August 31, 1997
Antigua, Guatemala - {Hotel Casa de Santa Lucia}

It was unbelievable.  This is the first time we've ever been on the road
before we planned to on our entire trip.  We we're actually on the road
and moving 13 minutes before sunrise at 5:35am.  The main motivater was
avoiding the traffic of Guatemala City, which we successfully did given
that it was Sunday morning.  We went to bed at 9:00pm, minutes before the
town concert began 2 blocks away, where stacks of speakers blared out
loud thumping music until 2:30am.

At about 7:00am, we were near the city center.  We had just passed by
what looked like a sort of expressway, and stopped at a gas station to
ask for directions.  Yep, the turn off we just passed  called "Rosavelta",
was the one we wanted.   Since there was a median, we couldn't turn
around here, so we drove on until could.  It seemed like we drove an
additional 5 miles before we could turn around.

About a half mile after we finally made our U-turn, I heard a large thud
which sounded like I just ran over a large rock with my rear tire.  I
looked behind me, and didn't see anything.  Moments later, I could feel
the rear wheel fishtailing a little and realized my rear tire had just
blown out on this smooth pavement.  I let off on the accelerator, and
lightly applied the brake trying to get my speed way down.  I radioed
Sharon before she got too far ahead of me, and then took the first turn
off I could.  We pulled into a hospital parking lot which at 7:00am was,
for the most part, empty.  I pulled off the seat bag and panniers, and
propped up the rear of the motorcycle.  An older guy (70), kept us
company while I put in a new tube.   He said he use to own a '64 BMW
R60.

I don't know what caused it to blow just then.  the old tube had two
slits about 3/4" long and 2" apart.  45 minutes later, and we were ready
to take off.   The grounds keeper who also watched, let me use some soap
and a faucet to wash up my hands.

Further down the road, we pulled over to put on our jacket liners, we
were still climbing in altitude, and it was getting colder.  While we
were stopped,  A BMW R1100, and an R80G/S drove by.  Further up the road
we saw several people riding new crotch rockets fully decked out in
expensive colorful leather armor suits.  These were obviously well off
Guatemalans on a little trip up to Antigua.

The road wound through the mountains along a nice 4-6 lane highway.  We
were in Antigua before we realized it.  The highway went over a bridge,
and then turned into cobblestone.  A couple blocks further, we figured
this must be Antigua.  We drove down to the West end of town, and parked
the bikes.  Sharon was starting to feel a little feverish again, so she
waited behind while I went to find a hotel.  I found one called the Casa
de Santa Lucia (60Q per night, 20Q parking).  I came back to tell
Sharon.  As I was talking to her, behind me the R80G/S just fell over.
The foot on the kickstand gave out, and the bike went tumbling over
hitting a parked car on the way down, and shattering the wind screen on
the bike.  The Guatemalan (do not remove while in Guatemala) vehicle
sticker tore in half as the wind screen it was attached to was now in
several pieces.  The car that had parked next to me now had a small
dent, and a scratch in the paint.  The position of the bike so near the
car made it difficult to upright.  Two bystanders gave me a hand picking
it up.  With the help of a local, John, who had befriended me during my
hotel search he helped me ask around to find the owner's of the car.  It
belonged to no one in the surrounding stores.  I wrote a note, telling
them who I was and where I'm staying, and left it.  John said he would
be around and pass on the message should the owners return.

We checked into the hotel.  I had told the woman running the place that
we would stay for a couple days.  When I opened my wallet, I realized I
didn't enough money to pay for more than one night and still be able to
eat.  Being a Sunday all of the banks are closed.  Hopefully I'll be
able to find an ATM.  I paid her for one night.

Sharon conked out in bed with a mild fever.  I got our thermometer out
of the first aid kit.  When I opened the protective case it was stored
in, mercury dribbled out down my leg.  Despite being very well packed,
it somehow broke along the way.

While Sharon slept, I went out looking for some breakfast.  I went to
the rainbow cafe/used book exchange that had been recommended to us by
other travellers.  just as I walked in, I saw Michal and Aviv waving,
who we had last seen in Ocosingo, Mexico over a month ago.  We talked
for a little bit, and made plans for dinner.  I told them I was looking
for some banana bread to take back to the hotel for breakfast.  They
said they knew were the best banana bread in Antigua was made daily, and
walked me to it.  I brought it back to our hotel where Sharon and I
quickly ate half of the large delicious loaf.  We both spent the rest of
the afternoon sleeping.

In the late afternoon while Sharon was still sleeping, I went out into
the slight drizzle to find an ATM.  I ran into the two British sorority
girls we had met in El Remate (Tikal) who were now also short on cash
looking for an ATM.  The first ATM I found turned out to be for local
transactions only.  I hate these kind, because the screen is only in
Spanish, and I'm afraid I'm going to hit the wrong button, and not be
able to get my card back.  A couple tries, and I got it to eject my
card.  The second ATM I found was out of service.  The third one didn't
take my Cirrus card, but would take my Plus system Visa card.  I prefer
not to use the Plus card since my service charge is much higher on this
one.  There's a good mix of ATM's on both systems, but so far the
majority seems to be Cirrus.  There has only been one other time in
Mexico where I had to use the Plus system card.  The max withdrawal on
the two Guatemalan ATM's is 1000 Quetzales (US$166).  In Mexico, it was
1500 Pesos (US$190).  In Belize, ATM's don't exist.

Guatemalan money is some of the dirtiest stuff in the world.  The bills
almost always stink, and seem to leave a film on my hand whenever I
touch.  Don David says that the local woman often pull sweaty
bills out of the most disgusting places....

We met Michal and Aviv, and then walked around looking for a good place
to eat.  We ended up at a nice Italian restaurant where we ordered a
pesto pizza generously covered in basil, and a '93 Concho y Torro
Casillo del Diablo Cabernet.  The Casillo del Diablo is much better than
the reserve cab/merlot.

Afterward, I walked Sharon back to the hotel where she went back to
sleep,  Michal, Aviv and I then went out to see a movie.  In a little
10x15 foot room, this theater had a 35" TV where they showed movies.
Travellers starving for a little entertainment that they can understand
gladly pay 8Q to see some movie they may or may not have seen before.
We watched Tony Gillis's 12 monkeys... which I was now seeing for the
3rd time.


