Visits

As soon as I got back to Guatemala, I had visitors. Two good friends from college, Jenny and Christina, came for a week, arriving the same day that I did. We spent a couple days in Xela and my site, then in Antigua because I had a work conference. Having their company definitely eased the transition for me, and it was fun to see my life through their eyes. “It´s like camping all the time!” Christina commented of my kitchen and my cooking system (having to boil the water 5 minutes for coffee and bring the dishes downstairs to wash in the pila and other small adjustments I´m so used to now that I don´t even notice). The night we spent in my town was one of the best we had, giggling and talking freely and listening to music and secretly drinking wine (it´s frowned down upon in my community). They also could understand how alone I am, which I a lot of people who have not seen it cannot understand, as I live with a host family and I am greeted by my neighbors everywhere I go. I appreciated their perspective.


And one of my best friends since freshman year of high school, Sally, came to Guatemala for almost the entire month of August, to study Spanish, travel and visit me. Some of her other friends from law school joined her as well. She spent over a week in Xela, a week at Lake Atitlán and another half week to travel with me. I was able to visit her every weekend, if only for a day sometimes, and she came up to spend a night at my town as well. At the end of her stay, I took some vacation days to travel with her.

We went to Alta Verapaz, a region in the east of the country that is blanketed with tropical jungle and famous for its natural attractions. We wanted to get off the beaten tourist track, so we made the long, long trip to the northeast of the department where an eco-tourism volunteer works to see the attractions in his area. I traveled 13 hours from my town to the closest town to where we´d be sight-seeing that had a hotel (picking up Sally in Coban, the region´s capital, on the way). The hotel itself was entertaining enough: a large tacky yellow hotel in a very little isolated town, which is in the process of expanding even more. It had some small pools in the courtyard flanked by large cement dinosaurs and elephants whose tails and trunks were slides, as well as a long fake-log slide down into the pools. We got up early in the morning, entertaining ourselves by doing silly photo-shoots with the dinosaurs and elephants.



Fortunatley, the attractions got better. We got on a bus to the entrance to Laguna Lachuá (2.5 hours further), where we met up with the volunteer that works near there. Laguna Lachuá is a perfectly-round pale green lake set in the midst of a thick rainforest. The wildlife surrounding it includes howler monkeys, spider monkeys, snakes, toucans, crocodiles, and an abundance of mosquitos and other creatures that bite and sting (as well as many more animals than I care to name). It was a beautiful two mile hike to get the lodge on the lake through the tangled green jungle. At the lodge is a simple visitor's center and bungalows to sleep in as well as a rustic kitchen for cooking. We spent the day swimming in the incredible clear water and enjoy the beauty of the view, and the other volunteer and I took another short walk through the jungle on a more overgrown trail. At night, we were blessed with cloud-less, moon-less sky. We laid out on the dock for a while, and I am not sure I have ever seen more stars crowded against the black, the Milky Way a wide shimmery trail. There also seemed to be a meteor shower, because every couple of minutes we would see a streak of white. It was perfect.



The next day we spent a lazy morning at the Lake, then hiked out. On the way, we came across some howler monkeys high in the trees, and I almost stepped on a small coiled viper that blended almost perfectly into the tan trail.


Can you spot the viper? I didn't.



We caught a bus to the volunteer´s site, where we ate lunch and met some of the locals. From there, he arranged a pick-up to take us (as well as some of his local friends and kids) to his project, Salinas, an area of the jungle that he and the local authorities are working on making a protected area and tourist attraction. The place has a rough trail that winds around some hills blanketed by rainforest. The trail passes a series of small lakes that for some mysterious reason change colors based on the time of the year. (When we visited, they were unimpressive shades of brown and green, but the volunteer swears that he has seen them when they are purple, pink, yellow...) Often you can see crocodiles, and we did spot a cluster of baby crocodiles on a log, but no adults. There were mounds in the jungle which are unexcavated ancient Mayan temples and buildings. There´s a river that contains a salt-wash, and we came to a large clay bowl buried into the earth which the ancient Mayans used to boil the water for salt. We were able to crawl into an ancient mausoleum from an opening in one of the mounds (no bones, anymore, just the stone bed where they once lay). We spotted some toucans and heard howler monkeys roaring in the trees. (Truly, they should be renamed “roaring monkeys.” They sound like how you would imagine large predatory dinosaurs sounded like before making their attack.) More than anything, the sheer beauty of the jungle was breathtaking. Palms as big as small houses, and so much plant life crowded into such a small space. In the late afternoon, we rode into the sunset in the pickup, back to his site.

