Andiamo!

So it’s been a whirlwind of a time in the US. Saw my family, connected with several friends new and old, bought lots of stuff for Andiamo, hit both coasts, and, regrettably dealt with a pretty heavy blow of sadness over the loss of my mom. It’s been a tough past couple of weeks, but keeping busy and moving has helped somewhat.

Now’s a good time to thank EVERYONE who’s called, emailed, and messaged me with their thoughts, love and sympathy. It’s been comforting to say the least, and has made going through this whole thing just a little bit easier.

So after a couple of days in Fort Lauderdale hanging out with Steffen, and doing some last-minute boat-stuff shopping, I made my way to Miami to catch my flight back to Guatemala City last Saturday.

Due to a major traffic snafu, as well as some forgotten directions to the airport, I BARELY made my flight. Lucky for me, I saw the right people at TACA, and they got me and my bags on the flight despite my horrific tardiness.

It was nice to be headed back to Central America. Mitzy, one of my Guatemala City friends, was at the airport to meet me. Which was a great help, being that I had 2 huge rolling duffel bags full of stuff, plus my backpack and computer bag. Mitzy said the gang was going on a nice little adventure on sunday, to which I was invited to come along. Who am I to say no to that?

The plan was to first head over to Antigua to hang out with Liza, another one of the now-ubiquitous “Guatemala City Gang”, who has an absolutely INCREDIBLE house there. Always a great time to be had at Liza’s wonderful house. Though I’d been there a few times before, this will have been the first time I actually stayed there as a houseguest. I was so spoiled.

The next morning, we were to head over to Mt. Pacaya, an active volcano about an hour out of Antigua. On the way there, Mitzy and I would meet up with the rest of the Guatemala City Gang, and even more people I’d only recently met. We met up with Rocio, Rosie, Annie, Maria, Caterina, Campollo, and Andres (Rocio’s boyfriend), Manuel (who’s from Chile, and currently dating Maria) and Anna-Fernandina, Campollo’s new gal-pal, who, interestingly, is also Monica’s (my friend from Tranquila bar on Utila) cousin! Small world it is indeed.

Anyway, after meeting up en route, we made way for Pacaya National Park, where the trek up Pacaya would begin.

I have great video of the whole adventure, which I’ll be posting up very soon, btw. Photos are already posted on the gallery.

The trek up the mountain in the beginning wasn’t so bad, but as we got closer to the top, it became more arduous. we got to the foot of the top cone after a good hour of hiking up. The weather was incredibly clear that Sunday, which was a relief because Guatemala has been getting MAJOR rain lately.

From this plateau, we can see the majority of the lava flow that stemmed from vents in the cone. The lava flow was incredibly fast and voluminous, and HOT.

Now, a side note…

I’ve been to Kilauea in Hawaii, twice. Kilauea is known as the world’s most active volcano. Currently spitting out lava that’s adding more landmass to the Big Island at the rate of 3,000 acres per year since 1984. Seeing it both during the day and night have been among the most awe-inspiring experiences of my life. I wasn’t expecting Pacaya to be as nearly exciting as this, but boy… what was I thinking?

Some of the crew decided that this point was as far as they would go. Manuel and I decided we wanted to keep going. Maria agreed to keep going with us, as well as Mitzy. So the four of us continued on the last run up the cone.

This part of the hike was REALLY steep, and comprised of climbing up loose lava rock, gravel and soil. It was tough. I was exhausted barely one quarter of the way up. Mitzy was slightly ahead of me, and I shouted up to her to keep going, because I was done. Mitzy wouldn’t hear of me quitting, and made me trudge on. After improving my climbing technique a bit, by stabbing my feet into the loose gravel, my feet could actually keep some traction. I managed to make better progress before dropping dead of exhaustion.

Finally, Mitzy and I made it up to the top of the cone! Maria and Manuel were already there waiting for us. Up here, there were several steam vents that spewed out tons of steam made by water vapor brought on by the rains. There was also a huge fissure on one side of the cone that spewed out some serious sulfuric gas. One breath of this stuff, and you were coughing and heaving like an asthmatic. The heat was pretty intense too. Luckily, the winds blew south and directed most of the steam away from where we were.

We had to run alongside this fissure to get to the other side, so we can venture up to the crater at the top of the cone. The crater was about 50 meters wide, and there was so much heat and gases coming out of it, that it howled with a ultra-low bass drone. It was really incredible. I walked up to the edge of the crater where I saw some other people going. With my camera in hand, I headed toward the edge and looked down.