[Everything from here until 9/12/97 was lost from computer backup
battery failure.... already written once, rewritten now again with much
lost]


Sharon Rip Van Winkled for the next 5 days sleeping from 16-20 hours per
day.  Except for one day when her temperature rose to around 99 degrees,
sleep and fatigue were her only symptoms.  I was much more tired than
usual, but didn't usually sleep more than maybe 10 hours per day,
figuring we probably came down with a mild case of mono.  The worse part
was some times sitting around in our room too tired to do anything, but
not sleepy enough to sleep.

For numerous reasons, Antigua is a good place to be held up sick.  The
US State Department travel advisories say that Guatemala city (close by)
has some first class hospitals.  Plus since Antigua is so culturally
interesting, a lot of gringo doctors have taken up residency here in
Antigua.

I pulled out some of our electronic texts we brought along on floppy and
we began to read these off the computer.  We read to each other Jules
Verne's "80 Days Around the World", and while Sharon slept, I started to
read "Uncle Tom's Cabin".  Project Gutenberg is a project at the
Illinois Benedictine College where many texts which the copyright
has expired, or are just in the public domain, are transcribed into
electronic form.  The books are freely downloadable off the internet.
We enjoyed reading this so much, that we went to a local internet cafe,
and downloaded a few more which ended up costing about $1 for the
download time.  Since it takes 99 years for a copyright to expire, most
of the books are old classics.   The nice thing about this media is that
the cost is only that of the download, it takes up very little physical
space, and when we're done reading, just delete it off the computer.
The disadvantage, is that the LCD screen isn't as nice to read from, and
one looks like a techno-geek reading a book from a palmtop computer in a
hotel lobby.


While Sharon slept, I worked on the bike....

I had outfitted the motorcycle with loud Fiam horns before we left.  In
Mexico, they had once saved Sharon from having a very bad day.  We were
driving through a small village when a man was stringing a cable across
the road that was tied to a light pole, and was now at neck level.  Not
having time to use the communicator I wailed on the horn.  While Sharon
later said she heard the horn, she was oblivious to her almost
decapitated state, and thought the noise was coming from somewhere off
in the distance.  Fortunately, the guy stringing the cable heard and
lifted the cable so that Sharon passed under never knowing about it.
Wheh...  In actuality, the wind screen probably would have deflected it,
but still likely caused problems.

I had bought the R80G/S horn at a garage sale for about a 1/4 of the
cost of a new one.  While fine when we left, my once loud honker has
recently turned into a little peeper with a soar throat.  I decided to
go out looking for a new horn.  I looked up the word for horn in my
dictionary, and  stopped in at the motorcycle shop across the street.
In Spanish, I asked the clerk if she had a horn.  She smiled, looked at
me funny, and said "a what??"  For all I know, I had just asked her for
some animal horns, a powder horn, or a French horn, but certainly not an
automobile horn.  Since, I had the dictionary open and in my hand still,
I tried another unsuccessful word.  I later found out that I asked for,
depending on context, a trumpet or an elephant trunk.  I could just see
her telling someone at the end of the day, "Some gringo came in the shop
today and asked me if I had an elephant trunk...".

I tried the charades/onomatopoeia method, and said "meep, meeep" as my
hand moved as if it were wailing on a big chicken bus horn.  "Oh, you
want a 'bocina'".   "Yes, a 'mokina' please", I said.  "No, no,
BO-CIN-A".  She showed me a tiny motorcycle horn, to which I asked if
she had a bigger one like for a car.  She said no, and pointed me to a
car parts store next door where they had no problems understanding me
when I asked for a 'pokina'.    They showed me a pair of the kind I was
looking for, however they sold it as a kit that they were not willing to
split.

For the next hour I walked around town looking for another auto store.
It's amazing how in this little town of 20 thousand people, how few gas
station attendants and hardware store clerks know that there exists an
auto parts store only a block away.   I went back to the car parts
store, and bought the only pair of extra loud Italian made horns in all
of Antigua.  She wanted US$17.  A good price for the two plus
installation kit, but not for one.


I pulled my faulty kickstand off the bike and went to a welder just
around the corner.  This welder was an older aged well dressed polite
artisan who made iron chandeliers, and other metal light fixtures.  He
rewelded a bead where the kickstand foot had bent, and then I asked him
to weld a reinforcement bar to hold the foot in place.  He welded a
1/4"x1/2"x4" bar onto the kickstand foot such that it will never give
way again.  When he was done, I asked him how much.  He said  15Q
($2.50), to which I gave him 20Q.  Welding is such a bargain in these
third world countries.

I went to a wood shop in town, and had them fashion a new kickstand
deployer handle for the R80G/S.  I had put these on both bikes for
Sharon, since her legs are not quite long enough to extend the kickstand
with her foot while seated on the bike.  Before we left, I had rigged up
a wire pull system that ran through a guide over the engine guard, and
when pulled by hand deployed the kickstand.  On the R80G/S, the wire had
broken in Ciudad Victoria, Mexico, and while distracted, I had driven
off leaving it somewhere in the gas station.  This shop made a new one for
me for 5Q (US$.85).  I also had them cut another board which would help
give firmer support to the R80G/S top box when going over bumpy roads.

After spending six or so days, in Antigua while Sharon recovered, I was
getting a little restless and decided to go for a little ride around the
area.  As I uncovered the R80G/S, and removed the panniers, I noticed
that the rear tire was completely flat.  Not feeling like messing with
it, I recovered the bike, and locked it back up.   The next day I
removed the wheel, and noticed a slit abrasion in the inner tube, which I
assumed was from putting on the wheel in haste in Guatemala city, and
pinching the tube.  I now say assumed since a week later as I'm
rewriting this, I found out that the cause was from something much more
serious.


One of the nights Sharon felt more awake, we had a take out Pesto Pizza,
with a bottle of cab/merlot.  After only having a couple sips, Sharon
gave up on the wine, leaving me in charge of finishing it which is
always a bad idea when we have some delicious Italian food loaded with
garlic and basil.

