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Published: July 23rd 2009
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After a rather uneventful traverse of Guatemala City I found my way to the Interamericana highway and made my way higher and higher into the highland volcano country. The ride was spectacular and punctuated only by a couple stops to warm my hands and snap photos and one stop in a small town where the road had been closed by a indigenous rights demonstration. I pulled to the front of the line of traffic and asked a couple of police officers what was going on. One told me I'd have to wait but just then his partner noticed another motorcycle squeezing past on the far edge. The slapped me on the back GO! Go! As I inched closer to the edge a friendly young man with a strong Mayan nose came over to pull back the barbed wire and let me pass. He put up a reluctant hand for a quick fist pound and I pulled past the blockade.
I hadn't eaten anything and was anxious to arrive, eat and figure out my next step when I realized that I'd missed my turnout by about 20 km. Eventually I made my way down to the lakeside in Panajachel but somewhere
Mobalización!
This was an indiginous right´s Demonstration on the Highway near Panajachel. I couldnt get much info out of the cop (bottom left) that I talked to but it seemed more like a party than anything else. I suppose they figured I didn´t have anything to do with thier whatever disenfranchisment they were protesting because they let me by. around that time logic began to fail me. I wasted what was the clearest and most perfect chance I´ve had since northern mexico to camp under clear skies and got an overpriced hotel room instead. Then I found out that I'd seriously underestimated how long it'd take to do the next day's border run and would take minimum 8 hours. Then I ate a small dinner, also overpriced and went still hungry to the internet café, wasted my time there and decided to just go hang out by the lake. I brought Ron and iPoodle to keep me company and to try to ease a lingering and inexplicable angst. This is what came of it.
The milky way wraps itself around the cosmos like a fat man´s belt, and me in the belly, digesting. The nebulous ribbon of light appears to erupt right out of Vulcan Atitlan and arcs like time itself over the lake and two giggling lovers three piers down. Mines a makeshift pier in as much as it shifts and wobbles as I kick my feet in the water just below. Guatemalan brown bagging it means I´m presently swigging off a black plastic-bagged tall Arrival
Did I leave my good sense there, by the lake? I think so. If anyone´s passing by, do grab it for me... boy and cooling my feet on a lonely shore. Small, phantom fish nibble at them. It´s a strange world that slowly eats you and you don´t mind letting it.
What are those damn dogs barking at? Surely if a full moon was about to rise it´d be crowning the edge of the caldera by now. But as it is the mountains and volcanoes are only discernable by the lack of celestial light and the sporadic presence of domestic ones. Maybe they’re bothered by the bats skreetching and swooping overhead - lord knows I am.
Lightning flashes over the far side of the lake but here it's clear and still but for the bats' chirping. Looking up, it’s as though the earthly gods are at war, clashing over the horizon while the celestial ones are indifferent, just hanging there in the sky and chirping playfully amongst themselves. And I frustrated and confused below.
¨my existence led by confusion boats,
mutiny from stern to bow.
I was so much older then…¨
But am I younger than that now?
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