The Beautiful Wedding

Muz and I took off for LA last Thursday to celebrate the wedding of Muzzy's sister Irene. It was a grand, gala affair in full LA style. Outdoors in the 80 degree October weather, perfect, halcyon, palm trees, pomegranates, lemon trees and houses throughout Alta Dena and Pasadena decked out in full Halloween regalia. The wedding took place in Farnsworth Park, outdoors in the amphitheater with the stage featuring a huge flower filled in with red rose petals outlined in marigolds. The bride was a vision of exotic splendor and the groom suitably handsome in a traditional Indian knee length jacket. The reception took place in the lodge where many of the scenes from Dirty Dancing were filmed. We worked on the decor all day, long tables with black table cloths and black lacquered runners strewn with white flower petals, hand made intricate tapestries that were made by two of Irene's friends hung from the rafters. They were on loan from an exhibition at a local art gallery. The head table was placed in front of the massive fireplace whose mantle had been lined with photos of absent family members. Catering by Wahib was a brilliant idea, great Lebanese food, a fabulous band, and a glittering array of family and friends added to the perfect event.
Staying at my brother and sister-in-law's is always a treat. Safe from the recent fires, the house sits at the foot of the San Gabriel mountains. The air was clear from the recent rains, and my one treat was a visit to The Folk Tree to see their Day of the Dead altars exhibit. it was more than inspiring. While I don't want to live in LA again, the "city hit" just wires my mind and sets my creative juices churning. Check out www.ladayofthedead.com to see what our next year's project may be. Irene has asked me to do this with her next year and we may have to make it a family event. Call it what you will, cross-cultural, multi-cultural, the blending of the hispanic tradition around the Day of the Dead with the LA flair for the dramatic is something to see. Since death is the theme of this time of year (and this time of my life!), I am filled with joy at the ways I have seen it expressed this last long weekend.

Call for Artists

Bijoux is bumbling along through the summer. Thanks to all of our supporters. Downtown Bellingham may make it, no thanks to the city fathers or mothers. I will be doing my yearly offrenda in Bijoux's front window for the Days of the Dead and had hoped to involve the local arts community with a nice exhibit like the one I saw in Mt. Vernon last year. But it is not to be. So, how about a grass roots sort of movement. Does anyone out there do artwork around the Day of the Dead theme? I would be happy to host your art at Bijoux for the month of October, and if it looks like I have too many takers, I'll help you find another spot to exhibit. Just drop by and talk it over with me. We all need to pull together in these "par'lous" times!

Almost as good as traveling!

I just began cataloging and pricing a 40 year collection of amazing artifacts from Panama, Peru, Ecuador, Guatemala, the Phillipines, India, Bali, Laos, Thailand and more. The collection has some pieces that belong in a museum and belongs to a man with an incredibly discerning eye, and a love for all things unique and exotic. I will begin integrating it into Bijoux as soon as I can. I even bought a new cabinet to house the baskets and pottery. This is great stuff that ranges from the mundane to the sublime. If you are in town drop by as I unfold all of these wonderful items into the shop. I even have the stories and dates to go with them! I feel incredibly privledged to be part of helping him divest a lifetime of travels and tales. In the midst of life's trials and tribulations, I am blessed with much.

New musings, new travels. My mind slip back to Laos and Muzzy is itching to take the train to Lhasa. Northern India beckons and travel is on my mind. I need more great "stuff" for my great store, Bijoux, www.bijouxtradingcompany.com. It's movin' slow in this economy. I'm hanging on by a thread and I can almost see a light at the end of the tunnel. My web administrator says I need to push the site everywhere I can, so come out and support me! Visit my site, visit my store if you come to Bellingham.....Bijoux Bijoux Bijoux!!!

Reflections on Guatemala

I am still conflicted about this trip. In retrospect there were many wonders, not the least of which was traveling with my favorite companion, being silly, and seeing the world without telephones, computers, televisions and such. Of all the marvels, I think the birds and beasts of Tikal stand out most for me. I still haven't gotten a bird book so I can read about them and show them to my mother and to Sarah and Don, but I looked some of them up on the net today. Of the mot mot, I have to say, I only got a very shady look at it and after seeing it's amazing tail in a photo, I wish I had seen more. Montezuma's Oropendula was so prolific, it was just commonplace, but always startling and it's voice was lovely. The Violaceous Trogon...a small, colorful bird with a huge name, was a real treat since they don't seem to be very common. And the keel billed Toucan still makes me think of Fruit Loops. I never thought I would see so many wonderful birds outside of a zoo...

