We had a one month break between the first and second quarters at UCLA so three of us went to Latin America for most of that time. Here’s my basic journal and pictures of that trip.
12/12 – Left LA. Woke up at 5am and at the airport at 5:50am and waited in line. MGM Grand flight; we were the only gringos on the flight; except the cute flight attendants. Stopped in San Salvador for 40 minutes. Saw gift shop which has little carvings of people making love under an innocent looking cover. The flight attendants loved them, and bought some. Landed in Guatemala City around 6pm and took a cab to the center of town. Very poor city. Had a horrible hamburger then caught the 1 hour bust to Antigua. Found a place in Antigua, then went and had a beer at the bar, watched CNN on the TV, heard a cool Guatemalan band in the back room, then wandered the streets for a while.
12/13 – Found a cheaper, grungier motel. Had a bad breakfast, then I walked all around the market and the town while Annet looked for some things. Pretty, but run down town surrounded by beautiful volcanoes and mountains. Met Annet and the seamstress found a place where I could buy some sandals. I spent most of the afternoon reading. We spent the evening planning our next trip and had a great Italian dinner for about $6.
12/14 – Woke up at 6am and caught 7am bus to Guatemala City. GC was crazy. Tijuana with nice people. We walked a number of blocks to the right bus station. After some adventure we had breakfast and decided to take the bus to Rio Dulce. On the way Annet discovered some Mayan ruins in a place called Quirigua. We got off in the middle of nowhere, walked a few hundred meters to the Hotel Royal, check in and caught a bus, then a ride in a pickup truck to the ruins. The ruins were anticlimactic. Only on large area was uncovered. We walked through the jungle a bit, it was very dense. We caught a ride back to the road on the back of a truck after waiting forever for a bus that never came. It was dark and we were at a small turnout on the main rode. A large bus came by immediately and we were back in the small town of Quirigua within one stop. We had a good, but overpriced meal, then crashed by about 9:30.
12/15 – Woke up at 5am. Caught early bus to the middle of nowhere. Caught another bus to Rio Dulce. Hung around there for about an hour or so. Caught the bus to Florez on a bumpy dirt road with three people squeezed to a seat and people standing packed in the aisleway. It was an old American school bus. The countryside was beautiful. We met 3 Israelis. The one I was talking to was named Uri. Saw all sorts of sights on the road: people living in thatched huts, a naked lady changing clothes on a hill above the bus, two people teaching a kid to ride a bike. The lady next to me on the bus kept breast feeding her baby, it didn’t cry once on the bus. Even went through an armed army checkpoint where they checked everyone’s IDs. Arrived at Finca Ixobel around 2:30pm – paradise! It was a farm run by some Americans where there was a kind of hotel, cabin, thatched hut, treehouse where backpackers from all over the world stayed. Poptun is the town near the ranch. We walked there looking for a phone and bank. Found almost nothing available or open. Amazing place; it’s the capital of the Peten, the remote jungle region of Guatemala. The dinner at Finca Ixobel was amazing – huge portions of salad, vegetables, homemade bread, pasta and meat. Went to be early and slept very, very well.
12/16 – Woke up, hung around in the morning and relaxed. Ended up walking through the forest to a cave. On the way we ran from some bulls who ended up completely ignoring us. The cave was phenomenal. Stalactites hanging down in beautiful formations. We went through 3 or 4 chambers. We could only see with our small flashlights. Came back and swam in the pond with our clothes on to get the mud off. The owners of Finca Ixobel are American. A man and a woman. The women’s husband was shot by soldiers two years ago. No one knows why. He was missing for a few days before they found his body. Very, very tragic. Had dinner with some Swedes, relaxed and went to bed early.
12/17 – Woke up at 6am, checked out and caught the 8am bus. Was with Annet, a Dutch couple, Claus from Germany and 3 Swedes. We got to ride on the top of the bus. Marla, an American from Wisconsin was also with us. She was very interesting; married for 10 year in Boulder where her and her husband bought and ran a company. After they divorced she spent 3.5 years in the Peace Corps. She got very ill there – she was in Africa, just south of Morocco and Algeria – so she got into macrobiotics and healed herself. She then developed very strong psychic skills and we had a long talk about the end of the world. She’s now just travelling around the world; she invested her money well. Annet, Claus and I got off at Rio Dulce, had lunch and then found a boat to Livingston. We walked around a biotope park with manatees (we didn’t see any) and watched Poncho the monkey look for food. We got back in the boat and then spent about 20 minutes at a very hot sulfur spring. The last part of the ride was beautiful; lush, jungle walls on either side of the river and straw huts with people in canoes passing by. We landed in Livingston, a funky reggae type of town with black Garifinos, and found a hotel run by a German lady. We went around town a bit – a very funky place – and found PJ at 8:30 eating at the African Place. All four of us ate, then we stumbled into a funky little restaurant bar where we saw a couple of the Israelis. Two people were playing drums and one was shaking two things – the sound was very good – especially after a few beers. We hung out there the rest of the night.
