Max Capacity

---

Friends,

So the past few days, Jin and I have been doing some obligatory highly touristed activities. They have been much fun, believe you me, much fun and highly unoriginal. But hopefully, we bring our own originality to the mix.

First, a vignette on my travel companion. Jin, my college room mate, ever playful with language, and desperately lacking in Spanish skills, has terribly mispronounced the local currency. The Quetzale, pronounced Ke-tzal, Jin has taken to pronouncing kwetzle. This of course rhymes with pretzle. So, dinner tonight was effectively, 78 pretzles. This folks, is what I´m working with.

To say we´re enjoying ourselves would be an understatement. From Antigua, we ventured to the top of the Pacaya Volcano. Rembering that we will be able to see molten lava right before our eyes, I decided to purchase some marshmallows for the trip. Yes, as soon as you are able, you can see a picture of yours truely, holding a stick with 6 marshmallows over a raging torrent of lava. And of course, I ate them. So delicious!

From Antigua Jin and I made our way to Panajachel, the tourist capital of this country. Filled with both Guatemalan and foreign tourists, Pana is set on the banks of a picturesque, volcano-lined lake. We watch the clouds descend over the volcanoes daily as we make our day-trips into the highlands. Today, we went to Central America´s largest market, Chichicastenango. We abstaned from the 10 US Dollar tourist shuttle, and instead spent about two hopping from public bus to public bus, taking the journey as a local would. This included, among other things, an hour long shuttle in a full sized van.

While Jin was comfortably in the front seat next to the driver, I sat in back. To my left were two mothers, each nursing a baby. The one directly to my left let her baby´s head rest on my knee as he suckled so sweetly. To my right, an old man. His finger nails were long and thick, and his skin was dark. He had only one sliver of a tooth, and he smiled so much, it seemed like he was as proud of his tooth as anything. He told me that he spoke a little english, and then proceded to recite English numbers, and a host of pleasantries. Then, he asked to put on my mirrored aviators. When he asked how much they cost, I said 5 US dollars. Then, to my surprise, in English, he yelled, "too much!" We both laughed and laughed, and the nursing woman next to me laughed too.

Max capacity for this van, I counted, was 27 people. We were all in it together. Me and this old man were laughing. He told me he was 86, and was coming from Momostenango to sell blankets. When I balked at his age, he took off his hat, to show me how, in fact, there was no hair underneath it, and he smiled. We had so much fun together, that when we left, I gave him my glasses, under the one condition that we could take a picture together. If anyone would like to see that one, I´ve got it too.

Thats all for now folks. Tomorrow, Jin and I are off to a local type market, and then we´ll go out to the far highlands, to areas that I´ve never been to before, where most travelers in Guatemala don´t even go. We are also planning on potentialy visiting someone we read about in the newspaper. That will be a real adventure, and if it comes to fruition, do be sure, I´ll keep you in formed.

Love,
Carl

---