deceased. It's used as an offering to Pachmama, to insure fertility and ward off curses. When farming families start their homes, coca is often the first thing they plant. It's also a social lubricant, chewed after meals and at special events, much like alcohol in the states.

When the Spaniards came, they decried coca as an instrument of the devil. That was, until they realized saw how in increased hacienda and mining production. Then they encouraged and required its production, bringing large areas under cultivation and taxation. They commodified coca, to the point that it was and sometimes still is used as currency.

Coca continues to be demonized today. When chewed coca is a mild stimulant, more akin to a cup of coffee of a cigarette than cocaine. Coca is still an ingredient in Coca Cola. It's also been used successfully as an anesthetic and as a substitute for methadone. Still, coca is first ingredient in cocaine. As such, its eradication has been a central strategy in the US's War on Drugs.

I'll leave that discussion, of the economic and political effects of coca production and the War on Drugs, for another day, when I’ve visted more of the coca growing reigons. I snapped this photo of a butterfly sunning itself among drying coca leaves this weekend outside of the town of Yanacachi.

La Ciudad de Nuestra Senora de La Paz

La Paz is a breathtaking city, both figuratively and literally. The drive into town from the airport is amazing. The autopista winds down the hillside from El Alto to La Paz. There are houses built into hillsides so steep that you wouldn’t even think weeds could grow there. But slums do. Sprawling slums of tiny red roofed houses stuffed to the ceilings with big Bolivian families.

The autopisa quickly ends at the edge of the city, and traffic slows to a creep along narrow, one-way cobblestone streets, honking all the way. The city has such a quirky beauty. The steps of beautiful colonial churches and regal plazas and parks overflow with markets and street stalls, children selling chicle and shoeshine boys jostling with well-heeled business people. It is an absolute sensory assault of sights, smells and sounds.

The city is nestled in a valley which centers on the Rio Choqueyapu. More aptly called the Rio Choke, it apparently receives 132,000 gallons of urine, 200,000 tons of excretement and millions of tons of garbage each year. Fortunately, the river runs underground for most of the length of the city. Above the river is an avenue called the Prado. The Prado divides the city into two. To the north is the traditional Aymara area, which centers on the Plaza and Cathedral San Francisco. To the south is the colonial and criollo city. The Prado also connects the autopista to El Alto, the central city, and the wealthier Sopocachi and Zona Sur neighborhoods. El Alto and Zona Sur also represent extreme opposites. El Alto is a sprawling Aymara slum, situated over 1000m over Zona Sur, a well manicured suburb. The only link between the two is that every day thousands of domestic workers descend from El Alto to work in Zona Sur.

The weather is also quirky. During the day it either drizzles or it's blindingly sunny. I swear that since we're closer to the sky, it's a brighter blue. Still, it's smoggy all of the time, indoors and out, with tons of diesel exhaust trapped in the valley and cigarette smoke trapped in the cafes. At night it's always freezing cold.

At 3660m La Paz is also really intense oxygen wise. I've actually been in bed the last two days with soroche, or altitude sickness. Its only today that I’ve been up and exploring the city. I'm finally starting to acclimate, with the help of some mate de coca. I found a Spanish school, El Instituto Exclusivo. I also bought a Bolivian cellphone. My number is 591-7-658-1636. (I think. If not, say hi to some random Bolivian for me.) Plus, I climbed up to the roof of the cathedral.

American Airlines, How I Hate You

After more than forty eight hours of traveling, I've finally arrived, safe and sound.

It was a stressful leaving the States, with a misplaced passport and visa, a flight out of Chicago delayed for lack of flight attendents, a flight out of Miami missed by all of five minutes, luggage checked through without me and spending the night in a smoky, suburban casino.

Then it was downright scary entering Bolivia. The plane actually had to climb before the knuckle-whitening descent into El Alto. Apparently, planes have to be going twice as fast as at sea level to take off and land, so they are equipped with special tires and brakes and the runways are twice as long. As we landed, most all of the Bolivians were crossing themselves, the women next to me crossed me too!

Goodbye Guatemala

It's our last day in Guatemala, and I am so sad to go. I think I'm going to miss the Guatemalan people most. I'm going to miss all of those conversations on camionetas, in parks, in the market, even in bars. At the same time, I'm really ready to be home. I've got school, family and friends, and potable water to look forward to.

As we went for the plane, we could see people streaming out of schools, churches and municipal buildings after voting. They held up their blackened thumbs, proof that they had voted. The scene was so triumphant. It was an amazing image to end the trip.

So that's all for Allyabroad the Guatemala edition. Stay tuned for Allyabroad in Bolivia, coming winter 2008.

Volcan Pacaya, the Gigantic, Hot Geological Pastry

We started today with a little hang over, our first good cups of Guatemalan coffee and a stroll around Antigua. It's is such a pretty city! It's too bad about all of the tourists.

