Photos from Chichicastenango, Guatemala

I just finished posting all of my photos from the market in Chichicastenango, Guatemala on my photo blog
Visit http://travelerphotos.blogspot.com for more photos of Guatemala

Photo Blog From Antigua, Guatemala

I just uploaded a bunch of photographs from my travels in Guatemala. I will be trying to add all of my photos from Central America in the coming future. Please check them out at http://travelerphotos.blogspot.com
Here is a preview:


For more photos from Guatemala go to Lady the Tramps Photo Blog in Guatemala

Intruders in my Hotel Room

I was sitting in my hotel room relaxing in my underwear and reading. I heard a rustle and the dueña of my hotel was showing a group of Israelis the room across the hall. They turned my door knob, and then stopped. I heard the dueña tell them not to open my door because that room is occupied.

This was a close call.

I continued reading. A few minutes later I heard the Isrealis again. This time they actually did open the door and looked at me in my underwear. They slowly cracked it like they were being sneaky, looked at me, and closed it, without saying sorry or excuse me or anything.

Ok, so now these males have barged in on me after they were already told that the room is occupied AND they saw me in my underwear.

I do not like people randomly coming into my hotel room. I do not like strange boys seeing me in my underwear.

I put some pants on and went out to accost them. My heart was pumping. I turn into a bull when I am mad.

“Hey” (This was the angry hey not the nice hey)

They smile and say “Hey” (as if I had said the nice hey, and maybe they thought I liked giving them a free show)

I tell them not to open my door. They said they were looking for their room. I know they had already been shown their room. I do not like people coming into my hotel room uninvited like this. This is rude. This is why people do not like Israeli travelers. I would never ever think of walking into someone’s hotel room like that, after I was even distinctly told not to. These boys didn’t even think it rude enough to apologize to me for. Different standards.

Drugs in Guatemala

Knowing the local language means you can fight with locals. I have found myself yelling at a lot of people lately. Antigua is a huge sludge of tourists from all over the world, and of course, many of the locals do not like them. This means many of the locals are very rude. I do not like rude people. I like it that I know Spanish because then I can tell them they are rude.

Mostly, my problem seems to be with kids on the street that want to sell you weed. They wait all over until some young-ish looking traveler comes up and tries to sell them weed. I know a lot of times this is a bad deal. I’ve had a lot of people tell me that these young tourists get sold grass that was cut off of the side of the road. That is, if the kid doesn't just run off with your money and you never seen anything in return. These people already must think I am stupid.

The other day Wade and I were walking down the street when a teenager started asking Wade if he wanted a shoe shine. Wade said no, and we continued walking. The dude, however, continued after us, asking if Wade wanted a shoe shine. Wade said no again. Then the kid asked if we wanted to buy weed.

Now this kid did not look like a wholesome character. He was dirty, his eyes were bloodshot and only half-way open, he was jittery, and looked to have some welty skin problems. I did not want to buy drugs from him, nor did I need a shoe shine from him. I think he has himself taken a few too many drugs, and I don’t think it was anything as innocent as some grass clippings.

After the kid had followed us half a block and harassed us over and over to get our money in some form I told him to leave us alone. He continued following and asking us for some service to get our money. I told him to go away.

Then he was getting mad. He wasn’t getting our money. Lots of street people know that if you yell enough at people they will get scared and give you money. Wade and I are not scared. I just got mad. He then started calling me an arsehole. Maybe I am an arsehole, but he was the one yelling at me and following me down the street. I was just walking and did not want to buy his drugs. He followed us for a couple more blocks yelling at us. I yelled at him back.

What is the best thing to do in this situation? I do not know. If someone is following me and bothering me isn’t it normal to tell them to go away? In Guatemalan culture this does not seem to be normal. When the rich upper-classes are harassed by the poor, they simply give them money like it is nothing, or they completely ignore them. I do not think that is normal. I am going to go on yelling at these people. I am not going to be yelled at by some druggy and not fight back. This is rude.

