Semuc Champey

After many weeks of hiding out in Antigua, learning Spanish and not updating our blog, we've decided to come back from the dead.

Two weekends ago, we took our third “side trip” outside of Antigua (Volcan Pacaya and Guatemala City were the other two). We went with a group of nice Swiss girls who all had randomly met in Antigua. We went to Semuc Champey, a hidden town several hours outside of Copan.

We left late Friday evening and hit some traffic going through Guatemala City. This was a special weekend for the chapinos (local Guatemalans) since it was a weekend before their Independence Day on Monday, Sept. 15. Every year, during this time, local schools hold a racing event simply called the “Torch Run” where groups of kids run with their schools into their city, with one kid holding a torch. Traffic is held up as groups of kids run in front of a bus, with lines of cars following – and our car being one (imagine this in the States). Since there are more than just a few schools in town, you can imagine how many groups of kids are running during this weekend and what it does to traffic.

Anyway, after about six hours on the road, with lovely greenery almost the entire way there, we arrived in Copan, in search for our hotel. The agency that booked our hotel actually got this hotel out of the yellow pages, so Wilson and I had no idea what to expect. However, when we arrived at the hotel, we were delightfully surprised to find that for a 22-dollar-a-night hotel, this place was not bad. I believe it was called the Bosque Hotel. After washing up and some dinner, we hit the sack in hopes of a wild day tomorrow at Semuc Champey.

The ride to Semuc Champey was over two hours off the beaten track. After some very steep, rocky and windy turns, our driver got us all there safely.

When we arrived at Semuc Champey, we were greeted with a bunch of kids selling chocolate chip cookies, chocolate and other random items. Of course you couldn't help but feel sorry for them. We promised to buy some (chocolate chip cookies) later.

We trekked through the hills of Semuc Champey and made it halfway up to the “mirador,” a place where you could see the waterfall from the top of the mountain. More than half the group didn't want to go up and the other half didn't care so the choice was to go back down. Wilson was one of the first ones to hit the water and the rest of the girls, including me, were a bit skeptical to go in.

I (and as many of the other women I was with) felt very uncomfortable going into the water with our bikinis. I learned from my teacher later that many locals do not wear “ropa de bano” (also known as bathing suits in English) when they go into public water. Instead many of the women go into the water with their shirts and shorts on. As a matter of fact, we saw several women go in fully clothed. So, we (the ladies with Wilson as the guard) went into the water all together, disrobing our shirts and shorts nearby the water.

The water was cool and very refreshing. I (Agnes) was somehow a bit nervous when I jumped into the deeper parts of the pool (6 feet but still...). Not sure why I was scared but after some getting use to, I was fine.

As we were leaving the park, we bought two pieces of what we thought were chocolate chip cookies. To Wilson's surprise, the 'cookie' was hard, bitter and tasteless. He soon found out this 'cookie' was actually chocolate used to make hot chocolate (pretty random to be selling in front of a park on a hot day). As such, I gave mine to a little kid that was selling his services to hold your water cooler while you trekked down the mountain.

After we all had enough sun and water, we decided to head over to “Lanquin” - a nearby cave that houses thousands of bats. You can see from the photos, that there are many interesting, natural rock formations that have formed over the years (frog, tiger, etc.).
Unfortunately, we only saw one loner bat in the cave, as we arrived too early to catch the bats come back home. Typically it's recommended that you arrive right at sunset to witness all the bats flying home. Que lastima!

We headed back to our hotel in Copan after the caves. Since lunch was a bit light, we all washed up quickly and went back to the one-and-only restaurant in front of the hotel. I ordered this grilled chicken shish kabab and Wilson also ordered some chicken thing that was pretty dry. Before I finished my meal, the kind waiter brought us an extra chicken shish kabob, gratis (free). I tried a piece and insisted that Wilson try some since it was extremely soft and juicy. When there was one piece of chicken left, I noticed that it was not fully cooked (a bit red on the inside). I kept my fingers crossed that everything would be fine for the two of us tomorrow.

The next day, Wilson woke up complaining about flu-like symptoms. He knew immediately he had a slight case of food poisoning. Unfortunately, we had six or more hours ahead of us in a car on some windy roads so I knew the ride home for him would not be pleasant.

After we all packed into the shuttle, we stopped at a Bird Sanctuary before going home. Wilson was obviously not up to the hike so it was just the Swiss gals, the driver and me. Although the hike was quite pleasant and easy, we did not see a single bird. We did, however, see a nice small water fall at the top of the mountain.

On the way home, we hit yet more traffic with a land slide that occurred Friday evening and more torch runners running into Guatemala City and Antigua. I felt bad for Wilson since he was really beginning to feel dizzy, nausea and altogether awful.

We finally arrived in Antigua after about 5-6 hours on the road. We walked home and Wilson went straight to bed.

Overall, this was a nice trip but given the long-drive, bad traffic and food poisoning, perhaps we should have stayed in town to watch the Patriots beat the Jets.

And you will be happy to know that Wilson's appetite is back to normal and he's doing fine.

Dressing a Chicken

It's been some time since we've updated our Blog as we've been hunkered down studying. Our apologies for those of you who've been waiting at the edge of your seat. I, Wilson, also came down with a nasty bit of food poisoning last weekend.

Onward...
A few weeks ago we killed and dressed our first live chicken!

