Bienvenidos a Guatemala: a Land of Contradictions

So I guess in the 6 years since I was here last, I forgot just how chaotic and utterly different everything here can be. Upon my arrival at the airport, the first thing that greeted me were boarded up corridors everywhere, all plastered with the phrase "Guatemala: lo mas moderna aeropuerto en Centroamerica!" Which of course translates to "Guatemala: the most modern airport in Central America!"... All I can say is, if that's true then God help the traveller who starts off in Honduras, Nicaragua or anywhere else in Central America, because just about the only amenities I could find at this airport were the moving luggage belt and an outlet in the ladies' room (I had to move though cause I was blocking the entrance to the cleaning closet). Other than that, there was literally nothing: no signs above aforementioned luggage belts, no bus service to anywhere, no money exchange once I left the main part & the atm was broken, no maps, no help desk, and above all: No Phones. At all. Basically I had to end up paying a guy to let me use his cell phone (price $1 usd for 2 minutes) to call the girl who said she'd be picking me up, but was nowhere to be found upon my arrival. She said, "oh, I'm sorry- I emailed you but I guess you didn't get it (perhaps she doesn't realize that there is nothing even remotely resembling an internet connection at this airport)- I have to work until almost 11pm, so you can either hang out there and I'll come get you when I get off work or else maybe you can go to one of the hostels and I'll get you there?" I was panicking a bit because in addition to the fact that I didn't have a ride or any idea of where I was, I also did not have any money in Quetzales and only $10 in US money. In one bill. So finally I haggled with a driver, who agreed to take me to a hostel where they have internet service & money exchange facilities, but when we showed up they said they were all full, which was a total bummer for me. We went to another place up the street who was full up as well, and on the third try we were finally told that there was room but it would cost me $25- at which point I was like, No Way. That is ridiculous, but when I said no thank you the guy conveniently remembered that there were dorms for $15, so I decided to just go ahead and stay there since I really didn't know what else to do. The cab driver didn't have change for my $10 bill so the guy at the desk loaned me the money to pay him, and finally I bid my taxi driver farewell and tried to settle in for the night. I was exhausted, so after a couple hours of reading I decided to call it a night and went to sleep, unsure of what I should do in the morning.

The next day I woke up early, around 7 am, and forced myself back to sleep for another hour, knowing I would probably really need it. I got up a little after 8, took a cold shower (like Puerto Rico, that is all I've encountered here), and got dressed and groomed. By 9am I was ready to go, and figured I'd better call Michele (the girl whose house I was supposed to stay at the night before) and Armando, who had offered his place in Xela as somewhere to stay as well. Inexplicably, though, even though I was paying to use the phone, the guy at the desk told me I was only allowed to make ONE call (worse than jail! At least there you get two) so I had to pick which was more important. I decided that I should just get out of the City and up to Quetzaltenango, since I still hadn't heard anything from my Spanish school and I was trying to start on Monday morning. So I chose Armando, and luckily for me he said it was still cool for me to come up and told me how to take the bus there. At this point the front desk guy was arguing with another customer who was accusing him of overcharging him. The front desk guy was adamant, though- it was what he had said. The man tore up his bill and stormed out to confer with a friend, and the desk guy turned to me and made the "crazy" sign with his finger circling around his ear, saying "he es loco". The thing is, though, that taxi drivers and hostel owners are not using the current exchange rate, which is 7.6 Q to $1USD; they are instead rounding it down to 7Q/ $1, which is definitely more favorable for them. Either way, though, the hostel guy was not budging and the angry lodger eventually calmed down and paid the bill, somehow seeming newly convinced that it wasn't too much after all. When he told me my total, I thought it seemed a bit high, but didn't want to go through the whole thing over again so I just signed the thing and had him call me a cab. Later I did the math, though, and even using his "crappy for me" exchange rate, I still got way overcharged. Welcome to life as a tourist in Guatemala.