Writing a Portfolio

I am currently finishing up my semester with Global College/ Friends World Program of Long Island University. This week I have a lot of writing to do, a lot of editing, and a lot of piecing it all together. Forgive me if I do not do too much blogging this week.
More stories will come soon! I promise!
Also, I have started a spanish language blog for the work I have written in my spanish class. If you are lingually inclined, check it out:
http://vagabundagringa.blogspot.com

Safe Journeys and Happy reading,
Mira

Tourism Turning Children into Beggars

So often when tourists come to developing countries, they want to help. They come to volunteer or donate or whatnot with good wishes. Yet , more often, these good intentions turn bad. For example, when people start giving money and presents to children. When this starts, it created a dependency. Children learn by behavior. They learn that if they look sad and poor, white people will give them money. They start begging. They don’t want to work if they can get their money from tourists. A good beggar can make more in a day then many people can make in a week. The circle begins. More beggars pop up because the kid tells his friends. Now there is a whole population of children that have dropped out of school, and won’t work because they are begging. Giving them money will not help them, this is the worse thing you can do.



The other day I went to a volcano that is flooded with tourists. When you get off the bus a swarm of at least 20 children gather around you to try to sell you a walking stick. Some sell you a stick for 1 Q some for 5Q or 10 Q if they can get it out of you. At any rate, these sticks aren’t going home with you anyway, so at the end of the day the kid gets his stick back. This is begging. These kids should be in school, not trying to sell sticks. If you buy their sticks you are reaffirming their reliance on tourism. You are not helping them to gain career skills or get educated. If everyone stopped buying sticks because they feel sorry for the poor kids they could go back to school or go back to their families.

I saw one white girl giving all of the kids money. They weren’t even asking for it. She was going up behind them, tapping them on the shoulder and giving them money. Now these children have learned white faces give money. I know the girl was just trying to be nice, but it turns the children into beggars. This is a sad fate. There are other ways to help; donate to schools, play soccer with a group of kids, read the kids a book, visit someone’s home. Don’t give “gifts” that will only hurt a child’s future.

Most people just give beggars money because they look scary and they want them to leave them alone, or stop following them. In India you have to pay to be in silence and alone. The beggars follow you, poking you, wretchedly crooning baksheesh, baksheesh, baksheesh. It is a lot easier to just give them a handful of change then to be confronted with poverty. Poverty is hard to look at, and giving money seems like instant relief. People think, “Oh, I did a good thing. God bless me.” People really need to look deeper into the ramifications of their actions. Tourists make children into beggars, not poverty.

The Pacaya Volcano, Guatemala

I was scheduled to go on a tour to the Pacaya Volcano in the afternoon. This is the first time I have ever, myself, decided to go on a tour and purchased it. It was only $5 though, with private transportation, a guide, and going to a really cool active volcano. I figured it was worth it. The person who booked the tour for me told me to wait at the hotel, and the van would pick me up at 2 pm. I waited, and waited, but no van came. After over a half hour, a person from the tour company came over to tell me that the driver was about to leave. He forgot to tell me that actually I had to go to the central park to pick up the van. I ran over there, and the driver was really peeved. I tried telling him it wasn’t my fault. He thought I was stupid. The worse part is, he had previously been one of my drivers, and of course there had been problems during the ride. Oh well, the guy can be mad all he wants, I am going to a volcano!

This was my first time getting so close to an active volcano. It was hot, and there was lava. It was very surreal. I felt like I was in the Land Before Time, and kept wondering where all the dinosaurs were. Shouldn’t they be crawling out of the hole with the lava?

I think my pictures describe the experience better. I am still a little awestruck and unable to put it into words.

Budget Travel Tip: Cooking While Traveling

If I can, I usually opt to stay I hotels that offer the use of a kitchen to their guests. Cooking your own meals keeps you healthy and helps to save money. In Guatemala this has been a particularly important factor. Here food is ridiculously priced. A cheap meal here averages 20-30 Quetzales. Most meals in restaurants are way above that though, especially if you want to leave the place with a full belly. If you eat this way, before you know it you are spending $10 or more on food daily. This is well over the budget of my pocketbook as a backpacker. With hotel and all, my daily budget is usually $10. Spending money on expensive food eats up traveling funds quite quickly.

