The Guatemalan HULK!

It is true. My enthusiasm for the bloggueing did diminish with the commencement of my journeys. This entire time i thought taking some more trips would reinvigorate me to take a seat in yet another crappy back breaking "internet cafe" chair to throw out some new and exciting stories for all those concerned in what it is i do.

I guess, on this particular trip, i became so involved in the moment that i hardly had enough time to react to the day to day happenings, which made it even more difficult to actually sit down and record some jaded and "humor" injected reimagination of them. But the trip has been very good and I can say that the only reason why I haven't been bloggueing is because I have been filling every moment with real life bloggueing or...living. So now, on the day before my final departure to a very confusing existence in the US, I will tell you of some of my adventures only in the hopes that the stories will further peak your interests and thus make you more inclined to find a way in which to visit me and hear them from my mouth in their purest form.

Guatemala - Advice for going to Antigua, Guatemal: If you want to go with some friends that is fine. If your two friends happen to be best friends who are themselves El Salvadorians and thus free to roam and "create any type of rukus they please" in neighboring Guatemala, remember that they have their own nationalities and your's does not permit you to go and act the same way as they do.

Antigua is a drinking man's place. Well technically all of central america is like that. The whole world is. Ok let's start over. Antigua is the clostest place to San salvador where you can find an ancient city thus "culture" and hordes of excitable gringa girls who have come to guatemala on their parents credit card to do a three week spanish course which they forget each night as the get plastered off tequilla shots and cheap beer poured into old styrofoam cups making it possible to booze in the streets.

We went there because the dudes were ready to shock all the girls, as they always do, by looking super latin (we're talking a kilo each of hair gell per cabeza) and yet speaking English like a mother toungue. It's wonderful to watch the girls as they stutter through their basic HOLA, Como estas? to then recieve the eloquent reply "I'm quite well thank you."

We were having some luck here and there, but no one was really "feelin' it." We continued to peruse the bars in the hopes that some girls might find our well pressed polo shirts a bit more appealing than those of the other 300 horndogs walking the cobblestone streets of this old central American capital, but we had no luck.

Finally, I have managed to allow my bad luck to simply be bad luck and not an excuse to get outrageously intoxicated...or maybe I just got lucky with this night. Our good friend, however, was not able to separate his emotion from the bottle and this is where the plot thickens.

This young man who we shall call....Juan Carlos, to both protect his identity and be slightly offensive, is no small dude. Imagine if a VW Beetle came to life and sprouted limbs and this would be an accurate discription of the ex-body builder who can crush litre beers faster than you can take a pee. In the beginning of the night Juan Carlos informed us that he usually put away around 30 beers in the period of one drinking night and he was getting very close to our believing every word to which he had earlier spoken.

After drinking what seemed like a child sized pool worth of beer JC was doing pretty well for himself and was showing that extra umf of confidence only realized through the use of the old "social lubricant." But then we got the time honored after party invite and there was simply no hope. (You see, in Guatemala all the bars close at 1am making it hard to do much late night partying. In recent years it has become a bit of a cult phenomenon to throw "after parties" to continue the bar feeling after hours. However, these after parties are usually someone's effort to open their own bar and illegally sell liquor to the select few bar folk that they choose to invite. The police do not like this practice.)

So we went to this after party and someone bought us a bottle of vodka and we started mixing it with orange juice. I know, brilliant! Alberto and I got the idea, that after parties are for mingling and not creating bad vibes in an already tense environment of law breaking partiers. Our friend JC however, got haaaaaaaammmmmered. Finished the bottle. Fell around. Made mean faces. Now looked like a drunk VW Beetle swirving around a small poorly lit bar. Oh yeah, disastrous.

The night ended without problems until big man JC saw us collect the girls emails (oh yeah, we are like so gonna email long distance syle until marriage get's into the convo) and he went off his rocker. Walking around the streets just screaming in any language that popped into his head first. 265 pounds of El Salvadorian raised meat rolling around the streets on a full on sexually frustrated rampage. He was yelling and pulling his hair, and banging on people's closed doors and even came up to me and bit me saying "i want flesh." It...was...fucking...crazy!!!

We tried our best to console him and figure out what to do, but before we could even get our footing right to brace the giant walking T-bone steak, I saw the blue sparking caps of the Guatemalan police force. Oh yes, Guatemala, one of the most currupt governments in all the lands, where the police do whatever they feel needs to be done in order that they recieve dinero. (Don't worry this isn't another I pooped my pants story, but it was close.)

I began to freak and wonder how I had even ended up with these two 19 year old bozos who were doing exactly the same things i was doing for four more years after the age of 19. I paniked and tried one last efort to stop JC when I was blinded by the two police jeeps that followed from both ends of the street to then reveal 8 more soldiers brandishing real live machine guns. HOLY SHIIIIITTTT!!!! (Don't worry, if I was shot i wouldn't be able to write this...or would I?)

So with guns drawn and police everywhere, who do they turn to for responsibility? El Gringo..ME!

Thank god I speak spanish

Officer- what is going on here?
Me- too much to drink sir. we were just trying to get our friend home
officer- do you know how late it is?
me- muy late
Officer- yeah, so why is your friend walking around banging on doors?

(JC is now walking around shaking hands and taking pictures with the police officers and asking to hold one of their machine guns.)

me- he has had way too much to drink sir and we have just been trying to get him back to our hotel.
Officer- what are you scared of you friend?

At this very moment we both look at JC and he lets out a giant scream before ripping his shirt off to expose a bigger chest than any two cops combined.

Me- sir, he is the fucking HULK!

At this both myself and the officers had one of those moments that only happen in outrageous movies; we slowly rose together in a giant eruption of group laughter.

We somehow made great pals of the cops and they even elected to throw us all into the back of the police pickup truck and drive us back to the hotel.

4am 4star hotel

Our three car police escort arrrived to a bit of fanfare as you might imagine. All the late night auditors came out to see us rolling a giant half-passed whale out of a police car and I'm sure at least one had a hernea. As we rolled down the halls waking every resident with the moans of old sexually frustrated JC, the manager was asking us our names and nationalities and many other questions.

He did that to ban us from ever staying in that hotel. We left the next day, sad at having had no luck with the girls, but happy nonetheless to have made a good story.