Abbey's Road

Two days after I got back from Guatemala I packed up the RV and drove up to Jackson, Wyoming. I had signed up for another 2 week build with Habitat. Unfortunately, there were only four of us that signed up, but all of us were repeat offenders from last year. The way I look at it, if I’m going to volunteer my time I might as well go to a good place and Jackson is one of the best. Not only is the scenery hard to beat, but so are the people – both the locals and the RVers. The house was in a different location this year and it was a simpler house, though we still timed it perfectly. We got to put another roof on! I think Trace, the construction supervisor, worked hard on getting it timed right with our arrival. Luckily, Jim, the other guy who worked on the roof a lot last year, also came back this year. And of course, his wife Patricia joined us as well. The only other returnee was our fearless leader Charlie who comes up all the way from Georgia with his safari trailer. (On a sad note, after Charlie left Jackson he got run off the road in Utah and flipped his Land Rover and trailer several times. Thankfully, Charlie escaped with only some bad bumps and bruises, but the same can’t be said for his trailer and Defender. He’s not sure if he’ll be able to join us again.) For the second week, another couple, Pete and Mary who used to live in Jackson, joined us. Just like last year, we had a great time though we didn’t have as many happy hours as last year. They set us up in a KOA a ways south of town, and as usual Trace worked us like dogs so we were often too tired to make the drive into town. We did manage to get out some though, including a tour of Rena’s finished house. Rena is the woman who owns the house we worked on last year. It was great to see the finished product, and man was that roof a thing of beauty! The inside was pretty nice, too.

The only one who didn’t fare as well this time around was Abbey. Since I have a car now I didn’t drive my RV to the site each day which meant she got left back in the KOA. It was about 5 miles away from the site so I usually didn’t go back at lunch to let her out. And since Trace was such a slave driver and worked us long hours, she was often holed up by herself for 8 hours or more. Of course, I still had to walk her when I got back, and she took me for a walk every morning so I was usually pretty tired by the end of the day. Somehow I managed to go out quite a bit, mostly thanks to Trace. Not only is he a construction supervisor, he was the consummate host. Rena also helped in the entertainment arena. On the first Saturday night, there was a fundraiser for Breast Cancer Awareness called Bras for the Cause. 25 different organizations sponsored a “designer” bra to be auctioned off. Rena had designed four of them so she made sure Trace and I were going to be there. As if I needed more incentive to go see women modeling some crazy bras, she kept telling me that her single friends were coming. After last year when she kept trying to set me up with everyone in the Cowboy Bar, I was a little leery. Rena even set us up with front row seats for the fashion show so I couldn’t complain. I’d have to say the fashion show was a rousing success and raised lots of money. Two bras actually went for $1000 a piece. Let’s just say that some of the models were quite animated and I think one of them has had experience dancing with a pole in the past. The bra Rena designed for Habitat didn’t bring in the most money, but it won the vote as the most popular design. (Actually the idea for it was Trace’s. Apparently, he has talent in the fashion arena as well.) It was adorned quite appropriately with roofing nails. Carin, one of the Americorps/Habitat interns was kind enough to model it at the job site one day for those who didn’t attend the show.

On Sunday, I only had enough energy left to float down the Snake River with Trace in his ducky – an inflatable two-man kayak. Unfortunately, we didn’t quite get it inflated enough, and the cold water managed to contract the air in it even more, so we were riding pretty low in the water. The rapids weren’t exactly class V, or even class II for that matter, but we did manage to “taco” in one rapid with me ending up in Trace’s lap in the back of the ducky with his paddle in the back of my head. Believe it or not, no alcohol was involved. The river was pretty high and moving real fast so the ride went pretty quick. After we pulled out we drove down into the canyon to witness a truly unique Wyoming experience. In a rapid called Lunch Counter (or Big Kahuna, I’m not sure which) for several weeks in the spring there is enough water to create a standing wave where surfers can actually surf the wave in the middle of the river. If I hadn’t seen it myself I’m not sure I would’ve believed it, though it has supposedly been written up in Surfer magazine a few different times. Several surfers tried to surf the wave, but it wasn’t easy judging by the looks of it. One guy was pretty amazing though and could stand up in the wave for quite a while. I was really disappointed not to have my camera with me, so you’ll have to take my word for it. It would’ve been a great picture to show Guchi, our surfing dude down in Costa Rica. If they had been selling “Surf Wyoming” T-shirts I definitely would’ve bought one. It was pretty crazy.

