motorcycle diaries

so much for the gold lamé.

this last week saw me board my first aircraft since my rather uneventful winter break on the slopes at sundance. the events of the last few days though were hardly uneventful. spoiler alert: gold lamé and neon pink plaster casts will not be featured together in the same figh gnarts routine.

late thursday night, i boarded a plane with seven friends, destined for guatemala. after the flight into guatemala city, and skipping any tour of the city altogether, we headed directly for the sunny, tourist-driven colonial establishment of antigua. leaving no time for trinket shopping or mercado bartering, we lounged leisurely in a lush courtyard while nibbling on a traditional guatemalan breakfast consisting of an egg, slice of queso fresco, pureed blackbeans and fried plantains (not to mention the tastilty acidic guatemalan cup of joe).

straightway after the meal, our itinerary took us to the somewhat less-visited san pedro on the bank of lake atítlan, beneath smouldering vocanic peaks. all that need be said is that much hammock-lying, cerveza-drinking, and sunbathing ensued. although the population of san pedro is small, the influx of spanish-speaking, ganga-smoking, reggae-loving travelers over the last decade has transformed the dreamy area into a small, non-traditional tourist destination, a paradise of daytime relaxation and lively nightlife.


minutes before our return to antigua, several friends and i were cruising through rural guatemala, secretly playing out our own half-hour version of motorcycle diaries (maybe it was just me?). we cruised through tiny stone-clad villages, past local familes walking home from the fields, around the brightly-decorated "chicken bus," a typically crammed-full-of-passengers and teetering-precariously-along-small-country-lanes version of public transportation. despite my own history of two-wheeled riding, i do occasionally (or rather often some might argue?) take a small spill; which is exactly what happened on the outskirts of the bustling little village of san juan de laguna.

now i am somewhat sullenly resigned to my en-cast arm, and again enduring my daily life in los angeles (despite delaying plans for the sophomore figh gnarts release), the cool evenings eating al fresco and the warm days traversing village paths in the heart of guatemala are enough to make me think i would do it all again, even if the result is still a hardened neon-pink cast.