Rio Dulce

A huge sigh of relief shot from Bjorn and I immediately after we heard the nice man at the embassy ask Elliot to raise his right hand and promise that he had filled out the passport form in a truthful manner. It meant that his new passport had scanned, which meant that the exceptionally small picture we managed to find for it had been found acceptable. As things stand, he can return for his passport in eight days, which gives us plenty of time to explore the surrounding cities.

I saw Eva again last night, and she is now free to leave the country. Apparently money does talk in Guatemala. It´s just very, very slow to speak (say, about eight weeks). Ironically enough, it takes about as much time to process a bribe down here as it does any legitimate business.

Bjorn, Elliot, and I spent a very enjoyable evening at Cafe No Se two nights ago before heading up to Guatemala City in the morning. I was roped into playing guitar and singing most of the evening, which, from what I was told, provided a nice background to the poker and moderate alcohol consumption. With us was a Castilian-German girl named Elisa, who, upon discovering that a cafe in Antigua didn´t have a Spanish menu, provided us a most entertaining angry display. She knew German and Spanish but very little English, and apparently far underestimated the power and reach of American culture.

We (the boys, anyway) spent the next day in Guatemala City, carefully avoiding the more dangerous sections of town by sticking to the nine-block commercial center. We decided to spend the night in order to see Episode III, which was, thankfully, full of action sequences and short on personal dialogue (although Lucas`...talent...for dialogue did manage to overshadow some portions of the movie). My favorite line: "Only the Sith deal in absolutes!"

Yes. Only them.

Today we arrived in Rio Dulce, which is, to put it mildly, one of the most gorgeous lakeside areas in the world. But for the slow internet, we´d have pictures up. Elliot and I have gone swimming twice today. The water is exceptionally warm, and felt great after sweating on a bus for a good six hours. All the profits from this little resort go to a small orphanage nearby. Tomorrow we visit a waterfall, a Spanish fort built to ward off the likes of Francis Drake, and a town (Livingston) alternately founded by Quiche indians, African captives, and French and English pirates.

More to come.