that I am not quite as naive as you might think. I´m pretty good at evaluating risks (it helps that I´m a decent reader of body language), and I´m also a pretty paranoid traveler when it come to petty theft et al. I keep my bags and daypacks locked, I lock my bag to the bed if there´s any concern about security. I also have caches of money, ID, etc. in three different places in case of theft–money belt, first aid kit (which is often but not always in my daypack), and taped into the bottom of my pack—the last is particularly hard to find and also particularly likely not to be stolen, if the pack is chained to the bed. I keep the bulk of my cash in a money belt, and only carry about fifty dollars in my wallet. This is enough to make a robber happy but not enough to be a serious loss….Also, if I absolutely have to, I spent five years teaching self-defense, and have a decent chance of taking apart anything up to four unarmed attackers, or one armed one.

It´s also pretty unlikely that I´ll get killed. Most crime against tourists is economic–the biggest one being petty theft, pickpocketing, etc.–so unless someone panics during a robbery, it´s unlikely I´ll be harmed. I´m colossally unworried about losing my stuff; it would be irritating, but problems that can be solved with a credit card really aren´t problems, at least while traveling. Nonetheless, I take all those security precautions anyway.

This is probably way more security than I need (most tourists don´t do even a tenth that), but being a project manager, I prefer to prepare for contingencies.

But really, 90% of not being robbed is simply paying attention in the first place.

Just got up, showered’–there´s a weird looking thing on the head of the shower that looks like a small propane gas tank with a lampshade on top of it, which presumably heats the water–and will shortly be out and into the city. There´s a large market today, and I hope to get a look at the local textiles. From what I´ve seen, they´re stunning.

Tien

Got here at just past 9pm tonight, just after the last shuttle to my hotel. (I´m staying in El Aeropuerto Guest House–I leave it to you to figure out how it got its name 😉 ) So I went to grab a cab, and immediately got accosted by a guy who offered to take me to the guesthouse for $10. Which was obviouisly highway robbery (that´s about what you´d pay for a low-end hotel room!), so I walked off and eventually wound up with another cab driver. This guy didn´t speak English, and I didn´t speak Spanish, and it quickly became obvious that he didn´t have the slightest idea where the guesthouse was either. So there I was, driving in circles around the airport area with a cab driver who couldn´t understand me and didn´t know where my hotel was or how to get there. (I did, with the help of my crash course in Spanish, eventually manage to communicate that the guesthouse was in Zona 13. I´m very pleased that I managed to remember what ¨13¨was in Spanish, after spending most of the day on a plane.)

Anyway, so there we were, driving around in circles. I´m not too worried because the guy clearly isn´t out to mug me (rule: moving taxicabs are generally honest, taxicabs sitting around parked waiting for a tourist might not be), and he´ll probably find some way to sort it out eventually. At worse, we drive around in circles for awhile and then wind up back at the airport, where I find another cab. (I am at least capable of saying Ël Aeropuerte, since it also happens to be the name of my guesthouse. LOL)

So then, while driving around in some ramshackle area with the driver asking me questions in rapid Spanish and me shrugging helplessly, we see two guys standing on the corner, who look like some kind of cops (or at least uniformed security). The driver pulls over, shouts at the guys, they come over, and after much chaffering and peering at the guidebook, they issue a set of rapid-fire comments which I can only imagine are driving instructions. It turns out we´re only a block or two from the place, and we pull up.

Now, of course, we come to the matter of money. There´s no way for this guy to tell me how much I owe him, since I can´t understand what he´s saying. I give him a dollar, clearly that isn´t enough, so I give him 100 quetzales, figuring he can get change. He either doesn´t have change or decides to make a pile of money off his fare, because he pockets the bill. Since it´s about 7.25 quetzales to the dollar, this is about $14, in other words, he´s engaging in even worse highway robbery than the other guy, since clearly I´m a hopelessly disoriented tourist (which is true). I, on the other hand, am not inclined to argue, as it really isn´t much money (for me) and I´ve just had the wonderfully surreal experience of floundering around a foreign city with a very lost taxi driver spouting questions excitedly at me in Spanish, which I can´t even start to answer because I only speak English. (Well, except I did manage to communicate ¨thirteen¨, which I¨m still very proud of.) This is such a quintessentially foreign-country experience that I´m happy to let him fleece the tourist; it´s the only possible ending to this epic tale of clueless tourism. I´m happy. I am clearly in a foreign country now. I might have had doubts before, but there is now no other possible interpretation: I must be traveling.

