SICK OTRA VEZ y Lago de Atitlan
Trip Start
Feb 24, 2006
1
6
7
Trip End
Mar 26, 2006
Xela to Lago de Atitlan, Guatemala
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
So the next morning I woke up with nausea and a really bad stomach. Took some pepto to combat the nausea. I ate 1/4 of a banana and two bites of panqueque. I spent most of breakfast staring at my food and trying to drink water. I told Yoli I wasnīt feeling well (obviously). I finished getting ready and headed for class. My teacher Eduardo took one look at me and asked what was wrong and I told him estoy enferma. I spent most of the morning running to the bathroom (not vomiting, if yaīll know what I mean). We had a 1/2 hour break at 10:30am, I talked to another student who had just finished being sick and supposedly had some magic Chinese herb that would fix my stomach woes. After class I was going to walk with her to her house to get it. Unfortunately I left class at 11:15. I had to inturrupt her session to see if she wouldnīt mind bringing it by my house. I went home and went to bed. The other student stopped by around 4 with the magic of the Chinese, expained to me how to use the pills. I think in my state I didnīt really understand her. I took some of the herb and almost vomited, needless to say the magic of the Chinese failed to work on me. Yoli later came by and gave me some medicine for the flu. I spent the rest of the night in and out of sleep, in intense pain, running to the bathroom with details that left be unwritten. By thursday morning I (who never goes to a doctor) was intent on visiting the school doctor. I had gotten up to take a shower, only to find out that there was no hot water. So I spent the morning crying in a ice cold shower. When I got to the school I had expected to be able to tell the director Carlos I was sick and walk to the doctorīs office which I thought was in close proximity. Carlos walks over to me with a map of Xela and points to an area completly on the opposite side of Xela from the school. Now I can barely walk because I am doubling over in pain and I am expected to take a 30min. walk to the doctorīs office!? So I started crying (apparently during my trek to Guatemala I am getting really in touch with my feelings!). I guess he felt bad, called to make sure the doctor was there. Another student I had made friends with earlier in the week named Rachel was in the office and offered to go with me. Carlos also made my teacher Eduardo walk us there (I do not believe this was willingly). We finally make it to the doctorīs office. When I get to see him I ask him if speaks English (which the school brochure said he did), and guess what no he does not. Once again, I almost start crying. But I was able to explain to him that I was in a lot of pain, stomach and back. He asked me for a sample and at this point I didnīt care what embarassing, disgusting things I had to hand over to him. I finally got prescriptions and did not get home until pass 11:00am (I had left my house at 8am). Now apparently the medicine does not work that well because as of today my stomach and appetite are very tentative. I thought my stomach was better by Sunday, but apparently no, so Monday morning I said fuck it Iīm taking the immodium. I will just stop myself up until I get to the U.S. Ahh the perils of traveling, joy!
Friday night was the graduation again, where the students bring the food. At the last minute I decided to make popcorn. I was hoping to find jiffy pop (the kind you can take campinb, but no luck). So I just made it from the kernals, I was impressed it turned out not so bad. It was actually amusing,Yoli came into the kitchen and said she was going to watch. This woman who cooks for a living was going to learn how to cook popcorn from me. Oh and from now on I am only using the spanish word for popcorn ĻpopoplopoĻ, isnīt that the freakin cutest name ever! After the graduation, in which I ate watermelon and a little bit of popcorn, we went to a place called Cafe Paris. We listened to a bad who played songs from the Gypsy Kings and Buena Vista Social Club. I recognized a guy in the bad who I had danced with at fiesta earlier in my Xela stay. Kind of at the last minute some of all decided to go to Lago de Atitlan for a music festival on Saturday. I was just hoping at this point my stomach would hold out. But I also knew after 3 days of being hold up in my room, I could not deal with laying in bed no more.