12/18 – Slept in and met the Israelis for breakfast, watched a small rainstorm pass through, tried to call the US and then the four of us took a very shaky boat out to the ocean to a river mouth. We climbed up through some waterfalls and swam in a small pond; very beautiful. Claus had his daypack ripped off there. We all walked back and had to take a small “ferry” boat across a small river. We were very tired. Weird funky huts right on the beach; a very tropical place. Had dinner, walked around a very nice, modern hotel on the water and got to bed early.
12/19 – Complete travel day. Woke up at 6am, caught 7am boat to Rio Dulce, which didn’t leave until 8am, once we picked up all our passengers. Very beautiful rive cruise and had fun with Poncho the monkey again at the biotope. Ordered lunch, then had to take it with us as the bus actually left on time. Long, beautiful bus ride to St Elena. Arrived at night and went to a very lousy motel.
12/20 – Woke up at 5:30 and I caught the 6am minibus to Tikal. Annet and PJ left at 8am. What a place! Pyramids rising from the jungle for hundreds of feet. All sorts of noises and animals cruising around. I just walked around and took everything in. Probably the most unique place I’ve ever seen. Stayed until almost sunset. Saw monkeys, bats, macaws, parrots, a tapir, squirrels and other animals I couldn’t identify. Had dinner at Imperial Mayan Comedor which was very good. Highlight was when we saw a small jaguar outside the restaurant. We were with an Australian named Themo whose birthday was tomorrow.
12/21 – Woke up to rain, so stayed in and didn’t get up at 5am to see the sunrise from Temple IV as I had planned. PJ and I decided to leave for Belize. Annet would follow us a day or two later. We caught a minibus to Flores and hung around rainy, muddy Flores in a bus for an hour waiting for it to leave. It finally left and was a very uncomfortable ride. Sun came out in Belize. We got to San Isidro by cab and then two more buses to Belize City where we just missed the 6pm boat to Cay Caulker. Stayed in a funky motel with 2 Germans run by a Chinese couple. Had a great dinner at Macys. I had turtle steak. Then went to an ice cream shop where we had strawberry ice cream that tasted like bubble gum.
12/22 – PJ and I and the Germans caught a boat to Cay Caulker in the morning. Had a hassle getting rooms for the four of us plus Annet. We finally got a 3 bed room at Martinez Hotel. PJ and I then arranged diving for the next few days, then had a very uneventful snorkeling experience. Annet showed up around 5pm. This is a very small, funky, pretty island with no beaches. Had an OK lobster dinner with some very lousy rice and beans.
12/23 – I woke with the runs. Annet gave me some pills which helped. The diving was good, but not great. Not very colorful and not as many fishes as I would have liked. PJ had a refresher dive in the morning and joined us for the afternoon dive. We did see a large sea turtle. The sandflies were ferocious. We started to have dinner at a family restaurant on the top floors of a house but it ended up the were out of most dishes, so we just went to Martinez’s for an average dinner.
12/24 – Woke up feeling bad; fever, headache and bad stomach. Still dove, it was much better because we went to a marine park called Hol Chan. Much more fish and better variety of coral. The prettiest diving I’ve ever done, but not breathtaking. Did some good snorkeling between dives in some shallow water in the marine park. Felt queasy the whole day, but didn’t want to miss the experience. Our guide, Alberto, was again fantastic. Frenchies Dive Shop seems to be the better run of the two shops on the island. Had dinner at the Sand Box. Outdoor and indoor dining. The indoor had sand on the floor and screens as windows to let the breeze in. A white Santa Claus cruised by with a trail of black kids following him. The food was fantastic; we should have eaten here from the beginning. I felt lousy still and left early for bed.