When the cab came, he, too, surprised me by quoting me more than I had been told it should be, but when I worked it out in my head I decided not to press the issue as it was only about $1.50 difference in price. We headed to the bus station, but he forgot that I had asked to go to an atm on the way, so when we were almost there and I sensed that he had spaced it I reminded him and we had to turn around and go all the way to another neighborhood to find one. We went into a little plaza with a couple of businesses in it, and upon entry we had to get a ticket from a guard lady with a big machine gun. I can't really figure out why, but we did. So anyway, he parked and I jumped out of the car, dashed over to the atm through a long line of people waiting for the bank to open up- and there, just like at the airport was the sign: "afuera de servicio". Out of Service. Sigh. No problem, I could see another, larger bank right across the road. So I got back in the cab and we were gonna go there when we spotted a different tiny bank in the same plaza, so I went in there. This one was actually open, and the atm was inside, so I swiped my card, entered my pin, put in the amount I wanted- 1500 Quetzales- listened to the whirring and clicking, and out came- 100Q. No problem, the machine was still whirring away, furiously making sounds like it wanted to give me more money, but... nothing. I glanced at the security guard, who was also holding a massive gun, and he looked blankly back at me. I waited a little longer, and when it was clear that nothing else was going to happen, I asked him about it and he gestured to me to get in line like everyone else. When it was finally my turn, I tried to explain to the ladies behind the glass what had happened, but they were not getting what I was trying to say. Luckily, the customer next to me spoke good English and was able to translate to them what had happened, and they all had no idea what to do. At first they tried to tell me the atm didn't accept my kind of card, but when I showed them that it had given me a litlle bit of money, they explained to me that the atm was probably just out of money. But that still didn't assuage my fear that the stupid atm had probably just charged my checking account over $200, for which I had nothing to show but cab fare. Maybe it's because I was hungry, or overwhelmed, or just pms-ing, but somewhere in there I started to cry, and the ladies felt a little bit bad for me. They handed me some napkins and made a few phone calls, but to no avail. The one girl came out and had me swipe my atm card again, and check the balance- and it read $0.00. It was at this point that I really sort of lost it, cause there is no way I had no money in there, and she was clearly at a loss for what else to do. By this time I had been in the bank for well over 25 minutes, and I still had no money and was totally freaked out. Eventually I decided to just go and try to sort it out with my bank because even though the cab guy acted like he was doing me a big favor, I noticed when I had run to grab my sweater that the meter was still running. So we went to another bank that the woman suggested, checked out of that God-forsaken plaza with a different gun-toting security guard, and headed for the big bank that I had wanted to go to in the first place. This, too, was in a guarded plaza but it was bigger and more like the entry to a national park or something, with a person in a little booth and a stick that raises up to let you in once you have your ticket.

At this bank, I finally was able to get my money, with the cab driver standing directly beside me so I felt awkward that the screen was flashing the entire balance of my bank account in huge numbers that filled up nearly half the screen, but I just got my cash and tried to get out of there as quickly as I could. I decided to just deal with the bank thing once I got to Xela and not worry about it anymore

A few minutes later and I was at the bus terminal, where I paid the driver 3 times what I originally had agreed to (the meter said it, after all, and he had been very nice about it so really there was no choice) and discovered that I had just missed the bus by 15 minutes. Damn. No problem, though, it's cool- The next one was in an hour and a half, so I plunked my bag down, plunked myself on top of it and proceeded to finish Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye while I waited in the exhaust-choked lot in front of the bus station.

Eventually, the bus came ambling up, and I managed to stow my bag and find my seat without incident. A kind-looking girl sat next to me, and she talked on the phone while I tried to read and intermittently dozed off for the next several hours of the bus ride. I had known that the ride was 4 hours long, and leaving at 12:30 I figured it would still leave me enough daylight to be able to wander around after putting my stuff down at Armando's. What I hadn' t counted on, though, was the bus getting a flat, which it did, and it taking the crew about an hour to fix it. Why I hadn't expected this to happen at this stage in the game, I don't actually know, because looking at the way things had gone so far it only made perfect sense. But I made the best of it and got out to relieve my bursting bladder with all the other dudes on the side of the road. I almost used my little "pee standing up" device but I chickened out at the last minute, not wanting to call even more attention to myself than I already was by being the only female looking person to get out to pee at all. So I just tried the best I could to arrange my sweatshirt strategically and peed for what felt like a million years.. At that moment I just felt sorry for all the other women on the bus who were too scared or polite to pee at all, because as we all know, not being able to go when you have to is one of the most uncomfortable feelings there is. Not to mention bad for your kidneys (gotta love those kidneys).