Saturday morning I met about 10 other people and we took a lovely chicken bus ride to Panachel. There are many different cities that surround Lago de Atitlan. I had already been to Panachel, but it is the closest city to Xela (about a 2-3 hour bus ride). When you get to Panachel you can take a boat ride across the Lago to any of the other cities. We were heading to Santiago. When we first got to Panachel, some of us ladies needed to use the restroom. When we came back out on the street, there was this man who looked like an ex-vietnam vet on a bike talking to some of the guys. Apparently he was a pot dealer. One of the guys was talking to him, and all of sudden he starts trying to defend his profession. He says he is just trying to make a living and itīs not like he is some abortin doctor trying to help women kill their babies! We all just looked at each other and were like, wrong crowd buddy! (everyone that attends the school weighs quite to the left like me) I couldnīt believe we just met an anti-abortion drug dealer! High-larious! After we ate we headed to a boat where low and behold the anti-abortion drug dealer decided to jump on. He needed to get home. He lives on a island in the middle of the lake. He kept trying to convince us to visit his island. I was like no freakin way! We pulled up to the island he squatted on and waved goodbye. We headed on to Santiago. Once arriving on Santiago we were bum rushed with pickup drivers and little red go-cart drivers who wanted to give us a ride for a about 2 quetzals each. We the smart tourist that we are were like no we are going to walk. They kept saying the festival was muy lejos, 3km away. 3km what was that 1.5 miles, we could easily walk that. We walked for about 15 minutes the whole while the little red go-cart people kept asking to take us. ĻMuy lejos, muy lejoĻ!Ļ I kept telling them yo estoy fuerte! and would show them my big guns. So like the smart tourist we were we finally asked a local who repeated the old saying ĻMuy lejosĻ, but this time I asked how much time to walk, and she said about an hour. When we got past the village and happened upon a highway, us ladies were finally like ummm... I think we should get a ride. Highways in Guatemala are not the friendliest to pedestrians. So after a 15 minute go-cart ride from hell we made it to the festival (3km my ass!) So upon seeing the festival, it was very small. Also I donīt think I had seen a grouping of so many white people since I had left the states. What I thought was to be a fesitval of rock en espaņol turned out to be an ex-pat from the U.S reunion music festival. The music festival seemed to consist of a bunch of old white hippies. There were a couple of guitarristos, but the whole was nothing but Gringo Fest 2006! I had fun hanging with the people from school, but it was definetly not what I expected. About 9:30 at night we left, took a ride in the back of a pickup truck to our hostel. We were able to split two rooms between 8 people (the German part of our group stayed back in Panachel, one of the guys had motion sickness and was not going to be able to take a boat ride across the Lago). The best part of the night was that the room had cable and I got to watch Ren and Stimpy en espaņol! So now my other idea to help with my spanish is to get cartoons and watch them all en espaņol! I was trying to fall asleep to Gangs of New York en espaņol, when one of the guys turned off the t.v. Now the t.v. was covering up the music from a near by church. The church was apparently having an all night (and I mean aaaallllll night)celebration for Semana Santa. As soon as the t.v. was turned off a huge firework went off, which set off the roosters crowing, which set off the dogs barking, and then the church music would start. Needless to say I had no sleep. I had talked to one of the girls I had just met that day about staying and checking out the rest of the cities surrounding the Lago and not leaving in the morining with the rest of the crew. But for some reason I had a last minute thought at 7 in the morning when everyone else was about to leave. I asked her what her plans were and she thought she would walk around Santiago, maybe see a church procession. These were things I definitely did not want to do. I forgot to mention that the town of Santiago is a very dirty town, trash every where. In typical Veronica style, Veronica who has not had any sleep said umm yeah this town sucks, Iīm going back with the others. And I did. We rushed to catch a morining boat and I almost freaked out. The only space left on the boat was on the top. Now all I could remember was the water at 3pm when we crossed, it was so choppy and rough. All I could think is Iīm going to fall off this boat and drown are these people freaking crazy!!! But I forgot that it was fine because the Lago is completly calm in the mornings (Thanks God!). And I was able to get some beautiful pictures of the Lago. One side had the moon still up and the other side had the sun rising. ĄMuy bonito!
We spent the rest of the morning rushing back catching chx buses and arrived in Xela 10:30. The quickest ride ever! I spent the morning with Rachel walking back from the bus terminal through Xela. Nice and quite.
Monday I met my new teacher Astrid. The school had to cancel afternoon classes because sadley one of the teachers 2 year old child died in the middle of the night and they were having the funeral for her. I hate to end on that note, but nothing much else has occurred except my illness and I have talked enough about that.
