Much to everyone's surprise, Katherine and I did indeed go to Guatemala as planned to visit the little Guatemalan nugget, Luis. The remarks we got after people found that we were really there made us realize just how many people thought we were joking when we told them our plans to visit him months ago. Our flight to Guate left LAX at 1 am (because our dear friend Luis wouldn't pick us up at 5 am, which was when the other flight got in), so we didn't sleep before getting on the plane. We showed up to the airport and checked in, only for this to show up when I tried to check in:
Luckily instead of being convicted of with holding taxes from good ol' uncle sam and fleeing to Guatemala, it turns out there was nothing wrong. We only found that out after waiting for around hour as different, very slow moving, people tried to figure it out. While we were waiting we did get to hear a great conversation between an Asian man who didn't speak much english and a large black woman who was working behind the counter. We both happened to overhear their conversation when the man gave her his passport. After comparing the name on the passport to the ticket she looks at him and goes, "Woooaahh that's a lotta of names you got there [insert 5 or 6 names of asian origin here]. Why you gots so many names?" The little asian man just started at her looking very confused and shrugged his shoulders. As we tried to muffle our giggling the attendant helping me figured out the problem and sent us on our merry way. After a layover in Houston and a breakfast of Starbucks and bagels among other travelers seriously regretting their travel time, we got on our second flight to the land that it Guatemala.
Lil' Lu Lu picked us up from the airport and drove us to the Toscana family home. We dropped off our luggage, saw his mom, and the room that we were staying (shoutout to Andy for being amazing and letting us stay in her room!). Clearly I slept on the mattress on the floor, not even a discussion point between Katherine and I. It really was pretty comfy though. Andy is quite the Belieber and Justin Bieber posters cover the walls. I only had two nightmares about Bieber trying to kill me, so not too bad. We went to lunch at the country club restaurant right near the house. Luis ordered us each a drink called a Michelada. It was pretty much an entire truckload of salt, a splash of worcestershire sauce, and beer. After each sip I felt as though all of the moisture from my mouth had been sucked dry. According to Luis they weren't made very well, . . . I can only hope so. After lunch Katherine and I both napped for a couple hours before waking up and being throughly overwhelmed at dinner. We were both still a little groggy when we met some of Luis's cousins and then sat down to dinner. Since we both come from small families, a table set for 10 was a little daunting for a regular family dinner. Everyone was talking, there were different conversations going on across the table, it was loud, and I absolutely loved it! It was so different from my normal quiet family dinners of 3 or 4 people. The conversation at dinner would be in English for a little bit, and then one family member would slip into Spanish, and everyone else would follow suite. I could pick up somethings with the Spanish I knew, but Katherine was pretty in the dark. There were moments when we looked like we were watching a tennis match, our heads just bobbing back and forth from the people who were talking. It only got awkward when someone said a joke in Spanish and we didn't know if it was weirder for us to not laugh or to laugh when we clearly didn't know what was going on. But soon one family member would realize that we were completely lost and remind the group to start speaking in English.
After dinner we went out with some of Luis's friends. Before we went to the kinda club-ish place we were going to, we met up with some of them at one of their houses. When we pulled up to the house a nice old man opened the gate for us and then led us inside. Katherine gave me a sharp elbow to the ribs and looked at the old man. When I saw what she was looking at I couldn't stop giggling. I turned to Katherine and whispered "I thought it was a sweet old man with a cane. . . . " and she replied "Yeah, no it's a rifle." As we both fell into a fit of giggles, we heard the guard dogs in the kennel we passed absolutely lose their shit. Luis turned around a couple of times and from the look on his face I could tell he thought we may have crossed the line into certifiably insane. Inside we met a handful of his friends, who promptly started hazing us. Not that this was a bad thing, but our tolerance is not quite what it once was at the end senior year, so we both felt these first couple drinks. And then we were off to the club. Once out of the car, we chugged the rest of our drinks in front of some nice classical greek architecture (in Guate, yeah I don't know either), and headed to the club. Outside the club there had to be 60 plus personal security guards/drivers waiting for the kids inside. If we could have snapped a picture without looking like those assholes we would have. In the club, the group got a table and some bottles, which was amazingly cheap. At point Luis turned to us and said, "Yeah so this how I grew up," shrugged his shoulders and then swigged his drink. Woahh ookay there Mr. Hotshot. Around this time I decided that there should be a reality show, like Shahs of Sunset, only in Guatemala. The title would be "G's of Guatemala." Somebody get on that.