We ate this outside of our room in the open air courtyard of our hotel
at the one small common table that is for the use of any of the
residence of the 8 rooms.  After we had finished eating, a Swiss couple
back from their night time exploring sat down with us.  We had the most
unusual conversation.  While they were from Lausanne (just outside of
Geneva), their native language was French.  They had just recently
finished a six week intensive course of Spanish in Costa Rica.  They
spoke a little English.  While Sharon and I both studied about 5-6 years
of French 9 or more years ago and never used it, having just plunged
into living in a Spanish only world, French doesn't have much foothold
left in our brain as it has been replaced by Spanish.   We spoke to each
other in  Spanish, often reverting to English, French, German and gross
hand movements when in mid sentence we couldn't think of the word we
needed to complete our sentence.  The excess wine I'm sure aided me in
my fluidity of conveying concepts.   Sharon and I have found it much
easier to communicate with people who Spanish is a second language for.
I think this for several reasons.  One because the vocabulary is small,
there are fewer less commonly used words in the dialogue.  Less emphasis
is placed on proper conjugation, and often just present tense is used
with temporal context phrases such as "in the past", or "in the future"
are used so as to not have to think to conjugate verbs to future, past,
future conditional, etc.  Conversation seems to flow much easier.  I
think a person who listens in a second language also is concentrating
harder focussing on context to understand the concepts.  A native
listener may get hung up on a bad pronunciation or bad conjugation,
dropped article etc (the details).  Often I understood their
pronunciation of Spanish easier to understand than their English.  And
reading their expressions, I think they preferred me to speak in Spanish
than my years of school practiced French.

We played cards with them.  They taught me how to play a game they had
learned in fiji from a British couple.  Sharon had recently learned it
from Joanne in El Remate.  It was called 'shit head', 'tete de merd',
'cabeza de merde', or 'shiza kopf'.  The object being not to be one of
the above, however you must be in order to win.  Apparently this is a
popular English game.

We spent a couple more evenings with Stephan and Sidinie practicing our
Spanish talking about travels.  Sometimes I would forget their English
limitations, and greet them in English, of which they would say "huh?"


September 8th, 1997
Antigua, Guatemala - {Hotel Casa de Santa Lucia}

We had signed up to hike the volcano Placaya which is just South of
Guatemala city.  At 1:00pm, we were to meet a shuttle out front of our
hotel which would take us.  At 1:13pm, an old manual shifter Ford van
pulled up.  A skinny, bug eyed guy with big curly hair stuck his head
out the door and said "Volcan?".  We said "si", and after he moved the
two spare tires out of the way of the side door, we got in.  The van
rattled from every corner even on smooth asphalt.  Half way to the
volcano,  it started to rain.  The driver rolled up his windows and
turned on the his wiper.  The car only had one wiper which was all he
needed since no one currently sat on the passenger side.  Rolling up the
windows caused the exhaust to visibly build up inside the van which was
coming in from cracks in the floor boards. around the transmission.  The
windows fogged up to the point of only being translucent, but big hair
was prepared with a rag ready just for this purpose.  We moved ourselves
and our packs around to accommodate the trickles now coming through the
ceiling of the van in several places.  At stop lights, big hair raced
the engine apparently to clear water from the distributor.

About 40 minutes away from the volcano, we turned off the nice smooth
paved roads that caused the van to rattle on to some erosion rutted
dirt/mud road, which our driver seemed comfortable driving at high speed
and made the van sound like it was going to vibrate to pieces.  I
imagined quarter panels falling off and shocks thrusting through the
wheel well into the cabin.  The van flew over the bumpy roads tossing
passengers from side to side, up and down.  I believe the cracked side
windows of the van were likely from previous passengers slamming against
them as the van flew over the bad road.  Big hair opened and reclosed
his door as we sped down the road.  Apparently it had vibrated open.

When we finally arrived at the pueblo (4900 feet) that we were to begin
our ascent from, our butts were sore, and our ears rang from the road
noise and yelling over the road noise of the trip.

The guide books, hotel clerks, and travel agents and other travellers
warned us of the bandidos around the volcano.  The guy who took our
money for the trip had told me that there would be 3-4 guards hiking
with the group.  Additionally, I had heard we might be hiking with 35 or
more people offering security in numbers.  When we left, the senora of
the hotel, suggested that we leave our passports behind, to which Sharon
had already had thought to take a photocopy of our passport with instead
of the difficult to replace real thing.  As far as the camera, we
decided to chance it.  We only brought a small amount of money though.

For our group of 9, our security guards amounted to an old man with a
machete who was our guide, and his grimy ash covered little dog.  Big
hair started to hike with us, fell to the back, and then disappeared
before we had been gone more than 5 minutes from our starting pueblo at
the base of the volcano.

We hiked 2300 feet up through a forested, narrow steep path to the ridge
of the volcano's cauldron.  We hiked along this, and then descended 400
feet into the crater to the base of the inner cone where rivers of
glowing orange lava flowed.  From the apex, dark smoke billowed forth
oscillating in volume with a period of several minutes.   From our
vantage point, we could see one long river of lava run from the top, and
then branch into several slow moving runs which we could hear crackling
everywhere.

There was a fine misty rain which when it landed, felt gritty as if it
were raining a fine wet sand.  Volcanic ash in the air was picked up by
the rain as it fell, and turned the back side of our yellow PVC rain
jackets a dark gray as if we were continuously spittled with a muddy
mist.

We hiked over to one of the lava runs that was moving so slow that small
pieces of lava fell about every minute as it advanced.  Cracks
all over were glowing orange.  Stepping within 6 feet my clothes, jacket
and skin quickly dried, and I could brush off some of what was before
mud like fine wet gritty volcanic ash.   Getting too close to the magma
was like stepping up to blast furnace.  The non glowing portions of the
lava flow are incredibly insulating.  However they're surrounded by
cracks where the magma is still glowing bright.   The surroundings
surface is full of sharp loose lava chunks which offer excellent
traction, but are all loose.  A slip in a fortunate direction can result
in some cut up flesh.  A slip in the other direction can result in some
seriously seared meat.

We ate our snacks we brought along.  In addition to our oversized
tomato, swiss, salami sandwiches and can of Pringles potato chips, I
packed in some of Casa De Dona Louisa wonderful banana bread.   In some
places with fewer glowing crevices I was able to quickly set down some
slices of banana bread, and like a quick toaster, we had toast in no
time.  Picking up the toast without having my eyebrows curl was more of
a challenge.  Sharon remarked this would be an excellent place for a
marshmallow or weenie roast.  The glowing crevices provide a nice even
heat for a bratwurst on a stick to cook.

On Bali, the guides bring raw eggs which they bury into the ash,  In 7
minutes one has the equivalent of a hard boiled egg.  I was told it use
to take 8 minutes meaning that the ground is heating up.

As we ascended back up to the cauldron ridge, a larger group of people
led by several young supposed guards were hiking down.  One of the
holster-less guards was hiking with a 44 magnum in his hand as he
descended the rocky hill.  I could imagine him tripping and blowing his
foot off. which made me think twice about the safety of hiking with the
caliber of guards one might find around here.