12/25 – Christmas Day and what a fiasco! I woke up feeling a bit better and decided to join Annet and PJ to go to the baboon sanctuary in Belize. Took the boat across and it got cold. I put on a sweater and had a shirt wrapped around my neck to keep my head warm. Looked for a cab from Belize City to the sanctuary. Had extreme trouble until we found a mellow local with a very beat up car to take us for $70 Belize. Finally got there around 10:30am to find our spartan accommodations with a local family; no shower and an outhouse about 30 meters behind the house; all for $20 Belize for my room and $25 for their rooms. We weren’t happy. Had a decent lunch with the family then went on a very short tour of the park. Heard the howler monkeys, which was a great roaring sound. After the tour we stumbled on a local guide who gave us and 2 Americans a more extensive tour where we could see the monkeys close up, walk through a lot of mud, see an iguana up close and he even stuck the heads of two soldier ants on my shirt, which were used for stitching up wounds. The Americans had a van and were going back to Belize City, so we promptly hitched a ride. Found a beautiful small hotel run by 2 Americans, showered and had dinner in a Chinese restaurant which a local Belizian, Floyd, found for us. Christmas was somewhat salvaged. Floyd really helped a lot. He knew the city and knew how to keep out of trouble. It was a very dangerous place.
12/26 – Woke up feeling better after a good night’s sleep. Only had an ear infection in my left ear. PJ and Annet weren’t so lucky; they had a bad case of fleas. They had to get their clothes washed at a local hotel. I had no problems with the fleas which is strange since we had spent 3 nights together in Cay Caulker. We caught a cab to the airport and split up for our flights. Arrived in Tegucigalpa and found a very nice hotel called Nuevo Hotel Boston for $5 per night. Had a lousy dinner and went to bed.
12/27 – I went for a long walk by myself around Teguc. As beautiful a city as any I’ve seen so far. Walked past the American consulate, to the Hotel Maya to check out car rental rates, around some very large markets in the poor part of town and saw a soccer match on a dirt field by the river. We met up in the evening and saw Home Alone 2 then bought dinner in a Pizza Hut and took it back to the hotel because it was closing. We tried to eat there before the movie, but when we ordered what we thought was a four piece pan pizza, what we got were four pieces of garlic bread.
12/28 – Rented a Suzuki Samari and drove through some beautiful country side to La Tigre National Parque. It’s a cloud forest up in the mountains at about 7,000 feet. We walked around for about 2.5 hours. Beautiful lush forest literally in the clouds, with mist surrounding everything and the haunting sounds of the win blowing through the trees. Drove from there to Viaje Las Angeles, which is the center of Honduras’ handicrafts. PJ bought some really nice salad bowls and a lizard skin box. It was raining very hard. We returned the car in Teguc, saw the movie Dracula, had a great dinner at a Burger King and crashed.
12/29 – Got a taxi to Colonia John F Kennedy where we took a bus to El Parociso and a cab to the border. We had to wait on the Nicaraguan side because they were on lunch break. We caught a “bus” which was a converted truck from Los Manos to Ocotel and then a bus to Esteli. We ended up with two Puerto Rican girls and 3 guys from Spain. On the bus a drunk soldier with a gun thought the Spaniards were from the US and sort of harassed them. Everyone was laughing at him. At Esteli we split up and PJ and I found a semi dump for $6 per night. Water was down in the town until morning. Ate a fantastic chicken dinner at a local restaurant.
12/30 – Woke up at 4am and caught a 4:40 bus to Managua. I slept most of the way. What I saw was mostly poverty. We took a cab to the main baseball stadium and started hunting for a place. PJ ended up at a nicer place for $16 per night and I went to a simpler place for $6 per night. Many of the streets were simply shacks for houses. I met Francisco, the owner of PJ’s place. He spent 32 years as a controller for Armour. He travelled all over the world. He said the last Somoza was bad, but the Sandinistas were worse. He says they still have the power even though the government is no longer in their hands. They still control the military and they gave thousands of guns to the poor to be used in case they don’t like the new government. He says there used to be Russians and Cubans all over the place. Arms from Russian flowed through Cuba to Nicaragua. Nicaragua also supplied guns to the rebels in El Salvador. When the guns stopped, El Salvador had a peace treaty. We rested and showered in the morning and met at noon. We walked up to the Paza Espanol to change money and I ended up changing my plane ticket from the 1st to the 2nd. PJ took a cab to a museum which she said was not very good. I walked all over the place before I found a good sized bottle of water. Then I walked down to the lake. Ruins of the 1972 quake were scattered everywhere. Thousands of people were still living in metal and cardboard shacks. Saw a cathedral which was destroyed in the quake. We met and took a cab to the main market. I wandered around and PJ bought some stuff. Met for dinner and went to a decent place to eat. Walked around a bit and crashed early. It was a long day.