If you have access to a kitchen, or even any sort of stove and a pot, you can cook a tasty meal for cheap. In the market fruits and vegetables are cheap. Rice and beans, an absolute staple, are cheap almost everywhere in the world. Eggs usually aren’t too pricey. Meats can be more expensive, but humans only need a little bit of meat per day. This is what you need to eat to survive. This is what local people are eating. Plus, markets can be really fun and colorful experiences!



Junk food, chips, snacks, pre-packaged food, processed food etc. is expensive and usually lacks nutrition value. If you are on a small budget, don’t buy these frivolties.

Cooking my own meals, I can eat for around 5 Quetzales for each meal. This adds up to 15 for 3 meals, about $2 USD. See the money we are saving already? You can hardly find a meal for 15 Quetzales anyway in Antigua!

The second advantage is the health aspect. Montezuma’s Revenge, Dehli Belly, Jaipur worms, bizarre fevers, food-poisoning, all are not fun. One of the biggest dangers and problems with traveling is the getting sick part. Most people get sick due to some sort of bad food preparation; the meat isn’t fully cooked, the vegetables weren’t washed, there are flies landing on everything in the kitchen, you food was prepared in dirty water.

When you cook your own meals you have full control over the sanitary conditions. In many other countries, their ideas on cleanliness and health are different. A lot of people honestly just do not know that they should wash their hands. If you make your own meals you know if the cook scratched his butt and didn’t wash his hands before preparing your food. You know if your dishes were washed prior to your use. You know if your food was dropped on the grimy floor. You know if the water used to make the food was clean, or if it came from a polluted nearby sewer. Health is important. After getting really sick a couple of times, you will be begging to make your own food.

Of course one should always eat out to try the local delicacies and not be too overly anal about sanitary conditions. Yummy foreign food is all part of the traveling experience. And no kitchen, not even in the USA is completely clean. But if health has got you down, or if money is tight, consider a hotel with a kitchen. Even if it’s only for breakfast, cornflakes will cost you a lot less than eating out.

Traveling with a Significant Other

Traveling with a partner isn’t always easy. On the contrary it is hard. It exaggerates all of the little annoyances. It may be the stupidest thing, but couples will fight over it anyway if the situation is stressed.

Last night was stressed. Wade is doing god-knows-what to his website and has been working like a dog. The final week of my semester is coming up, and I am trying to finish all of my writing for school. We are both a little on edge and snappy.

In a culmination of an argument that had been building all week, Wade ran away. I had no idea where he went. This made me sad, but I did not want to sit in the room by myself and sulk. I left.

I left, just for the sake of leaving, and really had no idea what to do in the middle of the night in Antigua as a female all alone. Bars are expensive here. Restaurants are even more expensive.

After wandering around for a couple minutes, I decided I gotta get off the street, and sucked it up to pay over $2 USD for a beer. I went to the honkey bar, and watched baseball. My situation was looking a little sad still.

Fortunately, two angels walked in the door to scoop up my spirits. Well, not exactly angels, but they are such wonderful people that you might as well call them that.

They are two Vietnamese kids that immigrated to Germany with their family. Their family had been traveling on chicken buses through Central America for a few months. They were staying in the same hotel as us for a while, and their parents gave us lots of fruits and vegetables. They are really genuine, friendly, good-hearted people.

(Wade and I)

Anyway, they saw I was alone, gave me a huge hug and smile, and sat on either side of me. They were really great for conversation and jokes, and had me laughing in seconds. The night was brightening.

These kids were full of wisdom, and just knowledge on how to be a really good person, or at least be happy living life. A few days before, I had admired how well they got along for siblings and how much they seemed to dig being around each other. It had so struck me, that I even made a phone call to my own brother (this is an occasion so rare I had to dig through my bag to find where I might have his number written).

Tonight, these kids had more inspirational words for me. Talking about relationships, they told me an antidotal story of a fight they had had earlier. The girl had said to her brother, “I really love you, but I just don’t like you right now.”

These words rang out true. You may love someone unconditionally, but it doesn’t mean you like them all the time. Sometimes it is frustrating that you love someone so much. Sometimes it hurts. These kids are wise. I hope I see them again one day.

They escorted me home, to make sure I arrived safely, and walked off into the night with some more big smiles and heart-felt goodbyes.