In the afternoon, we went to climb the Volcan Pacaya. The Volcan is only about an hour outside of Antigua and lots of tour operators do very inexpensive trips, so it was teeming with tourists. When we got to the ranger station, we were greeted by a gaggle of boys selling hiking sticks for a few cents. I felt a little bad that I already had ridiculously over-engineered and expensive hiking sticks, and no reason to buy theirs.

We started up the volcano at a brisk pace. On the way up, we passed a tourist who must have weighed three hundred pounds on a tiny pony. How I felt for that poor pony! It’s a steep hike, but very short. Most trips don’t take you all the way to the crater, because it’s become quite difficult and dangerous.

After a short approach, we reached a rim, where we could see the cone of the volcano and a ribbon of lava running down the side. In the distance we could see all of the volcanoes that rim Lago de Atitlan. We descended down onto the hardened lava flows. The rock looked like frosting, gently undulating into the distance. Some of the rock was super shiny, reflecting rainbow colors. However, it was also amazingly sharp, forming all sorts of little crystalline structures. They would break off, creating tiny, super sharp rock splinters for my fingers.

As we started up the slope, we quickly realized rock was not solid. The current lava crust was four years old. Under it was a layer of lava eight years old. In between the two were tubes, some of which contained molten lava. We were careful to test step before we put our weight on anything. We were also careful hike far ahead of the heavy fellow, who having left his pony, was huffing and puffing up behind us.

As we hiked higher and higher, over lava flows, the ground got warmer and warmer. I was wearing my Chacos, the only hiking shoes I had brought. Eventually, I had to start hopping from foot to food to stand the heat. While my Chacos withstood the heat, the basket of my hiking stick melted and warped. I wished I had bought a fifty cent stick.

We hiked up to this, one of a number of terranean lava flows. The lava would slowly bubble and ooze its way out of the ground, as if the earth were a giant geological pastry bag. We hung out for a while, poking the lava with a stick and playing volcano chicken. We began to descend as dusk fell, and when we reached the ranger station it was pitch dark. We looked back up the mountain and the lava flow had expaned to four or five times its original size.

I can't believe my first experience with an active volcano was so up closed and perilous. One again, it gave me a great appreciation for the Guatemalan safety ethic.

Happy Birthday Baby!

I'm twenty-one! (And in a country where I haven't been carded once.) I woke up this morning to a giant pile of cards. Some of them were singing and some had silly baby pictures, but they were all great. Thank you so much everyone!

We decided to move along to Antigua for the fantastic Allyfiesta. Since it’s a long haul, we took the first class bus. I assumed that they boys remembered it was a long trip, and that they knew the first rule of Guatemalan bus travel: limited fluid intake.

As with all Guatemalan highway travel, there was construction. Lots of seemingly senseless and endless construction, courtesy of the Korean government. The four hour trip grew into five hours, but our bladders seemed to be shrinking. By the time we reached Sacatepequez, where we were to change busses, one of us had peed in a bottle, and the other two were about to explode. Desperate, we settled for the first establishment in sight, a strip club.

The proprietress was wearing six inch platform shoes, a dress that wouldn't have been out of place at a prom attened by Molly Ringwald, a wig, and more makeup than Tammy Faye Baker. Plus, I swear she was pregnant. In the back, girls were gyrating around to 80s pop hits. We kept our heads down and paid our 1Q to use the bathroom. It was everything you would expect of a sleezy strip club sandwitched between an auto parts store and a recycling center and open at noon; there was no seat, an inch of standing water on the floor, and paper napkins for toilet tissue. But it was all worth it to see the look on Scott's face after seeing that stripper.

After the great bathroom fiaso, we continued on to Antigua. Antigua is an incredibly pretty city. It was the second colonial capital, before a spate of earthquakes in 1773 forced a move to the current capital. But the runis only add to the city's charm. In addition to the ruins, there are all sorts of amazing restored cathedrals, convents and monestaries.

For my birthday, we had dinner at an amazing restaurant. It was so strange to eat in a fancy resturant with cloth napkins, candels, an expensive winelist, overbearing waiters and all the rest, but it was wonderful! We went out for drinks and dancing at a funky overlooking a ruined convent. But, being the party animals we are, we went back to the hotel and fell asleep after one drink!

Civic Participation at its Best

Today we decided to visit Fuentes Georginas. However, we were in for quite a surprise. Driving through the town of Almonga, we were stopped by preperations for a big election rally. It appeared that every truck in town was out for the event.

Eventually, our bus driver gave up, and demanded that everyone get out, so he could return to Xela. We continued on foot, walking downhill to the next town. We hired a pickup to the hotsprings, which were everything they were the time before.

On the return trip we caught a bus to Almonga, but by that time the parade was in full force and we were again impeded. Almonga is especially civic minded. That is, if political participation could be measured by confetti and abuelitas in attendance. As we walked through town, a fellow told us that he knew a back way through town, and that he would take us all the way to Xela for 60Q. We took him up on his offer, and away we went. But we didn’t get very far. As it turned out, his alternate route ran right back into the parade route.

