Come On... Its My Birthday!

Hello listeners. When I left you last I had just finished hiking to the waterfalls in Isla de Ometepe (Nicaragua) and Pieter had hitch-hiked back to the hostel after falling off his bike.

So we´ll begin there. That night Pieter, Carla (Pieter´s Sister), and I had one last celebration before they left for Costa Rica the next morning. The two of them were nice enough to leave me $40 dollars seeing there weren´t any ATMs on the island and I was broke. The next day I rode around the island on one of the bikes we had rented and was caught in a 45 minute flash monsoon. I was feeling pretty manly after biking through such a torrential downpour until I realized that I had lost twenty of the dollars they had given me. Which meant I didn´t have enough money to pay my bill at the hostel. But travelers are always willing to give. The next morning at breakfast I met two Californians who said they would lend me the money until we got back to the mainland. So I paid my bill with the twenty dollars I had left and told the manager that the two Californians would pay the rest. Then the two Californians got their bill and realized they didn´t have enough money to pay their own bill. I looked over my shoulder and saw that the bus was leaving. Without thinking I grabbed my pack, ran for the bus and fled the island. I still owe that hostel $13 and am waiting for my bad Karma to come back ten fold.

When I got back to Rivas (the mainland) I had 3 hours until my bus left for San Juan del Sur. While waiting I checked my email to discover that Ingrid, my future Nicaraguan wife from Leon, had written me an email. She hadn´t realized that I was leaving Leon so soon and had gone looking for me the night I left. That was enough for me. So instead of going to San Juan del Sur I jumped on the next bus to Leon and met her that night.....and I´ve been here ever since. I just finished three more weeks of spanish school and have been living with another host family. (Who continues to feed my like I´m an offensive linemen for da´Bears. No matter how many times I say no they make me eat more. I´m not joking. It´s absurd. I have to lie down after every meal so that I don´t vomit. I´m up 15 lbs since I left 3 months ago. Look at the picture: everything you see in the photo is my lunch.)

I found out that my BOY, Pieter, was also following his heart and had returned to Nicaragua to meet up with Suzy (aka Darkfern). So after a week of spanish school Ingrid and I hopped on a bus to Laguna de Apoyo to meet them. We stayed at the Monkey Hut which has an unbelievable view of the Lake. And true to form Pieter and I cooked up our famous (infamous) vegetarian stir fry while Dark Fern provided the acoustic accompaniment. We followed up dinner with a moonlight swim in the lake. Its a rough life, but I´m doing my best to get through it.

And down here they celebrate some holiday called: Navidad (Na-vi-dad). Its to celebrate the birth of this long haired, bearded guy called: JesuChristo (Je-su-Chris-to). I am pretty sure its a take-off of Christmas. But I don´t want to disrespect their culture so I´m going to keep my mouth closed. I spent my first non-white Christmas (I am referring to snow, not skin color) with my Nicaraguan family. We went to midnight mass, came home and had a huge dinner, then opened presents. The only difference was the Christmas tree and 100 degree weather (well...it also wasn´t really my family). My sister, Leyla, gave me a shirt that says: Soy Nicaraou. So its official. I am now 100% Nicaraguan.

Now the REAL celebration down here is on the 26th. When everyone in Leon gathers to celebrate the birth of an even more important figure: Cristobal Warner (Cris-sto-bal-War-ner). Legend has it, that on the 26th of December 7 different kinds of smoke can be seen being thrown in the sky all around the world. So after three months of Pieter and I using the phrase, ¨Come on....Its My Birthday¨ to get people to go out with us when they didn´t want to: It really was my birthday. Ingrid and her friends organized a party for me. They cooked up some Nicaraguan party favors, Ingrid baked a cake and gave me a bottle of german wine, and my swiss friend Rafael showed up without his long hair and a new Nicaraguan girlfriend (which aparently he had been keeping a secret). The only thing that was missing at my party was enough hombres. I don´t think I´ve ever had this problem before, but Ingrid´s friends were upset I didn´t bring more guys to the party for them. Its a rough life, but I´m doing my best to get through it.