I returned to my room to find Wade sleeping. He was extremely happy to see me. Our fighting was over, and we like each other again. My father says, “If you are hitting it too hard, sometimes you just need to lay off for a while.”

Women's Arm Pit Hair While Traveling

April 12, 2008

I shaved my armpits finally. My armpit hair has grown wild for about 3 years now, and I had come to terms and accepted the bushes under my arms. I actually kind of liked it. If you can live with a hairy body, it makes life a lot easier on the road. No long showers, no embarrassing stubble, no need to worry. Less time in the bathroom, and more time for being out in the world.

I sometimes get some funny looks, but I think hairy armpits are a means to keep away unwanted male attention. No one is going to hit on my hairy legs. It helps to weed out incompatible people. If someone won’t talk to me because I have hairy legs, I probably wouldn’t want to talk to them anyway.

Yet, sometimes when you’re traveling, weird things happen to your body. You pick up things from god knows where, and parts of your skin start falling off, or strange animals live in your belly button, or fungus eats your flesh. Last summer I started to notice some sort of distorted growth in my armpit hair. It looked like it was coated in a blondish color, but the hair itself was mushroomed, instead of a sleek piece. This is gross, and I really don’t know how to explain it. At any rate it was not normal, and I did not like it.

I really didn’t know what was causing this phenomenon, so I didn’t worry too much. Today I worried. It has been there for almost a year now. I want it gone. I am afraid it may be a fungus, or hair cancer (can you get that?), or even something more weird that I can’t pronounce that has some proper medical name.

Today I had to say goodbye to the armpit hair. I couldn’t handle it anymore. After 3 years of going au natural I had almost forgotten how horrible it is to shave though. Running a sharp piece of metal across my skin to cut off hair is not my idea of a fun activity. It is especially awful when your armpit hair is thick and long. It took me a good 10 minute to de-grizzle myself.

Hopefully now the fungus or the whatever-you-call-it-with-the-long-technical-medical-term-name will go away. I do not want to make this shaving thing a regular activity. It is too gruesome.

Yet, now, I am having horrible nightmares about shaving every night. I dreamt that a politician saw my bushy leg hair as I was riding a mechanical bull. He then decided that it was gross and publicly said this at one of his speeches. This then set off a wave of my protests, speaking out about how leg hair is natural and the man is a chauvinist pig. I didn’t know hair was so meaningful for me. Scary.

Traveling Hippies

I guess hippies have decided that when they are out of their home countries it is ok to smoke pot anywhere. I guess they think everywhere that isn’t home is heaven and anything goes. Let me enunciate on the definition of hippie that I am using here. I am not talking about the hippies that the world experienced in the 60's and 70's. I am talking about all these little neo-hippies that are popularly popping up everywhere. These are the ones that fashionably do yoga and eat granola and grow dreadlocks and talk about the moon to be cool.
Hippies tend to act badly away from home. They do stupid things and make it difficult for the rest of us travelers. Hippies just want to smoke pot. Now every tout Joe on every street corner tries to sell me pot, thinking because I am young I am also a hippie. I am not a hippie. This is bothersome to deal with these peoples, touts and hippies I mean.



(A photo of the lounge chair under my open hotel room window)

This day I was sick. I was running a high fever, really unsure if I need to take medication or even go to the hospital or what. I opened the window to get some fresh air.

A dreaded, dirty hippie boy decided he needed to smoke pot right under my window. Obviously my window is open. The hippie saw me lying half dead on my bed when he sat down outside of my window. I look like crap. I can hardly move. I can't even crawl out of bed to close my window.
Why did the hippie decide to smoke right outside my window? Does this hippie have no common sense? Doesn’t he know all of the smoke is going to blow into my window? This is rude. My room is now filled with pot smoke. I don’t care if someone smokes pot, but just have some common courtesy for other people. You can smoke all the pot you want, but I don’t want to have to smoke your second hand skank weed. This hippie must have smoked away all of his brain cells.



(A photo of the hippie with dreadlocks)
Later on the hippie returned to my window. This time he was trying to pick up a piece-of-work kiwi girl. He was doing so, by first, talking about the moon. They were talking about the solar system, and actually saying some very insipid unintelligent stuff that I think the average 3rd grader would be able to correct them on. He then started talking about festivals. This is another major past time for the neo-hippie, traveling to go to festivals. Luckily Wade was around this time to close the window and shut out this hippie. I will say I was glad to see him leave the hotel the next day. This hippie was annoying and rude. Too bad they don't make hippie drugs to grow back braincells.