It was incredible. The crater tapered inward in size towards a hole about maybe 10 meters wide. There were several small vents and ports where gases spewed from. Through the bigger hole, you can see nothing but bright red from the magma building up pressure inside! And blinding HEAT! It was incredible. You can feel the rumble of the building pressure just below your feet. And every once in awhile, the crater would spit up a glob of magma with the steam. I was stunned by the sight. It was almost as incredible as watching the lava flows pour into the ocean back at Kilauea.

Mitzy freaked out the first time she saw the crater spit up magma. I told her that it was ok for her to come up along the side I was in and look down, because she really needed to see it. Well she did, before freaking out some more at the flying magma (which becomes lava once it’s outside the crater). After a good minute or so gazing at this amazing sight, we decided that it was enough, and it was time to head down. We had to run back across the sulfur vent without breathing too much. About here I took a bit of a slide, and landed my wrist on some very jagged lava rock. Cut me good.

Coming down from the cone was clearly faster than going up. Basically, we “skiied” down by sliding our feet from one side to another, not unlike the downhill maneuver you do when you ski down a slope. A few minutes later, we were back with the rest of the posse, telling them about the huge thrill we just had.

The plan was then to go down to the Caldera Lagoon, where there was another park where you can take a zip line over a jungle canopy. This sounded really exciting, but by the time we got down from the mountain, it was kinda late, and everybody was pretty spent, so we scrubbed that mission for now. I believe that they will be doing it next weekend, more than likely without me, as I’ll be back on Andiamo on the Rio Dulce.

So, as has been the case lately, a slight detour on the way to or from the Andiamo yields another unplanned yet nonetheless incredible adventure. Gotta love it when that happens.

So after another night in Antigua, I’m back in Guatemala City, en route to Rio Dulce. I should be there by tomorrow PM, and I’m looking forward to it. It’s time to be home again.

Stil working on my mom’s life story. Hers is a bit more of a challenge to write for reasons you’ll see when I finally post it. Should have it up in a few more days.

Unfortunately, my mom’s condition crashed today, before I can get back to Florida. She let go about 2pm Eastern time. I will be putting up more about her in the coming days. But for now, I’ve still got some packing to do so I can make my flight.

Just wanted to put it on here while I had a chance.

Comment from: Michael Greaney [Visitor]

Tony,
I’m sorry to hear of your Moms’ passing. I can still hear her words echoing in my ear….c’mon Michael, eat just a little…just a little bit…!
Fond memories of the house on Park!
Please pass on my condolences to Nick and Judy!
Mike

07/31/06 @ 07:40

So, in the past few weeks, I’ve been all over Florida, spent a week in LA with my sister and her family, and now I’m heading back to Florida with alot of STUFF in tow. Went a little crazy shopping for the boat, oh well, you do what you gotta do. Now, to just figure out how I’m going to get it all to central america… oy…

But unfortunately, things are not so good in Florida with my mom. She’s been ill for sometime now. She had some major surgery about a year and a half ago to remove a tumor in her intestinal wall. She never really bounced back from it. On top of that, she took a fall a few months ago, breaking her hip.

Since then, it’s been relatively downhill for her. I saw her when I was in Daytona, and could not believe how thin she’d gotten. Our relationship has been rather strained for quite sometime, but I told myself I would not let that get in the way of keeping at least some contact with her in her final days.

She’s in the hospital now, her kidneys and liver are failing and she’s on a respirator. It does not look like she has much time left I’m afraid. Judy is flying back to Florida tonight as well, so we can all be with her for at least a short time. Not exactly the note I was hoping to end my stateside visit on, but such is life.

Damn…

Yes, it’s that time of every 4 years. World Cup Soccer (or as they call it in the rest of the civilized and uncivilized world outside the US, FOOTBALL). In my travels, I tend to get a lot of flak because of USA’s inability to hang with the rest of the world when it comes to soccer. I remind them that we are in the World Cup this time, as we have been the past few times. So we must be doing better than other countries who didn’t even qualify. Of course, they snicker at that.

Even though Guatemala has never been in the World Cup, like ever, Chapins tend to go nuts with it anyway. Things tend to stop in their tracks. People scam out of work to watch the games. Stores close. I’m not kidding. In my general opinion, it will be just a bit more difficult to get anything done for the next month and a half or so when a game is scheduled.

In the spirit of international competition, some of the local gringos here decided that it would be appropriate to put together a “team” for lack of a better term, to play against some of the local squads. I was asked to join in the action, and of course I said yes. These days on the quiet Rio, any worthwhile diversion is welcome.

