ANTIGUA, MAGMA MARVEL MOON

After two days we were ready and off to the cobblestone volcanoe wonderland of Antigua, famous for it´s beauty, markets, and language schools, but if was the first time in my travels of over a month by that I had seen soo many tourists. It really turned me off from wanting to stay there, but thankfully that is where I met my awesome new companions from Paris, France (Jeremy and Dimitri) two funny, caring young men with Tunisian roots and Jewish connections so I was part of a Jewish sometimes speaking Hebrew Convoy of men with awesome hair, curly/wavy and full of passion and a sense of humor that has been months since i had with others. I literally haven´t laughed that much in a year or so it was unbelievable. I am soo thankful for having great men come into my life that challenge the way I may at times may look at the male bodied race, even though there are of course huge differences especially culturally in the way that we come to be in our young adult lives.

The moment we got off the shuttle and were on the hunt for a hostel to stay in it rained on us for the first time on my entire trip, which was a blessing and a burden cause my companion Heylal was not satisfied with most of the places we saw until we found the Black Cat Hostel. This is where we comedians met and a slew of other interesting characters approached us here kind of like an international alien conference center. That night we settled and searched for good food, which synchronistically enough an Antiguan family highly recommended this little Korean joint, which was two blocks away from where we were staying and it was damn good. I got kind of drunk off of Soju, which is a korean hard alcohol that tastes pretty harsh kind of like vodka , but nonetheless I felt at home and was stoked on eating kimchi jaeyokbokkum (korean spicy pork) as well as being surrounded by korean youngsters probably studying spanish, but speaking Korean. We strolled around and ate some delicious street food that cost a fraction of the price and called it an early night.

The next morning I went hunting for books and hit up the two used bookstores in town, Rainbow Books Cafe and the other El Cofre occupied by a large french man delighted to drink expresso coffee because good coffee is pretty hard to find except in certain places and a french young woman working behind the counter to boot. I found one of my favorite books there, The History of Love for 50 quetzales, which is a deal considering I never really expected to find it in my travels unless it was new and overpriced of course. Besides that I picked up a book called Chariots of the Gods, an interesting anthropo/archaeological questioning research book about the possibility that we are descended from alien astronauts and some predictions of what the future will look like to us human beings with input and work done by leading brilliant inventors, thinkers, philosophers, scientists, and writers. Antigua was a beautiful city full of amazing cobblestone roads and special architecture that sent me back to old spanish colonial times minus the modern cars and strange garb most non indigenous folks were wearing. I would have loved to stay longer, but just wasn´t feeling the spanish language school dominance tourist magnetism.

The next day I had made friends with my dormmates Dimitri and Jeremy so we saw the largest fountain in an old monastery/church that was sort of impressive but algae green and pretty dirty. What do you expect for a 5 quetzal entrance fee? We ate at Rainbow Cafe and just talked about education, our lives, love, and what kind of adventure we had already experienced. It was a great and a breath of fresh air to have new friends and gain some insight to the way americans and their culture are viewed as well as the universality of love and lust. I began to feel stomach sick probably cause my desire to eat vegetables would overtake my sense of stomach safety and although the specal Grapefruit Seed Extract helped at times it ultimately wasn´t enough to keep me from invasion victory. Even though this happened I got an amazing shawl scarf that day from a woman who had ten stacks of 60-80 deep shawls, scarves, and fabrics. She didn´t make all of them, I mean how could anyone possibly produce that much amazing work, it would take an entire lifetime and she was 40 yrs young may be. Although the days were warm the nights were freakin´cold and you defintely were rocking pants and a jacket, with extra layers not being such a bad idea.

The most amazing adventure experience was climbing the active volcano of Pacaya. It was about a two hour journey from our hostel there and then we had to climb for an hour and a half, but with marshmallows, beer, and some snacks we were ready to ascend the fiery peaks. Bombarded by kids that wanted to sell us ¨Good stick, good price, muy necessario, 5 quetzales!!!¨some bought these hand crafted sticks while many of us did not and the one I wanted was taken by a funny Australlian, Nixon. Once we got near the upper peak of Pacaya and came upon the volcanic piqueño rocks, metallic, hole-y, and dark magenta red we began the last grueling ascension. You could see a beautiful river of orange lava slowly making it´s way down the mountain from the top crater opening, slow, unforgiving, beautiful, and freaking hot! Even standing 20 feet from the magma you could feel the heat and with every few inches you could feel the intensity magnify to the point where if you were close enough after a second or two it felt like your body, face, or hands were on fire. Whewwww. What a sight to behold the living blood of the earth, her mouth breathing out smoke and reminding all of us that this sacred sphere of water and land is ohh so alive and has a pulsing heart beat of pure molten magnetic iron. I was speechless and breathless, but soo grateful for the opportunity to see this sight and with cloud ceiling dancers and an eventual sunset it was one of my most beautiful moments thus far. A beer, pineapple, some chips, and some chocolate aren´t bad to have up there as well. We feasted, rested, took pictures and did the childish fascintions with seeing what and how things would burn melt as well as how close you could get with out melting yourself. Our guide Juan Carlos was super sweet and would give breaks for our ragtag group of volcano thrill seekers, but once we were at the volcanoe he became a protective parent and didn´t want us to go to high especially since mini erruptions were known to happen and one should never really trust an active volcano. We were the first group to head back since the cloud cover blocked any real sunset and as the children reclaimed the sticks left and not burned in the furnace of mama Pacaya we headed back.

On the ride back I next to three newly fresh Manchester England Woman Doctors, some of the sweetest people I have met on my journey. We talked about our love of tomatoes once they knew about my job at Happy Boy and the amazing to die for Heirloom Tomatoes that are grown there. My stomach began to cramp, churn, and kick me from the inside out and I was feeling under the weather with a quickness. I started to have a fever the moment we arrived and proceeded to opt out of any evening festivities to try and sleep off whatever war was happening in my internal country landscape. I wanted to throw up diarrhea at the same time, but my mind was just not having it (thankfully) so I with the chill fever familiarity that one recognizes when they have the onset of a stomach flu, I passed out. I broke the sweat thankfully in the middle of the night and slept until morning with the next day feeling like a new lease on life and this was also Saturday where the boys and I were to go to Chichicastenango to see the city before the market craziness ensued the next day. The adventure there was unbelievable and is another story in itself so I will have to save it for next time for it has been too long on la computadora.