End of Semester Presentation

I made a short video for a presentation for the end of my semester at Global College in Latin America. It is kind of a synopsis of my projects, classes, and what I learned.
Enjoy!

Tourist Police in Guatemala

Dangers in Guatemala
Everything seems to be dangerous for tourists in Guatemala. Everyone has some sort of travel warning; don’t ride local buses, don’t climb the mountains without a machete, don’t walk down that street after dark, don’t eat any of that food. How could it possibly be that dangerous? Why aren’t the police doing anything? I would think the government would be pushing hard to thwart crime and promote the tourism industry, making it safe.

In San Pedro it is recommended not to climb the volcanoes or any of the surrounding mountains without a large group of people, a guide, and a machete, lest you will be robbed. Yet, half-way up the volcano hikers must pay 100 quetzales, about $13 USD to the park police. Why? People are still getting robbed even though they are paying the park police a ridiculous fee to protect the tourists. A few weeks ago a group of 27 tourists were robbed going up the volcano. There has to be a conspiracy. Maybe the cops are getting paid off. These cops need to stop being so corrupt and actually do something more than sit on their fat bottoms collecting tourist money.

(Photo of cops on the street in Antigua, Guatemala)

In Antigua the police infrastructure seems a little better, if not good, respectively. There are cops stationed all around every tourist attraction throughout the city. At night there are a couple of cops standing on each corner of the most tourist trafficked street in the downtown area. After dark there are more cops on the street than civilians.

Tonight I was actually a little comforted by this. Wade and I were coming home a little before 10:00 PM. As we were walking I saw a shady looking guy shadowing us and warned Wade. Sure enough he came over to us and kept trying to put his arm around Wade calling him amigo. If a stranger ever tries to put their arm around you on the street they are probably trying to rob you. Wade is smart. Wade wouldn’t let the guy get within 3 feet of him.

I told the guy in Spanish to go away. I did not want to get robbed tonight. He then started mumbling about how we have no respect. Excuse me mister, but just because I do not let you rob me you say I do not have any respect? Look who is talking! Nice try buddy!

Wade and I never stopped walking and we were nearing a group of cops. The guy took off. Cops are scary. The guy knows he is shady and he knows the cops know it too.

Sometimes cops work, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they are good, often they are bad.

Earthquakes in Guatemala

....and a near death experience!

I was sitting in bed the other night and my hotel began to rumble. At first I had no idea what was happening and thought maybe a large truck was passing by. Then I realized it was an earthquake. The whole room was shaking. Even though it wasn’t violently shaking, I was still scared. The quake lasted a couple of minutes and for the duration I thought it was only going to keep shaking and getting worse. I started looking around the room for a safe hiding place, trying to remember what those earthquake safety posters say. I actually just sat in my bed a little petrified from fright.

When it was over I stepped out of my room expecting mass mayhem, people screaming, dogs barking, buildings falling down, waterlines exploding. There was none of this. The night was calmer and quieter than ever. I suppose earthquakes are nothing out of the ordinary in Panajachel. The lake is surrounded by 3 volcanoes, an obvious sign of lots of seismic activity.

A rumbling ground is scary to me. I always think of the Earth as a solid thing. It is frightening when the most solid, sturdy, unmovable thing is shaking.

Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala

Santiago Atitlan is amazing. Stepping off the boat, I felt as if I was entering Guatemala for the first time. An indigenous school girl hoisted me and my heavy backpack off the rocking boat and onto the slick dock. This area is over 50% indigenous, and is still thriving with culture. All of the women here wear their traditional trajes, woven skirts with thick woven or beaded belts and poncho like blouse embroidered with flowers and birds. Many of the men even wear the traje here, which I haven’t seen in Antigua. The men’s traje is a little more simple, with stripped, pajama like shorts and a sash.