Last night I went to a baseball game with Ingrid. Tonight she is cooking me dinner. Sunday is New Years Eve. Monday I leave for Managua. Wednesday I should be in Panama City. Wednesday to Next Monday I will be in Columbia depending on whether I go by plane or boat.

Feliz Navidad,
Feliz Cumpliaños,

Cristobal

Seven Different Kinds of Smoke

Utila:
After leaving the ruins in Copan, Honduras I headed to the Bay Islands of Honduras to meet my hippi posse from Lago de Atitlan. The first three days there was nothing but monsoon like rain, I had food poisoning, there wasn't a good vibe at my hostel and I had lost my mojo. But after another concert from Suzy (Dark Fern); a spontaneous meditation session in the middle of a restaurant with Pieter, Suzy, and Joel; and after a 38 hour flight from South Africa Pieter's Sister, Carla, arrived with good weather and brought back my mojo. Then to top it off we went scuba diving with a Will Farrel look alike (actually that night Will Farrel look alike had to do a beer bong through a snorkel for his initiation as a Dive Master and the whole place was chanting Frank the Tank.....I don't know who started the chant, but it might have been me).

Tegucigalpa:
A week of Utila was enough so Pieter, Carla and I headed for Nicaragua. However, we had to stay the night in the capital of Honduras for one night. We watched the movie: Me, You and Dupree. Which is actually a terrible movie, but it was worth it because I picked up the phrases "you caught me on a day where I'm throwing seven different kinds of smoke" and "I'm Liquid". And since then the three of us have been throwing atleast seven, maybe eight, different types of smoke.

Leon, Nicaragua
Smoke #1 - We arrived in Leon at five Saturday night and the first person we saw was our german friend Frank from the meditation center. He was with a group of Australians that fell in love with Pieter imediately.

Smoke #2 - While Pieter was occupied Carla and I decided to check out the local discotec where she proved to be the best wingwoman in the western hemisphere. There was an oasis of beautiful university students having a private birthday party in the corner and carla managed to get us an invitation.
Smoke #3 - The next day, Sunday, we went Volcano Boarding! Enough said.

Smoke #4 - Monday I called my future Nicaraguan wife, Ingrid, that I had met at the birthday party. Ingrid and her friends had just finished studying and needed a break. I went over and slowly began to work my way into their hearts.

Smoke #5 - I returned to the hostel where Frank and Pieter had decided it was a good idea to go to a casino. I said "I'm in" and at the casino I met a dentist, Dr. Bayardo, and his girlfriend from Leon. They invited me to live in their house for free if I would help pay for food. So I went back to their place to check it out and spent the night in what may be my future room for the next month.

Smoke #6 - Tuesday Ingrid and her friends finished their final exams and so we all went to the beach for a big party for the economista students. We ended up staying at the beach too long and missed all the buses back to Leon. So, completely against my will, I was forced to stay at the beach with them.

Smoke #7 - Wednesday Pieter and Carla left for Isla de Ometepe, but I had to stay for my dinner date with Ingrid where we discussed the names of our future children. Just joking...I left the next day.

Smoke #8 (Is that even possible. Anyways it doesn't matter because its private)

Now I'm in Isla de Ometepe where we hiked to the waterfalls. Afterwards Pieter thought it would be a good idea to bike around the island even though we only had an hour of sunlight left. Sure enough we got a phone call from Pieter two hours after dark saying he had crashed his bike and there were no buses or taxis back to our hostel. Instead he rode on the back of a motorbike holding on with one hand, while carrying his bike on his back with the other.