12/31 – Slept in and had another pancake breakfast. Francisco stopped by and told us about his past. He was very athletic. He says the Incan ruins in Peru were the most amazing thing he’s ever seen. He says Nicaragua had 65% unemployment, people are coming into the city to look for more material comforts, but the ones who are really good are still in the countryside working the land and living better. Caught a cab to the bus station and a bus to the entrance of Volcan Masaya Parque. Walked 1.5 km to the visitor center, it was very hot. Met a French family at the visitor center who took us the remaining 5 km to the volcano. There were 3 volcanos, the one we saw was active. It took out a parking lot across from us about 3 years ago. He was an agriculture expert and had lived in Nicaragua for 4 years and was now in Costa Rica for 2 more years. He said a number of things: the volcano near Managua can go any time, Somoza used to throw political prisoners out of a helicopter into the crater, there’s a 10 km wide swath of land where things can’t grow because of volcanic ash mixed with rain during the rainy season. He told us some politics also: Somoza lost it because he diverted US earthquake aid and he bought land for dirt cheap after the quake and sold it back two weeks later for an exorbitant profit. Also, as long as Somoza kept political power he we OK, only when he tried to gain economic power did the middle class work through the Sandinistas to gain power. The Sandinistas were a minority and very cleverly used that small window of opportunity to gain power. They know that the Carter White House would not interfere. They fooled the middle class. His interpretation of the current situation is that the current lady president is a figurehead. It’s her son-in-law who runs things. He is also the best hope for the country because he’s centrist. Noriega has distanced himself from the Sandinistas to help the transition and the defense secretary – who once said a “Yankee is the worse form of life” gave Nicaraguan’s highest military award to the US military. He seems to be a very flexible man! The son-in-law is doing a good job of keeping the majority of the people focusing on the middle and isolating the extreme right and the extreme left. The contras are mostly on board, but one leader only wants revenge and, unfortunately, he’s the one Jesse Helms wants to give US money to. The problem is the poor economy is forcing the son-in-law to make unpopular economic decisions. Also now there’s no communism US aid appears to have dried up. We got a ride back down with them and took the bus to the village of Masaya where there’s a large market. PJ bought a pretty doormat. We met and talked with Francisco for a while and he treated us to some wine. Went back to my place so I could change into pants and met Anuk, a girl from Montreal. She was going to spend a month in a small village helping a doctor. The three of us looked around for a place to eat. As we drove around we saw many people on rooftops with machine guns waiting for the New Year celebrations. Ended up having a great – and relatively inexpensive – dinner at the Intercontinental Hotel. We walked down to the lake and at midnight the “war” started. We could hear “fireworks” from all over the city and see red tracer streaks as people shot their guns off, coming from all directions. We ended up under a concrete bridge (to make sure we weren’t hit with stray bullets coming down!) with a couple of bottles of champagne while all this was going on. We felt like we were in Sarajevo with the guns going off. It was a weird and wonderful experience.
1/1 – Woke up and took bus to Granada. After I got off the bus a lady started to talk to me, but she knew no English. She has 2 sons and 2 daughters. She didn’t know if I was Italian or American. We walked for a while and I picked up bits and pieces of her conversation. I think she has a brother in Miami and one in Northern California. She wanted to take the horse carriage down to the lake, but I had almost no cash left as I was leaving the country the next day. She was visiting a friend in Granada and we parted ways. I walked around Granada for a while. By far the prettiest city I’ve seen in Nicaragua and one of the prettiest in Central America. Today is a holiday and there were thousands of Nicaraguans in and around the lake. Went back to Managua and saw Sister Act, then had a decent spaghetti dinner around the corner from where I lived.