(A photo of an indigenous boat man in Lago Atitlan)

Getting off the boat there are the typical runners and taxi drivers. One indigenous man wearing purple shorts seems to be the head honcho of them all. He asked us if we wanted everything in the books; cheap hostel, restaurants, crafts, good prices, marijuana, everything. Wade and I ran away.

The main street is riddled with tourist shops selling beautiful, hand-made indigenous arts and crafts. It is eye candy. Bright colors, exotic shapes, woven clothing, leather hats, stone sculptures, oil paintings of the volcanoes and the lake, and shiny beaded jewelry. It all sits next to the street tempting tourists with the enticing brilliance and low prices. The women sit in their stalls with gold teethed grins, embroidering p’ots, and beckoning the passer-buyer.

Even my ears were overloaded by the town. Here they do not speak Spanish as their first language. The first language is a Mayan dialect. It has thick, harsh sounds, like snarls and spitting strung together in a clacking rhythm. I was amazed even that many people do not even speak Spanish. A few attempts at conversation with the indigenous women and I learned that, because they did not have formal education, only spoke their native tongue. I love hearing new languages.

(A photo of an indigenous Mayan women selling jewelry and beaded necklaces in Santiago, Guatemala)

People in this village are extremely friendly. Every little old lady and wrinkled old man is brimming with toothless smiles. The women are a bit too shy to say, “Buenos Dias,” but they always offer a timid smile. The shyness only makes them seem more appealing and affable. Maybe they don’t speak because they are always carrying huge baskets or bags on top of their heads. Maybe speaking will make them fall off. I really do not know how they can balance such huge loads on their heads in the first place. It has so affected their walk that they glide so smoothly along the pavement that you hardly even see them lift their feet.

I like this pueblo, and I am glad to finally be finding the richness of Guatemala.

(Photo of the street and indigenous women in Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala)

Tourist Shuttle from Antigua to Panajachel

Our shuttle arrives 15 minutes late. The driver tells us to hurry up. He should have been the one hurrying. I have been waiting for him for 45 minutes. The shuttle is already packed like sardines with white English speaking people. For some reason they all get out of the van. The driver is telling them to hurry up and get back into the shuttle. They do no understand and were standing in the street blocking traffic. Horns were honking. The man in the front opened the door precariously short of being hit by a huge semi-truck. What is wrong with these people?

Finally I get in, still not understanding what the fuss was all about even though we all speak the same language. Wade is already pissed. He has to sit in a jump seat. He is surrounded by moron whities. Is this really the luxury that we paid for? We are both smooshed, and feeling like it may have been the same situation even if we had taken the chicken bus instead. Between paying 30 Quetzales for the shuttle bus and 25 quetzales for the chicken bus, I don´t know if I got such a good deal.

(Photo of a Chicken Bus in Guatemala painted with flames)

We started off and the honkies started talking. There was a Canadian couple. The woman was pregnant. There was a family from Hawaii and some foreign lady who spoke excellent English, probably a Russian. These were all people who traveled but they were not travelers. They had adventured all over the world but somehow not gained any common sense from their trips.

The Canadian man was so nerdy and such a pushover milktoast that I have no idea how he ever left Canada in the first place. His girlfriend was a little better, but had very strange thoughts about her end-all and be-all “back-packers” trip through Asia. I give her points though for being so adventurous while pregnant, but I think it is stupid to go on an “oh so strenuous” vacation while pregnant.

The family were upper-middle class pseudo-intellectual liberals. Their daughter was going through a stage and decided to spend a year off in between highschool and college traveling through Central America. This was a smart move. She needed to escape from her parents.
They were trying to be open and worldly. They were the kind of people that go “Oh wow” to the dumbest possible things. They are the kind of people who spend too much money and raise prices so it is hard for a tramp to travel. This ride was hardly bearable. The babblers were loud. The babble was bad.

The scenery on the other hand was beautiful. Winding through steep mountains, scary roads and slash and burn farms. Coming upon Panajachel there is a spectacular view of the sparkling blue lake and the gigantic volcanoes.

