October 27, 2006

15:27—Mojo died about an hour and a half ago. He was one of the three family dogs at the Iguana. He was 9 years old and lived a pretty happy dog life, and was even lucky to have made it this far considering he nearly died of poisoning four years ago. There wasn’t much warning; apparently he wasn’t looking so hot an hour or so earlier, and then he just died in Deedle’s arms up at the bar, which was actually quite sweet. Deedle was beside herself. She’s had Luna, his mom, since she was a pup and was there when Mojo was born. Mojo was always her favourite. Rich, the manager, tearfully carried him back to the office until Dave got home. Then they brought him up to the house and buried him in the front yard, at which point their four year old son Theo joined them. Trying to explain the finality of death for the first time to your four-year-old kid is probably the last thing you want to be doing while burying your favourite dog that you’ve had for longer than the kid. It’s such a cliché family-life-lesson moment it’s almost funny (I didn’t laugh out loud, of course, but I hope they’ll eventually see the humour in it… I’m sure there’s a new Iguana song in there for Dave somewhere). Poor Mojo. Luna and Nanook, his brother, are pretty sad, too.

October 26, 2006

17:51—First official day off since I arrived (almost a month ago!). In a fit of motivation, I actually achieved the three goals I set out for myself: to improve my fast-fading tan, get a massage, and write something for my blog. I’m all about setting achievable goals.

So, I slept in a little, had my regular breakfast of fresh-squeezed orange juice, fruit salad and crepes with sugar and lemon—didn’t think I’d be getting such kick-ass crepes in Guatemala, eh?—then headed down to the dock to read and bake for a while. Ended my session when the two Canadian boys who’re working the bar, painting the new hostel and doing various odd jobs came down for a swim midday, which was fortunate since I seem to have lost more pigment than I wanted to believe and have come up a nice shade of pinky red. Sometime after beer o’clock I managed to track down the hostel phone and call Amanda, the masseuse who lives up the hill with her boyfriend. They’re here so he can focus on writing his PhD thesis on the psychology of spirituality, or the spirituality of psychology, I can never remember which one. She does massage and various other new-agey things. As Jonathan, Canadian Boy #1 says, they’re a pretty psychedelic couple. He’s been taken with them ever since Rick showed him how he could strip off a papaya stem to use as a pipe. Anyway, since we are in Guatemala, Amanda could see me right away. It’s a brisk 20-minute hike up the hill to their place, which is perched on the edge of the mountain and has a ridiculous view of the lake from any room in the house thanks to an entire wall of bay windows and sliding doors, and would probably cost well over a million to buy if this were North America. I got a wicked massage—only my fourth one ever, which is a sin, really, and so I will make regular pilgrimages of contrition to her house over the coming weeks until the kinks in my shoulders have melted away—and half walked, half ran, half skipped back down the mountain (I know that makes three halves but that’s how invigorated I was) and beat the afternoon rain by five minutes. Sweet.

I’m now perched in my hammock on my balcony outside my room, but I think I’m going to have to move because there’s a kick-ass electrical storm going on outside and I need to check it out.

October 17, 2006

9:57—Another gorgeous day on the lake:


And I won't be doing this:


Or seeing this:


Or even this:


I will be in the dive shop fixing regs.

October 15, 2006

8:49—About the job, well, the diving's not bad. The water is actually really warm for a lake at this altitude - it's 23C at the moment and doesn't dip much below 20C year round. Thank the volcanoes for that. There aren't many fish—about six species or so, including the black bass that was introduced in the '70s as a sport fish and nearly decimated much of the local populations. Never really worked well as a sport fish, either—but the crabs are plenty and there are spectacular rock formations and plunging volcanic walls. Old Mayan pottery has been found throughout the lake, and there are some petrifying trees close to shore, testament to the water's rise and fall over the last millenium.









Probably one of the most interesting features of the lake are the geothermal hotspots. Apparently the only other place in the world where you could dive in such an area is Hawaii, and the fact that our diveable hotspots are also at altitude makes us pretty unique. In the place where we dive, you can see the fault line coming down the side of the mountain into the lake.


I usually finish the dive here, looking for the telltale microbubbles that form on the sand in the hottest areas. You can dig your hands about six inches down into the silt before it gets too hot to touch. Great way to warm up at the end of a dive.

But it's still low season (the end of the wet) so I only dive every other day or so. The rest of the time I drink too much and hang out with hot backpackers. And try to get some work done around the place.

My divemaster left for home less than a week after I arrived, so I'm now the only dive staff here. Which is pretty cool—the owners let me run the show. But I need to put a lot of time into getting the place organized and running the way I want. Which means cleaning up and servicing a lot of the equipment (seems no one bothered even to rinse the equipment after dives in the past, which is standard practice, by the way, and now everything is grimy and gungy—I've already spent a couple of afternoons taking apart masks and snorkels, scrubbing them with brillo pads and putting them back together again), inventorying everything, cleaning the dive centre from head to toe, getting my classroom set up (it used to be an internet room but hasn't been used in months and consequently was filled with cobwebs and dust), etc. It's a great opportunity for anyone who wants to get some management experience but there's lots of work to do and I desperately need a divemaster trainee just for the sake of having an extra set of hands to help me get through it all in the next four months. If I do manage to get through all the necessary stuff I've also got my own little side projects that I'd like to work on—developing a little field guide to the fish and other animals in the lake, and a little flyer on the lake's natural history. But I don't have time to research any of that yet.

