The First Couple Days...

Hello good people:

I write to you from Hotel Backpackers, a little hostel/restaurant located right on the Rio Dulce, Guatemala.

After a fun weekend visiting my pal and old college roommate Frank in Tampa Bay, I took a shuttle to Miami, and caught about a two and a half hour flight to Guatemala City on Tuesday, Feb. 10. As we approached the city, I was able to look out the window and see the steep mountains and hills cut by ravines that separated the valley that the city lies in from the rest of the country. Apart from the landscape, I noticed the small clusters of small houses with tin roofs that adorned the tops of these little mesas, and realized that surely this was not a dream and indeed I was in another country. I´ll tell you, there is nothing like flying into a third world country not really knowing the language and having heard multitudes of scary stories to get the heart pumping and create some anxiety and nervousness. This is how I felt as I stepped out of the airport and onto the street, only to be greeted by some 50 odd Guatemalans yelling at me in Spanish. Its amazing what Spanish I did know but had forgotten comes back to you in a moment like this, as survival instincts kick in.

A taxi driver convinced me (without much of a fight) that I didn´t want to stay in Guatemala City that night, but at a place he knew of which was on the outskirts and much safer. I agreed, and the place he took me ended up being a little house of a Guatemalan couple that rent out a couple of their rooms to guests. It was a lot pricier than I would have liked, but being tired, and feeling secure where I was, I let it go and felt accomplished that I´d actually made it somewhere for the first night. The couple ended up being very nice and I ended up talking with them in their living room for three or four hours that night about Guatemala, its people, its history, and its culture. The next morning he dropped me off at the bus station in the city and I made it just in time to catch the bus for a five hour bus ride north east to Rio Dulce.

After the bus dropped me off, I had to walk back south across the bridge that spans Rio Dulce, the longest and most famous bridge in Central America, and at that point I felt like I was in paradise. Both sides of the river were covered with tropical trees and plants and sparce huts and hotels with thatch roofs adorned the shores. Crossing the bridge to its east side, and looking south, I saw the Hotel Backpackers standing on piers stilts above the water. It looked exactly like what I´d seen on the website, and I couldn´t believe I´d actually made it here, so far away from home. As I walked onto the dock of the reception area, I checked out what would be my digs for the next two weeks...
After filling out some paperwork, I was greeted by another volunteer from Chicago, who had arrived about two weeks prior, and was just fulfilling her last days in the hotel. All the volunteers staying at the hotel share a room with about four or five small bunks. While I´ve been here, its just been her and I, but the occasional random volunteer will come back from their ´descanso´, or break, and stay there before they return to the orphanage. I grabbed a bunk and dropped my things and went down to the restaurant. The hotel is comprised of the restaurant, which is on a dock with about twenty tables, and big buildings, which are accessed by walking around these docks. In the main building is the reception area, public bathrooms and a kitchen on the main floor, some multi bunk rooms and one or two private rooms on the second floor, and the volunteer room on the third floor. Our room is directly above the kitchen, and if the aromas from the kitchen don´t wake you up, the calls from the birds outside in the area around the hotel surely will, quite early. Compared I´m sure to most rooms in Guatemala, ours is comfortable. It is not luxurious in the least, and clean is a word I will just have to forget about for the time being. People who can´t stand bugs or spiders or dirt in their room should not come here.
I will work here, in the restaurant, as a server for the next two weeks. I don´t know exactly why they make volunteers due this. Its almost as if we have to pay our dues, but I figure just be volunteering we are already paying our dues. At any rate, its not a bad place to work, and although I haven´t spent too much time here yet (I´ve only worked one day: the 3-10 shift last night) I don´t think it will be too bad. I didn´t come to be a server though, and its pretty hard trying to be a server to the natives, but my Spanish has progressed immensely already only being here two days. You see the employees every day, and its been interesting developing relationships with them, and then there are the backpackers and tourists, and then there are the locals who are regulars. Last night after work I was invited to have some beers with three local vaqueros sitting at a table in the restaurant. One of them spoke some English that he had learned twenty years back and wanted to be friends. One of the guys owned a huge amount of land in the area and claimed to have the biggest cow ranch in Guatemala. Judging by the size of their pistols hanging off of their waists, I figured it might be true, and didn´t want to question that claim at any rate. Not to worry, he said it was an organic farm, and the cows had plenty of space to roam.
I have a feeling I might grow a little tired of this place sooner rather than later, as I surely did not come to Guatemala to work in a restaurant, even as laid back as it is. But talking to the other volunteers who come by from the orphanage, I have several words of wisdom to live by:
1. Enjoy electricity while I can
2-buy some extra food to store while at the orphanage if I want to eat anything besides beans and rice three times a day
3. Be patient while I´m here, because my time will come soon enough to work with the kids and it will be very rewarding and
4. don´t eat the meat at the restaurant.

And so here I am. I think I´ll try and visit the nearby towns today. Its getting a little tiresome being in the same place that I sleep, eat, and work. Some new scenery would be nice. I can also take a kayak down the river...