H.I.P.P.I.E. Thee Book

The sense of Smell always comes first. Then the others. As I gained consciousness I smelled the flowers and the smells associated with being in the tropics, as I perceived being chilly, the TOUCH, heard the giggles, HEARING, as I opened my eyes, to a clear sunny day SIGHT, and looked up to see a gaggle of young children, all decked out in their beautiful hand woven garments all smiling, giggling and pointing at me, then I realized then were I was. On my back in a ditch with only y underwear, a t-shirt and my sandals. Seems I was rolled again. My head hurt, of course and as I heard someone chastising the kids I realized it was an adult voice of a woman speaking in Kachikel to them and they scampered off. I slowly got up . embarrassed , con verguenza, as she walked up and said in spanish, oh its you again, when I recognized her from a few months back when I was mickeyed in a bar, and dumped on the side of the road, in her front yard in Chimaltenago, Guatemala, hence being chilly fresh air and at altitude. She had a blanket for me and motioned me to her house for a hot cafe. We chatted a minute, not about how why I was here again, but she gave me a few quetzals some pants and a shirt to get me back to my hostel in the city with a promise from me to drop them off on my way to Antigua or Panajachel when i passed by here in the next day or so. Feeling better with the strong cafe and sugar I waited for a bus to flag down as I tried to remember the night before. Oh yea, again at Jardines, a famous brothel in town I would go by on occasion to have a beer, chat with the 'girls' before I caught a taxi back to Chalet Suiza in Zona 1, as this was on 12th Avenida in Zona 9, by Plaza Espana, and was actually the old Spanish embassy that was torched with 30 some folks inside where they had taken it over in protest and actually the father of the Nobel prize winner Rigoberta Menchu's Dad was one of the victims. A fun place , however I was a customer only once with a Salvadoran blondie from Chalatenango named Beatrice. I don't really remember our tryst, but she was since then wanting a go again. Must be my blue eyes. Anyway nothing was broken, I was not beat up, just missing my money, pants and shirt and jacket. The bus came, it took me to Trebol where I then caught another to Zona 1 then to the Hostel. I got my key changed clothes, wearing some typico, of course into walking shoes grabbed some cash and proceeded to walk to the expat bar where the peace corps folks hung out ran by a North american couple, Judy and Dwayne, she was the boss. This place was also frequented quite a bit by high ranking Guatemala officers and others in the right wing government so I had other reasons I was there, not just for the food, which was Americanized and quite good, They also served rabbit which was farm raised quite a bit in Guatemala. Mainly listening to what I could hear and sometimes the drunk ones told more than they should have, so I just passed the information on to my contact with the URNG in Panajachel. Anyway, it was lunchtime so there was a boisterous crowd for a Saturday as many peace corps came to town on the weekends. I was in a hurry to get back to pack up some recycled hand blown glass I had made to send back to Wilmington, NC as samples to try to get a market going for these I thought were cool, even though I had then make some designs copying the Mexican glass ware, with the blue glass and other colored glass rings at the top of the glasses and mugs; 'vidrio soplado' in Spanish. I finished up crating and packing them and walked it over, carrying this hand made case I made with my swiss army knife, weighing maybe 70 lbs on my back to the post office close by. I was fortunate so far in that using their psotal service to ship back the clothes and samples I had made so far a 100% success at them all getting to my drop point in USA. I was in my room, with the door open when I heard a distinctive, obviously educated voice echoing down the corridor of a frustrated man. He was trying to get back to Tikal it seems where he was a researcher with the University of Kansas, Lawrence on a dig at Complex P, off limits to the public and very guarded, I had already been to Tikal a couple times once overland from Belize and with my buddy Rick Klein, of The Monkee's road manager fame and best friend of Mickey Dolenz, more about him our travels and adventures later, as they do come into play in this narrative. It seems as per usual he, the archaeologist was frustrated by the military flights one could on occasion grab from Aurora airport, the military side up to Flores airport,in the jungle by Tikal cheap $35, but never on schedule, you had to be there and they had to have extra seats. my one experience with them was well not so pleasant in the Fokker 47 years earlier, cheap yes but did not account on getting shot at from small arms, fire from the jungle below, noticing the bullet holes and patches on the aircraft, but it was cheap and beat that sometimes 33 hour bus ride depending on the rainy season or not.I had also made the drive in my vehicle once following Rick Klein, the same trip we found a boa in the road late night in pouring rain on the dirt road near Rio Dulce just before we stopped for the night, His name was Jim and I introduced myself, an chatted a little about my incursions into Mayan ruins and y interest in Mayan Math and the fact I had first experienced ruins in Mexico in late 70's on the drive down from NC to Pasquales, Colima, to surf for 3 days the biggest gnarliest wave beach break in the america's. where many times we would go down the coast as it was too big for me, looking like Waimea bay breaking just off the black sand beach, with Colima volcano smoking in the back ground, large sharks AND EVEN ALLIGATORS sometimes in the water, as their was a large lagoon nearby.Pretty bitching place except you could not even sleep on the beach due to the constant pounding of the waves and that earthquake thingy made for not getting a good night's sleep and back then you didn't drink, if you wanted to surf and be in top performance for those waves. The Break just over the Michoacan border at La Ticla, was smaller and