Anyway, eventually I made it to Quetzaltenango and managed to successfully use the payphone to call Armando, who came 15 minutes later to pick me up. While I waited, though, I noticed two little girls walking by with an older boy, who stopped just in front of me to show off his new cell phone to a friend. The bigger girl peeked out at me shyly from behind the boy, and her face threw me off- she had the face of a young woman, but the body of a child. She was beautiful, and was wearing a tiny black hoodie and quite hip shoes, sort of fancy converse-looking things; anyway, at first she just smiled and peered out from behind the boy, and when I smiled back she came right up to me and said "Tus ojos son muy bonitas!" It took me a second to register what she had said- "your eyes are very pretty" but when I did I immediately returned the complement, and we started chatting away. She was so sweet! She showed me her little sister, Roberta, who was three years old and throwing herself on the ground smiling and laughing and rolling around. My friend's name was Cindi, and she told me she was 14 though, like I said before, it would have been impossible to guess because she looked and seemed so much younger. She couldn't have been over 4 feet tall, but a lot of the women are tiny here. Anyway, she and her sister bade me a big goodbye when their brother was done talking to his friend, and it put me in a better mood instantly. Then, the indigenous woman standing next to me with a baby in her arms- she had been across the aisle from us on the bus- made a bit of friendly small talk with me about how cold it was, which is true- it is surprisingly cold up here in the mountains, and dry- not at all like Puerto Rico. When her ride came, she too, bid me Adios! like an old friend and by the time Armando rolled up I was feeling pretty optimistic. Armando was great, too- he drove us all around the town, pointing out the main attractions as we passed them and then going up to the top of a hill near his house to show me the city below, and where we had just been. It looks like a big place, and it is the second largest city in Guatemala, but when he showed me where we had stopped to buy water in relation to the Parque Central below us, I realized that although it looked very far it hadn't taken us more 10 minutes to drive it. By this time it was dark, so the whole city was lit up beneath us and the multicolored lights danced and glimmered to the faint sounds of music drifting up from below. We stayed for a few minutes, got back in the car and headed to Armando's house, where he showed me around and then we called it a night as I was exhausted and he had work to do on his computer.

I really lucked out here, though- I totally have a room all to myself, since one of the four housemates recently moved out unexpectedly- Armando didn't seem to concerned about it, so I think maybe it's the landlord's problem rather than his. But yeah- it's a beautiful room, with lovely hardwood floors, a big closet and a view overlooking the main square of the city, which is only a five minute walk from the house. Today I went to the school, which is also only several minutes away, and found out that they can take me this week, but after that it is officially all booked up but that doesn't mean for sure that someone won't cancel or a teacher won't want an extra shift. I have a choice of staying with a host family and eating with them or working out my own accomodation, but the price difference is only $35 a week so it seems like the host family might be the most economical option, since they feed you three times per day and the girl at the school assured me they can handle vegans. She said they have even had people there who are on a raw foods diet, which I personally cannot imagine expecting some unsuspecting host mother to prepare for me- I feel bad enough about putting people out with the whole vegan thing. But apparently they can do it all, she says, and that it really isn't a huge deal. So it looks like tomorrow I'll probably do that, since I just went and bought myself some basic groceries this afternoon & can use those for the next day or two till I get settled with a family. If I don't like it, I can always go back to staying and cooking on my own. I have basically spent most of the day wandering around exploring Xela, which is a really nice city with an inordinately large gringo population. It's weird that I feel a little embarassed when I see the other travellers walking around, looking just as out of place as I probably do here; it's like I don't really want to seem like one even though obviously I am. I guess one thing I like about Europe is that I'm pretty much usually assumed to be a local and everyone generally leaves me alone, except to ask for directions or something, when my cover gets blown. Here, though, there's no way to not stand out, and I feel weird knowing that to a lot of people, I am walking around looking like a big dollar sign. Which, again, is one very real byproduct of our modern world that has placed us into this global hierarchy- it's hard to have a genuine interaction sometimes. But for all my self-consciousness, I have also been really pleasantly surprised- amazed, even- at how many locals here have NOT been like that, and instead seem genuinely interested in some kind of real exchange. Mainly women, now that I think of it. I have received more genuine, beautiful smiles today from random women walking around than I have in the whole past year I've been in Australia and the US. So actually, that's really cool. Anyway, this has gone on forever. Those are a few of my first impressions of my time here in Guatemala- I will continue to stay on top of this now that this is kind of my only journal, at least for the moment- I filled up my last one in Puerto Rico and sent it back with Eli, and have yet to find a suitable replacement. I'm going to go check out the used bookstore now and maybe a cafe. More later, Pike

Leaving San Juan

Wow, so here it is, my final night in San Juan before I fly out to Guatemala. I've been staying for the past few days in the beautiful apartment of our friend Abigail, who has been something of a savior to us here in San Juan. Luke and Holly found her on Couchsurfing.com, and she has subsequently had every single one of us stay for at least a day or two ever since, with me being the last to leave out of our whole rag-tag little crew. Amazingly, she is not even here right now- she went to New York to see her family two days ago, so I even have the whole place to myself which I have to say I'm enjoying a lot!