Stay Liquid,

Cristoooooobal

El Salvador to Honduras

After leaving Guatemala I headed for Ahuachapan, El Salvador where I met my Swiss friend Rafael. We stayed in Ahuachapan for one night and then headed to Tacuba the next day so that we could hike Parque Nacional El Imposible. The night before the hike our guide Manolo showed us a DVD of the 7 hour hike where you jump from waterfall to waterfall, do 4 or 5 cliff jumps from 4 to 10 meters high, hold an 8 foot boa that he pulls out of a tree, etc, etc, etc.........
......instead we payed the same price to go to a man made hot spring and watch Manolo drink and eat our food. Apparently two people had died the day before because there was too much rain and he didn't think the hike was safe enough (El Salvadoreans: men or mice?)

But I got over it and decided to make the most of the day by being baptized by JesuCristo.

The next day Manolo said it was safe enough to do the hike if we wanted to pay another $20 dollars, but Rafael and I had had enough of his antics and we left for Santa Ana (we saw the australian girl a day later who stayed for the hike and she said it was everything and more than in the video, but can you really believe anything an Aussie says). While in Santa Ana Rafael and I went to Lago Guatapeque in the slowest bus I've ever been on. It took 2.5 hours to travel 18 kilometers (I'm being completely serious when I say it is faster to walk). But when we arrived it was absolutely beautiful, except for the fact that all the lake front property was privately owned except for ten meters of deserted beach. We decided we would try hitch hiking back and it took only twenty minutes, it was free, and he dropped us off next to our Hotel. So I think I've found my new mode of transportation.
That night Rafael and I went out with the two Argentinian artists, two American peace corps volunteers, and our El Salvadorean hotel owner. I met the owner of our establishment and he was so proud that he had just received his American Citizenship that he had to have a photo with me and an American flag (not exactly what I expected seeing the US government supplied 6 billion dollars to help keep their civil war continuing for 10 more years). But what can I say people love me.

The next day Rafa and I headed for Suchitoto a small colonial town in the mountains - without banks. Which was a problem for Rafael, but I had enough money to loan him until we got to Honduras the next day. After two buses and a taxi we arrived in Honduras with 9 dollars and 10 Quetzals left over from Guatemala = 162 Honduran Lempiras. However, there was no bank in the town on the border and we still had two more buses to take to get to Copan. The first bus cost 150 Lempiras which meant we now had 12 Lempiras between us (about 65 cents). We arrived in El Entrada at about 6 in the night and had missed the last bus to Copan, but we didn't have any money for it so that really didn't matter. We found the one ATM that was open and of course it didn't accept either of our cards. We spent the next 30 minutes debating whether it was safer to hitch hike to Copan in the dark or try to find a church that we could sleep in. Luckily there was one hotel that accepted credit cards (even though the manager wouldnt add our dinner to the bill so we couldnt eat that night).

The next day we started to hitch hike to Copan, but the first guy I spoke with said we could ride the bus to Copan and get money for him there. So it took two minutes to find a ride to Copan and was surprisingly easy. We went to the Ruins today and tomorrow we are off for Celba.

Cristobal

Out of Guatemala with a Bang

Mi gente,

I am no longer in the beautiful and exotic country of Guatemala. I have finished my four weeks of spanish and moved on to El Salvador. But before I get into Santa Ana, El Salvador let me recap the last two weeks.

My last week of spanish school I received my fourth spanish teacher, Ana. Ana is the sister of my 3rd spanish teacher so we got along perfectly and she knew where I had left off with Angelica. Friday was the big day for Mark (another Australian student) and my Despedida (going away party) at the school. We had a half day of spanish and then we spent the next 3 hours eating, dancing and listening to Pieter (otherwise known as Distant Mountain - who had just returned from a month at the meditation center fasting and in silence for the last week) read everyone´s future in spanish with tarot cards. After Pieter's fifth reading I decided it was the perfect time to read the speech I had written in spanish. I had written something for everyone and it went over extremely well, except for the fact that I forgot to mention my spanish teacher of the final week Ana (in my defense she proofread my speech so I had purposely left her out and was going to put her part in later, then I forgot).