Jan 2 – Got up at 4:15am to catch a cab to the airport. Wandered the dark, lonely dog patrolled streets for about 20 minutes before I hailed a lone cab. Ended up at the airport at 5:15am. Slept for a while, then got aboard the plane after going through customers at the ticket counter. I was told I’d have to pay $5 for a Guatemala tourist card and $12 for a Nicaraguan exit tax. All I had was 50 cordoba. He was able to change a $50 travelers check and I ended up paying my exit tax with the 50 cordoba and $2 even though only Nicaraguan citizens can pay with cordoba. Took a bus from the airport and another bus from Guatemala City to Antigua. Checked into a place and waited in line at the bank for almost an hour to change money. An Englishman frantically tried to get money as I made it to the front. They wouldn’t let him in. He needed to DHL a fellowship application to the UK and DHL was closing at noon. I lent him the money and we agreed to meet later. I found Annet’s family and left her a note, then made arrangement to go mountain bike riding on Thursday. Just when I got back to my room and got to sleep, Marcus, the Brit woke me up to go to a festival and to pay me the money back. The festival was very nice. We even followed a small procession down some small side streets. There was a mini Ferris wheel and another ride where children went around in circle in the air. Both were manual. Marcus and Sarah had been travelling off and on a long time and Marcus was studying the modern and ancient Mayan cultures. It’s a very matriarchal society and women go right from being girls to being child bearing adults without any kind of teenager period. Despite all the repression they are a very happy and resilient people. Marcus is very curious as to where they get their strength from. They have large families with sometimes as many as 13 in a one room house. The girls start looking after their younger siblings immediately, practicing for motherhood. Even the Mayan stalactites show carvings of women being behind, or supporting, the male leaders. The local and Mayan food has great variation with all the vegetables, fruits and spices in the region. Marcus can’t understand why the comidar food is so bland with only chicken, rice and beans. Tobacco is from this area and the Mayans used it as an anesthetic. He says he rarely sees any locals smoking, only gringos. The Mayans had a very intricate mathematical system and their pyramids are always 7, 9 and 13 levels high for earth, sky and heaven. They built everything without horses, metals or industrial machines. They had various ways of using pulleys to build. We still can’t read their language, it’s so intricate. Maybe more profound than our own. There are something like 32 distinct dialects currently in Guatemala with many incomprehensible to others. Warfare was based on capturing prisoners. It was an economic thing. Two societies would meet, agree to a battle, fight for 2 to 3 hours, take prisoners as slaves and then get tired and quit. Lives were too economically important to waste. It’s why the Spanish were so successful. They’d fight for the day, the night and the next day until they won. They also systemically killed the Mayan. It took the Mayan a long time to adapt to this style of warfare. At one point something like 120 Spaniards plus about 1,000 Indian supporters massacred something like 5,000 Mayan. One shipwrecked Spaniard married a Mayan princess and taught some Belizean Mayans to fight like the Spanish and the Spanish didn’t conquer them. These Mayan ended up joining forces with the English. At the festival in Santa Maria we also stopped for a drink at The Oasis which was a small restaurant hotel with a courtyard which had a wonderful nativity scene, pine bristles on the ground and a lady making tortillas from scratch. I met PJ for dinner at 8pm, we talked, then I crashed early.
1/3 – Woke up and caught 6:30am bus to Chimicastenada with PJ. Ended up taking 3 buses and over 3 hours to get to Panajechel. Walked around the huge market, went into the church filled with incense, candles on floor and a very cool, strong, ancient silence. Climbed up a hill to an old foot tall Mayan idol which could be as old as 1,000 years, where offerings were made. It was in the middle of a beautiful pine forest. The silence wasn’t as strong as the church (which was almost as strong as Tikal) but there was still something there. Hung out with two Canadiens and we tried to catch a bus back to Panajechel, but the 3pm bus never appeared and we kept trying to hitch rides back. Ended up on the back of a truck when he told us 1.25 quetzals, but jumped off when we realized he meant 125 quetzals. Ended up finding a bus which took us part of the way and took a second bus which got us back just before 6pm. Had a great dinner at The Amigos, including some great dark beer call Mozas. Went to a bar to hear some music – we met the guitarist Venesia on the bus – and had a couple of drinks before crashing. I was with the 2 Canadians and 2 Americans from Kansas.
1/4 – Took the boat to San Pedro. Very nice village. Had a great pancake lunch with fruits and yogurt on the pancake. Had a great swim in the lake. Seems like a very relaxed place and I may go back for a couple of days. Had dinner with a guy from Switzerland. Talked about Swiss politics and how they just voted against joining the EC. He voted yes because he thought Switzerland would become too much of an isolated island in Europe. Many Swiss were afraid that entering the EC would open the door to too many immigrants.