Eli and I also spent a few days with another Couchsurfing contact- Sarah & Jose, a couple who live in Rio Piedras, which is about 45 minutes south of Old San Juan by bus. They, too were lovely, and Jose even let me have my computer sent to his house, which I went and picked up today. At first I wasn't going to bring it, but I have been going crazy having to write such short, succinct messages to everyone and not be able to use all the myriad wi-fi places they have here, not to mention that internet here costs a fortune: the average is about $6/ hr, so I figure it will be well worth it to be able to pre-compose messages and posts and spend minimal time actually having to pay for internet, if at all.
Since leaving Vieques, we had two days in which we rented cars, and just for the record, getting around San Juan with a car is NO easier or faster than the ancient buses if you don't really know the city. It is a myriad of one-way streets and extremely poor signages, so even if you can find a street sign you still can't legally get anywhere without going in the most roundabout way possible, or so it seems. No wonder everyone we've met just rides the bus! It really is saying a lot, cause while the bus is cheap, it isn't fast and the times & places it runs are pretty limited. They don't even HAVE a bus from where I'm staying now to the airport, which is extremely frustrating since a cab is $20 normally; because my flight leaves at 7:20am tomorrow, I will also have to pay a $5-$10 surcharge for "early service", making it basically cheaper if I had just rented a car yesterday morning and driven myself to the airport. But whatever, life isn't perfect, is it?! Overall I've had a pretty good time just hanging out with friends old and new, reading some good books, and exploring new places.
Oh yeah, back to what I was saying: So Car Rental #1 occurred so that Eli, Colette & myself could go and visit the El Yunque National Rainforest, where we camped overnight and hiked both at nighttime and again in the daylight . it was gorgeous, of course, with countless tropical plants, glimmering streams and waterfalls, and hundreds of fascinating insects, birds and reptiles to see and hear. The Coqui frogs, which are everywhere in Puerto Rico, were louder than ever here in their natural environment, and accompanied my reading by flashlight long into the night. Once, as I was stepping out to pee, I even managed to notice one just sitting there on a huge umbrella leaf I was about to push aside- I called quickly to Colette, hissing, "come here! right now right now come here!" and together we watched as the frog tried to stay perfectly still, minute after minute, apparently hoping we'd eventually lose interest and move along. But we didn't for a while- Colette ran and grabbed their ancient camera, and we managed to get a few decent shots of our little friend before finally we felt bad and decided to let it off the hook. I thanked him/her for hanging out with us and stepped away, and watched as it immediately propelled itself away from the leaf and back into the safe cover of the thickly tangled underbrush of the jungle. It was great.
Car Rental #2 was a result of Jose and Sarah's invitation to check out an indigenous festival that was happening way west of San Juan, in the beautiful mountain town of Jayuya (pronounced "yigh (like high)- you- ya". We set out a little late, around 1:45 in the afternoon, cause we had had a little difficulty securing an affordable rental car on such late notice, but eventually we were on our way and managed to figure out how to get to the right highways without too many mishaps. By the time we reached the smaller mountain roads though, I was becoming more and more nervous as the roads became progressively narrower and more and more winding. Eventually, our two hapless friends in the backseat trying to surpress the nausea that comes with unrelenting hairpin turns, I turned the driving over to Eli who was able to deal a little better with the insanity of the route. Still though, we were all relieved when it was finally time to park the car and get out, regardless of what it was we were actually there for.