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| such a G |
During this time, Katherine and I were still getting hazed, even more so than before. Everyone would be speaking in Spanish and then someone would break away, make us chug our drinks, and then go back to Spanish. Three times in a row different people came up back to back and made us chug, not believing us when we told them we just had. It got to the point that we had to tell Luis to help us, cause they would not take no for an answer. At first he refused, but then I told him that if I got sick at the Toscana household in front of Mama Toscana, so help me god, I would be on the first flight out, no matter how hungover I was. Pretty sure that's when he realized how much we were drinking and then started to help us. Later on, when Katherine and I were in line for the bathroom, a really trendy woman and her friend came up to me and said "wait you were so on my flight! you were in seat 2f, I was 6c." Ohh hi, uh huh I have no idea who you are. Only slightly creepy. They then tried to get us into the VIP section, but couldn't Luis in. Damnit Luis. Shortly after we left and made it back to the Toscana residence, where Katherine snuggled into bed and I curled up on my floor mattress.
The next day we headed to Antigua, which is a gorgeous city that used to be the capital. We had tour of Casa Santo Domingo, an old monastery/museum/hotel, which was given to us by a nice man who tried to speak English, but ended up speaking a mix of Spanglish and nonsense words. I'm pretty sure I could have understood him 100x better if he just spoke Spanish. I just smiled and nodded a lot. Casa Santo Domingo was an amazing site and Luis said that one of his cousins got married there. Lucky bitch. After the tour we wandered around the city. It was here that I first started to notice I was being stared at. I mean, I only stuck out a teeny tiny bit. It isn't everyday you get see Casper the friendly ghost wandering the street, so I understand. We had a delicious lunch overlooking some ruins, so that was awesome, and then headed back to Guat city. That night we had dinner with Luis, his dad, and brother Santi. I said a comment that elicited and audible gasp from Luis and Katherine. Santi asked us if we were vegan or vegetarian and we said no. He started talking about how doesn't agree with some of the reasons people do it, etc. etc. and I chimed in saying"Well it's going to be killed anyway, I may as well be the one to enjoy it." Cue gasp. No regrets, I stand by my comment.
The next morning we got up at the crack of dawn to get on a flight to Tikal with Luisi, his mom, Andy (the youngest sister), and Santi #toscanafamilyvacation #toscanastaketikal. Katherine hates flying and the plane was tiny so that provided some entertainment. At one point she asked, "Are we going to see animals? Like can I hold an elephant?" Um well, yes and no. We made it to Tikal in one piece and followed our tour guide through the rainforest to the ruins. I love this kind of thing. I was sold just on hiking and nature, throw in the ruins of one of the largest urban centers of the Mayan Civilization and I'm absolutely loving life (Not being sarcastic, I really do love it, I'm the girl who picked Iceland for her graduation trip for Christ's sake). I noticed that most of the tourists there were from other parts of Guatemala or Central America. We went to the the top of one of the ruins, took some pictures, and as we were standing around Katherine leaned over and whispered, "uh don't look but those guys just took a picture of you." Ohhh well that's special. After we had made it back down and to another part of Tikal, the same guys walked past us. As they passed by, one guy, who was less then I foot from my face, just stared directly into my eyes as he walked around the corner. It was the most uncomfortable eye contact I've ever had in my life and there was no where else to look. I felt like he was trying to steal my soul. After the longest 10 seconds of my life, I look up to see Luis, his jaw dropped and laughing his ass off. Thanks for the support ol'buddy ol'pal.
We wandered around Tikal, saw an ancient Mayan ceremony, walked through a field filled with bugs to see it when there was path LITERALLY RIGHT NEXT TO IT (I blame this for my bug bites so I'm bitter), and took some more pictures. Now I've been trying to decide where to put this next part in, in the blog, and I guess here is as good as any place. You all know how Katherine and Luis are cliquey motherfuckers right? I mean I almost titled this blog post "The Katherine and Luis Show." When we were walking around Antigua, really walking anywhere for that matter, this was my life: |
Anyway, on one of the ruins Katherine and Luis took a cute picture together and then Katherine snapped a really great solo shot of me. I resembled a drowned rat. The comparison of the two was just so funny and so sad. There was one from Antigua at lunch that was the same awkward solo shot vs good picture. When we realized this we all cracked up. After that I truly embraced my role as that friend, and the pictures just kept coming. So I present to you a photo series I like to call "Forever Alone: 1, 2, 3 Only Really Just Me"
Hope you enjoyed that. If you don't get the end picture, it's a SNL reference and I don't know why we're friends. Edumacate yourself.
Moving on. After Tikal we went to the hotel we were staying in that was near the city Flores. After checking in, Katherine and I walked into the room we were sharing and it was so humid and hot. Turns out we got the room with the broken air conditioning. The lovely Luis simply responded with a, "Oh wow well that sucks. My room is really cold." Thanks, thanks a lot. We went to dinner in Flores and I stuck out like Miley Cyrus in a convent. Pretty sure I was the only blonde for miles, and my reflective skin tone only made it that much worse. At one point Katherine and Luis wanted to play game where they had me sit by myself and timed how fast someone would come talk to me. I vetoed that real damn quick. After dinner Luis bought a bottle of wine from a bar, mostly because Katherine and I needed it to be able to sleep in our toasty room. The next morning when everyone discussed how their rooms were so cold they had to turn off the air during the night, Katherine and I just shared a look. That day we went on a canopy tour hike and then went zip-lining. I love zip-lining, but it's not exactly Katherine's cup of tea. The first couple of lines she had couple of great screams when she jumped off the platform. About halfway through she asked me, "Don't people normally have helmets when they do this?" Uh yes, yes they do. So that was safe.
