In Guatemala, the tourist trail for backpackers and dropouts begins in Antigua, usually on Holy Week. I was there for a couple Holy Weeks. One day on one of those Holy Weeks, a bunch of us was sprawled out in the grass, playing music underneath a tree. An Austrian was singing. A hippie girl from Canada was beating out rhythms on a drum. A Frenchman was smoking my cigarettes. “No you don’t have to speak to understand the people,” he kept saying. Everybody was real excited about the fact that there was a lunar eclipse scheduled for later that night. Hale-Bopp was in the sky that night, too. So everybody was talking about the crazy vibes.
The Holy Week processions moved through town, along the narrow streets, first appearing as a glow and then the noise of feet and singing. Then they emerged around the corner, hundreds of people passing by, men dressed in hooded purple robes carrying long wooden floats upon which the figure of Christ stood holding up his hands. Hundreds of men and women walked by, flanked by priests with incense, swinging censers back and forth from chains, singing. It was a somber and festive affair.
Eventually, the park became less crowded. Throughout the town, people were working on the carpets for the next day, sifting sawdust of different colors, sifting it through strainers and then through the stencils, laying out the flowers. They were working on them all night long. The volcanic mountain cones, dark against the dark night sky loomed around us. The French guy suggested that we go somewhere to drink beer. We went to several bars that night, sat in many courtyards, fountains trickling underneath gargoyle grimace and flowering vines. His German girlfriend, Julia, joined us along the way and the three of us trudged around in the dark, stopping frequently to urinate, sometimes in an alley, sometimes within the crumbling walls of a five hundred year-old boarded up church or monastery. There were many picturesque places to piss at night in Antigua, Guatemala. We pissed in as many as we could find. We drank many shots and insulted many people. Trying to communicate, I spoke in bad Spanish to Julia. I spoke in bad French to François. Julia spoke German to the Germans. I spoke in English to the Germans. Sometimes we actually met Guatemalans. They spoke Quiche to each other.
We were looking for a certain special bar that François liked, "très sympa" he kept saying over and over again. Julia became discouraged by the whole ordeal, and just wanted to go back home and go to bed. But François insisted that the bar was indeed very "très sympa" and so we walked some more, stopping to piss in the moonlit ruins of antiquity. Julia became yet more discouraged. We walked past many carpets of colored sawdust and purple bougainvillea flowers arranged in intricate designs. Finally, Julia sat down in the middle of the street and I walked on ahead as François pranced around her saying loving things, and urging her not to be dismayed. He kissed her and he prodded her until she rose up to her feet and trudged on once again. "We're almost there. We're almost there," he whispered in her ear.
Sure enough--around the corner we heard the music and saw the lighted doorway. We walked towards it in the dark. The smell of beer. The sound of music. François loved this bar because in the bathroom there were glow-in-the-dark stars pasted to the walls and ceiling. "Do not forget. You must visit the bathroom," he reminded me again, as we sat upon the tall bar stools.
We stole an ashtray and some other stuff. We thought that was really funny. We stole a flower in a vase and gave it to a homeless woman later that night sleeping in a box by the cathedral. We thought that was poignant.
Anyway, Antigua is where everybody starts. Then they end up in San Pedro on Lake Atitlan, a weird little tourist trap that you need a boat to get to. Backpackers and dropouts like it because they feel like they discovered it themselves, or heard a rumor about it or something. You can buy crepes there and take weaving lessons. Anyway this was years ago. Maybe it doesn't have the same mystique now. I was laying on a rock one time, in a pretty secluded spot, about to go swimming, when a deaf-mute with a mask and snorkel and duck-fins waddled out of the bushes with a spear gun and gestured wide-eyed and earnest that I should go swimming. Then when I was out there in the water, he stole my money out of my pants.
I also found a tiny scorpion in my swimsuit at that same spot, on another day. Thank goodness it didn't sting me.
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