Unable to beat it, we ended up joining the parade. We weren’t all that out of place, since all of the floats were old disel trucks, decorated top to bottom, stuffed full of entire families and blaring their horns. Flags, banners, giant stereotypical sombreros, horns, and sheets of newspaper were all popular acutremonts. Scott took this photo of the truck behind us. We wondered how they could see out of the windshield, but since we were only moving two or three miles an hour it wasn’t much of an issue.

As an added bonus, there was an old Charlie’s produce truck parked along the parade route. This is especially ironic because Almonga is the vegetable capital of Central America. On the other hand, many Guatemalans attribute Almonga’s soil fertility to their Evangelical Christanity, which might not jive as well with Charlie’s.

San Pedro and Yet Another Long Winded Travel Story in Which Ally Ends Up Naked

San Pedro is yet another town on Lago de Atitlan. It’s a pretty place. As soon as you get of the dock, the cobbled streets run straight uphill and the town towers over the water. San Pedro caters to a funny crowd, mixing old school hippies with new school frat boys. But it has all sorts of nice amenities, and its own organic chocolate company, which sits well with me.

This morning we woke up super early to climb Volcan San Pedro. Armed with pan tostado, nutella, lots of agua and a guide from Bigfoot Tours, we set off. The hike began in town, quickly climbing up through the outskirts and along the highway. Once we left the paved streets behind, we hiked up through coffee and cornfields, then temperate forest, and then an almost alpine summit. The trail got steeper and steeper, sometimes turning to stairs. The boys put me to shame, almost running up the track while I huffed and puffed behind. The boys also put me to shame on the way back down, where Scott did some mud skiing, using his trekking poles for traction and steering. But I had a great time. We had paid a little bit extra for a private guide, he brought his son with him, so I was easily amused talking to them about life in San Pedro, school, and soccer.

Unfortunately, it was cloudy, so there was no view to show for all of our effort. This photo was taken yesterday. But it has a volcano in it and it’s Shawn and Scott, so it’s relevant.

Just as exciting was our trip back to Xela. After we got cleaned up and had a hot lunch we inquired around about the bus terminal. Unfortunately, the last bus to Xela had left at two, and it was two-thirty. Everyone in town had a different idea about how we should get to Xela. Our tuk-tuk driver offered to take us to the next town, where we could catch a combi to Xela. But by that point, it had begun to rain, and two hours in the back of a pickup with all of our luggage seemed less than appealing.

Instead, we decided to take a boat back to Panajactel, and catch a bus from there, So we waited, and waited, and waited for a boat. First we got in one boat. Then we switched to another. And after argument about the fare with the captain, we finally get situated and set off. Unfortunately, the tarp that the ayudante had tacked over us was poor protection from the storm that was brewing. Between the rain and the spray we were quickly soaked. We were wet and miserable, when the boat stalled. Or was propbound. Or swamped. Or all of the above. Or whatever it was that the boat was doing to keep us from progressing. Instead, we were adrift, beam to and beginning to get a little bit seasick. I wondered if we would be having Gilligan’s Island Guatemala style, and if I would be more Ginger or Mary Ann. But the captain eventually got the boat moving and we docked in Pana as dark was falling.

In Pana, we caught a tuk-tuk, and then a bus to Solola, and then a bus to Los Encuentros. Los Encuentros is one of the major road junctions in the Guatemalan highlands, where you often have to change busses. Usually, it’s incredibly busy, but it was about eight when we arrived, so all the little roadside stands were shut up and there weren’t a lot of people around or busses passing. It was dark, and after three or four hours of travelling, we were hungry, exhausted, wet and cold. After fifteen minutes of shivering, I decided that I couldn’t stand my wet skirt any more. Hiding behind the boys, I tried to change clothes. The very second I took off my skirt, the bus pulled up! I was half-naked in front of one of the most crowded camionetas I’d seen in all of Guatemala, with an impatient ayudante and way too much luggage. A good laugh was had all around.

When we finally got to Xela, we ended up at Casa Argentina, which was nice, because it feels as much like home as anywhere in Guatemala to me. Mama Argie took one look at me and laughed and laughed that I was back. I think Shawn was also a little relieved, as he got to offload the twenty pounds of industrial grade zipper that he had brought down for Quetzaltrekkers. Talk about being generous!

Ponies, Paintings and Prayers to San Simon

The town of Santiago Atitlan was a little short on suitable accommodations because it's usually just a stopover on boat tours from Pana, but I was glad we stayed the night. The town is the center of the indigenous Tz'utuhil population. It was also particularly hard hit by the civil war. In 1981 a priest and US citizen was murdered there. In 1990 one of the last major massacres of the conflict occurred outside of town.