1/5 – Went back to San Pedro. Checked into the Tik-aaj for $1 a night. Spent 2 hours ordering and eating lunch with a German named Peter and later an Italian and a Swede. After lunch ran into Mark, the German I met yesterday at lunch and then climbed up a hill a bit to get a view of San Pedro. Went back down and took my soap and shampoo and had a very natural bath in the cold lake. Also washed some clothes there. Had a pizza dinner with Mark and then joined 3 German girls, an Australian and an American for rum and cokes at Tik-aaj. Very relaxing day and night.
1/6 – Had a good pancake breakfast at the Last Supper with Mark and a good cup of coffee at Roalees. Met 2 girls from Zimbabwe. One had a British passport and the other had a Greek passport. They said Zimbabwe was mellower than South Africa, but very pretty. I went to Santiago. Ended up seeing the idol Marimon. They offered cigarettes and alcohol to it. A Swiss guy watched me and laughed at my disorientation. Based on his suggestion I gave 5 quetzales donation for an offering of 2 small vials of alcohol. They ended up giving me a shot of it. I kicked back for a bit and watched a German tour group come in, offer a large donation and take a bunch of pictures. The Swiss guy and I and his girlfriend wandered into the house of an artisan. We watched him on the machine and I ended up buying a couple of straps. The longer one takes 8 hours to make and I bought it for $3. On the boat back I met an American named Cliff. He was from Maine and he worked as a carpenter in Maine in the winter. There was a hippy American from Oregon who had all his stuff stolen earlier. Later Cliff said he was stupid. The last time Cliff had seen him he was passed out drunk in the streets of San Pedro. Had lunch with Cliff and met an older German man from Berlin. He had taken in the dog with the broken back from last night. He wanted to kill it, but couldn’t and ended up leaving it on a dock at 5am that morning. They talked about how the military killed some people in Santiago a couple of years ago and how both Santiago and San Pedro had kicked the military out. San Pedro has about 15 young men who act as police by wandering the streets with whips, no guns or knives. The German said San Pedro also has a small drug problem Last year the DEA and the military chased an American out to Belize and the local villagers had actually stoned, but not killed, a Guatemalan who was dealing. I went for another bath/swim in the lake, then went to dinner with Mark at a small restaurant overlooking the lake owned by a young German woman. She came as a tourist a year ago, married a South American man, opened the restaurant 2 months ago and is now 9 months pregnant. The food was good. We saw a little celebration in the basketball court that night. Three men played a xylophone and a handful of men dressed as both men and women and danced comically in front of all the people.
1/7 – Caught 5am boat to Panajechel, then buses to Antigua. Arrived in Antigua around 10am, checked into a hotel and promptly ran into Annet in the street. We had coffee and talked. She was going to Panajechel in the afternoon to go to Santiago for tomorrow’s market. I made a mountain bike appointment for tomorrow and bought a new book and spent the rest of the day reading most of it. It rained hard most of the late afternoon. Had dinner and met Steve the Australian at Chimney where we drank a few beers. I gave him my address in case he came to LA. Also met a Japanese guy named Toshia who had been traveling for 7 months in Toronto and now 2 months in Antigua learning Spanish.
1/8 – Went for a fantastic mountain bike ride with Arturo, a local guide, and a couple from Anchorage. We went through small villages and to a coffee plantation owned by Arturo’s friend Francisco. We rode partly up the volcano then down through the coffee bushes. He pays the workers the equivalent of $2 per bushel. He also has a flower growing business as a hobby. Arturo spent 7 years hiking through Guatemala on his own. He says the Mayan lived very close to the earth. He went to a cave with two friends where some locals were performing a ceremony. They couldn’t enter the cave, there was some sort of force which kept them out. Finally someone came up and let them in. They sat there and literally watched some kind of sky show through the cave entrance. It was very strange. After the ride we sat at Arturo’s house for a bit and watched his computer composing device play some tunes. I gave him my address and he may send me a tape. I went back and showered and had a bad case of the chills. Laid down for a nap at 5pm and woke up at 6:30 with a severe fever. It broke around 10:30pm. I stayed in bed until 8am.
1/9 – Felt better. Went out for breakfast, walked around Antigua and saw a very nice ruin of an old convent. Ran into Annet and we made plans for meeting up. Themo was there, it was nice to see him again. I had also bought a blanket and sandals. Took a slow bus to Guatemala City and a cab to the airport. There was almost no one on the flight back to LA and we were able to sit in first class. It turns that was the last flight out of MGM Air before they stopped their service. We were very lucky!