less dangerous and this place was like a setting out of "100 Years of Solitude". which IMHO is the most important book for Latinos to read behind The Biblia, and it seems up their in must read for many. Anyway, he told me he was just new here hasn't been to the site yet, so I piqued his interest, especially relating my tale of spending the night there, full moon, liquid LSD dosed and what I experienced. Later..He invited me to visit at the complex if and when I got back there as he would be there 2 years or so. He was on his way back to the airport to try again to get a EPM flight to Flores. We shook hands exchanged fones, before email but we also were both on Usenet in the 80's so we could connect in forums,at 14K baud, lol and me on a Comodore 64 back home. He must have made it but I was in the process of getting a rental car to drive to Antigua, with a pound of weed I would sell to the gringos there, many many as there were also over 50 schools teaching Spanish and the students and travelers would get from me, since they did not have any connection. I would stay a couple days meet some European mamacitas hang out at the bars at night, there were only a few back then, maybe go to the thermal springs or go volcano climbing, once with a gal that was doctoral student at Lawrence when we hiked up Volcan Agua spent the night huddling freezing in my tent and down bag, to awake at dawn where we were only a few yards from the pinnacle, oh well, it was cold dark and windy when we stopped and pitched the tent in a out cropping. The guys at the shacks manning the TV towerstreated us to some warm cocoa as we enjoyed the view, unreal. The ocean looked straight down and we could see going for miles the line of volcanoes to the west into Mexico and the ones to the east towards El Salvador and even Pacaya smoking a bit in its fury as we were above it, and it was the next volcano towards El Salvador. After a day or 2 I needed to get to wok so I would then drive to Panajachel, usually with a passenger or 2 get my place then proceed to the villages and the indigenous folks I worked with , sometimes with Marco, my helper, shipper and contact with the guerilla leaders to pass on my information. He lived in Mixco, but I would meet him in Pana, where he also worked for Jim Miller who sold hats and some typico in the french Quarter, a cool guy that I later stayed with a couple times in New Orleans when I drove down, His house was on Louisa street which was washed asunder during Katrina. We would go to buy fabric and visit my main sewer in Chichicastenango. A place I have also been with Rick and actually was revealed to us the 5000 year old artifact in the ground outside of Chichi city limits that was a ceremonial center, for thousands of years. After business was over and we returned to Pana where I stayed,maybe an hour drive through gorgeous terrain and winding roads changing in elevation drastically on occasion where I would party at Circus Bar and swim, hiked around the lake to other villages or up the crater lake's walls on trails hundreds even thousands of years old, on occasion to be passed by some anciano Mayan Indian with a heavy load of wood on his back, how humbling that was. On occasion I would rent or take a boat to another village on the far side of the lake, most all the time with a beautiful, French, Swiss, Dutch, Italian, or other nationality back packer , and I even windsurfed on the lake,with Cokey, owner of Tres Amigos Tacos. equipment he would let me use. Now it is very polluted with run off and with toxic algae blooms. A shame all that new development and they did not deal with their human waste in proper, sustainable ways, which is why I designed a composting toilet size of a pila and same amount of concrete that would generate gas, lo pressure for cooking, The problem in Latinolandia as with many in third world is the word and concept MAINTENANCE!. It was always difficult to explain this concept and for those using the technology to apply it, In other words clean the damn thing out every month. One arrival with my clothes and typico i would travel back to the City to ship it out, usually on a Thursday, where I would give a call to Robert Rotherham at Punta Roca in El Salvador for a surf report, He is quite famous and has a nice restaurant on the beach, and I would keep a surfboard there. If it was going to be good I would turn the car in catch a number 8 bus to the airport and buy a $25 one way ticket on COPA and be in El Salvador at dusk, and get a cab to La Libertad, which back then would be like 45 minutes, dark but not scary for me as their was sort of an unwritten rule between the US sponsored military and guerrillas of the FMLN no fighting at the beach. Knock on wood I would every time get to la Libertad eat a great fish meal, go to bed, usually staying at RICK's for $5 a night and be ready to catch a dawn patrol at the #5 best right point in the world, Latin america's Jeffery's Bay. back then not many of us in the water, however on a Saturday some in town guys would come down but there was plenty of waves for all. This is where the surfing sequences, many of them were shot for the classic 'Big Wednesday" with Gary Busey, a character i would later have 'situations' with when I worked on a couple movie sets, in Wilmywood, and where he would show up closing time, at dark in the winter to Bert's surf shop with a 6 pack of PBR's and some good California bud we would do bong hits in the bathroom after Nick Dodge, a childhood friend in Raleigh since 5th grade., closed the shop. If only Bert knew, jaaaa. I may have told Bert when I had drinks with him and Gloria at his 82nd birthday in Myrtle Beach with their good friends, both now deceased, Not Bert and Gloria at the time of this writing but their friends who had a place where my Mom did at Maisons Sur Mer in Myrtle, on shore drive. Another story in itself. So this story and the screenplay I'm penning , 'El Ostrero' The Oyster Diver begins... sort of.. not here in Guate where a lot of it takes place but surfing at Zunzal on one of those Saturdays during the 80's before the conflict was over and what happened then on one fine day and the story and what came afterwards.