He didn’t say whether he’d caught this lot yet. And he didn’t explain the nature of their crime. But that’s not the point of this post. Colum intends to climb every volcano in Guatemala and will let us know how he gets on. Begin the ascent! Rather him than me!

SUCHITAN, USA March 7, 2004

We climbed the Suchitan Volcano with my explorer/astronomer/philosopher friend Robertillo Monterroso and his friend Hugo and Hugo’s girlfriend Helen. Suchitan is an extinct volcano in the southwestern part of Guatemala. It´s a dry, poor part of the country but the landscape and weather are somehow appealing, having the same “big sky” feel of places like Wyoming and Texas. Tio Sam’s influence is strong here too and you see the effects of repatriated dollars from “remesas” everywhere in the form of nicer than normal houses. And like most remote corners of the country, we saw signs for Western Union.. It´s said that Guatemala and other Central American countries have a built-in buffer to economic downturns in the form of remesas (and ssshhh… drug trafficking).

Robertillo and I had seen Suchitan from the Jumay Volcano which we had climbed the week before. It is pretty much the same height, but as we found out, much more difficult.

We drove out of Guatemala City fairly early, getting to the town of Suchitan around 10AM, found a “guide”, negotiated a price and started walking through the small town to the slopes up the volcano. Our two guides were like Mutt and Jeff: One, Freddy, was short, stocky and strong, self-confident and ironic. The other, Luis, was taller, thin and had a serious stutter. He came off as more of a Cowboy to Freddy’s Indian. Cowboys and Indians: that´s a good way to summarize southeastern Guatemala.

Freddy had spent five years living in North Carolina and was planning to make his way back up in a few months. From the slopes of Suchitan, he pointed to the road leading out of town and said “that´s the road to the States” as if Texas was just over the next ridge. He claimed he had made it to Los Angeles in 7 days, crossing “la frontera” in “Fenis”, Arizona.

We walked through the “suburbs” of Suchitan, Freddy pointing out all the nicer houses paid for by remesas. The older, more traditional homes were made out of mud brick walls and heavy terracotta tile roofs that during earthquakes are responsible for most of the deaths. Each tile weighs about 2 pounds, even more in the rainy season when it absorbs the rain. Further down the road there were newer houses, very simple affairs, built for free by the Peace Corps.

We started to climb up the volcano, first through corn fields and then areas of low, dry scrub which had obviously earlier been cow pastures. After climbing Acatenengo Volcano (one of the highest and hardest to climb in Guatemala) two weeks prior, both Jumay and Suchitan deceived me into thinking that they were just little hills and that the claims in the Guidebook of Volcanoes in Guatemala that they took 3 hours to climb was an exaggeration. However, Suchitan was a difficult climb and Helen, especially, was having a hard time with the steep, dusty slope.

We climbed through the scrub to the top of the ridge where the forest started to get nice and lush and the air became cool and damp and felt good on our hot dry skin. The contrast in the tropics between sun and shade, meadow and forest is startling sometimes. When you step from field to forest it can feels much the same as stepping off a sweltering summer sidewalk in Washington (my hometown) into an air conditioned building, only the building is much more humid than the field.

In contrast to the scrub of the lower slopes, the ridge top of Suchitan still had some decent-sized trees and had the look and feel of a cloud forest with bromeliads, orchids and epiphytes covering thick, gnarly branches overhead. I noticed that many of the epiphytes were of a type I had never seen before and wondered if each volcano had its own species, wished I knew more about these fascinating plants.

The trail leveled out on the ridge and we walked through a nice cloud forest, skirting around what seemed to be a summit and continuing on along another ridge. The summit of the volcano was like a giant T, with the side we ascended hiding a perpendicular ridge behind.

At the bottom of a descent there was a group of locals on a day hike. An older man who appeared to be the leader of the group of mainly kids claimed that he had climbed Suchitan more than 50 times.

We continued on to La Piedrona, a summit rock accessible by a steep trail with a cable handrail. On top, we were treated to a beautiful view of the arid landscape around us sprinkled with volcanoes and smaller conical hills that weren’t technically classified as volcanoes but sure looked like them. There is some debate in Guatemala about exactly what is a volcano. The Alpinist Federation of Guatemala claims that there are 37 volcanos in the country, and claims that the tell-tale feature of a volcano is the existence of a certain type of rock on the summit that indicates that there was a crater there.

