The Loneliest Sound In The World

Semuc Champey, Guatemala

I rode into Lanquín on the back of a pickup truck with an Isreali woman named Nif. She was a lefty type with hair in all the places women can have hair. She was out of school for the summer and travelling Central America by herself.

After we checked in at Vista Verde - I to my private room and Nif to her dorm - I returned to the common area. The wifi was brutally slow so I put my computer in a locker and saddled up next to a Swiss guy at the bar. His name was Nicko and he spoke six languages.

A few beers in, Nif approached the bar to get another beer, and I introduced her to Nicko. They hit it off well and started talking across me in French. Eventually I left to pee and when I returned Nif had taken my seat next to Nicko and they were deep in conversation.

I proceeded to order more beers and chat with the bartender, a flirty middle-aged indigenous woman. Vista Verde was different from most hostels in that it was owned and run by a family of indigenous Guatemalans.

About half the population of Guatemala identifies as indigenous Mayan, and the other half as mestizo, which means mixed European and native ancestry. Most hostels are actually owned by foreigners (especially Europeans and Americans), some are owned by mestizos, but very few are owned by indigenous people. The bartender was super proud of the hostel and made me watch YouTube videos they had produced.

Six or seven beers in I tried to re-ingratiate myself into the Nif-Nicko conversation, but my efforts fell pretty flat. It was clear to me that they had found a spark and were going to sleep together now. I had like no game with these first world travelers and that pretty much blew.

I stumbled off to my room in a foul mood. I didn't want to hear Nicko and Nif having sex so I listened to music of questionable volume on my bluetooth speaker. The hostel was built on the side of a hill and it was dark out, so when I had to pee I just peed off the deck outside my room. Better than risking a drunk tumble down the hill in the dark, and who cares anyway.

The next morning I realized that the building which I thought only had two private rooms also had a dorm upstairs. I was pretty embarrassed about whipping my dick out on the deck. Then I realized that I had probably kept people up with my music, and also I had lost my sunglasses. So this was going to be a shameful hangover.

I was supposed to go do a cave tour and swim in the turquoise pools of Semuc Champey, but I felt like I was going to hurl. So instead I rescheduled for the next day. I was unable to eat the breakfast I paid for and fled back to bed to sleep it off.

After a nap my stomach felt better. The hostel had a pool at the top of a hill, and I chilled up there taking in the magnificent view. I finished reading Swamplandia! in a hammock down by the river. During the day when everyone was out doing tours the wifi actually worked, and so I watched the Twins finish off a sweep of the White Sox on my laptop.

I also checked Faceboook and my email and learned about a bunch of nazi-related problems back in Minneapolis that made my previous night's failure to get laid seem pretty childish and insignificant:

• One of my friends had recently confronted a nazi at the 331 Club (a Mpls bar) and knocked a beer out of his hand. He and his friends then beat the shit out of her and put her in the hospital.

• A guy who I used to work with and had done 1-on-1s with as part of a union campaign had just appeared in court for assaulting counter-protesters at an alt-right/nazi demonstration

• The workers at Club Jaeger (another Mpls bar) had just walked out after learning that the bar's owner had donated money to KKK leader David Duke's presidential campaign.

After people returned from the day's tours I had good company in the pool. I drank more beers that night but not enough to stop me from carrying a candle through a cave complex the next morning and swimming at Semuc Champey.

There's a line I love from the novel City of Thieves:

"The loneliest sound in the world is other people making love."

I agree. But it's also not much fun feeling sorry for yourself. There are bigger problems in the world than your love life, and moping is boring.