Plus, we finally got to go horseback riding. It was Shawn and Scott's first time. We had to ask around a lot, but eventually we found a tuk-tuk driver to take us out to a private estate owned by a couple of expats, where we rented horses and hired a guide. Both the guide and some of our horses were a little green, and we found ourselves in some funny situations trying to keep the horses out of people's fields and from eating their crops while passing on the narrow dirt tracks.

It was an amazing ride, up through corn and coffee fields and into the foothills of Volcan Santiago Atitlan. From there, we could look back on the lake and the entire valley. Unfortunately, we were running low on time, so we had to turn back before the summit. On the way back we rode past a bizarre, burnt-out and abandoned country club that was built in the 1980s, but lost much of it's appeal with the conflict. It was hilarious to see cows grazing on overgrown tennis courts and chickens pecking the bottom of an empty pool. Our hosts, Jim and Nancy Matison, bought their estate at a bargain basement price under similar circumstances, and have developed it into a tourism destination.

After our ride, we went back into town to shop for paintings. Santiago Atitlan is known for its oil painting. There are a number of unique styles, from massive portraits of inigenous people to the unavoidable Diego Rivera rip-offs. (Although I'm not afraid to admit that I bought one.) My favorite style was create by fellow from the area who was enlisted as a helicopter pilot during the conflict. When the war ended he began painting the scenes he saw from the air. His paintings depict fields of flowers, produce or coffee, with the faces of the campesinos peeking out, baskets in hands, babies on backs in amazing explosions of color and texture.

After we had made a few painting purchases, we set out to find Santiago Atitlan’s San Simon, or Maximon. As I explained earlier, San Simon is part Mayan idol, part Catholic saint. Hes the bad Saint, particularly popular with prostitutes. Santiago Atitlan’s San Simon was even more fantastic than San Andres Xecul’s. His ayudante was far more attentive, and he had been offered way more liquor, cigarettes and other stuff. When we were there, an indigenous fellow was making an impassioned request in an indigenous language. All I understood was that he wanted a tuk-tuk or a combi so that he could get to Santa Cruz. I began to wonder if we should start making offerings, for all of our transportation woes.

Atitlan, Where the Rainbow Gets Its Colors and Panajachel, Where the Gringoes Go

Today was our first day on the amazing Lago de Atitlan. As Aldous Huxley once wrote of the lake, "It really is too much of a good thing." Rimmed by a number of volcanoes, sparkly and startlingly blue, the lake is absolutely beautiful. I’ve heard Atitlan translated as "the place where the rainbow gets its colors", which is understandable once you’ve seen it.

The lake lies in a gigantic volcanic crater, formed in four stages over the last 11 million years. The lake was created during an eruption 1.8 million years ago, which was detected from Florida to Ecuador. The lake fills the bottom of the caldera, reaching a depth of about 2,000 feet. It has no surface outlets, only underground outlets to the Pacific Ocean. Interestingly enough, some Mormons believe that the Lago is the lake mentioned in the Book of Mormon, which is probably a powerful selling point for all of the evangelists who live around the area.

The most popular tourist town on the lake is Panajachel, often affectionately referred to as Gringotenago. It used to be a huge hippie town, but during the civil war it cleared out pretty quickly as the army terrorized the local Kaqchikel and Tz'utuhil populations. Fortunately (and unfortunately), the lake is so beautiful that tourism was soon revived. Panajachel has a huge assortment of international restaurants, bars, artesania and New-Age practitioners.

In the morning we went to Reserva Natural Atitlán, a preserve a little way out of town. It was a nice walk around the grounds of the historic Hacienda de San Buenaventura, through the forest, up and down stone stairs and across suspension bridges. While there wasn’t much in the way of animals, (except spider monkeys!), there were a huge variety of plants and a wonderful butterfly garden with glasswing butterflies, among other things.

In the afternoon we went for a temazcal, or Mayan sauna, at our hotel. The temazcal was much like the one I had on my hike to the lake, but with a higher ceiling, no tar, and the ability to breathe. As it turns out, with oxygen and drinking water, temazcal is actually a fantastic experience.

After our temscal we moved on to Santiago Atitlan, another town across the lake. While we all wished we had a bit more time in Pana, we were also ready to go. The gringofication was exemplified when the lancha captain charged us twice as much as the local passengers. While this particular captain explained that it was because the others were frequent riders, a fair explanation, other captains would insist that the others were paying the same price despite my protests and profanity.

Chichcastenago, the Commercial Heart of Central America

Chichicatenango is a tiny town, nestled in the mountains to the north of Lago de Atitlan. That is, except Wednesdays and Sundays, when it it morphs into the largest market in Central America. It had an especially different feel for us, because we had been a little off beaten track and its such a tourist destination. And with tourists come all sorts of scammers about, which made us a little wary.

