Tikal

Definitely a highlight of the whole Central America trip. We woke at 3am in order to climb Temple IV (highest one) in time to see first daylight wake up the jungle. It was pretty cool to hear the howler monkeys and papagayos make their first calls of the day. The place where we watched first light was about 40m shy of the top, which was covered with scaffolding for restoration, so I took the opportunity to duck some ropes, climb some ladders, and scamper up some sketchy exposed scaffolding to the highest point for miles around. It was really awesome! I would like to note that it was closed for safety reasons and not because my presence would cause any undue damage to the temple structure.

In short, the whole place is amazing! We stayed until 5pm, which was well after the majority of the other tourists had departed, so we had the place to ourselves in the late afternoon. We saw coati and grey fox, plus numerous really cool bird species. I am fascinated by Mayan astronomy and math and my imagination ran amok trying to imagine what the place was like 2000 years ago.

While we were exploring the temples, just Mel and I, we were spotted by a tour group. One of the tourists inquired of her guide in a loud republican accent, ¨Who are they?¨And upon finding out that we were simply people, ¨It´s amazing that you can just walk around here like it´s your own back-yard.¨ I find this perspective both humorous and also really interesting. It is pretty wicked that you can just wander around such an archaeological gem at will, It is also quite American to consider that all such access should be restricted.

Good News

I got an unexpected bit of news in my mailbox this week. It seems that on Nov, 21 Jake Adams and Becca Cooper in one boat and Melanie Love and myself in the other made the first raft descent of ¨Opal Creek.¨ Another crew ran it a few weeks later and posted this report. If you have good class IV raft skills and don't mind a little hike to the put-in, then I highly recommend this raftable classic.

Chilled Out

For our last week in Guatemala we have settled into quite a nice little eco-cabaña dealio on the Rio Cahaboñ. It is really relaxing with caves nearby and loads of tubing to be done on the river. I can participate in one of my favorite past-times, sitting in a hammock and watching the river flow by. Oceans are cool, but I love rivers. Wish I could post a picture.

Next we are off to the famous Tikal.

I didn´t know what day it was...

So I forgot Mel´s birthday. My excuse: I haven´t seen a calendar in two months and I thought it was the next day. Oops, at least I had a present, sort of. How I manage to hang out with someone as extraordinary as Melanie is beyond me.

Travelling is going quite well, although I must admit that I am ready to return to the states and get life in Colorado started up. I tried to explain this to United and they said, "That will be $600 please." Arrgh. At least we are having a great time. Currently we are heading north through El Salvador. Today we went on a wild goose chase to try and find an awesome beach recommended by Eric Eldon. Either we found another beach by the same name or it has seriously degenerated in the past few years. Tomorrow we are headed back to Guatemala, which happens to be our most favoritest country in all of Central America.

This whole lack of photos thing really makes my blog boring! damn thieves!

Movin´

The cat is officially out of the bag (who would ever put a cat in a bag anyway?) Mel and I are moving to Boulder, Colorado when we return to the states in February! I am going to attempt to get and keep a real job, for at least a couple of months.

7 weeks later

We have now been cruising around down here for 7 weeks and it is starting to feel like this is the way life is supposed to be. Getting a job is really going to be a wake up call. Yesterday we said bye to Lou and Jaz and headed to the Pacific coast of Nicaragua, which seems to be a mellower beach version of Guatemala. We plan to be here for a few days before heading to Isla Ometepe in the middle of Lago de Nicaragua. We are currently really excited about checking out a new country, since Panama (Really pretty, but lacks good food, beer, wildlife, and culture)was not quite what we expected.

It was really nice to re-visit Costa Rica, but we did have a bit of bad luck there with busses and theft. Our camera and my cool new shoulder bag were stolen from the foyer of a hostel with Lou Jaz and I standing right there! And, we kept encountering full busses and others that took longer than expected so we missed connections. On the up-side, we did see massive lava avalanches rip down the side of volcan Arenal under starry night skies. It was really cool!

I now have no money and everyone is inviting me on cool trips, Josh wants me to go skiing in Alaska, Dana wants me to run the Grand Canyon (in January) and Futalafu, and Kyle wants me to kayak to Cuba. Someone should pay me to have fun, travel the world, write about it, and take pictures with the camera I don´t have.

Happy New Year!

They have big fireworks in Panama, rockets nearly as big as me that have lots of pretty colors. The five of us got a little tipsy on a sparsly inhabited island on the Pacific side of Panama and stayed up dancing. It was fun.

¨Near death¨ may be a slight exaggeration, but it was scary. Yesterday we went snorkeling on a distant island. It was quite a long ride out in the crappiest boat I have ever had the pleasure of using. During the ride, Jasmine queried the captain, ¨Does it ever get rough?¨ and he replied that it could get bumpy when the wind comes from the north. Sure enough, on the return trip there was a healthy breeze from the north. The swells increased to about four feet and started breaking over the bow. Normally I would not sweat class III, but the integrity of the craft and the length of the swim made me nervous. There is no way we could swim to shore before dark. Then the boat started breaking. Everything was out of our control, so all we could do is hang on, clinch our jaws and get well hydrated for the impending swim. We made it although my jaw is still a bit sore.

Panama

The past week has been crazy! Mel and I found Andreas, Gudrun (his girlfriend), Louie and Jasmine and then went to Panama and found Lane. Holy-jeez that is a lot of friends. We spent three nights in the Ngobe (natives of panama) village where Lane lives. He is officially the first of my friends to own a house outright, although the $400 price tag may have played a part. The seven of us spent time hiking, playing cards, telling tons of stories, and entertaining the Ngobes with our cameras at a Christmas dinner of pork stew. Highlights included, poisonous coral snakes, more scorpions, a mud slip-n-slide and lots of hammock time.