That night we flew back to the city and caught the second half of mass. It was all in Spanish so Katherine and I were always a beat late with every movement to stand or kneel. We got back to the house, exhausted from our trip, and fell asleep with Justin Bieber watching over us. The next day Luis, Katherine, and I were up and at'em once again and driving to Lake Antigua. I was the backseat DJ on the three hour drive there. In order to entertain myself, I took Katherine and Luis on a nice little journey through my life in song as I told stories after the songs that triggered a memory. It's an experience anybody would be lucky to have. Be on the look out for the next performance of "Maddie's Life in Song" during a car trip near you. We arrived in city at the lake and then had to take a boat to our hotel. We got dropped off at the dock and the hotel was high in the hill above us. A handy little sign let us know that it was 350 stairs to be exact. And it was steep. We were all breathing hard by time we got to the top. A couple of times I debated camping on the stairs for the night and heading to the summit in the morning. But it was worth it. The view from our room was incredible.
As a reward for our surprise workout we made ourselves some rum and cokes and enjoyed the view before dinner. During dinner, which I had some amazing lasagna (go figure), we met the only other people staying at the hotel, a friendly American couple who invited us to join them hiking the next day. We didn't, but that was nice of them. I would have had a lot fun walking at the back of that group. Instead of hiking we went kayaking and swimming in the lake. They informed us that they had three single kayaks and one double, but that two of the single kayaks were broken. Of course they were. After kayaking and swimming for a while we lounged around, had dinner, and then left the next day to go back to the city.
That night we went to dinner with Luis's oldest sister and her boyfriend. Katherine wasn't feeling well but she was glad she came because Luis's sister said one of the best lines of the trip, "Luis was such a gay little boy. He loved his Abba teens." Abba teens. . .A*teens. Just take a minute to process that. Lil' Lu Lu was a hardcore A*teens fan.
I mean we've all been there, with pop classics like Upside Down and their sugary sweet Abba renditions, you really can't blame him.
The next day of our never-ending Guatemala adventure the three of us got back in the car and headed towards the Toscana beach house. On the way there we stopped to hike a volcano that was on the way. Katherine was still feeling terrible and hadn't eaten anything in a while, so the hike was not fun for her. That, and there were these guys with horses who followed you up and would pester you to rent one of the horses to ride up. Katherine hates horses. In order to make sure they didn't get to close to her, I made it my mission to stay between her and the horses. At one point one of the horses even head butted me in the back as I shuffled in front of it. Oops sorry horsey. Katherine made it to the top without passing out, which was really impressive considering she hadn't eaten in about 24 hrs. After the hike we were back on our way to da beach.
The beach house is on a black sand beach and it is amazing. I was most excited for that fact that there were hammocks hung up in a shaded area. Minimal risk of sunburn and a comfy spot to read, I was in heaven. We took this little golf cart thing and drove up and down the beach before dinner. We passed a couple of beach soccer games, some monster houses, one under construction one (which we all agreed is where my body would be found if I got abducted), and some beach soccer pick up games. Then we walked down to the water and really basked in the contrast of my skin and the black sand. When we were walking back to the house Katherine said, "Ouch this sand hurts my feet." I said, "it's probably the shells." And then she said, "Yeah, shells from a gun." I don't think Luis found that as funny as we did.
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| No filter necessary. That contrast is real. |
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| nap time! |
At some point around this time, Luis started calling me 'Little Mikey' and then that morphed into 'Miguelito'. So apparently now thats a thing. Before bed Luis called us outside to look at the stars. Only the first thing we saw were all the lightening bugs, we started to lose our shit. Katherine and I had never seen them before and they were tons of them! Luis looked at us like we were insane and just shrugged his shoulders. As we were all falling asleep we took turns telling bed time stories. Luis's story was about Princess Katherine and Princess Miguelito. I wanted a pretty princess name. The story sucked.
The next morning we all got up and hung out around the pool. I felt so sick, feverish and like someone was twisting a knife in my stomach. After lunch that I didn't eat we drove back to Luis's house in the city. I had moments where I contemplated just throwing myself out of the car while we were driving I felt so terrible. As we got closer to the house, both Katherine and Luis started to feel sick too. Our plans switched from a nice last dinner with the Toscana family and then going out again with his friends to us sitting on the couch watching movies and wanting to die. Misery loves company.
The next morning Katherine and I flew back. And that about sums up our 10 day trip to Guatemala that no believed we were actually going on
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