Dios Mio!

We're on the go, with the sisters. Still in Antigua, which is very different than Xela- streets aren't covered with dogshit, the bartenders all speak English. Actually, it's hard to find anybody who speaks Spanish. But it's a gorgeous city, full of old, impossibly thick-walled churchs that have been shaken apart by centuries of earthquakes. Reminding you of the fact that we are perched on the lip of one tectonic plate or the other is Vulcan Agua towering above the southern everything. You can't see the top unless you look straight up- like it's going to topple over onto you at any moment. Yesterday afternoon we climbed Vulcan Pacaya, one of the few active volcanos in Guatemala's collection. We had a great guide in Oscar (supposed to be Juan, at 8am, who we sat around waiting for for the better part of an hour, but he never showed. Turned out, he was the guy we saw eat it, hard, off his bike onto the cobblestone street outside the guide shop two days earlier when we were booking the trip. Sure enough, yesterday they had his arm in a cast to prove he wasn't just dogging it. (Although he did seem like the whiny type when he fell, so postponing the trip til sunset and getting Oscar didn't seem like too bad a deal.)) The volcano was amazing, with huge rivers of dried lava reaching over what was days earlier a green pasture. The volcano itself looked like Mt. Doom, or Narahoe, very severe and conical and dark. We hiked into the lava field, avoiding scorching vents and moving quickly when we could smell our rubber soles melting. We stopped for geothermally roasted marshmallows. Retreated to a safer distance for a great dinner of fresh veggie pitas while the sun set, and we could see bright orange rivulets of lava flowing down near where we had just hiked, standing out against the darkening sky. Impressive.
I made my first prescription! Mariam and my guts have been all kinds of messed up for a while now. Last weekend I felt crappy and peed out my butt. On Tuesday I took these pills that were for if you are sick of emptying your colostomy bag so frequently. They turned me off like twisting the nob on a spigot. For three days. Then they finally wore off and back on came the spigot. The water (or butt pee) pressure had been there the whole time, just without an outlet. I meant to go to the doc, or the lab where you poo in a cup (they have it down to assembly-line efficiency here), but time kinda ran out as we scrambled to tie up loose ends in Xela. There was the special lunch where we offered to take the Catalans to anywhere they wanted, and they voted on Pizza Hut, as well as packing and homework and other stuff. It even seemed to be getting a little better, so I missed the doc. Although by this time, Mars joined the butt pee train. When we got to Antigua, we found a clinic, but it was closed for the weekend. So I went to the farmacia and bought a bunch of cipro, which we've been taking for the last 2 1/2 days. Again, we're both corked, and our bellies kinda hurt, but it seems like it's probably working. And if it's working, that means it's not cholera. So we've got that going for us. Which is nice.
Two days ago, for the sisters' first adventure, we took the chicken buses 3 hours to Chichicastenango for centroamerica's biggest market. As ever, the ride was the best part. I think the driver didn't value his life (or ours) quite as high as we do. Brielle even said her goodbyes to everyone, as all 107 passengers were alternately plastered, along with any luggage not tied down and some that was, plus the seats from the school bus benches, which must have wrenched free of their steel bolts, to first one side and then the other of the inside of the bus. Screaming down a mountain road rivaling Lombard St. in curviness, I found myself praying for more gravity as I peeled my face off the window where I had just been staring at, and leaning over, a yawning abyss of death. At the breakneck speeds we were hitting, running oncoming traffic off the road as we passed chicken buses and other vehicles piloted by saner drivers, there was no way we would survive tipping over in either direction, but somehow you found yourself breathing a sigh of relief as the tires squealed around an inside lefthand curve where you would just have your face peeled off for the split second it was pressed to the pavement, through the window, before the bus was atomized in a collision with the mountain wall. The alternative to the right, somehow worse because of the contemplation time you would have, was just flying off the edge and drifting lazily through space before the aforementioned atomization. And oh yeah, all the other passengers, (including the Levys and Lenardi, and the guy whose job is to collect money and, presumably, to keep the driver coked up, and who was hanging out the open door this whole time), were laughing. But then that bus's engine exploded from the strain, filling the bus with smoke but forcing a life-saving stop and bus switch.
The market was bustling, full of color and smells. We bought a bunch of stuff, Mariam haggling like a pro, me not so much. There was the wallet that I bought, which I haggled the guy up from 15 to 30Q. That took skill. I momentarily registered 'quince' as 50, instead of 15, and when I proposed 30, the guy looked at me funny, made me repeat myself, and then finally borrowed a calculator from someone and made me punch in the price I was proposing. When he confirmed that it was, indeed, twice the price he was offering, he accepted quickly. I realized my mistake as I was happily walking out, but it seemed worth the roughly $2 difference to just get the heck out of there, away from the real or imagined laughter I faintly heard.
And yes, we saw the Sox game on Sun, at a gringo bar, and it was simply beyond words. I'm still floating.
Today we're going to decide between heading to the beach for a night, or going to Lago Atitlan a day early. We're talking over breakfast, so I should get the heck out of here before they leave without me.