So last Sunday, we had our first match. In a sand field close to one of the local marinas. It was only a half-field, so we played with a team of 5 against a local team that had uniform shirts and everything (we’re not quite there). Our team consisted of Jurien, a dutch guy who’s like 6’5″, Alejandro, from “Skye” who’s from Barcelona, Ron from “Xanadu”, who’s also from LA, Marcus, from “Archaeopterix” who’s German, Henry, from “Antares” also from Germany, another dutch guy, Andre, and of course, myself.

The first thing I did during our little practice scrimmage was do a slide tackle against Jurien, and skin my knee open. So I was off to a roaring start. Anyway, we played a local team of 6 guys, with 5 on the field. The game turned out to be pretty competitive, they beat us 9-8.

This slight loss gave us encouragement for our next match, which was yesterday. It was dubbed the “The Gringos Cup”. Our team, which were given the dubious title, the “Rio Dulce Hurricanes” by Henry, vs. the “Gringos’ Nightmare”, also probably dubbed by Henry. It was held at Casa Guatemala, a local orphanage that allegedly engages in exploitative and questionable practices. But hey, none of that mattered now. Football is what mattered.

At least they had kind of a grass field (with various mud slicks distributed liberally on our 1st half side of the field). There was a healthy crowd of spectators. The kids of course, most of their visiting volunteers, and a smattering of boater gringos. They were apparently there to see firsthand how badly we’d all get beaten. They were not to be disappointed.

Most of the team from last week was there, except for Alejandro and a couple of our backup players. But we had some other players to fill in for them, including a Belizean rasta guy named Tony, and a kid from California, Nicholas, who was about the only one who was going to be able to keep up with these nimble guatemalan kids who play every minute of daylight. Also along for the assault were Andrew and David, two German guys who had just gotten to the Rio not too long ago.

To make a long story short, we played a pretty solid and aggressive game. Especially when you consider our utter lack of practice, average age, and somewhat dismal physical condition. None of us had cleats on so we were sliding everywhere. I slid on one of the mudslicks, and did an incredible split ala Jean-Claude Van Damme. I also felt my groin muscle practically snap, sending a jolt of pain through my whole body that made my eyeballs rattle. After “walking it off” if that was humanly possible. I re-engaged.

These 15-17 year old punks, I mean “orphans”, were running circles around us. They were fast, nimble and good at handling the ball. Ron, our faithful goalie, who was a bit out of his element, didn’t stand a chance against these monsters of football. But I give him credit because he took a lot of abuse and punishment, played with alot of heart. They got 7 goals past him, not counting the two that were disqualified because of outrageous offsides. But it could have easily been 12 or more.

Henry, our German de-facto coach, took the game amazingly seriously, and at some point, it became quite amusing to the rest of us. He was barking orders at everybody on the field. He was pointing here and there, telling people who to cover, and everytime a goal was scored, he’d huff and puff. It was hysterical. We all knew that we were going to take a pounding from these guys, yet Henry didn’t want it to be so.

We had to sub out players every 5 or 10 minutes due to utter exhaustion. These kids ran us ragged. Luckily, we only played with 8 men on each team, that gave us a good couple of players to swap. They subbed maybe twice the WHOLE GAME! Unbelievable.

We thanked our lucky stars for Tony, the Belizean guy. He was able to pull off two goals from them to keep us from getting totally shut out. I had two very worthy goal attempts, one by head! But, they weren’t meant to be. I still don’t think that our goal was properly centered.

The game ended, and off we went back to town to celebrate our survival at Jurien’s cafe, the Sundog. It turned out to be a good-natured game, and in the end, we were all pretty proud of ourselves for what we considered to be a pretty valiant showing, despite the horrific final score. I did manage to get a couple of good fouls, which the ref, who was OBVIOUSLY skewed to the orphans, didn’t catch. So I’m pretty proud of that. Nobody got hurt, so that was good too.

So, that sets the tone for the next few weeks I’m sure. I suspect that there will be a few more matches to be had. Unfortunately, I’ll be gone for the next few weeks, but I’m sure I’ll be able to jump on a game or two when I get back.

So I have a couple of days left to get Andiamo and the cats ready for my departure later this week. I’ll be doing some stateside traveling for the next few weeks. I’ll be spending a day or so in Guatemala City taking care of some stuff there before I fly out.