As for the rest? Guatemala is an enigma to me. Parts of it were lovely and charming, but it was hard to get next to, hard to travel, and I've had some hard traveling before this. I just prefer Asia. There is something more welcoming, less tense, more like a soft embrace when I wander through those countries. Guatemala was hard in the way rocks in your shoes are hard, or the way a cold hard cement bench is hard. But the textiles dazzled my eyes and the mountains around Todos Santos were a moonscape with the giant agaves blooming indiscriminately on a landscape so bleak and dry. So I'm glad I got to see it all, of course. And I know that travel, any travel, is a privilege. I never take it for granted, and I hope I will get to do it again...maybe not to Guatemala, but somewhere. I'm certainly ready to go any time.

Next to Final Post

Belize...did all we could. Muz swam with the rays and the tarpins and the turtles and sharks, etc. etc. We sunned and sanded and found a remedy for sand flea bites. We gorged ourselves with the meat pie man´s wares, guzzled juice from Julia the Juice Lady and got pineappled, limed and grapefruited out. We had Dove bars in various incarnations and tried our darndest to find the perfect cup of coffee. We even saw a dead inflated blowfish! Eeek! Island life, mon...
We took a beautiful boat ride across azure waters to Belize City, a Christian cab ride to the airport (he preached the whole way there), surprised to find ourselves booked into first class on Taca Airlines to Salvador and then to Guatemala City. We´re back in Antigua now, preparing for the push home tomorrow. The Posada San Sebastian (yet another wacky room!) seems like home. We snuck out this morning before the parrot was up and headed across the plaza to Cafe Condessa for some good Guatemalan coffee and panqueques. Yummmmm....then off to the Artesanas Mercado for one last negotiation...ah more textiles...but really, your honor, I have a PLAN! And as Mr. Muzzy says, ¨Yo soy es Burro¨.
Thanks for enduring the posts. I intend to post a long boring Ïmpressions¨ wrap up whe we get home.
The Muzzys

Winding Down

Antigua to Tikal. We left Antigua in the misty morning. Sitting in the tiny domestic airport in Guatemala City, no coffee, 4 very strange looking folks walk into the waiting room. The men were tiny with tiny voices and plastic cowboy hats. One woman was small with a VERY strange voice and the other was large with the ugliest dress I've ever seen and a big neckbrace. Both the women had black scarf-bonnets on their heads and they all spoke some very unrecognizable language...so...4 Mennonites walk into a waiting room...
The prop plane ride over the jungle was nice, short and smooth and we landed in Santa Elena where a big sign with Mr. Muzzy on it waited with a van to take us to Tikal. Our guide, Berta, was already quizzing us on jungle flora and fauna...see de big hill ova dere sticking into de lake? What does it look like to you? Ah ah ah...an alligator? Berry good! An hour and a half later we pull up to the park entrance (actually, the entrance was an hour before that) and we beg for some coffee and breakfast before beginning our 3 hour tour with guide...5 hours later we dragged our weary butts into the lobby of the Tikal Inn again and collapsed. Berta tells us our entrance fee to the park is still good and we can go back later in the afternoon if we like....right....

It was pretty amazing. Spider and Howler monkeys with their babies swinging through the trees, agouti rummaging along the jungle floor, the blue headed mot mot and chatty oropendulums along with a long list of other tropical birds. And then there were the ruins! Oh my oh my! Well worth the trip. Right out of the opening of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Muz got lots of photos and only dropped a lens once (he was younger then, only a few days before his birthday)! As I looked over the edge of one of the temples down into the dense jungle, I was grateful we didn't have to climb down to get it. Needless to say, by the end of the walk we were templed and ruined and ready for a nap.

We awoke the next morning to parrots and toucans having breakfast, screeching and warbling. Shelley grabbed her binoculars and headed out of the Inn onto the big clearing around the visitors center. Muzzy moved more judiciously to a chair by the pool where he saw just about as many birds with much less movement. There was actually a yellow-breasted woodpecker making improvements to its house right there in front of us.
We headed back to Flores in the afternoon...a quick stop for the night on the little island in the lake and then a bus to Belize City the next morning.

We spent about an hour at the Guatemala-Belize border. You have to actually get off of the bus, with your stuff, stand in line to get an exit stamp from Guatemala, and then walk across a bridge into Belize, get another stamp, and then wait for your bus to come through the border as well. We bought a couple of breakfast burritos, and boom boom...on our way to Belize City. The roads were instantly 150% better, the language changed from Spanish to English, and we were dropped right at the Caye Caulker Water Taxi...grabbed our bags and bought a couple of round trip tickets and were on our way out into the Caribbean on a 60+ person boat skipping over the seas passing reef after reef at about 50 mph.

