From Chapter 6, page 114-115:
Mon 26 Oct
I can't remember the last day I took a day off sick, and have only been hospitalised once in my adult life, and that was when I had a broken jaw; but today I awoke feeling so miserable that I was ready to go looking for a doctor - or an undertaker. I read up on the symptoms, and mine certainly fitted the bill for malaria... hot and cold fevers, cough, sniffles and headache, while all of my joints ached. I had a hot shower, which relieved some of the malady, and went on a walk to see if I could find a doctor.
Near the center of Antigua was a cafe called Caffe Opera - a little piece of Italy in Guatemala. Opera music was softly piped from hidden speakers; Sophia Loren and Puccini gazed down from framed posters on the walls, while Maria Callas embellished the menu. In true Italian style, the hostess was conducting three different lively conversations simultaneously - on the phone, to customers, and to staff - without getting flustered at all. I had a cappuccino and started to feel well enough to put off seeing the doctor for another day.
My hair was in need of a cut, and I entered an old-style barber shop. Religious and Guatemalan images covered the walls, along with faded photos of suggested hairstyles. The barber's chair was a work of art: made from cast iron and white enamel, with leather upholstery, it might have been 100 years old, yet it swivelled effortlessly at the slightest push. The barber's fingers worked the scissors as skillfully as one would expect of a man with fifty year's experience. He used a cutthroat razor to shave the back of my neck, then massaged in some scented green liquid from a metal flask. When I asked what it was, he cryptically informed me it was 'loción especial'.
I walked back through the main plaza. There was a central fountain four statues of maidens who squirted water from their nipples, the kind of statues that, if constructed today, would be met with howls of protest. I spotted a nice-looking restaurant facing the Parque Central. It looked expensive but I went in anyway, to treat myself to something good; the way I felt, it may well have been my last meal on this earth. On the cover of the menu was printed a short story about how the restaurant got its name, the Cafe Condesa, or Countess' Cafe. In 1549, so the story went, a Count went away on an extended trip, but returned unexpectedly early to find his Countess in bed with the butler, whom the Count then buried alive. From that time on, ghosts and poltergeist phenomena haunted the house. That is until 1976, when an earthquake made it neccessary to repair a large crack. Repairmen found the skeleton of a man in the kitchen, buried upright! The skeleton was given a proper burial and the haunting ended, though the property was exorcised in 1992, just to be safe. As I was reading the story, a tingling sensation ran up the back of my neck... but it was only the breeze tickling my just-shorn scalp and reacting with the barber's 'loción especial'.
After dinner, I was feeling a lot better and went to see a movie, in a video theatrette in a small language school in the same street as my hotel. Seeing La Hija del Puma (Daughter of the Puma) whilst in Guatemala was very topical. The school's director, a forty-something man with a ponytail, wearing black drawstring trousers and and a colourful vest, gave the audience of three a short introduction to the history of Guatemala, and warned the movie was 'a little violent'. He ended his short speech by saying things have been steadily improving in Guatemala since the bloody time depicted in the movie, when women and children were slaughtered in a civil war. Only this week, he said, the Government officially recognised the more than 25 different native languages spoken in Guatemala, giving them the right to ask for a translator if they are called before a court. The movie was certainly violent, depicting a murderous, genocidal war. The two young German girls inside the theatrette were a little shaken by it, wondering if they had made a big mistake coming here to do volunteer work amongst the poor people. I took them to the Rainbow Cafe where we had a Leche Krishna, a milk-shake that Ari would have loved - banana, milk and honey. In the cosy restaurant, filled with happy young backpackers, Bob Marley booming from the speakers, they said they felt a bit better. As I walked them home, and then returned to my nameless hostel, so did I.
- excerpt from Chapter 6 of
An Odd Odyssey, California to Colombia by Bus and Boat, Through Mexico and Central America,
Glen David Short, Trafford Publishing.
More excerpts:
From Chapter 3: Visiting the Frida Kahlo Museum - Visiting the Leon Trotsky Museum
From Chapter 6: Experiencing Hurricane Mitch and Friday the 13th and the Madman
From Chapter 12: Death and Thievery on Isla Grande
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Copyright Trafford Publishing, 2001