We woke up early this morning to get a jump on the market. When we started shopping, there were only a few stalls open and we were unimpressed. After a bit, vendors began to arrive from other highland areas. First a trickle, then a flood of people and goods arrived in busses, cars, trucks, handcarts and on backs. As the day went on, we realized exactly how mistaken we had been. The market had grown up around us into an almost impenetrable labyrinth of stalls and street vendors hawking every imaginable household and artesianal item, food and drink. The indigenous and tourists shoppers rubbed shoulders in a mad rush to get the best possible deals. It took us over an hour to get a few city blocks, from one side of the market to the other. Around the edges of the market, the religious cofradias were worshipping, politicians were stumping and borrachos were drinking, adding to the ambience of utter chaos.

I’m not one to haggle. I hate the feeling that I’m being taken advantage of, but I also hate arguing over a couple of dollars with someone far worse off than me. On the other hand, Scott is an expert haggler. I’m sure his parents love knowing that his expensive UPenn econ education is being so well utilized. He would just walk away during negotiations, forcing the vendors to follow him, lowering their prices. Or he would get them to agree on a seemingly low price for a single item, and then ask them to lower it if he bought a second. He would always consult with us in English, to make himself seem unsure. The prices got better and better as they day wore on and the vendors wanted to get home, sans their wares, and I got better and better at haggling.

At the end of the day, we had purchased every imaginable sort of artesania: Some of the brightly colored and exquisitely embroidered textiles that stretched as far as the eye could see. Masks and musical instruments from shelves and shelves of smelly, but cool, carved wood. Jade, coral and silver jewelry from vendors with innumerable necklaces over their arms, tinkling as they walked. And tons of tiny, brightly colored trinkets from little indigenous children that crowded around us like ants wherever we walked. Worn out and with substantially lighter wallets, we set off for Panajactel.

Coban, Semuc Champey, Caves and Bat Crap

This morning we got an early start from Coban, a lovely old city with a little colonial influence. It’s the center of coffee and cardamom production in the area. Best of all, it’s the base for much of Guatemala’s biotourism, offering the easiest access to Semuc Champey, Grutas de Lanquin and el Biotopo del Quetzal.

First, we took a long and bumpy ride out to Semuc Champey, a limestone bridge over the Rio Cahabon. On top of the limestone bridge there are all of these lovely little pools. In places, the water is almost eerily blue. Some of the pools are ankle deep, while others are deep enough for swimming and diving. Along the edges of the pools the forest rose up steeply. All sorts trees and vines hang over the water, creating an especially exotic feel. Since we got such an early start, we had the park almost all to ourselves for most of the morning.

We waded upstream, to where the river runs under the bridge. The river had an incredible amount of force and made an absolute din. There used to be a rope ladder down to the river, but I was actually glad it was gone, so I didn’t have to admit that I was scared to climb down. At the end of the bridge, the streams rejoin in a massive waterfall. The water turns back to its normal brown and continues on its way.

After Semuc Champey, we headed over to the nearby Grutas de Lanquin, a series of limestone caves over the Lanquin River. To make the caves more accessible the Guatemalan authorities built a catwalk and put up diesel powered lights for the first few thousand feet of the cave. Despite the construction, the caves were extremely slippery from the moisture and guano, and I fell down a few times. Yet, somehow being covered in mud and bat crap didn’t detract from the experience.

Caves are extremely important in the Maya cosmology. They created and enhanced many caves as sacred spaces. The Maya divide the world into three parts, the underworld, the earth, and the heavens. Caves are seen as a gateway the underworld, where ancestors dwell.

The caves had a cathedral feel for us as well. They roof was hundred of feet above us, with stone spires called stalactites hanging down. Ahead of us, massive towers called stalagmites rose up out of the ground. Every formation was unique, and looked like different animal or object. The cave forms, a karst landscape, are created when rain and groundwater charged with carbonic acid dissolve the limestone and when calcium carbonate deposits are created by slow drips. Despite the lighting, everything had an eerie glow about it. The sounds were also amazing: the muffled roar of the river below us, the echoes of our footsteps, and the occasional bat.

After exploring the caves a bit, I can totally understand why people are so into spelunking. If I weren’t afraid of bats, the dark and being lost, I would be really into it too.

Sayaxché, Dos Pilas and Aguateca

Sayaxché is a small town located on across the Rio de la Pasión on the highway from Flores. You have to take a little ferry to get to town, which was super fun. While there’s not much tourism in town there are a number of archeological sites strung out along the river.

We hired a boat to take us to an hour down the river, through the uninhabited jungle, to one of the better preserved sites, Aguateca. The influence and fortunes of Aguateca, and its sister city, Dos Pilas, rose and fell like so many of the other sites I’ve discussed, following a pattern of overexpansion and overinvestment of resources in status symbols, and falling prey to environmental phenomena, changing trade patterns, and in this case, hostile neighbors.