For about three weeks, we were fortunate to be in the company of Marta, a sweet gal from South Carolina who was in town brushing up on her Spanish grammar. She is currently teaching deaf children in El Salvador on a church mission. In addition to being able to sign and speak Spanish, she also an expert at killing and cleaning chickens. Her family in the States raises broilers and can house more than 200,000 at one time. So before she left, she was kind enough to impart her knowledge about this valuable skill to me. Three other missionaries lived at the house.

It's not imperative in this day and age to be able dress your own chicken, especially when we live in San Francisco. But oddly enough, one night Agnes and I discovered that we were the only folks at the dinner table never to have done so. All the missionaries had, and our house mother does it with some frequency. One of the missionaries, Karlyn, hunts for most of his meat near his home in Oregon. In fact, he hunts elk with a bow. After a successful hunt, he and his hunting partners will field dress the carcass and hump the meat out of the woods on their backs. He is also good with a rifle. Ranchers in Oregon sometimes struggle with coyote attacks on their cattle and allow hunters to hunt them on their land. Karlyn will often take out a coyote from 400 yards.

Anyway, feeling a little left out, we decided to exploit the expertise of our roommates. Our house mother, Hilda, I'm sure was happy to get the night off since I'd offered to cook. She was also kind enough to show me the best place in the market to purchase a bird I think she thought it was a little odd that I wanted to slaughter a chicken in her house. Also, upon hearing that we were simply making a soup out of it, she remarked that we should just buy a dead one (to take full advantage of a fresh chicken, I think you should roast it, but I thought it would be easier to feed a bunch of people with chicken soup).

Buying a chicken wasn't difficult but we did go sort of late in the day, and had to choose between the last two chickens in the market, which cost 50 Quetzales, or about $7. Hilda said I got ripped off and should not have been charged more than 40 or 45. But since we got to market so late in the afternoon and not much was left, I had no choice but to cough up the extra 5Q.

I suppose one reason chickens have been domesticated is that they are so calm. I thought perhaps after purchase, that I would be supplied with a carrier or box or something, but they just tie up the feet and you carry it home in your hands. The animal displayed no signs of alarm when being carried upside down by its feet, as if this were the preferred method of transport. That said, Hilda thought it better that I carry it right side up by it's wings. Not sure if this was for the chicken's comfort or mine. Once home, we tied it too a post and gave it some water. I asked if we should feed it since we weren't eating it until the next day, but was told that it's actually better not too feed it since it will just result in more shit to clean.

Killing and dressing a chicken is a really easy thing. You can either break its neck with your hands in one swift motion, or lop its head off. I chose the latter. Hilda thought that twisting the head of the chicken was cleaner but another of the missionaries offered that sometimes you aren't sure if it's really dead. Her cousin was dressing a chicken once and it came to life again when she was soaking it to remove the feathers.

Anyway, to lop its head off, Marta held the feet, I stretched its neck out and Agnes took pictures. One of my primary goals was to offer the bird a swift and painless death, as I think it's the least you can do for an animal you're about to eat. Unfortunately, I think I failed. My knife was a little on the dull side, and fearing that I'd chop off my own hand rather than the chicken's head, I took kind of a gingerly whack at it. And then another, and then I actually sort of ended up sawing the poor bird's head off while it flopped about in the sink. It's unclear to me how much of the flopping was done while the bird was alive and how much while dead, though I'm certain much of the struggling occurred after the head had been more or less removed (save for a few stringy bits). I considered letting the carcass run around a spell but I didn't want to muck up Hilda's kitchen.

Afterwards I held the bird upside down (the same way I carried it home) to let it drain. This doesn't take long since there's surprisingly little blood in a chicken. Then you soak it in hot water to loosen the feathers. These are easily removed and then you're left with something that more or less looks like it came from Safeway (though still with feet). To remove the innards, you make a small horizontal incision near it's bunghole and then just tear out everything on the inside with your hands. Marta helped me discern the useful bits from the waste. For instance, we saved the heart, liver and gizzard and discarded the intestines and a lot of gloopy purple stuff she was unable to identify. I never thought I'd say this but tearing the guts out of a freshly killed bird with your bare hands feels exactly like you'd think it would. Once you've done this and chopped off the feet (which we saved for the soup), you're all set to prepare whatever way you normally would.

One thing I do have to mention is that a bird looks a good deal larger with its feathers. In fact, I believe the chicken I killed must have been the smallest bird I've ever eaten. So if you plan on killing and eating a chicken, I suggest you buy a larger animal than you think you'll need.

In the end, we boiled the chicken with some vegetables and made an ok soup. I think with enough salt and pepper, anything can taste good.
Agnes also made cookies that I think went over even better than the chicken.

It should be noted that most people in Antigua do not dress their own chickens. They buy theirs at the market like most people we know (though the chickens are usually recently killed – save for the american imported chickens which come frozen). So killing a chicken wasn't one of those “When in Rome...” kinds of cultural experiences. But it just so happened that I lived two blocks from a market where live chickens are sold in a house where animals are occasionally slaughtered and we were in the company of an expert chicken cleaner. Clearly this was an opportunity not to be missed. I like the idea of better understanding where my food comes from and how it looks as it's being prepared for my dinner. Perhaps one day we'll be able to kill a boar and make prosciutto.