After Semuc, the gritty reality of Tactic

This post won´t have any pics because I can´t figure out how to upload them from my camera without stealing them FROM the camera. Sorry guys. Sorry Kate and Mapache! I´ll put together a Picasa gallery later and put up captions and stuff. I hope the links in this post might make up for a lack of pìctures?

The following our Semuc Champey adventures, we arose early and caught a colectivo to Cobán. The driver asked me where we were going after Cobán, and upon hearing my answer, asked why. "Tenemos una amiga en Tactic. Con Peace Corps." His reply: "I was in Tactic on Friday. You should have gone then." Uh....how exactly does that help me now? So once we arrived in Cobán, the same driver gave me explicit instructions on how to find the bus depot where we could hitch a ride to Tactic. "It´s very close! Go straight here for a block, then three blocks to the left." Easy enough, right? HA! According to the generous hostess I will introduce in a moment, Guatemalans will aparently give you very exact direction to anywhere you want to go, even if they have no idea where it is. Which is exactly what we found with the next few people I asked (excepting the lady who wouldn´t answer me at all, which in retrospect was probably better)-- two policemen and a gentleman in the central park, all of whom gave me specific instructions in polar opposite directions. After wandering Cobán with two heavy packs, a third duffle and a fourth small bag, we were just loitering on a streetcorner in frustration when a rickety colectivo sped past and the driver shouted, "Adonde van?" Eric and I both yelled back "A Tactic!" and the driver made an open-fingered gesture that I interpreted as nah, we´re not going there, but I happened to look back and saw he´d stopped, so we both hitched up our bags and ran for it. What luck!

The person we were going to visit is Kate Griffin, a Peace Corps volunteer stationed in Tactic (pronounced Tack-teek) to work with the local high school. I came into contact with her somewhat by accident. When I was planning this trip, our friend Anne told me one of her best friends had a sister-in-law (I think) who was in Guatemala and kept a great blog about her experiences there. So of COURSE I read her blog from start to finish, beginning two years past, because I´m addicted to blogs, and found it to be exceptionally witty, insightful and informational concerning the way of life and customs in Guatemala. Once I got up to date on it, I emailed Kate to tell her how much I´d enjoyed it, we emailed back and forth, and eventually she invited us to swing by and see her on our travels. So we did!

30 or so minutes down the road in our crammed colectivo, we were let out in the middle of a downpour.....in a bit of a larger town than I had anticipated. It was at that moment that I realized I had absolutely no idea how to find Kate. I thought we´d be going to a small enough place that if I asked anywhere for "la casa de la gringa" anybody could tell me. Plus, a huge fair had just taken place and I was pretty sure there were plenty of strangers who´d have no idea what I was talking about. Crap. So Eric and I decided to get to an internet cafe where I could look in my Gmail account to find her phone number, then ask someone in a shop if I could use their phone. But Kate had apparently thought of this same scenario, and had emailed me exact (as in American, not Guatemalan) directions to her house. And we found it without any trouble.

For the rest of the day, we visited with Kate, her Dogo Guatemalteco puppy Mapache (Spanish for raccoon, because he has cute little spots on his eyes) and a co-volunteer of hers, Mike. We visited an excellent place for a much-needed, delicious lunch, talked about our similar taste in books, and took a challenging uphill hike to a Chi-Ixim church that had a black Christ and a cool Mayan sacrifice area (no humans) out front. We also walked around the markets and former fair-grounds of Tactic, and took more pictures of a church with carvings of jaguars and mermaids. And all along the way, Kate regaled us with stories of the Mexican and Guatemalan drug cartels, the goings-on of Tactic, terrible whitewater rafting accidents and hilarious observations of Guatemalan idiosyncrasies. We had an absolutely great time! Kate will be done with her volunteering tenure this year, and I´m going to miss her blog.

Okay so.....somehow Eric has secured a small show for us. As in, Eric on guitar and Gini on the microphone show. IN THE MIDDLE OF GUATEMALA!! How he does this, I will never know! So tomorrow I´ll be back with stories of Antigua and more link(s). You´ll have to wait for the story of the show. :)

Hasta pronto!