By the time we made it back down to the pueblo, it was dark.  There was
a police car parked with two policeman standing next to it.  Police cars
are uncommon in all of Guatemala.  This car was likely more than an hour
away from the nearest police station which serves to emphasize the
severity of the bandido problem.

Two weeks later, I heard second or third hand that there was a recent
article in the Wall Street Journal about this hike, and that three or
four guards were shot.  As we reasoned would be the case, no
tourists were harmed.  Don't want to bite the hand that feeds. If
toursis were getting shot, that would likely mean the end of the bandido
income, as none would likely venture up anymore.

We waited for about 20 minutes for the van before I volunteered to go
looking.  I found big hair under the hood of the van attempting to dry
out the distributor.  He said it would be ready in five minutes.
Surprisingly, only 15 minutes later, we were ready to go.

Our hotel only has hot water from 7:00am until 9:00am.  However since
every bit of our exposed flesh and hair, with exception of our eyeballs,
had a dark gray film of volcanic ash, we wanted to take a shower before
going to bed.  I peeked out the door to make sure the night watchman
wasn't around, and tip toed down the hall in my stocking feet to the
water heater and flipped the water heater switch.  In 30 minutes the
hotel had plenty of hot water.


-------

Throughout Guatemala they have what are known as chicken busses.  I
haven't decided whether they are named so because the passengers often
bring chickens on board, or if it's because they're always playing
chicken with on coming traffic.  While I'm told it's the former, I
believe it's the later.   They are all old retired American school buses
that have been outfitted with huge air horns which the drivers love to
blast willy nilly, at all hours of the night.  Many of the buses still
have there original yellow and black paint, some with the name of the
school district they served still written on the side.  Others are
colorfully painted seemingly at the whims of their driver.  Tickets are
sometimes sold three to a seat which I remember even in grade school
days was tight.  The roofs have a rack welded on top such that all
luggage is thrown up on top.  However, it's the cheapest form of
transportation throughout all of Guatemala.

I still believe that an oncoming chicken bus is much more dangerous
than any bandido might be, since they have a tendency to pass or even
double pass around a blind curve.

They leave such an impression on tourists both for riders and other
motorists that in Panajachel, they sell souvenir wood carved buses
painted like the original buses for tourists to by and remember their
brushes with death.


Antigua, has a lot of nice restaurants, and some excellent bakeries.
While Guatemalan food is typically hamburgers, fried chicken, fried
fish, corn soup with liquidy refried beans, etc, Antigua has many
wonderful restaurants including, TexMex, Italian, Chinese, etc.  We had
several wonderful Italian meals.  Not having had much wine on this trip,
we splurged in Antigua, averaging a bottle every other night.  Concho y
Torro (Chilean) is the most common and a good value.  Some French,
Californian, and South African are available, but are no where near the
value for the money.  We drank, the '96 cab/merlot, and the much better
Cassiello del Diablo cab ('93 & '95).  Twice we picked up some carry out
pesto pizza, and a bottle of wine from the grocery store and had a
wonderful meal well within our budget.  Basil appears to be very cheap
around here as all the pesto dishes we order seem to be overflowing with
generous portions of pesto.

On our anniversary,9/9, we went to an Italian restaurant and ordered some
garlic pasta, garlic bread, some unusual but delicious lasagna and a
'95 Cassiello del Diablo cab.

We had a nice lunch at the Beijing Restaurant where I ordered their
Beijing soup which came with generous portions of fresh shitake
mushrooms, slightly grilled onions that retained a nice hint of
caramelization, a few fine cut leeks, a hint of garlic, and sliced
grilled chicken breast all in an unstrained beef broth and egg drop soup
that the shitake mushroom flavors blended in with perfectly.  It also
came with small slices of tofu that neither added nor detracted from the
flavor, but offered some substance.  We drank Jasmine tea, and listened
to Loui Armstrong in this nice restaurant which was tastefully fashioned
in an antique looking wood and iron furnishings with some of the tables
oddly made out of Singer sewing machine treadles.


I strongly suspect that Mexican bakeries are government regulated, or
run by a country wide monopoly, since it's clear the rest of Central
America doesn't share in their baking culture.  In Mexico, all of the
bakeries were the same, offering the same delicious looking, but lousy
tasting, stale baked goods.  In Guatemala, more often than not, the
baked goods are delicious, fresh and are often very different from each
other.  Some have cafes, where it's possible to have a cup of coffee as
one munches on a fresh made cinnamon raisin buns.   At Casa de Dona
Louisa they make delicious huge loaves of moist banana bread that have
a sprinkling of sesame seeds on top.  The loaves come out of the oven at
7:00am, and at 4:30pm which is when there is also a line of gringo
travellers waiting to buy them.  2-3 hours later, and there's a good
chance that they will be sold out.

While on food... another pet peeve of mine is butter.  Mexico is alone
with it's non-pasteurized, unsalted butter that is so rife along with
it's vile margarine made from hydrolyzed motor oil.  In Guatemala and
Belize, more often than not, restaurants serve New Zealand pasteurized
and salted butter.

..  I strongly suspect that in addition to having a government
controlled monopoly on oil in Mexico, Pemex (Petroleum Mexico) also
holds the monopoly on margarine.  I suspect that everyone goes to the
Pemex gas station to get their refill of margarine.  The government
probably regulates butter production too so that it won't compete to much
with it's Pemex margarine.  ......

Food wise, Antigua was a good place to be sick and held up for a few days.

----

One day a Winebego with a motorcycle tied on the back both with
Arizona plates pulled up into secure hotel parking.  I met the owner
who's name was Hans Schmidt.  We talked about travel, and shortly after,
he showed me his book.  He had travelled around the world in a Cessna
152 single engine airplane.  Starting in Germany, he flew through Asia
along Indonesia.  Usually people don't fly beyond a glide slope away
from shore over water in a single engine plane.  I asked him about this,
and he said the only dangerous part was flying from the Indonesia island
of Timor to Darwin Australia, where he had a nine hour flight over water
in his old plane that already had 20k hours on the engine.  He had
modified it adding an extended fuel tank which if I remember right he
said would give him 11 hours of flight time.  He carried a home made
inner tube raft which looked like it would looked like it was designed for
protecting against sharks, however against a great white, Hans said the
only protection this device offered was psychological.
>From Australia, he dismantled the vehicle removing the wings and engine
and shipped it to Buenos Aires where he then flew it up to Alaska.
He said that dismantelling the plane, shipping it, and reassembling it
was so expensive, that he wouldn't do that again.
I asked him how much fuel his trip took.  He couldn't remember for sure,
but estimated it to be around $6,000.

