Acatenango is 3989 metres above sea level. One of the tallest in Central America.

babel

i`ve been stoked about babel for more than 3 months. so stoked that i persuaded others to see it. we finally went, last night, to the 9 pm showing at tikal futura (this would be the "prole" mall--kitschy stores, low quality toilet paper in the restrooms, dirty movie theatre). we were the only two people, and talome said something about a minimum of 4 per showing, but they projected it anyways.

i realized i was bored 20 minutes after it started, and expressed my boredom 20 minutes after that. talome was also bored, and proceeded to predict the plot. the prediction was accurate, i was irritated by all the camera gimmicks (hand-held, slow pan, no sound, camera on E) and the sequencing between stories. we talked about leaving, but didn`t, inertia stayed us in our seats--that and i guess the desperate hope that maybe we hadn`t just wasted the last 20, 40, 60 minutes and alejandro was going to redeem this shit movie once and for all.

he didn`t. and by that time i wanted all the characters to die. i wanted the blonde children to dry out in the desert, their mother to die of gangrene, the japanese teenager to jump off her balcony and the morrocan children to get blasted to bits.

Sunday, Acatenango

We woke up at 4:30 and I was so tired I left my Incaparina and the full nalgene of mate de coca on the counter. We picked up Cheps at 6 and were at the trailhead by about 8. Cold and wet because we were in a cloud which we wouldn’t clear for 3 more hours. We hiked through fields first—peas, corn, calla lily—and then through a forest.

I really, really wanted my mate de coca straight from the beginning. My head hurt and I felt so tired. I perked up a bit when we got to the switchbacks in the forest, and again when we hit the burnt woods and could see part of the summit. The vegetation in the forest became familiar too: lupine, ferns, moss just like at home.

The last haul was the hardest. It was windy, my head was banging and I really, really just wanted that mate de coca. Cheps was fine, Talomé suffered intermittently and we all made it to the top to see the Volcán del Fuego. Acatenango has fumaroles too, but not near as impressive, or active, a cone as its neighbor.

Coming down was hard on the knees, but it was sunny and beautiful. And I got volcanic dirt for my garden, lupine seeds (anyone know how to germinate these?) and really, really dirty.

Container Gardening

The house has a small, rectangular, enclosed patio that receives some morning sun and some shady afternoon sun. The idea is to grow some plants in pots, some plants in the area I can excavate around the cement pad and, most ambitiously, in some sort of suspended containers from the sides of the patio walls.

So far I have a calla lily in a pot, some mint in the ground, and some kale starts. I’m waiting on the rosemary, oregano, rhubarb, collards, cilantro, basil and lupine seeds to sprout and distinguish themselves from the weeds. I think the weeds are ahead right now.

I also have some crappy dirt I bought from a greenhouse (it has branches! and beans!) along with some very cool pumice dirt we (mostly Talomé) hauled down Acatenango. And some gravel/concrete substance I already excavated from the sides of the wall.

Questions

1) Drainage
Containers don’t have good drainage. Mine are plastic. I’ve read to place about an inch of gravel in the bottom of the pots to promote good water flow. I also decided to drill extra holes on the sides of the pots.

2) Soil
The soil I have is pretty crappy, I also suspect that it has a lot of weed seeds in it. I’m psyched about the pumice/ash I got from the volcano but I don’t know how much I should mix in with the dirt I have.

3) Fertilizer
Because the soil is crap, I’ll need to fertilize. I’ve read to use a liquid fertilizer every other watering but, again, I don’t know what else I can do to boost the growing potential of the dirt I have.

4) Space
I read that pots need to be at least 18 inches across and 24 inches deep for plants to grow well. But I imagine that varies—I feel like kales and collards need a lot of root space, but what about radishes? And, since these are the plants I’m thinking of suspending, what about sweet peas and tomatoes?

Vigor con INCAPARINA Buena para toda la familia

has corn flour, soy flour, calcium carbonate, reduced iron, zinc oxide, nicotinamide (diana, what is this?), maltodextrin, vitamin “A”, riboflavin, vitamin B12, thyamine nitrate, folic acid and antioxidant BHA. Talomé makes it into a drink by boiling it with some water, but it makes lots of clumps—like cream of wheat—and sticks to everything. mostly it’s pretty good, just kind of a mess to make because of the adherent factor.