The next night Pieter and I cooked a Thai curry chicken stirfry for my family. I think they all pretended to like it while they wiped the perspiration from their foreheads. I figured they were used to hot spices and it wouldn't be a problem for them, but maybe they weren't used to the change in spice. Either way it was a great way to end my stay with my family and the next day I left for Antigua where I had originally begun.

Cristobal

1 Down, 9 To Go

As of today I have been in guatemala for exactly one month.The last three weeks I have been trying to wrap my mind around the spanish language in Xela. I am studying at the spanish school La Paz (peace in spanish). But in comparison to my week of hippiness in San Marcos it really hasn´t been all that peaceful (as some of you gentlemen already know). In three weeks I´ve had three different spanish teachers and next week I have maestra number four. My first teacher, Nereida, was fired because the coordinator of the school believes she stole another student´s camera. Gabby was my teacher for the second week. But in week three we started with only two students so Gabby got the boot because of seniority. A French/Thai girl started classes on tuesday, so now Gabby is back but she is not my teacher. My teacher for this week is Angelica, but next week her former student returns. Which means next week I will have my fourth teacher in four weeks. However, none of this bothers me because I was blessed with the best host family possible. We live above their restaurant (I use the term restaurant loosely, because for most patrons the food is only an appetizer for the booze). Mi Madre, Laura, sees drunks stumble in and out of our cantina every day and is therefore extremely lenient. I asked what time she wanted me home in the evenings and she just laughed at me. My older sisters, Delila(25) and Imelda(27), are very good natured and enjoy talking with me more or less. Delila´s boyfriend, Miguel, is on a soccer team called Los Chiguilles (spanish slang for the drunks) and we watch their games at night. Yesterday, I played 20 games of Futio (fusball) with my younger brother, Jonatan(13). He spends most of his time with me explaining all the bad words he knows in English. And then there is Lester(16) who is a friend of the family, but lives in our house. He plays soccer on my team against one of the other spanish schools nearby.

Now for some stories-

1. Last thursday we had a party at our school for Jim (american) and Rafael (swiss) because it was their last day. At one point Rafael thought it would be a good idea to start dancing on the tables - needless to say we didn´t learn a lot of spanish that day. I could go into more details about the party, but my mother is on this list and I don´t want to be disowned (just kidding mom, I´m being very responsible while down here). Anyways...after the party I walked back to my house. There was a soccer tournament going on across the street and there were a lot of drunks out and about. I didn´t think anything of it at the time and I went inside. However, I didn´t know that they had riled up our dog Oso (which means bear in spanish) and as I was walking past Oso he bit me right on the buttocks (I feel like I should make a Forest Gump reference here, but I won´t). I can´t remember if I´ve had my rabbies vaccine or not, but its been a week and I´m still alive. Actually, Oso has bitten two other people and they didn´t get rabbies so I figured I was ok. By the way...I didn´t know this when I first moved in, but I live in a Zoo. We have two dogs (Oso and Rex), somewhere between 4 and 17 birds, a cat (sally) who just had two kittens, and on the roof a gallo (rooster) that likes to make an ear piercing sound every five minutes from 3 am to 8 am.

2. Here in guatemala they don´t really celebrate Halloween, but there is a big celebration on November 1st for the day of the dead. For the day of the dead I decided to go to a drunken horse race in Todos Santos which is about 5 hours from Xela. I worked it out with my teacher that I would miss class on Wednesday and have a make up class on saturday so that I could go. So tuesday after class I left for Todos Santos. After about two and half hours I reached the half way point in Huehuetenango, but I had just missed the last bus to Todos Santos. Then I met a girl from the Peace Corps who knew of a minibus that would take us half way there to Tres Caminos and we could find another bus from there to Todos Santos. I expected Tres Caminos to be a town, but when we arrived it was only a fork in the road with two buildings and no light. So we had to hail down a pick up truck and ride in the back with four other guatemaltecos the rest of the way. It wasn´t exactly warm, so I spent the next hour huddled underneath a plastic tarp. When I arrived I found my swiss friend rafael and the other people that had left my spanish school in Xela. We went to the Peace Corps party where I thought I would find a lot of extremely interestng people, but they were fairly clickish and rather dull. So instead we found a fiesta with the horse riders that would be in the race the next morning. They had been preparing for the race by drinking for the last 72 hours. Seeing it was difficult for them to stand on their own, it was even more difficult for me to understand the spanish they were slurring (and spitting) in my ear. So I returned to the spanish school where of course there weren´t any more beds and I spent the night sleeping on a wooden bench fighting off hypothermia.