At any rate, I am now here in the guesthouse, where I was saved on entry by a missionary who helped me explain things to the night clerk (who also doesn´t speak English). Tomorrow morning Ricardo, the manager, is probably going to around; he speaks very good English, and I´m hoping I can get him to point me at a translator. Otherwise, this trip is going to be WAY more challenging than I´d expected.

A talk with two of the other guesthouse residents suggests that translators/guides should be readily available, though, for $4-10/day. They suggested I might want a trilingual guide if I´m serious about studying weaving in one of the Mayan villages–many of these villages speak the local language/dialect, and don´t speak Spanish at all. I´m going to ask Ricardo, and also try to get down to the Ethnobotanical museum on Monday (if I´m still around)–one of the missionaries suggested that would be a great place to start. I really need a specialist translator, one who understands textiles.

I´m still not sure what I plan to do with my time. I definitely want to study weaving, and do a loose textile survey of the region. I´ve also been told that the diving is excellent in Honduras Bay and Belize, and I may hop over there for a couple of days. Mayan ruins sound interesting, and so does the prospect of staying with a Mayan family for a couple of days. I was a little worried about whether there would be enough to keep me busy in Guatemala (I hadn´t realized what a tiny country it is!), but I think I´ll be fine.

I´ve just been handed a little thingamajig with a bottle of some clear liquid attached, an on/off switch, and an electrical plug on one end, which I am given to understand has something to do with ¨los mosquitoes¨. I wonder what´s in the bottle. Well, hopefully it won´t kill me, and hopefully it will get rid of the mosquitoes. I may even figure out (eventually) what it´s for.

See y’all tomorrow….

Tien

I’m starting to get the pre-travel jitters…half of me is saying, “Oh my God, what am I DOING?? I’m taking off into a foreign country armed with nothing but an ATM card and a guidebook, and I don’t even speak the language…”

The other half is saying, “Good gods, don’t be such a wimp. You went through all of SE Asia with even less of the language, and you were just fine. Relax.”

I’m just about fully packed–I’m currently taking care of minor stuff like dyeing the silk for my travel project, ripping my CDs to iPod (unbelievable–about half my CD collection is done already, and I’ve only used 3GB!!), and making a batch of chocolates to pay off my snake-sitter. Yesterday I had the pure joy of going down to Openwave and simultaneously picking up my severance check and dropping off my offer acceptance. How often do you get to do THAT? 🙂

Oh, and I have reservations for the first night, at a very nice if very pricey tourist hotel. Single bed, private bath, cable, the works, all for the extortionist price of $40. (By way of comparison, you can get quite a nice room for about $10-15, so this really is extortionist.) I like to have a guaranteed room for the first night, basically to let me stagger in from the airport and orient myself in peace.

My current plan is to spend a night in Guatemala City, then spend a few days in Antigua (which has been recommended for textiles and weaving) before heading up to the western highlands, which have the most textiles. Beyond that I haven’t any particular plans–I’m vaguely contemplating some diving, but generally just plan to explore as the whim takes me. Third World countries can change so fast that the guidebooks often don’t have the really cool stuff, so it’s better to pick a general destination and then poke around on your own. Of course, I’d do that anyway. 🙂

Anyway, I can’t wait to be off…I think the jitters will settle down as soon as I’m actually on the plane. After all, I’ve done this before. 🙂

Tien

I’ve been doing a trial run, packing my backpack today–it’s essential to do that the day before, so you can find all the things you’ve left out. I’ve been adding “buy this” items as I go.

My pack is a standard backpacker’s back, large but not a frame pack. I’ve got everything organized with Eagle Creek Pack-It Cubes –click on the link for a photo. Organization is essential for long-term backpacking; if you don’t organize everything into neat packages, you spend your entire life digging through your pack. After a few weeks of travel, you know exactly where everything is and can lay your hands on it. (I still remember exactly which item goes into which cube, and it’s been a good two years since I got back from SE Asia.)