An hour later we landed on Caye Caulker, found a place to stay and began slowing down for real....

More later, maybe....
Muz and Shell

Todos Santos and back

We decided to leave Todos Santos before noon on Saturday. When we first arrived, Jon had found, with the help of our somewhat dodgy innkeep, a secure place to park the 4WD Hyundai deisel rented in Guatemala City for the trip. It immediately became apparent that the one and a half working glow plugs weren't working at 8800 feet...the car wouldn't start and we ran the battery out. Aha...here we are, Todos Santos, major market day, far from anything resembling a car repair shop and we needed another battery. Flayanna and I adjourned to the town square and found a seat while Jon and Muzzy hiked up and down, up and down and I really mean UP and Down, looking for an auto mechanico. Jon had been in Todos Santos a few years earlier and taken photos of a young man whose photo was later picked up for a worldwide HP campaign. He and Muzzy found the young man's family and cousin Benito came to our rescue, leading them to a motor vehicle graveyard sort of auto repairish shop where they rented a battery that had been removed from a wrecked pickup. To assure it wouldn´t go missing, Flayanna and I observed a small parade of traditionally clad Todos Santeros men, Muzzy and Jon (and the battery carefully cradled in a large piece of plastic) through the center of town....and after some manipulation, the car started. Then the owners of the two huge transport trucks that had been parked behind the car had to be found and the intense manipulation to move them...sort of like one of those flat puzzles where you move all the little squares around up and down in order to get them in order...and we were actually on our way...some two hours after we had intended. The way back to the main highway seemed shorter but no less perilous and we jounced and bumped and rattled our way into Huehuetenango where we immediately grabbed a room in a magical little hotel in the center of town. Our room was off a lovely little courtyard with a huge fountain and caged singing birds, TV and all! I must here interject the curious concept of the speed bump. Throughout Guatemala, on all the roads, no matter what their condition, Guatemala has installed speed bumps...few of them in any place that makes any sense at all. It makes driving a true adventure...ones that make the windshield wipers start up are considered a 10.

The next day we stopped briefly in Quetzaltenango, known as Xela (shay la) where Jon (and Muzzy) had an intense photography session with a family on the edge of town. We actually stopped to photo an old car covered in dust when these two ancient women came out and insisted we take photos of them. One of them kept grabbing my arm and hugging me...she was toothless, with gnarled hands covered in leather like skin...sweet and charming as could be and chattering at me in a steady stream of Spanish and Kich e (a Mayan dialect). The photos are quite amazing. We liked Xela, an old coffee town with colonial Spanish style buildings and the facade of a 16th century church, and if we come back, I could see spending some time there...still pretty high up at 7200 feet.

Then back to the Posada where we fell into our suite in exhaustion. David and Susie were kind enough to upgrade us to the Jr. suite at the same price as a cabana. It was impossible luxury after the 2 days in Todos Santos... what a contrast. Then David contracted with Muzzy to do more photos of the Posada for his website and they paid us with room and board for one day...sweet. We indulged in guacamole and chips (handmade blue corn tortillas custom fried for the order) and a lovley rum and fruit drink with a basil sprig by our favorite bartender, the lovely Laura...she is part of the package deal with the world class chef. They were quite a couple!

We left the next morning at the crack of dawn, chilly ride in the back of a pick up down to the beach, into a collectivo, across Lake Atitlan in the misty morning with about 14 other indegena bound for the Tuesday market at Solola. We hopped on a shuttle for Antigua and our home at the wacky Posada San Sebastian...on to our next adventure...Tikal and Beyond.

Todos Santos and Flying Ants

After hooking up with our friend Jon Kaplan, we delayed our departure for Todos Santos a day to take a trip into Panajachel and San Cristobal. Jon, for those of you who don't know him, is a world class photographer of indigenous peoples whom we met in Bali in 1993. He and his partner, Flayanna, Muzzy and I drove around the volcano through fields of coffee plants, shade grown, and into Pana where we picked up an old friend of Jon's, an older woman named Sarah, who has lived in Guatemala since she was 6. What a character! She conducts textile tours for tourists and is herself a weaver. She also makes patchwork quilts which she sells in Antigua, Pana and the US. She hitched a ride with us out to San Cristobal where she introduced us to some weaver friends. Of course I had to buy a huipil and although I didn't buy a traditional San Cristobal one, I did buy one that her friend's daughter made for herself. Its glorious, as are most of the textiles here. At any rate, Sarah bore a striking resemblance to my good friend Cathryn.