For a town of only 8,000 people Jackson has some pretty nice amenities including a brand new Center for the Arts. On Monday, Trace was able to get me an extra ticket to see John Prine. I wouldn’t call myself a big fan of his, though I’ve heard his music enough to know that I do like a lot of it. The theater is what I would call “cozy”, which I think is perfect for seeing a show because there really isn’t a bad seat in the house. Well, except maybe our seats because we had some nuts sitting in the aisle right next to us that felt the need to accompany John on some of his more popular acoustic songs. I guess they thought he wasn’t loud enough by himself. I was going to ask the guy what his name was so I could see if he was listed on the ticket as John’s special guest. Luckily someone finally told them to move to their seats. Anyways, it was a great concert. However, when Charlie found out we went he was quite perturbed that we had neglected to mention the concert to him. It turns out he IS a big fan and he didn’t soon let us forget this point. I think he forgave us by the time he left, though.

Midway through the second week a couple of friends that Trace had met on a train a few years ago showed up. I was thinking they were going to be a couple of young guys, but not so. Don and Art are in their 60s and 70s respectively, but they came out and worked 2 long days with us. I was happy to have them there, partly because Art took most of the ribbing that I usually get, but mostly because they are just a couple of great guys. We went out to dinner a couple of times and we were usually laughing most of the way through the meal. The funny thing is that they only knew Trace from a 1 ½ hour train ride from San Diego to LA, but after he sent them a postcard a while later, they somehow managed to track him down “on the ice” in Antarctica through the internet without even knowing his email or last name. I think Art sometimes questions the wisdom of that effort ;) On Saturday, we stayed a bit late and managed to finish the roof. It felt good, even though our bodies didn't. Well, all except the ridge vent, which Trace was kind enough to save for me the following week.

If you’re starting to get the idea that I went out a lot while I was there, you’d be right. I decided to stay an extra week, with the idea that I would only work a few days for Habitat and maybe catch up on my sleep. Well, that didn’t quite work out. I did stay for another week, and had a great time, but I didn’t really catch up on my sleep. I worked on the house a few more days and also did some work for Michael. I also managed to get Abbey out for a hike or a good walk most every day, but needless to say I think I went out every night so I didn’t catch up on my sleep too much. Not to mention that Abbey woke me up most morning by 6:00 so sleeping in was not an option. I had to leave the KOA but I was lucky enough to stay for free in a storage yard in town. The boyfriend of another Americoprs intern, Mills, found out I was looking for a place to stay so he said I could park in his lot. It was actually not a bad place and since it was in town and free, Abbey and I were just fine there. Believe it or not, I was there 3 weeks and I didn’t go for a hike, or even go into Grand Teton National Park until my last day there. Trace, Heather (a slightly crazy friend of Trace’s) and I went for a real nice hike in Death Canyon. The scenery is much nicer than the name suggests. And thanks to Trace and Heather talking pretty much nonstop we didn’t have to worry about bears or anything. On the way back Trace decided it was warm enough to take the first dip of the summer. Heather and I thought otherwise so we watched as he took a quick dip in a freezing cold stream. He kept telling us after that we’d feel much better if we had gone in with him, but I was feeling just fine. About 2 minutes after we got in the car I started falling asleep. I think the 3 weeks were finally catching up to me. Unfortunately, the next day I had to drive 9 hours to Colorado. I’m sure Heather and Trace were napping all day.

This trip was even better than the last one and I also met a whole bunch of new people thanks to Trace and Rena. I’m ready to sign up for the next build in the fall. I’m hoping that Trace will come on down to Boulder to visit me this summer, but I’m worried about it being able to live up to my time in Jackson. I’ll have a hard time trying to top his hospitality. I made it down to Loveland, to the Gibbons, Monday evening, picked up my apartment keys on Tuesday and Abbey and I moved into our new home for the summer on Wednesday. The first thing I wanted to do after putting things away, however, was to get some sleep.

The Beginning
Midway
After 2 Weeks. Check out that roof!
A typical pose

The Super

Posted by Ed at 1:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I figured that I flew all the way down to Guatemala from the US so I didn’t want to just see Antigua. So I booked a tour to Tikal National Park, one of the most well-preserved sites of the Mayan ruins, for the middle weekend. To get there, I had to catch a shuttle to the airport at 4am, then a flight to Flores, and then another shuttle to the park. I booked the tour on my own, but found out before I left that 2 other students, Mary and Sean, were also going and we all ended up in the same hotel. The hotel was actually pretty nice, but the best part about it was the swimming pool. Tikal was very warm and extremely humid. By 9:30 in the morning, when our tour started, it was already getting uncomfortable. By the time the tour ended around 12:30 it was getting unbearable, but that pool felt great. If I remember right, the temples and other ruins in the park were built over a period of about 1600 years ending around 850AD. The amazing thing was that the jungle had reclaimed all of it. Everything that we saw had been unearthed by archaeologists, and much of the ruins in the park were still covered. It was interesting to hear about the Mayan culture and how they built all these structures to such exact precision, to line up with the solstices and the equinoxes, etc. But Mary had a different perspective. She said, “Just imagine the number of people who died building these temples.” As Sean said, in order for a civilization to become advanced it usually required the oppression or exploitation of a large group of people.