During the computer battery backup failure (9/12), I lost the name of his
book which is written in German and some of the details of his trip.

Hans was planning to ride his Winnebego on to Costa Rica where he said
his girlfriend lived, and then was going to head down to Patagonia.
This being his first big trip in a Winnebego, he was really
disappointed at the sucky gas mileage.

Hans spoke fluent Spanish, French, English, and of course German.  He
worked in Africa for many years flying tourists over the Sarenghetti
(sp?); a job he said he hated.


------------
September 10, 1997
Panajachel (Lake Atitlan), Guatemala
R100GS 19341
R80G/S 28144

We left Antigua around 11:30.  It was a beautiful day for a ride with
blue skies and scattered cumulus clouds of some substance on the
horizon.  Riding at this altitude (Antigua is at 4,800 feet), the
temperature is cool and making the ride very comfortable.   The road
wound through mountains as we ascended to about 8400 feet.  Steam rose
from the crevices of the road as there must have just recently been a
light rain.  About a half hour outside of Panajachel we entered and rose
through a cloud until the cloud was below us.  Occasionally there would
be breaks in the clouds where we could see the green valley below.
As we approached the lake, at our altitude I could see the three
volcanoes of the lake and several other mountains rising above a floor
of clouds.  The road descended into this cloud floor into the mist
again.  Like a double decker world, I was viewing down on another world
that was framed in with clouds at forehead level, a beautiful blue lake
below, and waterfalls and seemingly vertical mountains along the sides.
The land connecting the village below was obscured by another lower
cloud layer which gave the appearance of a floating village in the
clouds back set by the beautiful blue lake.  It looked like a
ridiculous but beautiful fantasy world.....


September 11, 1997
Panajachel (Lake Atitlan), Guatemala

We went to market  at Chichicastanango.  This town is about 30km
North of Atitlan, and on Thursday's and Sunday's is the largest market
in the area.  We pulled into town and drove next to a Shell gas station
where we met Juan who encouraged us to park there.  For a contribution
we would pay afterwards, he would watch our motorcycle for us.

Chichicastanango must be one of the largest non-food markets we've been
to on this entire trip.  It's obviously the best place around here to
by the Guatemalan crafts.  Unlike places we visited in Mexico,
the Mayans of Guatemala are shrewd bargainers, the likes of which I
haven't seen since China.  I was disappointed to find so much apathy in
the desire to sell in many of the Mexican markets.   Here people will
settle for the smallest profit just to keep the revenue flowing.

We've been holding off on buying souvenirs, since there is no room on
the bike, and we weren't sure about shipping.  We heard too late that
Mexico is a safe place to ship packages from through standard mail ever
since they recently made tampering with mail a federal offense.  In
Guatemala we're told that private shipping out of the country is the
only reliable means.  Panajachel has several private shipping companies.
DHL is well established here and in Antigua, however they only do
express shipping.  The company we decided to go with will ship a 5-10kg
package for $72 or a 10-15kg package for $96.

We had a blast bargaining.  Since so many people sell similar
things, it's easy to get one down to their bottom price.  They know that
if you leave the chances of you coming back is very remote.  If they
agreed to my last offer too easily,  then I know I've offered too much.
If they let me walk away, then in Chichicastanango, I know that it's
below their cost, and can feel for the bounds of a bottom price.  When
bargain hunting, I find it's best to look for the most energetic and
aggressive people to bargain with.   It's no fun bargaining with an
apathetic person, and for some reason or another I'll find they'll let
us walk before they'll let us skim the bottom surface of their profit
margin.  Chichicastanango is a Darwinian case where the apathetic ones
have starved, and only the good enthusiastic bargainers have
survived.  Our final prices have typically ended up being about a 1/3 of
the starting price.

One of the common things sold around hear are wood carved Mayan and
christian masks.  I found a Diablo (Devil) that I thought was kind of
cool with ram horns mounted on it.  While bargaining, I pointed out the
nails holding the horns in were a little loose.  She said no problem,
and not having a hammer handy, picked up a 10" painted wooden statue of
Jesus, and pounded the nails into the Diablo's horns with him.  I was
surprised not so much for the religious significance of what she did, but
more so for the lack of care in her wares.  I decided to hold off on
buying these till later.  The easiest way to do so is to make a too low
of an offer, which I thought I did at 40Q.  However she agreed to easily
as I walked away, indicating to  me that my offer was still way too high.
I still didn't want to buy it.  I later found out that the bottom price
for these type of masks is 20-25Q.  The starting is around 80-110Q.



September 12, 1997
Panjachel, Guatemala

This morning, I turned on the computer to do a little work on my
journal.  As soon as I turned it on, the first thing it did was tell me
that the main battery was low.  As is my usual habit when changing
batteries, I switch over to the system monitor to check to see if the
back up battery is ok.  It said that it was.  I then turn off the
computer, and more out of paranoia than thinking it will do any good, I
pull one battery out at a time replacing each of the 2 AA in turn with
a new one.  I turned back on the computer, and it was in a DOS boot up
asking me the time.... very bad sign....Yep, the backup battery wasn't
"OK" like the system monitor said, and by removing the main batteries, I
just wiped my entire palm top computer RAM drive.

Last time I had backed this up, was September 1st.  I restored up to
September 1st without a problem.  The things of value that I lost were
several days of journal writing which spanned 1.5 weeks that I had felt
unusually good about writing, and the GPS log from Sanaratan to Antigua.
Knowing now that the backup battery indicator is not reliable, I can
prevent these problems by plugging in the computer when I change
batteries.  This was an expensive piece of information to learn the hard
way. Of course, it could have been worse.  After taking our tour today,
I spent the later half of the afternoon trying to recreate the lost
journals, but not feeling very inspired I gave up without hardly making
a dent.

I'd like to shoot the HP software engineer who did not properly test
this battery software bug.  Classic bonehead Murphy's law applied to
software quality assurance.  The severity of a bug is indirectly
proportional to the chances it will be missed by quality assurance.
This reminds me of Robocop (the movie) where the deep voiced two legged
walking tank was being demonstrated to the CEOs of a multinational
corporation.  A VP was asked to pull a gun on this futuristic cop
machine.  While the walking talking artificial intelligent tank could
recognize a gun pulled on itself, and warn the weapon holder to put down
the weapon, it's ability to recognize that same person complying had a
slight bug which resulted in a very bloody scene as the VP got blown out
of the window with heavy artillery.... Typical pre-release software
demo.  I can envision the HP software engineer in charge of the backup
battery software monitoring module in the place of that VP.