The festival itself was alright; there was a cute, very modest set of displays set up in the local municipal building, and a young boy tried to explain to me in halting English that last year, as developers were digging to ready the site of a new fast food restaurant, they unearther a large collection of old broken pottery, bird, animal and fish bones, along with a few other artifacts that apparently were quite significant as they indicated that a heretofore unknown market or trading site probably existed there, which has had local archaeology buffs furiously developing all kinds of new theories about local indigenous life over the last few hundred years. The most interesting thing was a small human skeleton, the skull in particular being well-preserved, that was still in the ground as they'd found it but now had an entire building centered around it, laying there in the center encased in glass.
The rest of the festival that we saw was a lot of traditional music, tons of food kiosks (basically nothing vegetarian though, let alone vegan- luckily I had trail mix), and all kinds of handicrafts. It was nice, but after a few hours I think we had seen enough so we went in search of Jose and Sarah, but they had not arrived yet. Eventually at nearly nine o'clock we left, and the drive back to San Juan was a bit faster since we knew what to expect. Our plan was to get back to town just in time to get changed and go hit the clubs for an exciting night of dancing and making new friends- doesn't that sound great?
Well, it wasn't. We basically got lost/ on the wrong freeway/ stuck on a one-way street so many times that by the time we had dropped off Colette in one part of town and worked our way back to where we were going, we were so cranky and tired we just ended up trying to find something to eat at Denny's (a traumatic experience, to say the least) and then made our way back home- though this, too, took another half hour even though we were only 4 blocks away. Not to mention it had started to rain.
The next day was better- we all decided that what we needed was to chill out so after we finally managed to drop off the rental car (basically a repeat of the fiasco of the previous evening's navigation attempts), we just hung out and read and ate and wandered around the marketplace. At night we again attempted to go out, this time meeting with a slightly more reasonably modicum of success in the form of Junior's, the one gay bar we managed to find the last time. It was alright, except for the fact that like every other "queer" thing or place I've seen in Puerto Rico (and basically everywhere else, too, for that matter) it consisted entirely of young gay men and a few supermodel- looking trans girls. No female-born or radical queer types to be found beyond our little corner near the pool table, and any requests for where to find any such people were met with either blank stares or snotty attitudes. Nevertheless, Hazel and I made the best of it by suctioning ourselves to the jukebox and dancing as much as we could, even though we were the only ones.
But overall, I can't complain at all. San Juan (and Puerto Rico in general) has been really great to us. I have rarely visited a place where the people seem so genuinely warm and open to visitors, particularly ones like us. Of course not everyone is all excited when we walk down the street, but the actual interactions I had reflected a lack of the coldness that I often feel in the big cities I usually spend time in. Anyway, that, at long last, is it. I'm off for Guatemala, and hopefully everything will work out with my language school and volunteer projects! Stay tuned for more... xoxo, Pike

Vieques, Puerto Rico

Hello once again! So finally, after much ado and a long absence, I am writing once again to update you (and myself, since I sadly have the memory of a goldfish) on my latest adventures abroad. As you probably know, I have now officially embarked on my much-anticipated Latin American odyssey, in which I plan to finally become fluent in Spanish, volunteer a lot, read a lot, become friends with local activists (I know this sounds vague) and generally try to become a better person in order to justify my utter refusal to work and seeming obsession with never staying in one place for too long.
Okay. So, here I am- as I write this, I am on the island of Vieques, off the eastern coast of Puerto Rico. Some of us know Vieques only because for years it was used by the US Navy as an artillery testing site, a practice which has made 2/3 of the island completely uninhabitable due to all the toxic garbage left behind. Apparently, before the Navy came Vieques was home to approximately 30,000 people; within the first 10 years of the ongoing bombing & weapons testing in their backyards, all but 6,000 of these had abandoned ship for quieter, slightly less toxic locales. There was a long, well-coordinated and ultimately successful campaign to put an end to the testing here, but even though the military finally, grudgingly quit shooting up the landscape in 2003, they have flatly refused to come back to clean up any of the thousands of tons of shells, scrap metal or chemical residue they left behind. So, as the banner hung by the tent city next to the highway in San Juan proudly declared, ‘En Vieques, La Lucha Sigue!’ Which means, for those who don't speak Spanish, ‘In Vieques, The Struggle Continues!’ But that, actually, is totally NOT why I'm here. Which, reading this, kind of surprises me in fact... hmm, maybe I should check out what IS up. Okay, but I'm digressing.