A Long Stay in Antigua

I have been in Antigua, Guatemala for about 10 days now. This is a long stay. I do not even know how I have spent these last days. Antigua is a beautiful little colonial town, but it feels stale. There are so many tourists that I see more white people daily than Guatemaltecos. The tourists have over saturated the town with money as well, so everything is way overpriced. There are swanky craft shops, expensive European style bars, and every comfort one would find in the modern world. I cannot afford to eat in this town as a result, and I definitely cannot afford to party either. One beer costs more than lunch and drinking would leave me in the poor house.

(Venders in Antigua and a woman carrying baskets on their heads)

I found a hotel that includes breakfast and wi-fi internet for around $7 a night/person. Hotel Shalom. If you can bear Israelis it ain’t a bad place. Breakfast is filling and the internet is fast. The employees are friendly and the place is clean.
It was a nice place to sit for a while. I think I had my head stuck in my computer the whole time researching and writing for my portfolio though.

(Photo of indigenous women selling fruit in the streets on Antigua)

This town is rather boring to do anything else. It is too expensive to buy fun and it is too gentrified to experience anything. It is a tourist bubble. I am ready to leave, heading for Lake Atitlan.

U.S. Dollar Exchange Rates

The US dollar isn’t looking so good. You can really see how the value of the dollar is dropping when you’re not in the USA. The US dollar use to be the currency that ran the world. This seems to be changing fast. The Euro is taking over. When I was in France last December, American dollars were completely useless. No banks would exchange them or even take travelers cheques in dollars. Even if I could have changed Dollars for Euros, I still wouldn’t have been able to buy anything because of the outrageous price of everything in Europe.

Now I am noticing a change in Central America. Things used to be priced according to the dollar in touristy places. For instance, a beer in Costa Rica use to cost 500 Colones, and 500 Colones is equal to $1 USD. Now prices match Euros. A beer in Costa Rica now costs about 750 colones, which is equal to 1 Euro. This is about $1.50 USD. In Guatemala the Euro is about 10 Quetzales and all the prices are in increments of 10 Quetzales. They are not in increments of 7, which is the exchange rate of the dollar.

A reason for this change is probably due to the fluctuating value of the dollar. It is no longer a stable currency. The war debt from Iraq has seen to that.

I went to the bank last Monday to exchange money. 1 US dollar was worth 7.34 Quetzales. This week I went and the exchange rate had dropped .03 Quetzales. The dollar was now worth 7.31 Q. Changing $100 I lost 50 cents. That isn’t that much, but to have such a decrease in 1 week is worrisome. The Lonely Planet 2007 Guidebook values the dollar at 7.6 Quetzales. That means since publishing, the dollar has gone down in value almost .3 Quetzales. This is about 30 Quetzales when changing $100 US dollars. 30 Quetzales is about $4 USD. This is a lot for a year.

The future is looking bleak for the US dollar. George Bush Jr. had better get out of the president’s chair so someone can save our economy from crashing. If not, this little hobo will have to start earning cash elsewhere in a more stable currency.

Romance Movies: An excuse for Nudity

Love In a Time of Cholera Movie Review:

In Antigua, Guatemala there is a restaurant that acts as a movie theater almost every night of the week. Going to the movies is a luxury for me that I don’t get to enjoy very often due to traveling circumstances. I do not really care what the movie is about, but just the action of watching a larger than life production on a huge screen is fascinating for me.

Sunday night Wade and I went on a date to the movie theater. It is actually set up like an old time dinner theater, with chair all set around tables. The food and drinks are expensive, but the movie is free. Wade and I ordered the cheapest beverages on the menu and sat back to watch the film.

That night they played the film “Love in a Time of Cholera.” The movie was set in colonial Columbia. It was actually interesting to see the scenery, because the architecture, landscape and all was so similar to that of Antigua.

The plot, however, was not the most appealing to me. It was a love story. A love triangle, if you will, and everyone was a hot-blooded Latin. A man made an undying vow to love his first crush for his whole life, and save his virginity for her. The girl’s father was none too keen on the idea, and moved the daughter all the way to the far reaches of the Columbian jungle. Years apart and the boy’s love stayed true, but somewhere along the lines the girl lost interest, or so it seems. She went about her life, and married a horrible, abusive, cheating doctor.