We left for Todos Santos the next morning. Hooking up with the Interamerican highway, Mexico and Seattle to the north, Hondorus to the south, we sped north up into the Cuchmatanes mountains, the highest mountain range in Central America. The road took turns at being smooth and speedy and then reverted to its original patchwork of disrepair, sudden ruptures, and ubiquitious speed bumps. It is, after all, an area of earthquakes, volcanoes, and landslides. Passing through villages of adobe huts, herds of sheep and dry, high desert landscapes, we reached Huehuetanango, rumpled, dusty, shaken up and hungry. Jon stopped at the new shopping mall (!) and we ate at the McDonald's! Muz hasn't been in a McDonald's in 25 years and though we were skeptical, Jon assured us we wouldn't regret it. I was grateful for the clean, nearly fully equipped bathroom. Jon was a little unsure of the turn-off for Todos Santos, but since he was here 4 years ago there is a nice big sign indicating the direction. That was also where the "highway" ended. From there on it was dirt and gravel, hairpin turns, chicken buses and trucks coming the other direction on a one-lane road, sheer drop-offs to the side. At the over 10,000 foot mark, we passed through flat mountain meadows, dry, barren, littered with volcanic rock and sectioned off fences of agave plants, complete with 25 foot blooms. It looked like another planet. Then we descended into the valley of Todos Santos, 8800 feet up.

The Hotelito Todos Santos was our home for 2 frigid nights. Our first room was at street level behind a barred barrier to the 8 foot wide cobblestoned street. Very much like a small dungeon cell, the blankets stayed damp all night and we slept in everything we owned. We were awakened to the sounds of a boom-box and the whine of a carpenter's power plane as the carpenteria was only 8 1/2 feet away from our door. We made our way out to Katy's Comedor...now don't get excited. This is the way it works. There are no noticeable places to eat in Todos Santos. Katy's was a small adobe hut with a half door. You walk to the door, poke your head inside and yell "Hola! Comedor?" And somewhere in the back a light comes on and either Katy, and ancient woman in traditional huipil and dark indigo skirt comes to the front, or one of the children comes forward and opens the door. You go to the woodstove area in back and Katy tells you what she can offer...usually beans, rice and eggs. That's breakfast. Dinner is either chicken fried, chicken pipian, or one night carne asado, beans, rice and/or eggs. Yes. Oh...and blue corn tortillas, LOTS of blue corn tortillas, more than you could ever eat...which could or could not be a good thing. By the way...a good rule of thumb is not to eat any meat when you travel...unless you are staying at the Posada, of course.

Todos Santos....this is probably the most traditional village in Guatemala. The men all, and I do mean ALL, still wear traditional "traje" which means costume. Exceedingly colorful it consists of red and white stripped pants, thin blue and red stripped shirt with a handwoven elaborately ornamental collar, and a small straw hat with blue band studded with silver. The older men also add a black wool sort of chap-like garment over the top of the pants, open in front and hanging to the knees in back with a small stripe of blue cloth sewn to the bottom edge. We will post a photo soon. Most of the pants are custom made, the men are the tailors. The young men add their own style by making the pants quite baggy, ala US style. All of the fabric is handwoven. The women wear an indigo corte (skirt) with a lighter blue stripe and an elaborate woven huipil, in blues and purples, their hair in long braids down the back with ribbons woven in them, tied together at the bottom. Its quite something to see the whole town turned out on market day like a flock of exotic birds.