We're short-staffed on the hostel side of things at the moment so I also help out in the kitchen with the evening meals regulargly. And, since I don't get paid a salary (yet—though the business plan around here is about to change and I'll be pushing for a wage when it does), just commission off dives and courses, I've got an interest in seeing this place be full of potential divers. So I've been working on posters to market both the hostel and the dive centre, plus new diving price lists and a poster for a biweekly lake-wide scavenger hunt that we hope will become a big draw. Which explains my absence here.

Anyway, I've got two dives this morning (if my diver isn't too hung over from last night's barbecue party, which is a distinct possibility), and there's a coffee with my name on it somewhere.

October 6, 2006

18:30—Ah, La Iguana Perdida: perhaps the most chilled-out place on the planet. Walk 20m up from the boat landing at Santa Cruz La Laguna and you’ve arrived. Step over the backpackers sprawled on the lawn waiting for the next boat back to Pana; pass the benches overlooking the lake and its restless volcanic cloudscape. Swing from a hammock and do nothing for a while. Cross the open-air lounge to the main dining room and bar and help yourself to a beer from the fridge (just don’t forget to note it on your bill). Sit down at the bar, join the game of Trivial Pursuit in the corner, or browse the bookshelves (don't mind the cats).

Walk into the kitchen and order yourself something to eat—just write down your order in the book. In Spanish, please: the cooks don’t speak English. Don’t forget to sign up for dinner. Go for a swim in the lake. Take a shower—quickly, though: there’s no hot water. We just got electricity, for heaven’s sake.

Head back outside as dusk approaches to watch the sun set behind the volcanoes and mountains of clouds.


Happy-hour at the bar: join some of the local gringos who’ve wandered up for a drink on their way back from town. The cooks go home mid-afternoon so the staff are busy in the kitchen cooking up a three-course dinner for you (it'll probably be vegetarian). Soon they’ll be pushing the tables together for a big farmhouse-style family meal. As the sun sets the kerosene lanterns are lit and the room takes on a gilded glow. The old family dogs emerge from the shadows, hoping for scraps. Dinner is served and lingered over until the backgammon boards and card decks come out. As a light fog forms over the lake, a stream of music and chatter curls itself about the house and settles down for the night. Wine and beer continue to flow. Join the other backpackers spinning stories, discovering shared friends, swapping travel tips and pontificating with the certainty of youth. Before your eyes begin to close, take a lantern from one of the tables and follow the torch-lit path back to your cabin.

Sleep well.

Wake up to this:


Welcome to the belly of the dream.




(Thanks to Pello for the pics.)

October 1, 2006

9:30—Woken up before 8:00 this morning by a marching band outside my hotel. Tried to ignore it figuring it was some church thing that would stop after 20 minutes or so (it’s Sunday, after all), but after the first hour and a half of non-stop drums, frequently accompanied by xylophones, trumpets and whistle blasts, I was left with little choice but to go see what was going on. Surprise, it’s a parade. Of children. Judging by how long it’s been going on, probably every child who lives on the lake is in the damn thing. There are marching bands and gymnasts and cheerleaders with homemade pom-poms and little girls with umbrella-parasols, boys with cardboard-box ponies strapped to their shoulders with neckties, balloon-festooned trucks blasting out Shakira, and so on.

I haven’t asked yet what the occasion is. I’ve no idea how much longer this will go on. If I’d been a little less wrecked last night when I got here I might be a little more motivated to care. But so far the only way this unending and rather uninteresting parade of children concerns me is that it blocks my exit route to the lake. But mainly I just wish they could make the drumming stop!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Ooh, now they’re playing a drums-and-xylophone version of “Tequila.” My mom would be digging this.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

10:25—the parade is finally over! Hamdul’illah.

September 30, 2006

20:30—So, here I am in Guatemala. Getting here’s been a bit traumatic. In short, I haven’t slept the last two nights and have been in transit since 4 o’clock this morning. My shuttle from Guatemala City got stuck in traffic, which meant I didn’t get to Panajachel until sunset and after the last boat to Santa Cruz. I’m staying the night in Pana, though I had really hoped I wouldn’t have to open my bags before dropping them off in my own room in Santa Cruz. It’s probably just as well, though, since Saturday is party night at the hostel and I don’t think I could handle marathon drinking and cross-dressing backpackers right now.

It took me nearly another hour to get my money woes sorted out in Pana: I don’t know how this happened but I was unable to change money at *all three* airports I was at today and ended up in Guat with nothing but a huge wad of Canadian dollars, which are basically useless here. When we didn’t get to town till after bank-closing time, I decided to inflict more pain on myself by stubbornly trying to find any way to pay for my airport shuttle other than by simply going to an ATM and accepting a ridiculously high fee from my Canadian bank for withdrawing money overseas (not to mention the extra fee from the ATM itself). Of course, that is exactly what I ultimately ended up doing.