That night we stayed in the volunteer´s simple one-room house (certainly no king-sized bed, balcony, and hot shower at his place), where he endured a lot of teasing from the locals for having not only one, but two gringas stay the night (even though he told them we were his sisters). The next day Sally and I caught a micro (van used for public transportation) back to Coban, where we just relaxed. We left at 4 a.m. on a bus to the Guatemala City where Sally would catch her flight, before I continued on to my site.

Although I looked like a lepor from the various bug bites scattered across my legs, and although all-in-all I probably spent more time on buses than actually on vacation (I couldn´t afford to take off more school than I did),that little trip will stand out as one of my highlights in Guatemala. Being in such a gorgeous, exotic place with my best friend... well, as she put it, “If heaven had mosquitos.”

Home

At the end of July, I went home to Montana for a little over a week. The biggest culture shock I experienced was in the airports on the flight over, making the transition from speaking English to strangers rather than Spanish (I of course speak plenty of English with my fellow Peace Corps volunteers, but in interactions with the general public, it´s always Spanish). In the food court, for example, a (white) man mumbled something to me, clearly asking if he could sit at my table as all the others were occupied. I told him, yes of course, take a seat... but in Spanish! I´m sure he was wondering why this fair-hair white girl is pretending she´s a native Spanish speaker.

Other than that, almost as soon as I arrived, I felt right at home. The first thing that struck me was the smell. Montana has a wonderful dusty, grassy smell that I had forgotten. And the taste of that dry, clean air.

I flew into Missoula, the town where I went to college and where my little sister currently lives, and she met me at the airport. I spent the first night at her and her boyfriend´s place, catching up, and the next day we hit the town to shop with some money from the parents. Target! REI! Fish tacos at Taco del Sol! Micro brew beer! All the wonders of the United States of America. In the late afternoon, we drove to the cabin (an hour from Missoula) to meet up with the parents.



The next morning we hit the road early to go up to Glacier National Park, my favorite place on earth that I´m maybe slightly obsessed with. We spent a few days just driving around, admiring the views, stopping at the Park Café (where I worked and lived for the two best summers of my life) to fill up on delicious pie and catch up with old friends, and my sister and I escaped a couple times at night to Charlie´s, the local bar (another old haunt). The sweeping beauty of the place was as gorgeous and familiar as ever.





After Glacier, we returned to the cabin for a reunion of family and close friends, which included my other sister and grandma. We spent the day at Seeley Lake, swimming, floating, sun-bathing, and chatting ceaselessly. In the evening we had a campfire at the cabin and roasted marshmallows (of course!). After the relatives left, I had another couple relaxing, lovely days at the cabin with my parents. On the last day, it was back to Missoula. I did some last-minute shopping and went to see Harry Potter with my mom, then got together with my parents, little sister and my second cousin and his family at an Italian restaurant for a last dinner, before getting on my evening flight back to Guatemala.





While I was home, I was surprised that things weren´t stranger. I felt as if I´d picked up where I left off; home didn´t feel like it had changed for me. What was strange, however, was to think of my life in Guatemala, how drastically different it was, and to even believe that it was real. So, to be honest, I didn´t really think of it much. It was easier not to, and to just enjoy my time home as if nothing had happened. That´s not to say that I don´t love Guatemala. Returning to it was telling. On the plane, as I looked down at the velvety green landscape, interrupted by the sharp triangles of austere volcanoes, I felt content to be returning to my life here, my other home.