But the next morning the day of the race had arrived. ---First some background info on the race--- Originally the spanish conquistadors had considered the mayan people to be an inferior race and unable to ride horses. So in response the Mayans said that not only could they ride the spanish horses, but they could do it after drinking for three days straight. So it isn´t a battle between the riders, but a battle between horse and man (with a middle finger to the Spanish). Essentially, they spend from an hour to the whole day (depending on how drunk and how hard core they are) riding back and forth about a 100 meters trying to master a horse they´ve never riden. The race itself is pretty funny, but the riders that pass out while on the horse and fall straight to the ground is when I completely lost it (just look at the photos).

After the race I had to get back to Xela. However, because of the celebration there were no buses and everybody told me I had to wait an extra day. But what they didn´t know is 1. Never tell me what I can and can´t do and 2. I told my teacher I would be there for class on thursday.... So while hitch hiking I met a spaniard named fernando and he gave me a ride back to tres caminos. From there I caught another pickup that luckily was going all the way to Xela. I spent the next five hours getting sunburned in the bed of a pickup with five other guatemaltecos and oddly enough the same girl from the peace corps. But eventually I reached Xela in time for class the next day.

I didn´t mean to go on for quite so long, but in a nutshell that´s my life. I hope all is well.

Cristobal - the man formerly known as Lake Walker

San Marcos to Xela

Ahhh....where to begin?

When I left my readers last I was on my way to San Marcos to become a hippie. So we´ll start there. I only meant to be in San Marcos for a day, but I was sucked in by its holistic energy and I stayed a week. As Pieter (my south african mate who convinced me to go to san marcos in the first place) and I were boating across Lago de Atitlan to San Marcos I was already given my hippie name - Lake Walker. Pieter also took on his hippie name Distant Mountain later in the week. I spent the next 7 days in a pyramid shaped hut where the only place I could stand was the center of the pyramid. At 6 in the morning Pieter and I would go down to the lake for our early morning swims. At 7 we went to yoga in the temple. Metaphysics classes at 10 (basics of meditation, 7Chakras, philosophy of yoga, lucid dreaming, astral traveling, etc...). Pepe aka Gentle Dragon would give us spanish lessons at 2. Pepe is a spanish teacher in the states who, along with Suzy aka Dark Fern, is leading a group of 18-20 year old Americans through central america. At 5 we went to meditation until 630. And then Distant Mountain and I would make a vegetarian feast for our friends that in true hippie fashion we would trade for other services. Particularly Reiki sessions with Nikola (english) aka sunrise and Indian head massages from Sara (american) aka Harmony´s Edge. All in all a pretty good week - no booze, no meat, and plenty of spiritual focus. However, the best part was by far the people. I can´t thank the people I met at Las Pyramides enough for their friendship.


However, all good things must come to an end. And after a terrifying meditation session when Chatty, our meditation guru, began speaking in the tongue of the Arch Angel I decided it was time to leave.......Then I stayed another day to watch Old School at an Italian restaurant. But that´s beside the point.

After San Marcos I headed to Xela where I am now. My bus broke down in the highlands and we had to wait for another bus to pick us up, but eventually I got here. I found a Spanish school, La Paz, which for a hundred dollars a week you get 5 hours of one on one instruction a day plus a guatemalan family to live with that cooks all your meals. And the best part is my family lives above their own restaurant so the food is unbelievable. I have only been here two days, but I am already getting great vibes from my host family. More to come on that in the future.

I hope all is well and I will write soon,

Lakewalker