Dos Pilas rose to prominence in the Late Classic period. The city was founded by a faction who split with Tikal around 640 CE. Their leader, Lightning Sky, was a member of the royal family who formed an allegiance with Calakmul and broke away during Tikal’s decline. For the next few centuries Dos Pilas was in a constant state of war and seige, fighting with Tikal, Ceibal, Yaxchilán and Motul and fending off Putun forces from Mexico. As a result Dos Pilas was abandoned, despite heavy fortifications, only a hundred years later around 760 CE.

Aguateca was Dos Pilas’ slightly less powerful sister city and trading partner. Many of the monuments there mirror those at Dos Pilas and show shared military victories. When Dos Pilas was abandoned most of the nobility migrated to Aguateca, a more defensible site. The city is surrounded by five kilometers of stone walls, no small feat given the steep terrain. Despite these extensive fortifications, Aguateca appears to have fallen around 790 CE, a mere thirty years after the Dos Pilas leadership moved there. Aguateca’s downfall is especially interesting because all evidence suggests it was sudden and violent. Some structures show fire damage, while many valuables ceremonial objects were smashed and household objects were left behind.

Aguateca’s defensive properties also made it amazingly scenic. The site is situated a few kilometers up steep, slippery, rocky embankment from the river. Some of the structures are situated on the bluff, making spectacular lookouts where you could see miles downriver. A deep chasm cuts through the middle of the settlement, spanned by a single bridge. I know the rainforest wasn’t as dense when the city was in service, but the thick, dark, almost oppressive foliage and the howling monkeys made the ruins seems even more mysterious and inhospitable. And while it probably wasn’t a key part of the Mayan defense strategy, the mosquitoes were so bad they certainly kept us from staying too long.

Since I know you're all sick of photos of archeological digs here's Lola, our hotel's parrot, and the Rio de la Pasión.

Tikal and its Downfall

Today we visited Tikal, the most magnificent of the Guatemalan Mayan ruins. You probably remember it as a rebel base in a scene in Star Wars IV. The site has that sort of otherworldly aura, which attracts George Lucas, tens of thousands of tourists and us all the same.

The entire area was shrouded in a soft mist and low light, which added to the air of mystery and history. Located in lowland rainforest, Tikal is surrounded by giant ceiba, tropical cedar and mahogany trees. The ruins rise above the forest floor, towering up to two hundred feet above. Many of them are unexcavated, hidden under oddly rectilinear hills. They’re protected by huge park, which is also home to all sorts of animals. We saw coatis and occellated turkeys, heard howler monkeys and macaws, and were warned of jaguar and jaguarondi.

Tikal was settled around 900 BCE, but for the next century it was overshadowed by nearby El Mirador. Around 250 CE a massive volcanic eruption rocked the Mayan world and El Mirador fell from power, allowing Tikal and nearby Uaxactún to rise to power. The two were rivals until Tikal aligned itself with Teotihuacán, in modern day Mexico City, which armed Tikal with slings and arrows, allowing them to definitively defeat Uaxactún around 400 CE. At that point Teotihuacán appears to have taken over leadership of Tikal, starting a new royal line. Over the next half century Tikal dominated the area, growing rapidly. At its peak, Tikal was estimated to have somewhere between 30,000 and 100,000 inhabitants.

At the same time Calakmul, to the north, was also expanding. Calakmul slowly surrounded Tikal with allied cities, including Naranjo and Waka’. Tikal attacked one of Calakmul’s allies, Caracol, in modern Belize, around 550 CE. In turn Caracol retaliated with reinforcements from Calakmul, defeating Tikal. For the next hundred years there was a hiatus in new construction. Eventually Tikal recovered, defeating Calakmul and undergoing a renaissance around 700 CE.

Then, around 900 CE all construction at Tikal, and most other Mayan sites, came to an abrupt halt. There are no new written inscriptions or steale after 910 CE. It’s as if the entire civilization, at the time one of the world’s most advanced, suddenly collapsed. How did it happen? It appears that Mayan civilization’s splendor and spectacular collapse may actually be connected. In Collapse, Jared Diamond’s new book, he posits that many societies exceed their ecological carrying capacities, often for empire building and conspicuous consumption (i.e. pyramid construction) purposes and are then unable to cope with changing environmental circumstances and subsequently collapse. Tikal is an extraordinary example of such a collapse.

Tikal had palaces, plazas, observatories, ball courts, residential complexes and steale. The most memorable are Tikal’s massive pyramids. Most of them were constructed in the Pre-Classic era, then renovated and expanded in the Classic area. Each successive ruler would add onto earlier pyramids in an attempt to increase their prestige. Rules would often build matching pyramids, mirror images of one another, to increase the temples’ power. By the late Classic period the pyramids were enormous, geometrically perfect, with steps up the sides and temples at the top, which were once opulently adorned, crowned by elaborate cornices.