End Part 1

Movin' on day...we think

Time to reckon the bill and pay for a week of decadence here at the Posada. We've been back and forth across the lake a few times, sometimes rougher than others. Chaldera's aren't always the calmest places. The wind has come up and a couple of the crossings have been bone-jarring adventures that have left Shelley's hands cramped from gripping the plastic seats as the boat slammed into the waves. It didn't help that we heard that a couple of months ago 5 people didn't make it...sunk like a rock was the term David used, I believe. Nice. We intend to move on today. We did, however, make it to the market in Santiago Atitlan twice and yesterday raced across the lake, grabbed a tuk tuk to the bus station, just in time to have Muzzy push my butt up into the rear end of the chicken bus to Solola (he needed two hands!). The bus then climbed over 1000 feet in 20 minutes on a road that had more twists and turns than a bad mystery novel. It never slowed down once, just honked as buses decending waited at the hairpin corners for us to pass them. Yikes! Arriving in Solola was a relief and a thrill. This sprawling village on the top of a ridge, the main plaza packed, Guatemalan music blaring out over the balmy windy day as hawkers cried their wares...vegetables, fruits, chickens, tables of hand-woven fabrics sold by women in amazing costumes, men strutting like peacocks in fabulous ghost-cloth jackets with over embroidery, cowboy hats and these great spotted wool skirt-like things around their hips...and villagers from all over in different costumes of amazing colors and head ornaments. What looks like "costumes" to us is actually their daily wear...and they wear it proudly. This is not a tourist market. We only saw a very few gringos...none buying cloth...this market was locals only. There were tables of beads sold in small packets and by weight, stalls of brightly colored thread...I swear Guatemala has the corner on DMC embroidery floss! And then there was the food! Chuchitos, small tamales with ground meat inside, more avacodoes, soups and stews and ice cream. It was a fabulous market well worth the hair-raising climb.
We have hooked up with our friend Jon Kaplan and intend to start heading toward the highland village of Todos Santos...maybe in one day or perhaps stopping on the way. If you want to know what these areas look like, Google the names and take a look around.
On the road,
Shell & Muz

Lago de Atitlan, Guatemala

Hola!
Left Antigua yesterday via shuttle bus. 3 hours later we came up over the mountains and stopped for our first view of Lake Atitlan. Lago de Atitlan was formed 150,000 years ago in an eruption that sent ash as far as Florida and Panama. The chaldera filled with water and created this amazingly beautiful 128 sq. kilometer lake. It is ringed by three volcanos, Atitlan, San Pedro and Toliman, which is where we are now...on the lake. We navigated our way successfully, after some firece negotiation with boat captains in Panahachel, crossed the lake and landed at Santiago Atitlan where we got a ride in a tuk tuk up the hill to the Posada Santiago. How can we describe the posada? The interior is like the inside of a medieval castle built from volcanic rock overlooking the lake at Volcan San Pedro. It last erupted some 30,000-40,000 years ago so we're either okay or overdue. This is an incredible posad and as luck would have it, a world class chef who normaly plies his trade on world-class yachts is staying here for 3 months...poor us! No dieting here. The food has been simply unbelieveable. We've walked into the village itself a couple of times but went to our first Friday market today. I don't think I've ever seen so many avacados in one place...or handwoven, brightly embroidered fabrics and women and men like exotic birds all around us. Pretty special. Our bungalow is a stone hut with a toasty fireplace...a cross between a hobbit house and the stonecutters cottage in a fairy tale. We'll be here a few days and plan to explore some of the villages on the hills around us. More later...
Feel free to drop a line...the adventure continues.

La Antigua, Guatemala

We made it and made it safely! Muzzy just had some Guatemalan chocolate (cup of hot chocolate and 2 cookies) and he's going even faster than usual. What can I say...I'm not far behind.
After Seattle to Atlanta, Atlanta to Guatemala City, we walked out of the airport and caught a cab to La Antigua (45 minutes=$30 and a lost fleece vest). Good to get the loosing thing out of the way. Arrived at Posada San Sebastian only to find they had no room for us that night. However, when I signed in Robert Muzzy for the next night, Luis exclaimed "Ohhhh, Robert, yes, I think we have you now." And hola amigos, mi casa su casa! We have a huge room in this crazy posada filled with antiques, oddities and Catholic religious icons of all sizes and shapes (an enire case of plaster babies, eeek!) all to the backbeat of marimba carousel music. Wonderful people. Courtyard with a three level fountain, a big green parrot and plush crawling vines. Charming, charming, charming. Nestled in between 3 volcanos, Antigua is incredibly beautiful laid out in a grid pattern, cobbled streets, countless 16th century churches, some crumpled victims of past volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. Long multi-colored walls with grill covered windows and fortress-like ancient wooden doorways with little peepholes in them giving way to secluded living spaces beyond. The textiles are unbelieveable and the people are friendly, helpful and tolerant of our attempts at Spanish. We are actually getting better! And with no tonal inflections, my brutish attempts at pronunciation seem to work. Of course, I work hard to catch up with Senor Muz, who was brilliant at asking directions to el bano the other morning, a most necessary request.

We leave for Lago Atitlan tomorrow morning, one duffel almost full. You know, embroidered cotton is much heavier than silk...sigh. But as Senor Muzzy states, "Yo soy es burro"
Love you all
Us