Limboing the Light Fandango: Skipping the Guatemalan Border [re-posted]

So. I bought a baseline iPad two days before leaving for this trip. It's an amazing piece of technology, but one different from a laptop in hundreds of ways. It's taken me the last two and a half weeks to get the hang of it, and to get it set up properly. I actually didn't sync it properly with my laptop, which is a big annoyance due to the fact that this thing is like an iPod or iPhone, and needs a parent computer to set up and properly use. I made several mistakes when I did this the second day I ownbed it, the day before I left, by not properly tuning it to use iCloud fully, and by putting too much music on it limiting the ammount of hardrive space I have free. It seems impossible to mass delete music - you can delete individual songs, one by one, but not 10 gigs worth at once, which is what I need to do to free my 16 gig drive up sufficiently to upload photos and download software and all that jazz..

Essentially, I need to plug it in to my laptop which is back in Florida, and get the iCloud settings right so I can sync this thing off my laptop remotely over the internet. I also need to delete all but the few hundred or so songs that I listen to obsessively, and then put the rest of my media onto the cloud to be accessed remotely as I want it.. That too can only be properly done when this thing is plugged into my laptop.

Anyhow, despite that minor lackof secure iTunes equipped computer induced boondoggle (which I will rectify when I return home for a week and half Thursday) I have been enjoying trying out tons of new apps and discovering the many ways in which this thing differs from, and often surprisingly outperforms a laptop at a plethora of tasks. Its portability, and its $500 (as opposed to the $2000 on my lap top) price tag are the biggest pluses, of course. If this gets damaged or stolen it is not that big a deal. It can be remotely scrubbed if need be, if stolen; and much more easily replaced in any event. And it does 90% of what my laptop can do. A couple of the things it can't do, like run rss feeds and my strategic war games (Hi, my name is Charlie and I'm an HoI2 and Total War addict) are actually huge pluses. I need a break from the wave of information that my laptop engulfs me in, as well as the distraction of games.

And the apps are mostly impressive. This thing does many things well, in neat new ways, and sometimes better than a laptop can.

One mixed example are the blogging apps - Blogsy and Blogpress - that I downloaded a few days ago in Belize. I used Blogpress to knock out the original post that was published under this title. I spent an entire afternoon in this groovy little internet pub overlooking the main drag in San Igancio (such as it is- it's dusty, hardscrabble border town with an eclectic mix of people - sort of like Mos Eisley, only set in the Belizian jungle, not Tatooine.. )

I only took one picture from the cafe balcony for some reason. This picture of a Mennonite (think Amish, thereabouts) woman talking with some guy. There are many Mennonites in Belize, and they - as you might expect - are very industrious folk, kicking it like it's 1560 Friesland in 2012 Belize. They have major farms there that produce much of the country's produce. I saw them everywhere, and they fascinate and impress me. Hence this odd, lone image:





I blogged the earlier version of this post at that upstairs cafe. It was a slapdash, rambling affair. Typical of my blogging, indeed most of my writing, these days. I did really like some of the pictures I posted with it, though.

So it stings a bit that while screwing around with the Blogpress app last night, I somehow managed to erase that post. It was absurdly easy to do, and I still don't understand what happened.

Something that would be inconceivable on a laptop, but happened all too easily on this damn'd iPad.

I'd posted images of Christmas, my reef diving, and the very intriguing spelunking I did in a cave were the Maya performed ritual human sacrifices.

Virtual postcards of some pretty amazing stuff.. All swallowed by the matrix.

I may repost some of it, but tonight I'm in a hotel - an otherwise very decent place - with weak wireless. In lieu of recapitulating all that, I am going to paste a few images of my past few days in Guatemala:





The view at sunset from my hotel veranda over Lago de Petén Itzá. The town here, Flores, is on an island connected to the shore by a manmade land bridge. The last great Mayan fortress and ceremonial complex to be taken by the Spanish (at the end of the 17th century, 200 years after Columbus arrived) was on this island. None of it now survives, having been razed during conquest. It's a beautiful little town, reminding me a bit of Greenville on Moosehead.. Picturesque little place on a great 20 mile long lake..

The backyard, here:





This morning at 4:30 I left for a tour of the great Mayan ruin enmeshed in the jungle at Tikal about an hour and a half from here. It rained all day long, but the place was nevertheless still magical.

A few shots peremptorily culled from my camera, without editing:


















It rains rather fierce in the rainforest, you see. I was soddened by the incessant temperate damp .. Nothing that a hot shower, and a few reinvigorating libations wouldn't salve.

Tomorrow evening I take the overnight bus to Guatemala City to fly home on Thursday.

I repair once again to my natural state exile a week and half later, on the 20th of the month. Not a day too late nor too soon.

This here blog is far from undone. There are stories yet to come..



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Location:Hotel Casa Amelia, Calle Union, Santa Elena, Guatemala