All this construction required considerable resources. It’s important to remember that the Ancient Maya didn’t have metal tools, pulleys, the wheel or large domesticated beasts of burden. All building was done with brute strength. Stones had to be quarried, carried to the site and situated on the structures, sometimes hundreds of feet off the ground. Then, as if building massive pyramids weren’t enough, the pyramids were covered in a thick plaster. The plaster was fired at high temperatures, in furnaces fueled by massive deforestation.

Ancient Mayan farmers were incredibly agriculturally productive, especially in comparison to modern farmers, who barely eke out a living in the area. At its height the area had an estimated population density of between 500 and 1,500 people per square mile, compared to the area’s current 35 people per square mile. Despite this incredible productivity, the ruling class, with their resource intensive conquests and construction, were unsustainably parasitic. When times were hard, especially during droughts, there wasn’t enough food to go around, let alone support such aggrandizement and opulence.

The Ancient Maya also had an incredible water storage system. While we think of the Petén as a rainforest, there’s very little precipitation in the dry season. Underground there’s a layer of porous limestone, which traps little groundwater and precludes digging wells. Still, Tikal isn’t situated on a water source. Instead the city constructed a catchment system, plugging up holes in the karst to cisterns. They could store enough water for 30,000 people for six months.

As a result, the Ancient Maya’s fortunes could change very quickly, as happened around 800 CE. It appears that a series of significant drought years depleted the water supply and caused crop failures. The rulers themselves may have been ousted for failing to predict the droughts or appease the gods and prevent them, which would explain the end of new construction. The droughts probably increased the death rate and decreased birth rate more gradually, until the Ancient Maya as we know them were no more.

Let that be a lesson to modern day empire builders: Exceed your ecological carrying capacity and even the most impressive societies will collapse.

Yaxhá and Ancient Maya 101

Today we visited Yaxhá, a major Mayan ruin. Yaxhá is significantly larger than any of the other sites I've visited this trip, but still smaller than Tikal, which we'll visit tomorrow, and El Mirador, which is virtually inaccessible in the rainy season and a five day hike in the dry season. Yaxhá would likely have been much larger, if not for its close proximity to and conflicts with Tikal. Yaxhá did dominate the nearby Maya state of Naranjo and trade with sites like Quiriga and Ceibal. Yaxhá hasn’t been excavated and restored to the same extent as Tikal, but so far they’ve found around five hundred structures. Since describing the site, building by building, wouldn’t be too interesting, I thought I’d share a little bit of what I’ve be reading about the ancient Maya.

Maya society was ruled by a hereditary monarchy. This included both a royal family, called the ahau, and a lesser nobility, called the cahal, who formed a royal court in the city-state or ruled subsidiary settlements elsewhere. Larger city-states center on the royal palace, with lesser palaces, pyramids, temples, acropolises and ball courts built around them, all linked by causeway. The colossal pyramids were built to commemorate important events, from passing centuries, to battle victories, to births, marriages and deaths, and to enhance each successive ruler’s prestige.

The highest Mayan royalty saw themselves as part human, part god. To maintain their status above and exact tribute from mere mortals they shrouded themselves in mystery and religious ritual. They would fast, abstain from sex, and alter their consciousnesses with drugs including my favorite, the mushroom of lost judgment. Many of the monuments depict Mayan rulers in elaborate regalia, including jaguar head helmets, stingray spine codpieces, quetzal feather capes and oversized, ornate jade and gold jewelry, making them appear larger then life. In these outfits Mayan rulers presided over elaborate public ceremonies, including blood sacrifice. Mayan rulers made public blood sacrifices from their own bodies, pricking their penises or tongues with obsidian blades. They also made blood sacrifices of their enemies, generally in gruesome public spectacles. Captives were had their hearts removed while they were still conscious, were decapitated, or were thrown down pyramid steps. (Pathetically ironically, a number of tourists have also died falling down the pyramid steps, perhaps appeasing the international travel Gods.)

Mayan rulers were backed by an elite, scholarly priesthood. They developed the Americas only written language, which has both phonetic symbols and logograms, and was used to record important events on many of the monuments we’ve seen so far. The Mayan priesthood also developed and advanced mathematical system in base twenty, complete with a concept of zero.

They used this numbering system to create a complex calendar. We’ve seen dates carved into many monuments, marking important events in the ruling elites lives. The calendar was based on a day unit, called a kin, a twenty day month unit, called a uinal, a 260 day year unit, called an almanac. Each day of the almanac has a particular name and in many indigenous communities people still name their children after their almanac day. They also had a year called the haab, consisting of eighteen uinals and five kins, or exactly 365 days, a solar year, which was used parallel to and periodically coincided with the almanac years. After unials came tuns, katuns, baktuns, pictuns, calabtuns and kinchiltuns, which work out to 23,040,000,000 days. Baktuns, a period of 5128 days, were used in historical contexts. The Mayan long count calendar resets after thirteen baktuns. Since the current calendar began on August 13, 3114 BCE, it will end on December 10, 2012, which some people believe will be the end of the world!

