Solo un pocos dias mas

I am down to my final few days here in Guatemala. I had previously thought of spending the last few days in Antigua, making it easier to get to the airport Friday night when I fly out, but instead have decided to stay in San Lucas until Friday morning and just bite the bullet of hanging out in the airport for like 9 hours.

The trip back from Tikal was hell. I was up for almost all of it, with a dead ipod. I know...I am spoiled to even own an ipod (it is broken though). Anyway, I arrived into Guatemala City early Friday morning. I had directions from my guidebook to where I could catch buses towards San Lucas. It was only 6 blocks or so from the terminal I arrived at. Thankfully the sun was already coming up so I didn´t have to walk the city streets at night. I reached the corner I was supposed to be at and it was desolate. It looked like an abandoned Old Western city street. A tumbleweed might have even blown through, I´m not really sure. So I walked back up a few blocks to where I saw some buses earlier to ask someone for directions. Like 10 people just surrounded me offering me buses to destinations in all directions, hot meals, live chickens, it was nuts. It turns out that I was no where near where I was supposed to be. Some fella offered his cab to me and kept saying ¨mas seguro¨ which means safer. I figured to trust him but not enough to put my bag in the trunk. I was in the cab for probably 20 minutes or so and the whole time I was thinking that he was taking me somewhere to kill me and dump my body. We were driving through some pretty rundown neighborhoods where there wasn´t a soul in sight. Some solace was offered by the new BMWs I would see here and there. Finally, we turn a corner and I was greeted by the miraculous site of red and green school buses, the Esmeralda Line that run to the Attitlan region. All in all my safety wasn´t in an jeopardy, I was just tired and edgy and too out of it to comprehend everything around me. All that lay ahead was a 3.5 hour bus ride, above the wheelwell, I might add, to San Lucas. It was a beautiful ride and was cool because it made the trip full circle. I did not go down any road twice (with the exception of to and from tikal). All in all it was 1300kms in 6 days. The total trip cost 405 Quetzales in travel, about 54 bucks...not bad.

Sunday I went up to Santiago Attitlan to the market there. There was a fair going on in the town so it was pretty busy. I am spending my last few days here saying bye to friends, especially Kush and some of the fellas that work out at Nueva Providencia. They have been my best Spanish teachers (mostly just the bad words). The CRS volunteers moved into Casa Madre so the place has been a circus cleaning, sorting, moving, organizing. They are here for 8 more months. Last night Katherine cooked dinner for us and we just hung out all night drinking beer and wine and telling stories about our families. Only good ones though....

I am ready to come home. I will miss San Lucas and the friends I have made here and the more relaxed way of life, but it is time to move on. I plan to write a few posts, some concerning the history of the war in San Lucas, the U.S. role in it, the future of Guatemala, and maybe a spiritual overview of my experience. But I am sure once I return to the States I will have no time. Such is life.