So the reason I am here, now, is simply that a certain director of several films well-known to the queer underground posted a free housesit ad on the Queeruption list serve earlier this spring, and a couple of my friends managed to get spots taking care of the house in which I sit at this very moment (I'm typing on a friend's laptop, & will be transmitting stuff from the email cafe in town). My friends Ane, Luke & Antoine have been here for nearly a month already, and this week they got 4 new arrivals in the forms of myself & Eli, who arrived here 3 days ago now, Holly, Luke's good friend from Seattle, and Collette, an amazing and rad kid Ane & I hung out with in Portland.
From where I am sitting, I can see the blue-green ocean on 3 sides & lush green grass and trees everywhere else, interrupted only by the small, uncomplicated concrete shacks that most of the folks here live in. Our shack has one room downstairs that serves as both kitchen & living room, and one room directly above it where everyone sleeps. There is a fabulous balcony with 2 hammocks on the upper level, and a little balcony-sized porch on the lower level with a couple of wicker chairs to hang out in. It's pretty basic but still a lot fancier than some of our neighbors, for whom this is their full-time home and not just a nice little getaway from their multi-million dollar apartment in New York. Not that I'm complaining, but the privelege of being here under these circumstances is definitely not lost on me. That said, lots of the locals are surprisingly friendly and accomodating, going out of their way to give us lifts to or from town or help us find somewhere to eat or buy ice. There are a lot of folks here who spent some time in the mainland US and therefore speak really good English, which definitely makes things easier for me but isn't exactly challenging me to brush up my Spanish skills.
The weather has been gorgeous the last few days- a little TOO hot, if anything, but not as muggy at the moment as when we first arrived. I sort of panicked, actually, when I first set foot out the doors of the air-conditioned airport and the wall of steam that is San Juan's climate hit me like a blast in the face. I thought, ‘OMG, what have I done?! I can't handle this!!!’ Eli, on the other hand, was in heaven & came bounding over to where I was waiting (our flights came in an hour and a half apart), declaring, ‘THIS is why I'm here! I can't believe I was doubting it- I love this weather!!!’ But what can you expect from an Australian who's been stuck in chilly, grey San Francisco for the last year straight? Anyway, we were greeted by a mobile samba band, complete with costumed dancers & dancing creatures of some sort, courtesy of the Puerto Rican Tourism Board. Because we had no idea what we were going to do upon leaving the airport, we retreated back inside to the air conditioning & had a cup of tea while consulting our guidebook, ultimately deciding to spend a night in San Juan before figuring out whether to go straight to Vieques from there. We phoned the cheapest place in the book (it said $35 for a double room) and they did, in fact, have a vacancy, so we booked it, but not at that price. In reality it was $42, but we figured that was still probably the cheapest we were gonna find without some major hassle, so we got in a cab and promptly gave him the wrong directions entirely. After about 20 minutes of fruitless searching for our street, I took charge of the guidebook & maps and discovered that we were in the wrong part of town entirely, and eventually we made it there and got settled in. Luckily our cab driver was super nice, so we gave him a big tip since he wasn't getting paid by the meter but by ‘zone‘, meaning it was a flat fee so he really didn't have to be as accomodating as he was.
Upon checking in to our ‘hotel‘, we were greeted (more like flagged down, I guess, if we're being technical) by an ancient man in a dress shirt and polyester pants. Now here is one time when our Spanish came in handy, cause this man seemingly spoke not a word of English, so it was gratifying to be able to carry out an entire transaction without incident all en Españ ol.