By then I couldn’t even handle going out for dinner at the Yukon Grill, where the lovely English couple I met on the shuttle invited me to join them and where, according to Lonely Planet, the best burgers in all of Guatemala are to be found (though, considering that Guat isn’t exactly known as a burger country, one has to question what that sort of praise is really worth). God knows I could use a bite to eat.

But I can’t do it. I’ve got a splitting headache—a killer combo of three days worth of sleep deprivation, hunger and dehydration (still no water bottles on the plane: thank you, Terrorists. Can the airlines really think they’re making up for it by serving a few in-flight thimblefuls of water? Honestly. And they always make me feel like I’m asking the world when I request a whole can of ginger ale with my crappy meal instead of the half-can my Barbie-cup holds.). So instead of dinner I had a lovely hot shower, and now I’m sitting alone in my room on my double bed, sipping a nice glass of amaretto (part of the unnecessarily large store of consumables I allowed myself since I won't have to schlep my stuff all over the country this time), listening to quiet music and musing about my day on my new laptop. How business traveler-ish.

In fact, backpack aside, I don’t feel like a backpacker at all. I guess I've gotten to the point—or age—in my traveling life where privacy and luxury are, sometimes anyway, more important than saving a buck. I suppose I realized that nearly two years ago in Finland when, after arriving in town 20 minutes after the only youth hostel closed for the night, I decided to fork over the 100 euros for a hotel room rather than spend the night trying to stay awake in cafes and wandering the streets till morning. Five years ago I would’ve chosen sleep deprivation over parting with the 100 euros.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Had my first glimpse of the lago on the way down into town. I don’t think I’ll mind looking at it for the next four months.

On Panajachel: I’m starting to think that one developing world hippy-tourist town is the same as any other. My first thought as we pulled into the main tourist drag here is, I’m in Kathmandu again. Same market stalls selling the same hand-made textiles, same incense wafting through the streets, same people wandering around with dreads and hippy blouses. I should’ve known—there’ve been hippies here since the ‘60s.

For starters...

Okay, welcome to my blog. I’m doing this as an alternative to mass emails, which I never really got down with. I mean, what if I’ve been sending stuff to your inbox that you just didn’t want to read? Ok, probably not you—you’re here, right?—but what about the dozens of other people who were getting my emails too? Anyway, now I can post what I feel like telling you about, and you can come read it if and when you want. You’ll have to sift through a little more stream-of-consciousness rambling rather than rushed, long-after-the-fact recollections, but I’m a lot more comfortable with this arrangement. Esta bien? Bien.

So, while I was expecting to find myself in the Caribbean amidst palm trees, white sandy beaches and crystal blue waters containing new (to me) species of tropical fish and coral for my next job, I’m actually on my way to Guatemala. I will be working in the highlands, amidst volcanic peaks blanketed in dense green jungle foliage and cloud forest and peppered with small Mayan villages and ancient Mayan ruins. I’ll be working at a small backpacker hostel-cum-dive centre on Lago de Atitlàn, whose grandeur apparently made Aldous Huxley declare it “the most beautiful lake in the world.” Sounds pretty good, right? I’m really looking forward to it, too. I think it’s going to be a great place to live and work—gorgeous scenery, lots of interesting people with similar interests, easy-going and easy-to-teach students (fit, young, healthy, ready-to-learn backpackers make for better students than those typically encountered in the Red Sea: out-of-shape, crochety, middle-aged couples miserable from the heat and their angsty teenagers who would rather be anywhere but with their families), and a workplace that’s just a few seconds walk rather than a 40-minute bus ride from my bed. And lots of cute boys, too.

I’m not so sure about the diving, though. Lake Atitlàn itself fills the basin of an imploded volcanic cone and sits at 1560m altitude. The underwater features are geothermal mud (here, touch some warm mud!), volcanic walls, submerged forests and a few species of green-brown freshwater fish. Basically, compared to the Med, the Pacific or the Red Sea, there’s nothing to see and even if there was, the visibility is piss-poor—maybe 15m. I suppose the interesting thing about diving here is the altitude, since most diving is done in the sea and, duh, at sea level. Different rules apply upwards of 300m (though the rules are theoretical and once you know them and include them in your planning, the execution of the dive itself doesn’t really change). I haven’t done any altitude diving and only a couple of freshwater dives on Lake Ontario while I was on holiday last month, so it’s all going to be quite new to me at first. For someone who’s done all their diving in the Med, the Pacific and the Red Sea, this is all really quite exotic. I suppose all the backpackers who come through here fresh from their dive courses in Belize and Honduras must think the same thing. The difference between me and the backpackers, of course, is that they will do maybe four or five dives over the course of a week, and then leave, whereas I will be doing twice as many dives per week, every week, for the next four months. Something tells me that warm mud won’t be quite as exciting by January. Or, let’s face it, even by next week.