The Mayan priesthood was able to calculate the solar year with such precision because they had an incredible understanding of astronomy. Most major city-states, including Yaxhá, had observatories. The Maya were especially interested in zenial passages, and many of their structures are aligned with the sun on the equinoxes. Other buildings are aligned with the Pleiades and Eta Draconis. Above all else, the ancient Maya were concerned with Venus. They believed its appearance in the night sky could signal auspicious times to strike at enemies, among other things. While astronomy dictated armed conflict, it also had more practical applications, to agriculture. Modern astronomers have recently learned what the ancient Maya knew thousands of years ago, that precipitation and weather patterns can be predicted by the appearance of certain groups of stars in the night sky, which are occluded by invisible clouds in La Nina years, but not in El Nino years. This understanding of astronomy, and control of calendar, which dictated all-important ritual days, explains much of why the Mayan priesthood had such sway on the rulers, and by extension, the rulers had so much influence with the common people.

Since the more impressive structures are stone, easier to find, and more interesting to tourists they are generally first to be excavated and less is known about the common Maya. All accounts I’ve read suggest that the ancient Maya aren’t so different from their modern ancestors, indigenous Guatemalans like the Quiche, Kaqchikel and Mam. They were swidden subsistence farmers, supplementing corn and bean crops with fishing, hunting and gathering. Extended families lived together, and it appears that land was communally owned.

The site was as beautiful as it was impressive. Yaxhá takes its name from the Maya word for green-blue water, since the city was situated on an immense, intensely turquoise lake. The largest pyramid is called the Temple of the Red Hands, because the sunset, reflected in the lake, is so stunning from the top. In 2005 Survivor was filmed in the park. Fortunately, most reality TV fans don’t actually make it off the couch, let alone into other countries, so we saw few other tourists. We did see lots of spider monkeys, macaws and coatis in the park.

This evening we went into Flores, a lovely little colonial city on an island in Lago Peten Itza, accessed only by causeway. While it was wonderful to have dinner there, I’m glad we’re staying in El Remate, twenty kilometers down the road to Tikal and Yaxhá. There are fewer tourists, and we have the most charming hotel, built into a hillside, complete with thatched huts, mosquito nets and hammocks, overlooking a crocodile infested lake!

Pirate Attacks and Finca el Paraiso

Today we set out from Rio Dulce, north towards Poptun and Flores with detours to the Castillo de San Felipe, which we saw from the river yesterday, and Finca el Paraiso.

Castillo San Filipe is a somewhat surreal apparation at the mouth of the Lago Izbal. In the middle of indigenous Guatemala sits a perfectly presereved Spanish castle. Tall stone towers capped with tiled red roofs, rise up on the rivebanks. The walls are crenellated, with cannons jutting out over the buttresses. A drawbridge leads through the heavy walls and into the plaza, with elegant walkways above. Below the walkways were a labrynth of cool and dark keeps, storehouses and cellars. The Spaniards constructed the castle in the 1650s, rebulding and refortifying it a number of times, to defend the Lago Izabal against pirate attacks. From the castle they would string a chain across the channel, a rude awakening for unwelcome vessels.

Finca el Paraiso was an hour and a half further down a deserted and delapidated dirt road. While the trip tried the boys' patience, the results were well worth it. At the heart of a working finca, a short walk through the forest, there was this amazing little lake and thermal waterfalls. While the swimming hole was cold, the falls were almost scalding sulfury water. Underneath the falls, the noise, heat and spray were almost overwhelming, but a little further away they created a pefectly warm pool. The shores of the stream were lined with smooth bolders and stones on one side and a network of huecos on the other. You could climb into the caves, where there were all sorts of petrified plants and prehistoric looking frogs.

For a few hours, we had what was perhaps the most beautiful and peaceful spot in all of Guatemala all to ourselves, swimming and splashing. It was amazing. Personally, this is where I would have constructed my castle, as a defense against unwanted tourist-types.

Tonight we’re stayed at Finca Ixobel (pronounced Isabelle), outside of Poptun on the highway between Rio Dulce and Flores. It's a beautiful place, surrounded by pine forests, with lots of ponds perfect for swimming and foothills and caves perfect for exploring. We rented a tree house, complete with bunk beds and hammocks. It includes fabulous family style meals, made mostly from organic food grown on the finca itself. The Finca has a great family feel and a definite draw for laid-back traveler types from all over the world. Some of them had been staying at the finca for weeks, earning their keep.

It’s run by a wonderful woman named Carole DeVine, whose husband was Mike was kidnapped murdered by the Guatemalan military in 1990. His murder and the activism that followed forced the US government to suspend military aid to the Guatemalan government. While a number of soldiers were convicted of the crime the captain escaped from prison (probably with government complicity) shortly after his arrest and the others served limited sentences.