No matter how I looked at it, it was interesting and I was happy I went. Mary on the other hand was not. She was probably the oldest student in the group, and wasn’t real intent on learning Spanish. She also didn’t swim in the pool, which explained why she was so hot and uncomfortable in Tikal. Sean and I made use of the pool so we were just fine. Sean is a Canadian from Nunavut, if you’ve ever heard of that. I remember hearing about Nunavut being named a new territory in northeastern Canada near Greenland several years ago. He is the one and only Nunavutian that I know, though he is not from a native tribe. He’s a real nice guy, nonetheless, and if all Nunavutians are anything like Sean I’m sure it’s a real agreeable place to live, if you like frozen tundra. The next morning Sean and I went back in the park to check out more of the ruins and we hoped to see some wildlife. Not only did we see some wildlife, Sean had a close encounter. While climbing up one of the temples we saw some parrots. All of a sudden 2 more parrots showed up and a territorial battle broke out. Sean's head got caught in the middle of everything, but luckily he didn't jump out of the way. It would've been a long fall down. We also saw some howler and spider monkeys, but they weren't as "wild" as the parrots.

Miss Mayan Ruin Contest?

When I arrived back in Antigua Sunday evening it felt strangely familiar and comfortable, like it was home, even though I had only been there a week. Maybe it would be more appropriate to say I felt like I belonged there. Walking through the central park back to my house, I felt like I was an old timer, one of the experienced. Luckily, no one tried to start a conversation with me in Spanish. That surely would have killed the moment. Week 2 was more Spanish. I graduated on to using the past tense. I no longer had to say everything in the present tense and hope that by the context of the sentence the person to whom I was talking could figure out my meaning. Of course, with more verb conjugations to remember, I suddenly forgot how to conjugate verbs in the present tense. It’s been way too long since I had to study! Week 2 also came with more partying, which also hindered the studying part. Since I had gotten to know more of the students, I started going out more. Most of them were younger so I was usually not in the crowd that stayed out the latest, but I did manage to experience “reggatone” for the first time. Some would call it music, some would not, but nonetheless I managed to dance, or some semblance thereof, to it. Jackie, a girl from DC, was in love with reggatone so we had no choice. The students came from a variety of countries including Holland, Switzerland, Canada, Denmark, Australia and the US. After the US and Canada, the most were from Holland. Surprisingly, at our school there were no Germans. Most places I’ve traveled recently the majority of the foreign tourists have been Germans.

The meals we had with the family were pretty good, though not overly big. There was always bread and tortillas and many meals came with rice and beans. I definitely had my quota of beans for several months in those 2 weeks. The lunches were the biggest and the best, where dinners were quite small. We’d often get something else to eat before or after dinner. And at the 10AM break at school I learned in a hurry that a lady came in everyday to serve different kinds of sandwiches for all of .50 to .70. You couldn’t beat them for the price especially considering that they came with guacamole – one of my favorite foods. There were a few different brands of local beers none of them anything special but they were fine just the same. We were a bit surprised at the price of the beer though. It was cheap by American standards, but in relation to everything else it wasn’t any bargain. We had cheaper beer in Costa Rica. I think it is because Antigua caters to tourists.

On my last night, I decided to try and stay out with the youngsters all night. My shuttle was picking me up at 4:00 the next morning so I figured it wouldn’t make a lot of sense to go to sleep for just a few hours. We started out with a nice dinner and then headed to one of the dance clubs until that closed at 1:00. In Antigua, they have this strange concept they call an “after party”. After the clubs all shut down at 1, guys stand outside and hand out maps to their “after party” – supposedly illegal parties at some out-of-the-way unmarked place where they serve limited booze and play pretty bad music in a darkly lit room. I pretty much think they bribe the cops to look the other way, because it is way too obvious for them not to get caught. (One of the major complaints of the locals I talked to was that of corrupt police and politicians.) Well, the music was pretty bad so I lasted ONLY ‘til 3:00 before heading back to the house. I somehow managed to stay awake until 4 when the shuttle picked me up to start my journey “home”, which at that time happened to be Colorado. Whenever someone asked me where I was from I would just say “the States”. And they would say, “Of course, but where in the States?” So I’d have to go into this explanation of how I live now. Just before leaving for Guatemala I decided to rent an apartment in Boulder, CO for the summer starting just after Memorial Day until the end of August. So sometimes for simplicity sake, especially if I was explaining it in Spanish, I would say that I now live in Colorado.

Posted by Ed at 6:52 PM | Permalink