Enough frustration venting...

We took a boat tour of the lake where for 35Q ($6) each. We hopped on a
boat and were taken across the lake to three villages on lake Atitlan
which include San Pedro, Santiago Atitlan, and San Antonio Palapo.  We
spent an hour in each which seemed more than enough time for these
little villages.  These villages are most easily accessed by
boat since the roads leading to them are very bad.

San Pedro was much more laid back than I expected.  We had expected to
be swamped with tourist hawkers.  Walking through town, everyone turns
and says "Buenos Dias".  San Pedro is at the West side of Volcano San
Pedro on the water.  People grow coffee and onions in their yards.
Today was onion harvesting day.  As we were walking through town, we
smelled a nice scent of onions as if someone were cutting them up in the
kitchen.  We turned the corner, and saw about thirty people bundling up
already picked onions by their greens, and then stacking them up in
piles.  Where the onions came from I didn't see, however they had
bundles of fresh green already picked ones along the side of the road.
Yesterday on the way to Chichicastanango, it looked like potato day,
where we saw about 50 people on the side of the road with piles of white
potatoes counting and gathering them up to bag.

This remote village obviously has a garbage pickup problem.  There was
garbage everywhere.

On the west half of the town there are several coffee washing and drying
areas.  One would think that with all of this local coffee, it would be
easy to get a cup of good coffee.  Not so!  the good stuff is shipped
off where the majority of locals who grow it seem to drink Nescafe, or
something that tastes like the equivalent.

Santiago Atitlan is a town like most of the others in this area where
the locals (both men and woman) wear their traditional dress.  From the
boat ramp, we walked through about a half mile of tourist souvenir type
shops where they sold woven work, clothing, etc.  The specialty of this
area seems to be wooden stork birds, and nice smooth curvy new age
looking wood boxes.  Except for the wood work, it's a disappointment
compared to Chichicastanango where we were yesterday.

It was market day here, and the market was full of agricultural wares
being sold.  It seemed every seller and purchaser in this market was
from this town judging by the fact that everyone wore the same garb
which is local to this village.

Quiet San Antonio Palapo is set on a steep hill where every corrugated
tin roof house in the entire village has an excellent view of the lake
below.  Obviously the people here don't have running water since we saw
many carrying water jugs (all woman of course).  Even though so close,
people here have a different style of dress which just about everyone
conforms to and is quite different from the next village over. Both men
and woman where a type of clothe wrapped around their waist kind of like
a lungee (called an enredo), but with a belt around the lower waist to
secure it.   Men wear brown with white polka dots, while woman wear a
dark blue.  Shirts for both are thin striped with bright colors.
Females wear a bright red ribbon in their hair.

Feeling pretty hungry, when we got back we went to a fancy deli run by
some Americans, and picked up two turkey sandwiches made on a dense home
made bread with edgam cheese, tomato, onion, alfalfa sprouts, and
Dijion mustard.  For desert, home made oatmeal cookies with costa rican
chocolate.  Actually we were told that all of the ingredients for the
cookies were imported.  We went to the grocery store and bought a can of
pringles potato chips, and two 24oz bottle of Welch's grape juice.  It
was a delicious homey meal, but cost us a total of US$17.    The grape
juice alone we paid $6 for.  We can get wonderful food in Panajachel, but
we pay dearly for it.



-----

I haven't figured out how these church bells ring the hours off.  In San
Cristobol, Mexico, at quarter hours in the morning,  someone would bang
on the bell for a while until it seemed they got tired.  In Antigua, the
bell rang the familiar 16 note, 4 different tone classic bell ditty
divided into 4 for the quarter hours and then depending on the hour,
that many same tone notes.

In Panajachel this morning, I just counted the bell tower ring
approximately 134 times at around 6:45am.  At 6:30, it bonged for
approximately as long or longer.

Although my sample size is small, my initial guess is that it is the
number of minutes until noon divided by PI, This inverse ratio of bell
rings to lateness in the day also corresponds with  the latin american
desire to make more noise as more people may be sleeping...
it's starting...from 6:58:43- 6:59:30 there are 55 rings...
False start??, there it goes again 7:00:05 - 7:00:52am 55 rings.  Well
so much for the theory, however, the inverse ratio still holds...


---------------

September 14, 1997

We had planned to leave Atitlan, and head for El Salvador/Honduras,
however since September the 15th is Independence day celebrated for all
of central america, we were warned that it may be difficult to find a hotel.
Not wanting another episode like that left us stranded in Sanaratan,
we decided to stay put.   The street today were filled with busses,,
trucks, and cars flying the blue and white Guatemalan flag while many
people jogged through the streets some carrying lit torches.  I must
have seen several hundred Guatemalan flags today, not a single one made
out of clothe.  All are plastic, and come off a large cardboard roll like a
plastic garbage bag might.

For the past couple days, the grade school band has been practicing for
the big event.  From about 2:00pm until 12:00 midnight, they practiced
about a block away playing the same ~20 second ditty over and over and
over, and over.  Percussion was doing pretty good.  However, in the end,
all tonal instruments were cut out except for the xylophone which was
the only instrument that could carry the simple melody.   We endured
listening to the trumpet section practice for hours.  I suspect there
isn't a more skilled high school band because atrophy of student
population by that age might be too high.

We went to the market today in Chichicastanango, and picked up a few
more souvenirs.   I bought a new short sleeve shirt.  I've been wearing
the same shirts since we left Chicago more than three months ago.   What
a treat...

We left Chichicastango, and since it turned out to be such a nice day,
we decided to head further north 18km to the town of Quiche which was
the last town on this paved road.  Like the road to Chichicastanango,
the road wound up down hills around sharp hairpin curves.  As we left
Chichicastanango, and got up in speed ( > 40), I noticed a repetitive
small vibration from the rear tire that seemed almost as if the tire
might be seriously out of balance.  For a short moment, I thought it
might be rocks stuck in the tread, but that idea was quickly tossed out.
I looked for a place to turn off the road, a couple kilometers further,
I found a place to pull off the road.  My stomach fell as I looked at
the rear tire.  There was a gash in the tread about 1.25" long with the
inner tube exposed and protruding a little out of the gash.  I let out a
little air such that the inner tube would not protrude so much, turned
around, and slowly drove 5 miles back to Chichicastanango along the
steep curvy roads.  I had planned to drop Sharon off their where she
could take a shuttle back to Panajachel taking some load off the bike
while I would drive the bike slowly back to Panajachel.  From there I
could drive the 2-3 hours to Guatemala city on the R100GS and pick up a
new tire.

