Prefatory Notes:
-Unlike in years and expeditions past, the entries in this blog have all been written after the fact. I would have liked to have written entries while travelling, but the pace we needed to maintain our hectic itinerary combined with the difficulty of finding internet service in the Guatemalan Highlands made this all but impossible. Instead I will be drawing these entries from memory and my sporadic and occasionally accurate notes. Any inaccuracy or unusual interpretations of the facts are solely my own fault and/or creative licence, depending on how annoyed you are about them.
-Guatemala's national currency is the Quetzal. The exchange rate at the time of writing is approximately 7 Q to 1 USD. to put this in perspective- A decent meal in a restaurant costs between 40-60 Q. A hostel stay ranges on average between 75 Q for a dorm bed to 200 Q for a private room.
Flight
My initial voyage from Laguardia International to Guatemala was somewhat beset by boils. It is a saga involving massive computer failure, cancelled and delayed flights, a gratuitous attempt to route me through Pittsburgh and a lost suitcase. It is a tale filled with intrigue, suspense, unexpected plot twists and drama. It is also surprisingly uninteresting. Instead of dwelling upon the minutia and frustration of this particular journey, I thought I would take a moment to reflect on flying in general.
Air travel has become routine and thought of as a mundane activity, often a burdensome and inconvenient necessity. The process of preparing to fly involves long lines, invasive security and enforced inactivity. All of this tedium is underscored with the remote but deeply worrying possibility that you may in an hours time, plummet uncontrollably out of the sky to your inevitable fiery death.
With that in mind it is perhaps understandable that so many people don't like to fly.
I love it.
Flying is marvelous. It is only through habituation that we forget the wonder of it. You can step into an airport and get to nearly any part of the globe within a day. Slightly more than a century ago, most of these journeys would have taken weeks or months!
After all the routines and rituals take place, the giant machine hums to life and begins to taxi. The anticipation of finally and truly on your way is quickly accompanied by the thrill of acceleration as the plane hurls forward at speeds in excess of 150 miles per hour. Scarcely have you adapted to this when the massive vehicle lurches to a diagonal and climbs impossibly upwards. The ground and everything you know falls away outside your window and gradually becomes an endless diorama, an infinite topography scrolling majestically beneath the clouds. Sometimes the ground itself becomes invisible, replaced with the cotton wool fantasy-scapes of the clouds. This is why I always strive for a window-seat. What tired in-flight movie about the turmoils of white suburbanites could compare in entertainment to the compelling mystery unlabeled sprawling geography slipping beneath the wings?
Let me share a few of the wonders I witnessed during my flight to Guatemala:
I saw the vast shining ribbon of the Mississippi River twisting through it's floodplain.
The plane traveled though a vast pale golden void interrupted only by a few insignificant clouds. It was only by noticing the ripples beneath that I realized that we were in fact over the Gulf of Mexico rather than immersed in some infinite haze. Not too much later I spotted a single black speck, a tiny ink-spot on an immeasurable blank sheet of paper. This was a ship
Along the coast of the Yucatan there was either an immense temple complex that fully occupied it's own island or a unusually stable low lying cloud bank, I could not tell the difference and am not sure that I ever want to solve this mystery.
Sunsets are spectacular enough from the ground, but from the air when you are eye level with clouds painted in improbable hues of pink, purple and orange, the fading day becomes almost unbearably beautiful.
Massive dark thunderheads towered over the jungle between Mexico and Guatemala. These billowing behemoths rose like mountains above the surrounding clouds. Every so often a Christmas light flash of lightning would illuminate one of these towering storm-clouds from the interior into delicately colored tissue paper.
Approaching Guatemala City by night, the city lights spread beneath you like a vast and tidy galaxy spread across the land.
To see such sights and to have the liberty to travel wherever you wish on the entire planet...Surely this is worth a little discomfort?
With that in mind it is perhaps understandable that so many people don't like to fly.
I love it.
Flying is marvelous. It is only through habituation that we forget the wonder of it. You can step into an airport and get to nearly any part of the globe within a day. Slightly more than a century ago, most of these journeys would have taken weeks or months!
After all the routines and rituals take place, the giant machine hums to life and begins to taxi. The anticipation of finally and truly on your way is quickly accompanied by the thrill of acceleration as the plane hurls forward at speeds in excess of 150 miles per hour. Scarcely have you adapted to this when the massive vehicle lurches to a diagonal and climbs impossibly upwards. The ground and everything you know falls away outside your window and gradually becomes an endless diorama, an infinite topography scrolling majestically beneath the clouds. Sometimes the ground itself becomes invisible, replaced with the cotton wool fantasy-scapes of the clouds. This is why I always strive for a window-seat. What tired in-flight movie about the turmoils of white suburbanites could compare in entertainment to the compelling mystery unlabeled sprawling geography slipping beneath the wings?
Let me share a few of the wonders I witnessed during my flight to Guatemala:
I saw the vast shining ribbon of the Mississippi River twisting through it's floodplain.
The plane traveled though a vast pale golden void interrupted only by a few insignificant clouds. It was only by noticing the ripples beneath that I realized that we were in fact over the Gulf of Mexico rather than immersed in some infinite haze. Not too much later I spotted a single black speck, a tiny ink-spot on an immeasurable blank sheet of paper. This was a ship
Along the coast of the Yucatan there was either an immense temple complex that fully occupied it's own island or a unusually stable low lying cloud bank, I could not tell the difference and am not sure that I ever want to solve this mystery.
Sunsets are spectacular enough from the ground, but from the air when you are eye level with clouds painted in improbable hues of pink, purple and orange, the fading day becomes almost unbearably beautiful.
Massive dark thunderheads towered over the jungle between Mexico and Guatemala. These billowing behemoths rose like mountains above the surrounding clouds. Every so often a Christmas light flash of lightning would illuminate one of these towering storm-clouds from the interior into delicately colored tissue paper.
Approaching Guatemala City by night, the city lights spread beneath you like a vast and tidy galaxy spread across the land.
To see such sights and to have the liberty to travel wherever you wish on the entire planet...Surely this is worth a little discomfort?
Like the pic, but still dont like 2 fly. I prefer the bus or train if it's not that long.
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