Grand Gestures

Antigua, Guatemala

I had returned to Antigua to go on a date with a Lilly. That didn't go so well.

On the one hand we got along well and ate nachos and had a bunch of sex. Which on the face of it sounds quite nice.

On the other hand we seemed to have nothing in common besides a shared affection for dogs. We covered such scintillating topics as Beyonce and where our parents lived. I felt like after one night out we had nothing left to talk about.

So instead I spent a week in Antigua getting drunk and chatting with ex-girlfriends.

*

It was holy week and Antigua was packed. The week before Easter nobody in Guatemala works or has school and half the country heads to Antigua.

Many of the streets were closed so families could create "carpets," which were art pieces in the streets made with colored sand or flowers.

All day and night there were "processions" plodding from church to church. Thousands of young men in purple robes. Brass bands playing ominous marches with cymbals crashing on every lethargic step.

I had a chat with one ex who gave me some sound advice. I had been planning to accompany Lilly and her friends to Panajachel and spend a few days in a posh lakeside mansion they had rented. After our date I was thinking I'd still go but make a point of how I was leaving soon for the states. My typical passive aggressive cold shoulder slip out the backdoor approach to romance.

My ex convinced me that honesty was the best policy. So after a night of heavy drinking and reflection I called it off with Lilly the next morning. I told her I wasn't going to the lake and that I hadn't felt the connection I had been expecting. She took it surprisingly well responding with Sí está bien Mike and a smiley face emoji.

*

I was feeling fatalistic after that and switched from romantic daydreams to a deep mathematical study of poker. I started playing online tournaments and watching training videos several hours a day.

In the evenings I was watching March Madness and other sports in the bars of Antigua. After the sports ended I'd leave for more musical and artsy drinking establishments.

One night I wound up at Café No Sé watching a musician Mof I had seen play before. She played a blend of folk and blues and traditional Costa Rican music. Seven months earlier when I had been through Guatemala I had seen her and sent a video of her playing to an ex I thought would dig her music. So I did that again.

Then I blacked out and sent the same ex like 30 unanswered pathetic texts along the lines of "let's run away to Peru together." Rereading them the next morning, the texts confirmed that I had sent at least some of them from my guesthouse. I didn't remember leaving the bar.

I had also apparently paid my tab but left my check card behind. So one bridge burned, but I did have an excuse to return to the bar.

*

Usually my spontaneous trips and grand gestures tend to work out pretty well. This time it really didn't. I felt dumb. I decided I'd cut my losses and head back to Peru. Via Mexico though, because it's so much cheaper to fly Mexico City to Lima and also because tacos.