I spotted a tire repair place on the outskirts of town.  I pulled up,
hopped off the bike and asked the guy, "Where can I buy a new tire for
my motorcycle?".  He didn't respond, and walked in his shop.   I
followed him in.  I asked him again, "I'd like to buy a new tire for my
motorcycle.  Do you know where I can buy one?".  He didn't say anything,
nor did he make eye contact, but held up his hand as if to say one
moment."  He went through a back door and called an older guy in.  It
later occurred to me that this guy doesn't speak Spanish, and probably
only Cakchiquel, of which I only know how to say manti'osh (thank you).
I repeated the question to the older guy.  As I suspected, the reply was
that their are none in Chichicastanango, nor likely in Panajachel....
maybe Antigua, and surely Guatemala city.

I showed them the gash in the tire with inner tube protruding.  For
thirty Quetzales ($5) he would patch the tire. I took the tire off, and
worked with them to fix it.  It was obvious these guys were use to
working with steel rimmed truck wheels and tires.  The motorcycle has a
softer aluminum wheel with a bead they appeared surprisingly
unaccustomed to the difficulty in breaking.   Sharon, the young guy and
I stood on the tire attempting to break the bead after a few minute of
which we broke with a little soapy water.  They cut a thick piece of
rubber and glued it on the inside of the tire.  I examined the tube and
found the same slit abrasion mark I had noticed on the inner tube I had
just changed a couple days ago in Antigua.  At that point I felt like a
bonehead.   While I had checked the deflated tire for nails, and found
none.  I didn't inspect the tire fully inflated such that the gash would
separate and present itself.  This cost me the new inner tube I had
installed in Guatemala city, and that had small leaks in Antigua 40 miles
further.  Fortunately this second new tube that I had put in at Antigua
hadn't been punctured, but was starting to show abrasion where the split
in the tire was.  I didn't expect these tires which still have plenty of
tread to be so vulnerable to splitting open like it did.  The rocky
gravel road from Tikal must have been harder on the tires than I
thought.  I'm lucky that the high quality inner tubes lasted as well
as they did.  While the repair job should protect the inner tube, the
gash is still quite visible.  It should be good enough to get us to
Guatemala city at a conservative pace.



September 15, 1997

This was a new one on me,  this morning as I'm taking a shower, I look
down, and there is an earthworm wriggling on the cement floor of the
shower.  There's an extremely remote chance it came through the shower
head, however the water is warm, and it's still alive.  I didn't have an
earth worm on me when I walked in, nor did I see it on the floor.
..twilight zone music here....


This is Central America independence day where Guatemala, El Salvador,
Honduras, Costa Rica, and Panama all celbrate independence from Spain.
The streets of Panajachel were dead, still with Guatemalan plastic flags
flying.  All the celbration seemed to happen on the 14th, while everyone
went home today.


September 16, 1997
Antigua, Guatemala - {Hotel Casa de Santa Lucia}

We left Panajachel early, and drove back to Antigua staying at the same
place we had a week ago.  A little worried about the R80G/S rear tire,
we kept the speed to around or under 50 mph.  It's a good thing we knew
our way since some of the turns were not marked.  When we arrived at
Hotel Casa de Santa Lucia.  Sharon stayed behind while I went into
Guatemala city on the R100GS to look for a tire.  When we had gone
through before, I had marked the coordinates on the GPS of a mall that
had an Ace Hardware, and a Radio Shack, so I thought I would start there
since there were some other things I wanted to get.  I had no idea where
the BMW dealer was.  I had the address of a BMW mechanic that was listed
in my guide book.  I figured I would go into town and ask around.

On Roosevelta avenue, there is a mall at WGC84 coordinates N14d37.590m,
W090d33.385m which has a mall containing a Radio Shack and an Ace
Hardware store.  This mall is for affluent Guatemalans.  The parking
area has about a dozen guards who watch over the cars.  Every
store has a secure area to store one's bags which is watched by
armed police.  The police ask to store one's bags as you pass by.

I didn't have much luck at Radio Shack.  They had every kind of
rechargeable battery except for the AA I was looking for.  Also, they
had every kind of watch type battery except the one I needed for my
computer, and I had previously purchased at Radio Shack.  I wanted to
pick up some alligator clips to repair my short wave antenna.  Every
Radio Shack in the states has plenty of these, but this one was out.
They did however have a surplus of reel type shortwave antennas, so I
replaced the one I had.

At Ace Hardware, they didn't have a nuts and bolts section where I was
looking to replenish some of the metric bolts I had used.  Also, I
wanted to pick up some Marine GOOP type glue which I have been using as
a generic adhesive, and was running low.  They didn't have this either.

I went across the parking lot to the Wendy's restaurant to have some
lunch.  This Wendy's has a uniformed armed guard who stands at the front
door, and occasionally patrols the aisles.  Of the six people I saw walk
in, all of them had motorola cellular phones on, and visible. I felt
inappropriately attired without one.

It was now 1:30, and getting late if I wanted to be out of the city
before rush hour.  I asked a parking lot guard where I was as I showed
him the map.  He could tell me what street we were on, and the name of
the mall, by I think I embarrassed him by showing him the map.  I don't
think that he could read.   Further down the road, I found the same
thing at the gas station.  When I showed them the map, they were
clue-less, and preferred not to look at it as if they were also
illiterate.    I didn't figure that in my hunt for directions I'd also
have to search for a literate person to ask with my map.

I drove around some more hoping to find the BMW mechanic I had an
address for.  One stretch I drove four times trying to find the correct
exit.  The street signs if they exist are printed using a typewriter of
which I can't make out as I'm driving by.  After a half hour, I gave up,
figuring this traffic is dangerous, I don't know where I'm going, I'm
making little progress and there's a dark looking rain storm coming in.
I drove back to the mall, secured the bike, and hailed a taxi.  I told
the taxi I was looking for the motorcycle BMW dealer to which he said he
knew where it was and he took me there.  It's in Zona 14 as I later
discovered so are all the other motorcycle shops.  The BMW dealer sold
cars, motorcycles, and household door locks.  They had two motorcycles
on display, a R80GSPD classic, and a K100.  The parts counter had all
sorts of parts tied to a peg board and on display.  They had six
different kinds of distributor caps, gears, spark plugs, wires, all
dusty and tied to a display peg board... Interesting decor...  The clerk
said they didn't carry any motorcycle tires, nor did they have any
carburetor jets, but they did have oil filters of which I replaced the
ones I used in Cancun.  They sold for 86Q ($14.33) each, which is about
twice the price I pay in the states.  The clerk I spoke to had no idea
where I could buy tires either.  She seemed about as knowledgeable about
BMW motorcycles as she probably was of microbial fossils from Mars.