The boy cried his eyes out his entire life. His mother, a very smart woman, sent him away to work and take his mind off of his beloved Fermina. While in transit some weird thing occurred where a horny woman grabbed him, pulled him into a closet, and raped him. (I think this may be every man’s dream, but I do not think things like this really happen.) The boy liked it very much, and then proceeded to sleep with every woman he could possibly get his hands on, er, his pecker into. By the end of the film he was going on 700 partners. It is a wonder his junk did not rot off, but the whole movie was far-fetched anyway.

So the woman’s husband finally dies and the boy (who is now an old man who still screws everything, and is currently working on a very attractive American with large bare breats) runs to the now widowed woman. They are all old and crusty and disgusting, but they get to together and make love and it is a beautiful, happy ending. And they really don’t live happily ever after because they are too old, so they just die happy together.

This really was a chick-flick movie. It was so heart-felt that even I could hardly bear it. The men in the theater, though, were on the edge of their seats the entire film. The movie showed just about as many boobs as a porno film. Around every scene there were naked women, exposing their breasts and lifting up their petticoats. Only once did we see the side view of a man’s butt, but never anything exciting for the women in the audience to feast her eyes upon.

I think the romance film is purposely directed in this manner. Boyfriends all over the world are dragged to the movie theater to watch boring romance movies because their girlfriends like to see this awful rot of a plot. I think that the wise director knows to put a plethora of boob scenes to appease the opposite sex. If not I think the boyfriends would become so incredibly bored that no one would ever go see such a mind-numbing film.

Travel Tip for Women: Don't Wear Short Skirts

While traveling a woman needs to be aware of the way she is dressed. Appropriateness of clothing varies from country to country, but by following a few restrictions she is less likely to get unwanted attention.

The fact of the matter is that the majority of the world thinks white western women are sex objects. They think we want sex all the time, we are easy to get into bed, and we have loose morals. The media all over the world portrays us in this manner, so of course every horny boy worldwide is going to target us pale skinned beauties.

The problem is, much of the time traveling girls do not really do much to sway this stereotype. I have seen girls in halter tops in Hindu India, girls with short skirts in Muslim Morocco, and girls in booty shorts in Catholic Central America. These sexy clothes may not be the best wear if in countries with stricter moral codes.

(This naked girl in Costa Rica attracts a lot of attention)

At home in America these clothes are normal, and no one even thinks twice about wearing them. Abroad, it is a little different. Yes many countries have a hot climate, but that doesn’t mean you should flounce about naked.

In India I knew an American girl who always wore skirts, but did not know how to keep her legs closed. I would glance over and always see her panties sticking out, no matter how long the skirt was. We would be in the company of all types of Indian men, but she just couldn’t keep her legs closed. She wondered why she was grabbed by Indian men so often. Plain and simply, she was showing them her vagina half the time. Indian men really do believe that western women just want to have sex all the time and will have sex with whoever asks them. The best thing to do is to dress like an Indian woman, or at least cover all of your body parts, including stomach, shoulders, and legs. It is common decency.

In Costa Rica a fellow female student was having a lot of trouble because of unwanted attention from the local boys. Cat-calling, whistling, and hooting is normal here. Every boy you walk passed on the street will make some sort of noise at you. As she was explaining to me her difficulties while sitting on the couch I looked down to see a very distracting sight. She was wearing shorts so short that I could see her vagina. She wore shorts everyday. Everyday her shorts were too short. Everyday boys were hitting on her. There was an obvious correlation between her rear hanging out and the boys’ comments. This is common sense. Cover your vagina.

(Photo of a woman wearing a head scarf in India. She is safe from harrassment)

The best thing however is not to engage boys when they start yelling. The girl with the short shorts decided one day to yell back at the boys who hit on her with her vagina hanging out. The boys of course got angry. The boys yelled back, calling her a slut, and followed her down the street in their car, threatening her. They thought she wanted the attention. Prostitutes wear sexy clothes to get attention. Girls dress up to get attention. Do not yell back at the boys. This is stupid. Do not wear revealing clothes if you do not want attention. This is stupid.

Obviously, in our Politically correct American suburban world we have forgotten about the implication of clothes. If you were revealing clothes you are trying to attract males. If you are wearing revealing clothes you want the attention of males. Remember this. It is important. Don’t be stupid. If you are getting too much attention, put more clothes on.