(By the way, you don’t have to go out and buy the cubes, although I’ve found them more than worth the money; you can do the same organization with 2-gallon ziplock freezer bags. The cubes are more durable and stack more neatly, that’s all. And you can color-code them, which I’ve found helpful.)

I have the following cubes:

• 2 large maroon cubes: shirts and pants, plus bedsheet (for really grungy hotel rooms)
• 1 large yellow cube: dirty clothes, books
• 1 large blue cube: miscellaneous stuff (Kleenex, hand sanitizer, shampoo, etc.) plus MEDICAL KIT
• 1 small black cube: socks, underwear, bras, etc. (n.b.: some travel books say you only need two pairs of underwear. THEY ARE LYING.)
• 1 small blue cube: electronics and misc tools (needles and thread, Leatherman, duct tape, etc.)
• 1 small green cube: hobbies

I plan to dye some silk orange and black and bring it with me, along with a silver spindle, my Bosworth Mini, and some knitting needles. I’ll either make striped silk tiger socks or a tiger travel doily (not enough time for a shawl), or, well, something. I’m also bringing a nice length of bamboo in case I need more needles. (If I brought ready-made needles, they might be the wrong size; this way, I can make whatever size I want.)

For entertainment, I’m bringing two books–one is Kuki Gallmann’s I Dreamed of Africa, which was a gift from my career counselor (“to keep you company in your travels”). I’m not sure about the other one yet–probably The Fellowship of the Ring. I found I could get through all of SE Asia with one or two books in my pack–swapped them out at (tourist) used-bookstores as I went. Also the spindle, silk, and knitting, of course.

I’m also bringing an iPod (borrowed from a friend), although with a bit of trepidation. Any piece of small expensive gadgetry is a theft magnet; iPods are running about $300 right now. But it’s better than hauling along a CD player and a ton of CDs.

I’m also bringing along a digital camera with spare batteries and extra flash cards. I may bring the little laptop I carried through SE Asia, though if I can figure out how to download photos to the iPod, I’ll probably leave it behind. With only three weeks to travel, I can put up the Website once I get back.

Gosh! I think that’s about it. I’m going off to the store to buy the missing items now, and then I’ll have Friday to do the crash course in Latin American Spanish. I bought a phrasebook and a little book with a three-hour crash course in Spanish–I expect I’ll be able to get by with English (mostly), but it can’t hurt to know a bit of the language.

I’m really looking forward to this trip. Dusting off the travel gear is bringing back memories of Southeast Asia…I can’t wait to get on the road again. 🙂

Tien

Well, first, a few words on why I’m going to Guatemala…

As some of you know, I got laid off in 2002, in the middle of the great Silicon Valley Crash. My boyfriend dumped me three weeks later, leaving me free to take off for Southeast Asia. So I went for six months–the best six months of my life.

Well, I got laid off again in March, after just four months at my new employer, Openwave. They handed me a truly gigantic severance check (nine weeks’ pay!), and then, just for the fun of it, immediately turned around and started trying to rehire me.

(I am making light of this, but there were a lot of wonderful people who went to great efforts to place me within Openwave. To them I am truly grateful.)

So here I am now, with a job offer from Openwave and a truly gigantic severance check. There’s only one thing to do: go traveling.

So I negotiated three weeks before starting up my new job, and I’m off! I picked Guatemala because, of all the Central and South American countries, it has the strongest weaving tradition. The most enjoyable moments I had in all my travels were the four days I spent studying spinning and weaving with an old weaverwoman from an Akha hilltribe, living in an Akha village (bamboo house and all), and eating their food. I’m hoping for a similar experience in Guatemala–also a chance to collect some of their gorgeous textiles.

I also, of course, want to try eating the most bizarre foods I can get my hands on. In Southeast Asia, I ate rat, scorpion, and dog (although I missed trying roasted bat, for which I’m still kicking myself)–what awaits in Guatemala? I dunno, but I gotta try it. 🙂

Right now I’m prepping for the journey–buying various essentials, putting together my med kit, and so on. I’ll write more about that later, if I find time.

Tien