On the way in, I had spotted several motorcycle shops within a mile of
the BMW dealer, so we headed to them.  I had marked them off on the GPS,
and so now we back tracked to them.  We stopped at a large Suzuki
dealer.  which sold Kendal tires and tubes all which look cheap and are
from Taiwan.  The best they had were Yokohama tubes from Japan.  While
these aren't as heavy duty as my German made Metzler, Continentals, or
Michelans, I bought two since I had destroyed the previous ones with the
bad tire.

We went to a dealer that only sold Japanese made IRC tire.  However,
these tires were cheap, looked cheap, and I'm sure wouldn't be very
stable given the weight of our bikes.  Across the street and down a ways
I stopped at the Yamaha dealer where I found some heavy duty Bridgestone
Trail Wing 44 dirt tires.  They sold for 449Q ($75) for a rear tire.
The R80G/S takes a 400-18.  They only had this tire in a 410-18.  I
bought it anyway, and fortunately it still fit.  I wanted to get a high
quality front tire too, but they only had the Bridgestone in a 275-21 of
which I needed a 300-21.  I decided to pass on the smaller front tire.
While it's not difficult to find a tire of the correct size, it's
difficult to get a quality tire since most people opt for the cheap ones
that go for half price.  Since our lives are riding on two tires, I
don't want to skimp.  Besides, we're carrying a heavy load on these
tires.  I'm seriously now considering tying a spare good tire to the
back of the motorcycle.  According to the guide books, Guatemala city
should be the most well stocked city of all of Central America.

WGS84 coordinates for motorcycle parts in Guatemala city:
Yamaha N14d36.842m, W090d30.986m
BMW N14d37.137m, W090d31.053m
Suzuki N14d36.499m, W090.31.564m

It was getting late, so I headed out of town.  On the motorcycle, while
I headed back to Antigua, I missed the tiny sign if there was one, and
ended up driving 15 miles in the wrong direction.

September 17, 1997
Antigua, Guatemala

Installed the new tire...

All afternoon, it rained.
walking down the street, there's a river of red paint running along the
sidewalk and into the street.  At the source of this paint was a man,
drenched, standing on a ladder who was painting the wall red.  It's been
raining for the past 3 hours....
saw the same in Panajachel...


This morning, right outside our hotel, there were three men digging a
hole in the cobblestone road.  The hole was about 3 feet wide and a
couple feet deep.  As a sort of warning pylon, they had cut a switch
from a tree with green leaves, and put that in front of the
hole...Apparently they were working on the sewage line.

It rained all afternoon, which is when it seems they stopped working on
the hole.  When I saw it again in the evening, All that could be seen
was a puddle where the hole had been.  When I heard several busses and
trucks hit this hole, it was apparent the several foot deep hole still
existed as trucks slammed into it..  From the hotel I heard crash
after crash, and hub caps flying off... It was like something out of The
Three Stooges.  There was nothing to mark this pit in the dark.
Later, I heard Marty and George say they just helped pull a truck out of
the hole that had gotten stuck.... incredible!

We heard about a job down hear that paid $24k per year, tax free, with
room and board included, which with all the perks is more like a $45k
per year paying job where one would be supervising construction workers.
It's not necessary to know anything about construction.  Actually, the
only requirement is that you're a gringo,  While this sounds racist,
after a while down here, it makes sense.  Common sense is a virtue which
around here seems not to be prevalent.  In a society , where a 4th grade
education is considered high, and one's parent may have grown up with
the same or less, it's amazing at what the outcome is.  They needed
someone, to say don't paint an outside wall while it's raining out.
Don't leave a huge crater in the street unmarked for trucks to fall
into.... etc.


We met Marty and George at our hotel.  Nine months out of the year they
live on a 44 foot sail boat in the Carribean usually anchored out near
Rio Dulce.  They knew our hotel neighbors we met in Panajachel who had a
catamaran also in Rio Dulce.  Like the others, they were touring inland
during hurricane season.   Marty is a CPA who during tax season works
until April 15th.  Both were originally Germans; though being in the
states for more than 30 years now spoke with an American accent, and
used more American slang than most Americans might.

We sat in our hotel lobby area with them drinking vodka and fruit juice
drinks talking about travel experiences.

I asked about their boat which at 44 feet was plenty large enough to
cross the Atlantic, however they hadn't yet.  They told me this
typically takes 3 weeks, and is usually done using in the spring.
Coming back people sail when the trade winds are at their peak.  Marty
didn't seem very interested in crossing primarily because of potential
storms at sea.   There boat had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a
descent size kitchen where Marty cooked bakery items and traded them for
lobsters with the other boaters.  It's obscene how many lobsters these
Carribean boat people we meet eat.  I'm sure they rival Maine fisherman.

It was nice talking to the guys about Malaria and Dengue fever since
they had just recently had it.  Reading text book descriptions, make
these diseases sound pretty bad.  Two weeks ago, we opted to discontinue
taking malaria prophylactics after weighing the chances of getting it,
versus the affect on our livers from the prophylactic, the length of our
travel.  and the availability of a cure.  George who is still undergoing
treatment described his experience as a regularly reoccurring fever.
His first and only bout happened three weeks ago which he figured was
about a week after he first contracted it.  Malaria is only surely
diagnosed at clinic from a blood test.  George said that the clinics
that can do these tests are everywhere, and cheap.  The cure is a
regular regiment for a couple weeks of chloroquine, and permethrin which
at the drug store around here can be easily purchased for around $3.  Of
course, there are different strains of Malaria, none of which should be
left untreated for too long.  The most serious being the cerebral
malaria.

Marty described her recent bout of Dengue fever (also known as bone
break fever) in which she said that half the people in the Marina
contracted.  She described it as just a bad flu with a severe headache
that one gets over in a couple days.  Apparently, Dengue fever is one
that a person can only get once as immunities are built up.


----

Dave Thompson



thompson@pdnt.com

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