Directly in front of us was the Retana Laguna, which was a large crater-like lake whose flat lakebed was, according to our guides, drained by a tunnel built by the gringos to irrigate nearby fields. There was obviously still a lot of moisture and nutrients in the soil as it was being heavily cultivated. Robertillo claimed that 20 years ago, it was an important sanctuary for migratory waterfowl, and it was said that the ducks were so thick that if you tossed a stick into the air a duck would fall down dead. Our guides confirmed that there are still a lot of ducks during November and December and people from the city still come to hunt.

Although we had explained to them that we were from ARCAS and were conservationists, Freddy and Luis still didn’t get it. We asked them “todavia se ve patos”, “can you still see ducks?”. They responded “si, todavia se consigue.” “Yeah, you can still get (shoot) some.”

In general, I found it difficult and at times interesting seeing the reaction to my explanation to Guatemalans, especially rural Guatemalans of what I was doing in their country. Responses ranged from:

“Nature, I love nature! Cows, corn…. it’s beautiful!

“You conserve parrots? That’s interesting. How much can you get one for me?”

“Wildlife conservation? That’s great that someone’s doing that!”

And the inevitable jibes about how sea turtle eggs and tepesquintle meat are so delicious… Yawn, yawn…

There was a group of boys on the top of La Piedrona flying pieces of litter like kites and running like billygoats over the rocks and ridges. Someone had taken an enormous crap by the side of the trail that was drying in the sun none too slowly, a nice touch, I thought. A wildfire was burning out of sight over the ridge at the end of the T with billowing clouds of smoke rising in front of us. As in other places in the developing world, fire is seen as a friend, comforting even, that helps clear the land before the rains come, leaving pastures and cornfields ready to plant. The fact that these fires regularly go out of control and sweep across wildlands, burning down forests and preventing their natural regeneration, seems to be of little concern. Better yet, it’s considered to be natural. I’ve always thought that it was telling that people in Latin America use the work “limpiar” (clean) for clearing land, as if forested land was somehow dirty.

We ate a sandwich for lunch and I got a phone call from Ricardo from Washington: another one of those bizarre moments out of some sort of cell phone commercial. We started down the mountain, passing the group of kids. Freddy was a nice guy, but was obviously impatient with the frequent stops we were making. Hugo and Helen were getting tired. Every time we stopped for a rest, he’d get up a few seconds later and say “OK, let’s walk”. But he kept me amused with his Marquez-esque view of the world. He talked to me about his life in the States, how he worked in a restaurant, pronouncing the name unintelligibly over and over. An Italian restaurant. He had started out as a dishwasher, but worked his way up to salad chef . I asked him if he had seen the mountains, or the beaches of North Carolina and he said that he only had one day per week off and that it didn’t give him enough time to travel. He talked fondly of his “matrona”, saying she treated him really well. I imagined that if I were a struggling small business owner and was lucky enough to find a loyal worker like Freddy, willing to work 6 days per week 12 hours per day, I would treat him well too. I asked him if he had papers. He said no. I said that it wasn’t that easy to get into the States any more without papers and he just shrugged as if to say, “we’ll see.” What hearty, hardworking, optimistic people! I wondered whether that is what allowed them to survive and even flourish when most of the other indigenous peoples of the New World had been wiped out. Perhaps their willingness to work with the patron, rather than fight against him.

We continued walking down the mountain, and about 300 meters from town, a rock fell on Helen’s ankle, and although she didn’t appear to break anything, she couldn’t walk. I walked ahead and brought the Trooper up the trail as far as I could and we waited for an hour for them to limp up. We were all quietly impatient with Helen as she had moped and complained for much of the trip, even before her accident. Freddy wasn’t very quiet though. “If it wasn’t for her boyfriend, I would have thrown her over my shoulder like a sack of rice. Like this.” he tells me gesturing. We drove back into the village and to a store recommended by Freddy to have the coldest beers in town. No better way to celebrate the conquest of a mountain! When I went to buy another round, the owner greeted me in broken English “Where you from?” and explains to me that he lived 8 years in Austin before recently being deported.

Scene: Edgebrook near Chicago. A railway station. It is raining. Enter Hiroyuki Joho, 18, encumbered with an umbrella and in a hurry.

Action: Hiroyuki stumbles into a speeding Amtrak train and his body disintegrates. A large section is hurled in the direction of the southbound platform where it hits Gayane Zokhrabov, 58. Gayane takes a tumble, breaks a wrist and one leg and hurts her shoulder.

Legal action: Gayane hires a lawyer and SUES Hiroyuki. In case you skipped a couple of sentences in this post I should perhaps draw your attention to the fact that Hiroyuki is dead. Gayane’s lawyer takes the case to a US appeals court. The court ruling?