Once we had settled into our room, Eli & I headed out to check out San Juan Viejo, or Old San Juan. It's a tiny area, and it didn't take us too long to figure out where things were. Frustratingly, though, it seemed nearly everything we were actually trying to locate was under construction or no longer existed, despite the fact that our guidebook is only a year old and some of the info we found online. Eventually we managed to jump aboard the free trolley that goes all over town, which was really cute and a nice way to see things. We passed by a charming little town square, and the trolley took several tight, winding turns through the cobblestone streets before bringing us out onto the road that runs alongside the water, which was absolutely beautiful. The turquoise water of the Caribbean stretched out as far as we could see, and it was all made even more scenic by the ruins of the ancient fort that extended up the hill above us, overlooking the sea, and the old above ground cemetery that stands, all in concrete, right against the waters' edge.
After a few moments of scenic views, the driver guided us back to the square and announced that this was the end of the line, so we got out and explored a little more, stopping at the grocery store before retreating back to the room for a much-needed nap. Later that evening we happened upon a Rasta/ ITOL restaurant, which meant vegan nachos & peanut tofu for dinner- something I was pretty grateful for, even if it was just mediocre. After dinner we were ready to hit the town, armed only with a dubious map and the names and addresses of a couple of gay bars in a different part of town. The first place we tried was closed, sadly, as it looked really cute and homey, and a few others we couldn't locate at all, but eventually we came upon a really big club that was pounding techno music & did the most thorough bag check I have ever seen. Upon learning that the cover was $6, though, we decided to check out the free bar up the street first and come back only if the other place sucked. Luckily for us, it didn't. Things were pretty dead when we first showed up, but after a game of pool and a couple conversations the place was fairly crowded, and sometime around midnight the music changed from hip hop to salsa, and a few people were hustling their way around the dancefloor with varying degrees of expertise. After watching this for a while Eli got one of the fags to show me how, and so I got one lesson from a lovely boy named Juan, and then another from his friend, who offered seemingly out of a sense of needing to save the art form from the butchery that Juan was allowing me to make of it. His lesson was much stricter, but I feel like I was actually kind of getting it by the end, so that was a really fun time. Finally we realized it was 2am and we had to get going, since we had arranged to meet our friends on the other side of the island sometime around noon the next day.
Needless to say, we didn't get there at noon, but we did get there eventually, and after a bunch of annoying details I won't bore you with we finally made it over here, by ferry, to Vieques. Ane & Antoine had had to go back to the main island to visit the hospital, since the day before we arrived Ane had broken her arm. It's a pretty nasty break, as the x-ray shows, and will probably require surgery so they were feeling pretty stressed out about it, especially since Ane actually doesn't have insurance. But in the meantime they've got it in a splint, and we're trying to keep her medicated for the pain to the extent we can.
The saddest part is that she can't change her ticket and she can't go in the water, take a shower, or anything else that would basically make one want to be in the tropics, so I have to say she's pretty miserable, though a much better trooper than I would probably be in her shoes. We're trying our best to help her out, though, and I'm determined to find a way for her to do some kind of snorkelling or at least go out on the Biolumenescent Bay with us in the next couple of days.
As far as swimming goes for us, yesterday was actually the first day we actually made it to the beach. I had written this glorious description of the perfect white sand, the warm turquoise water, and the fabulous woman named Sonia who has taken us under her wing like little easter chickies, but it all got erased when the battery on this died and I don't have it in me to retype it all again. Suffice to say, it's beautiful- it really does look just like all the pictures in the ads for the Carribbean, and Colette & I could not stop freaking out about the fact that it was even real. Many hi-fives and much picturesque frolicking in the water was had by all, making us look to anyone else like we were probably being paid to have such a good time by some weird PR company trying to sell vacation packages to Vieques. It was great. Then we learned that there is even a « Gay Parade » this afternoon, so of course we are going to go and see what THAT is all about. Overall I have been really pleasantly surprised by how little hassle I've recieved and our little group has gotten, especially since one of us is a totally freaky looking drag queen and the rest are just freaky looking, at least by Puerto Rico standards. Most folks have been really nice and some even go out of their way to tell us they like our style!
Anyway, there is much more I could write and already this is somewhat out of date, but this blog has gone on way too long so I’m gonna sign off until the next time- I think I’m gonna have my computer shipped to me so I can write more often! Love and hugs to all! Xoxo, Pike.