I believe that every guy needs a female friend in his life who says yes to statements like, “Do you want to go out on the town tonight wearing Gorilla masks?” Conventional wisdom said it was impossible. I simply wasn’t attractive enough. Common sense said it would never be. These types of things simply didn’t…
It’s never easy to leave the place you’ve chosen to call home. But if there’s a sign to look for from the universe that serves as confirmation that it’s time to go, then I’d say a neat pile of shit logs and a puddle of piss on your bedspread on your penultimate night in Antigua,…
“What’s going on?” A Canadian traveler asks her Australian boyfriend. All around them colored eggs (cascarones) are exploding, circulating their payload of confetti and glitter onto the people warring across the park. Mayan women without cascarones improvise by grabbing fistfuls of flour and throwing it into faces. Children, armed with…
Travel To Guatemala with $5,000 and you can live comfortably for a year. Calling all starving artists! When I was working for an NGO in Antigua, Guatemala, our volunteers were paid $400/month. This may not seem like a lot, but somehow, they not only made it work, they thrived. They took weekend trips to the…
Volcano Guatemala – It Could Happen to You The first page of the newspaper feels like oily sandpaper from the volcanic ash clinging to the ink of the lead photo which depicts glowing lava from El Volcan de Fuego, which just blew a plume 600 meters into the troposphere. It adds immediacy to the Prensa…
The burden of existence for a holiday is one person celebrating it once a year. Mariachi Day is a holiday I celebrate annually with whomever I can convince to take the day off life and join me in a horse drawn carriage to meet a Mariachi band—Los Principes—In San Felipe, Guatemala. Los Principes are the direct…
Avoid The Antigua Tax With One-Way Tickets To Guatemala Airlines should ban me from booking anything other than one-way flights. Please, airlines, ban me! I’ll do whatever illicit behavior it takes. I’ve just clocked in my 12th day in Guatemala, a full month left before my flight to NYC and then to Asia. But…
All around town evidence of the bandit’s coruscating reign of sparkle could be seen on glinting faces that puckered in a scowl whenever you asked them why they were wearing glitter. During a bear attack, one has at least some idea of how he will react (make friends with the bear via Doritos, play dead,…
I return to Antigua to recharge, remember, rediscover, and to discover. When you leave, a part of you, a real presence remains. A tree seen from distant angles of perspective is my metaphor for my life past and present in Antigua, Guatemala. When I first moved to Antigua, Guatemala in 2008, my view from my…
It’s a bit hypocritical of me to write tonight about the recklessness of others. Should I pretend that I did not just return from participating in a bit of stupidity myself? Yes. The person to blame is the sun. The mother of all life on Earth was in a big hurry to set today. I…