The court gives the go ahead. It’s legally acceptable in the US to sue dead people for inadvertantly firing body parts at commuters after being smashed to pieces by a high speed train.

And here’s why you find no brake skid marks on a highway with a roadkill lawyer smeared over the hot top.

Gayane’s lawyer smugly issues the following statement, “If you do something as stupid as this guy did, you have to be responsible for what comes from it.”

This monstrous tale of human tragedy, human avarice, legal stupidity, and utter indifference to the feelings of the family of the deceased was reported in the Chicago Tribune.

Children Are Quick

TEACHER: Why are you late?
STUDENT: Class started before I got here.

TEACHER: Glen, why do you always get so dirty?
GLEN: Well, I’m a lot closer to the ground than you are.

TEACHER: Millie, give me a sentence starting with ‘ I. ‘
MILLIE: I is..
TEACHER: No, Millie….. Always say, ‘I am.’
MILLIE: All right… ‘I am the ninth letter of the alphabet.’

TEACHER: Clyde , your composition on ‘My Dog’ is exactly the same as your brother’s. Did you copy his?
CLYDE : No, sir. It’s the same dog.

Take note chaps! If you are living in Bangkok and have a good home, SCAD still has hundreds of animals desperately in need of one. SCAD inoculates the animals it rescues so you won’t contract rabies, they neuter the animals, and you don’t have to pay to take them away. Although a donation is welcomed. Vietnamese restaurant owners need not apply!

Cheers!

Hugh

PS That’s beloved daughter Annabel holding them. She is so happy!

Hugh Paxton Blog Ed Note: No point in border formalities. I’d shoot the dog from my side of the fence. He goes first and I thus offer him the chance to let me know the answer to this important question in his own time.

These are classified ads actually placed in U.K. Newspapers:

FREE YORKSHIRE TERRIER.
8 years old,
Hateful little bastard.
Bites!

FREE PUPPIES
1/2 Cocker Spaniel, 1/2 sneaky neighbor’s dog.

FREE PUPPIES.
Mother is a Kennel Club registered German Shepherd.
Father is a Super Dog, able to leap tall fences in a single bound.

COWS, CALVES: NEVER BRED.
Also 1 gay bull for sale.

JOINING NUDIST COLONY!
Must sell washer and dryer

WEDDING DRESS FOR SALE .
Worn once by mistake.
Call Stephanie.

**** And the WINNER is… ****

FOR SALE BY OWNER.
Complete set of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 45 volumes.
Excellent condition, 200 or best offer. No longer needed, got married, wife knows everything.

Subject: BusinessDay – Rhino poaching: what is the solution?

http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=162979

Hugh Paxton’s Blog is in complete agreement with Brigitte. These are indeed amazing paths!

Amazing Paths…

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May the path your life takes in the next year lead you to fun and adventure, love and peace.

YOU’VE GOT TO LOVE THIS FARMER’S OUTLOOK & COMMON SENSE APPROACH TO LIFE

While sewing a cut on the hand of a 75 year old farmer, who’s hand was caught in the gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to the ANC and Julius Malema The old farmer said, ‘Well, you know, in my opinion, Malema is a ‘Post Turtle”. Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him, what a ‘post turtle’ was. The old farmer said, ‘When you’re driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that’s a ‘post turtle’. The old farmer saw the puzzled look on the doctor’s face so he continued to explain:

You know he didn’t get up there by himself, He doesn’t belong up there, He doesn’t know what to do while he’s up there, and you just wonder what kind of dumb idiotsput him up there to begin with.

I then thought of webs – thin biteable webs of skin between my fingers – but I thought “Hugh, just pull away slowly. Keep your webs away from this fellow and do something clever with your feet.”

It worked and did not.

The intriguing thing about pulling away from a sea snake is that your reverse motion sucks the snake along with you. The more I gently retreated the more my snake was drawn in. I began to think about other thin membranes I was in possession of. I had a mask on my head. But it was on the top of my head. My eyelids, were they in jeopardy? My lips were kissing distance distant. And my throat? What about my throat?

The encounter didn’t last more than three minutes. And it stopped when I stopped moving and doing clever things with my feet. The snake swam not quite over my shoulder but it felt like it and then it cleared off in a lazy ripple. It was a graceful thing. A speckled band.

I wouldn’t describe the encounter as relaxing but it added interest and that’s what life’s about.

Here’s a sea snake from Bunaken Cha Cha resort in Sulawesi. The finest dive resort this blog has ever visited.

Sea Snake

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