In the meantime, let’s see if the US beats Czech Republic tomorrow. That would be really interesting. Then, they have to go up against the almighty Italia next. Shudder…

So, today marks the 2nd birthday since Pop’s passing. It would have been nice for him to still be here. If only to watch him deal with all the inevitable “666” remarks. Oh, that would have been worth the cost of admission.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about something that was really important to him. Building a lasting legacy. See, in his later years, he felt the need to try to build some kind, any kind of a legacy that would remain long after he was gone. He wasn’t sure what form it should take, he just really felt the need to do something. This was during a time when he was in bad financial shape and in no position to think of anything but staying above water. I couldn’t understand why a legacy would be important to you when you can’t even pay your bills.

I basically scoffed at his notion that leaving a legacy was such a big deal. I thought that was his pride talking. Pop had a huge ego full of pride, and sometimes his pride clouded his judgment. How do you leave a
legacy when your life has not gone the way you wanted it to? And if you do manage to create what you may think is a lasting legacy, does it really bear any value once you’re gone? These were the eternal questions.

I’d always thought the whole thing about legacies was based on arrogance and ego. When I hear the word “legacy” I find myself thinking about all the garish and oversized monuments that the early popes built in honor of themselves in Rome during the rise of the Holy Roman Empire. These monuments were built on the backs of slaves from marble that was stolen from other countries that the church pillaged. Every pope felt his monument had to outshine the previous popes’ monuments. It became this incredibly egomaniacal pissing contest. What can be more self-serving and ridiculous than that?

Not that long ago, something clicked, that made me understand. Pop wasn’t wanting or trying to build a monument to himself. Sure his pride was involved in his desire for a legacy. But the bottom line was that he just wanted to leave something behind that would say to the world “Hey, I was here, and I made a positive difference.” Like I said, his life didn’t go the way he wanted it to. But whether he knows it or not, his legacy is his life.

The way I see it, your legacy is the final accounting statement on your life’s ledger after it’s over. It’s either going to show a debit or a credit balance. Your debits being all the stupid things you’ve done, bad things you’ve done, betrayals, and so on. Your credits being all the good things, your successes, your victories, your achievements, and so on. I think Pop wanted his life to end in the black. Maybe he thought it didn’t when he was close to the end. Maybe even some of the people around him may not have thought so.

But here’s the thing that “clicked”. The final accounting statement is not calculated at the time of your death. There’s no way to do it. The “tallying” of your life’s debits and credits continue long after you’ve checked out. There are many charges and credits that simply don’t show themselves on the day of your funeral or your wake service. These are the elements that create a legacy.

For some people, their successes, failures, achievements and foibles are far more visible and accountable than others’ at the immediate end. But for some people, it takes awhile for their credits and debits to rise to the surface. In the end, the lasting impression of that person’s life in retrospect dictates their real legacy. It’s what lingers behind long after the person is gone.

From my point of view, Pop can take comfort in knowing that despite it all, he still shows a very nice credit balance. Even though the accounting is far from “done”, he’s got the odds in his favor that he will post in the black.

Happy Birthday, Pop.

The pace has gotten VERY slow here in the Rio since getting back from the city. There has not been much to do lately other than work on the boat. The marina’s still quite empty, and the tone is very tranquil and quiet both at the marina, and Rio Dulce at large. More boats are starting to trickle in, and I suspect by the end of June, it will be pretty packed. I’m surprised that there are not more boats here now, considering the disastrous hurricane season last year. You’d think that alot more boaters would want to get here early to secure a good slip.

I’ve compiled a long list of tasks to get done before I head out to the states in a couple of weeks. Luckily, it’s all mostly small projects, other than some varnishing and woodwork that needs to be done. I’m already done with more than half the stuff on my list. And I suspect that I’ll be done with most it well before I leave.

I’ve been getting caught up on emails and online stuff since there is not much else to do. I’m playing around with writing some non-blog stuff (shudder), so the downtime has been good for me to work on that as well.

I’ve heard from Sjelle a few times, and she’s been having fun in Barcelona and London the past few days. She’s due to fly back to Denmark in a couple of days to rejoin the Danish workforce, as, possibly, a mover?

Meanwhile, my days are quiet and slow, with a little boatwork here and there to fill up my time. I’m enjoying the solitude and quiet, because I know it’s only for a couple more weeks.

Wish there was more to report, but that’s it for now. Should have a couple more anecdotes and get caught up on the photo gallery in the coming few days, so stay tuned for that.

comment from: Jim Lince [Visitor]

Tony,

How’s it going – was just cleaning out my inbox when I found a link to your blog — very interesting life you lead.

Trust all is as well as can be. Last year I spent ~180 days on business in Asia (Taiwan, Japan, China). Japan was great, Taiwan friendly but still emerging. The food took some getting used to, but now some of my favorite.

Just thought I’d say hi. Good to know you are still kicking…

Jim

07/23/06 @ 21:12