la Guatemala fresca

The earth has not forgotten Antigua

Before you can truly shake hands with a city for the first time, you must lose yourself in it, purposely once, accidentally twice (at minimum.) It is also necessary to take the foreign air into your lungs and convert your breath into a reminder that home can be emulated and composed anywhere.

Amongst slow rain, the boxed and barred buildings swell proudly with a past the colors of wilting indian paintbrushes, or leathered folds of aged skin beneath a pair of Mayan eyes.
The people greet you in the streets, the movements of their tongues stimulating the rising of an unspeakable desire that laid dormant in you like two of the three volcanoes that surround the cobblestoned streets strewn with week old maraschino cherries and mango skins. The smell is familiar to him, and his Spanish bursts forth in torrents, a hidden fire that had cowered and smoldered until the perfect moment...
now, falling out of him and building a suddenly fierce fascination and need to copulate with this sensual yet simple culture. My Spanish is broken but eager, the timid toe touches to test the rippling waters; Si, entiendo mas que puedo hablar, pero tengo un magnífico profesor. Cars backfire and echo from the cracks of stiff stucco, packing heat like the rumbling of rocks down the jagged terrain, roughly rising from the catty corners of the outermost boundaries, high in the air and pitched like screams.

The birds sing differently in Antigua; perhaps they are praying for the survival of the skin of trees upon the rivulets of mountains, in case of an eruption as per Volcan Pacaya. It is invierno here, winter, but the balmy and sweat pinched air beads with dust and the sun still beats its drums to a temperate tempo, and the cemented coral fountains sing of (nuevo) Spain.
We have already seen our first hummingbird, chasing our growth, piercing our sense of fortuity, following us curiously like the thin nosed black dog this morning, trotting in search of a gentle hand or a greasy scrap.

Guatemala spreads both upward and descends below, and the hotel we are assigned to for the first night of our journey is better referred to as Villa Posada ("Los Bucaros"), given it's small courtyard terrace speckled with plants and glass patio tables, wrought iron chairs and lamps just like I foresaw in my dreams weeks and weeks ago [read my other blog, the entry titled "deliver me"]. The garden is a tableau of lucid, primitive beauty, and what is most artful about this hidden city is its artlessness- its subtle shades of sienna and jade, the quiet revelry of the sky whose smile predicts rain, the rustle of the laundry on the rooftop lines like the laughter of its residents.

No one's words are like my love,
like his. He is slowly curing me of my fear of flying, and we did not stop touching the entire way to the airport yesterday morning. His hand was there in place of calming drugs, and I happily left the Xanax my mother sent me off with in the plane seat pocket on our last flight (fearing cutoms searches but mostly just aware suddenly of how I never needed it to begin with.) I felt it wash over me while we were streamlining the heights of atlantic altitude above the Gulf of Mexico, and I wondered if he could hear the prayers in my head as he leaned his own against it. Yet my breath was steady by the last of the three flights, and I abruptly discovered a peace nestled within me that has never before shown its face so blatantly and laid bare, contentedly vulnerable and strong, stripped bare of all pretense and insecurity.Para que, y todo, le doy las gracias Miguel.
Someone I look up to once told me that traveling with someone you care about will reveal to you whether or not you can truly stand them, the ultimate compatibility factor confirmation. It will tell you whether or not the other person is someone you want always on your side.
And to that I say-
as we stared across from one another this morning, over a surprisingly cheap yet epic breakfast of crepes filled with pineapple, fresh squeezed cantalope juice, french toast, papaya, and mantaquilla (chamomile) tea-
our silence spoke volumes,
and the gleam in both our eyes said that there are anything but regrets in regards to the decision of how to spend our summer,
and with whom.

Last night we were shuttled to our hostel by a kind faced, bushy eyebrowed Guatemalan by the nombre of Jose Maria; our taxi ride through the wet strung out streets of Guatemala City in the core of evening traffic brought us a new friend. He spoke no English but we still learned about his wife and beautiful kids, he prayed for ("with") us on and off throughout the drive and spoke of the blue of the ocean, the orange land-the world's resemblance to an orange-all these things he knew and wanted to use en/por vida.

Lonelyplanet says "If you want a true picture of what Guatemala is, Antigua is not it. But you still can't miss it."
The native coffee hit my tongue this morning and I have never so thickly tasted the purity of freedom and joy.

And so our adventure begins.

Salud,
Christina