Andreas and Gudrun parted ways leaving the five of us on the Carribean beach of Bocas del Toro. Today we went kayak surfing and tomorrow we are going snorkeling. Life just does not get much better than this.

Happy new year to all! Go Beavs! And, check the MY PHOTOS link to the right for tons of pictures.

I really have a thing for these yellow churches. They are photogenic.

After 30 hours of driving and four border crossings, we have made it to San Jose, Costa Rica. It feels nice to be back here. Lou and Jaz get in later today and I have to find that fuzzy haired German friend of mine, he is also here somewhere.

Korea Update

The news from Korea regarding our payment is grim. The Korean labor Board has said that it can not get our funds for us so we have to sue if we want the money. Pretty much, there is no chance that we will get paid. Guess who is getting a job when he returns to the states?

On a traveling note, we are headed to Costa Rica tomorrow to meet up with Louie, Jasmine, Andreas, and Lane! How much fun will that be? I am so excited!

Quest for the Tree of Life

My dad was in a picture similar to this one 27 years ago.

My parents travelled to Guatemala the winter of 1979-1980, and since I was born in October of 1980 it comes as no surprise that I was conceived here. My mom thinks that it happened on Lago Atitlan and gave Melanie some photos taken near their camp. One is of my dad swimming in the lake and another is of my mom washing clothes. Both photos have distinct mountains in the background as clues. The other bit of information was that the conception occured under an avocado tree.

We set out in kayaks on this quest for the avocado tree from San Pedro because we believed it to be the closest town. The kayaks turned out to be very nice because the road is far from the beach in many places and separated by resort properties. What we planned on taking an hour or maybe two ended up taking 4. We paddled about 5 miles across the lake to a cove near Santiago Atitlan and I got a bad sunburn. The photos matched the mountains perfectly but we could not find the tree. I suppose it has changed a bit in 27 years. We settled on taking pictures of me in the same place as my dad 27 years ago. That was really cool. I wonder if the tree my placenta is buried under is still alive?

Public Transport in Guatemala

Chicken Busses

Guatemala has the best public transportation I have ever encountered. There is an individually owned fleet of retired American and Canadian school busses. When they are deemed unsafe for America's children they are sold to Guatemalans. Here, they proceed to give them sick paint jobs, roof racks, bumpin sound systems, chrome grills, Jesus stickers, naked women, disco balls, and other bling. The thing that often remains is the sticker that says, "Your children's safety is our business." Which is totally bogus because they drive like maniacs. It is really a twisted combination of Nascar and timber-sports. Nascar for obvious reasons and timber-sports because of the bus-boy, who can do a 20m. dash, climb a ten foot ladder, and throw 30 kilo bags like nobody in Albany. And, Yes!, there are chickens.

Two weeks later...

I love Guatemala and I don't know why. It is not the most beautiful or the most anything. Mel and I have been travelling around and having a splendid time. Kyle and Garrett we parted ways as they went on to Mexico. We headed to the secluded mountain town of Nebaj well off the gringo trail. It was a rewarding experience with good hiking and insight into non-touristy daily Guatemalan life. We hiked through the poorest neighborhood I have ever seen or imagined. The inhabitants were Mayan Refugees struggling to survive after decades of oppression and genocide.

Now we are at Lago Atitlan on the opposite end of the touristy spectrum. I soon begin the search for the avocado tree under which I was conceived...

Out of time, check my photos.

Tajulmulco

Garrett on the summit of Tajulmulco

Friday afternoon we finished Spanish lessons in Xela. At 5pm we planned to meet up with Garrett and Kyle Dickman to attend a pre-trip meeting for our weekend ascent of Tajulmulco (4,250m), Guatemala's highest peak. They stumbled in near the end of the meeting wondering, "What's the name of the volcano we are climbing?" It was great to see familiar faces and tell stories over some beers and dinner.

Saturday morning we got up at 4am for a day of riding chicken busses and hiking in cold, soupy fog. Our group of 32 could only go as fast as it's slowest member which led to half an hour of sitting around freezing for every 15 minutes of hiking. We chose to pass the time, in typical Dickman fashion, trying to determine who in our group was weirdest. This eventually let to closed ballot voting were we each listed our 5 top choices. Instantly upon reaching camp it began to rain and the evening culminated in undercooked, burnt pasta. Ummm. At least the conversation and card playing was good.

In the morning we awoke way too early for a clear morning of hiking. We made the summit about an hour before the sun and spent a bit of time shivering. The hike out proved to be wonderful!

Learning Spanish....a little bit

Party of the facade of the church in San Andre Xecul

Today is the third day of Spanish classes here in Xela, Guatemala. We are staying with a host family that is super nice and both enjoy our teachers very much. Our room has a beautiful vista of the volcano Santa Maria, which we plan to climb soon. My Spanish is still awful, and I feel sorry for my teacher Carolina because she has to suffer through five hours a day of listening to me. Monday afternoon we visited a small village with a bizarre technicolor church and yesterday we climbed a smallish volcano, La Muela, with a great view of the surrounding countryside.

I love Guatemala. It´s dirty, cheap, the beer is fine, the food is good and the people are friendly. The public transportation is the best I have ever seen, although not necessarily the easiest for a foreigner to figure out. More on that later. And my favorite attribute of all, everything is so colorful (see photo).