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| Guatemala Highlands |
Central America random notes:
. The ubiquitous tuk- tuks, scrambling around the border control area in El Salvador, where are they ferrying people from and to?
. There are armed guards in every public space in Honduras. And El Salvador. And Guatemala. With automatic weapons.
. Men don’t wear shorts. Women don’t either.
. Camionetas individually painted like works of folk art. Bearing the name of wife. Or girlfriend. Saint or Pentecostal exhortation.
. Tiendas, bodegas, barberias, casas de belleza, ferreterias with names like Rey del Mundo, Corazon de Caridad, Reina del Cielo....
. Futbol Copa de Oro on every tv.
. During the civil wars and deaths quad days I ran 5 miles a day every day. A bit crazy but...Today we are confined to patrolled bounds of our hotels, dorms....todays lawless chaos more dangerous than yesterday’s wars.
. Honduras accepts dollars as well as its own currency. Guatemala only Quetzaltes. El Salvador has just given in and made the US dollar its official currency. Pocketsful of Sacajaweas and Susan B’s ...so that’s where they all went....
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| US dollar coins in El Salvador |
. US fast food triumphant everywhere...Mc Donald’s. Burger King. Dunkin’ Donuts. Pizza Hut. Honduras’ homegrown Pizza House has a pretty good knock off of Pizza Hut logo. Oh, and donuts are donas.
. Honduran food has the baleada with convoluted story of a woman tortilla seller who got shot, as in, I'll buy from the shot one. And rice and beans, gallos pintos in Nicaragua, painted roosters, are casimientos, or married ones, in Honduras.
. Morning juices are high fructose concoctions. The real stuff is all exported.
. Leaving Tegucigalpa....miles and miles of bananas....they called them banana republics for a reason....then the miles of sugar cane...,in Guatemala cornfields crawl up hill sides and hold on for dear life...,
. “Auto hotels” are everywhere along the highways . A place for that illicit triste. Or maybe there’s just no privacy and everyone deserves a little romance...
. In the highlands, Guatemalan men and women in traditional dress. Including skirts for men.
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| Guatemalan women |
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| Man in traditional dress |
. The two monuments we see in Guatemala we see are a warrior chief who resisted the colonizers and the statue migrant. A story without words dances between these statues.
. At an overlook high in the mountains, in a market filled with folk crafts, a New York Yankee hat for sale.
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| 2nd row up, Yankee hat for sale |
. Many of the people I have spoken to were not even alive the last time I was here.
. Stunning how in the midst of poverty one can always see the breathtaking beauty of Gods creation. Despite our efforts to destroy it, it is
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| in the highlands of Guatemala |
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