Guatemala trip photos

You can check out some of my photos from the trip here.

Lago Atitlan was mentioned in this article about places to travel to mark the end of the Mayan calendar.

Guatemalan send off

And here I thought our last day was going to be a quiet, uneventful day. We had another great breakfast at our Antigua hotel and learned that Rudolfo would be picking us up and taking us to his studio for a tour. (Rudolfo’s nickname is El Canche which means The Blonde. Which he is not, although he is fair skinned for a Guatemalan.) After breakfast, Joyce, Suzanne and I strolled the streets towards the convent church La Merced. Antigua in the morning is quiet with most of the shops not open and the square still mostly empty. Suzanne wins the medal for most improved shopper with a couple of last minute purchases and by the time we are back at the hotel, El Canche has arrived. We pile our suitcases into his car for the ride into Guatemala City.  His studio is in a gated residential area. On our way there, Jaime called to let Joel know that we are invited to his house (which you may remember we had previously discovered is next door to the studio) for lunch. This is hilarious to us because El Canche had joked about this very thing when at dinner the night before!

The studio is quite an amazing place, clearly reflecting the philosophy and creativity of its founder. He’s also a huge Star Wars fan, so there is paraphernalia all over the place, models, helmets, and a light saber with sound effects. He’s also got bits and pieces from commercial projects his studio has done as well as a really cool old Mercedes that he’s working on (along with appropriate paraphernalia that we model for photos). The studio does a lot of commercial work aimed towards Latin America but the project closest to El Canche’s heart is a project he’s doing called Alien Book which is a series of short animated films featuring a friendly grampa Martian telling Bible stories. His aim is to tell the stories by focusing on the positive values of love, respect, responsibility rather than some of the more violent, aggressive and angry aspects of the stories the way we are familiar with them.

After the tour, we head next door to Jaime and Lucky’s, and just as Carolina is arriving to join us for lunch. Jaime is an architect and he’s added to the original house to provide an amazing living space for his family of 5 kids. In addition to a whole downstairs living area for the 3 boys (including a game room and gym with sauna), there’s a beautiful master suite with a huge walk in closet. The house is surrounded in back by a wrap around deck and a large yard. The lunch is an amazing spread of Spanish tortilla, chicken paella and seafood paella finished off with a delicious almond meringue cake. Lunch is the big meal of the day for Guatemalans and two sons and a daughter are at home for the meal.

Our last stop was a beautiful new shopping center nearby called Plaza Cemaco. It’s a multi-use project with residences, shops and office space, plus lots of open space to walk around in. It’s not completed yet. Our final stop is the airport, after driving through some Guatemalan traffic. The airport check-in process is very smooth and the flight was uneventful. By the time I’m dropped off by Suzanne’s husband, it’s about 1:30 in the morning. It’s hard to believe it’s only been a week since we flew to Guatemala, and it’s been a really remarkable trip made extra special by the wonderful people we’ve met and the generous hosting by Joyce and Joel. It does feel really good to be home, though!

Exploring Antigua

This morning, both Suzanne and I had a little stomach trouble so we were a little nervous about how to proceed with the day. Our hotel offered a wonderful breakfast and I had the yogurt, granola and pancakes, which were delicious. Since Suzanne was not feeling well, Joyce, Joel and I headed to the Hotel Antigua where we could catch a shuttle to the Filadelfia Coffee Plantation. The free shuttle is a former army truck outfitted with seats and it rattles around quite a bit on the cobblestoned streets of Antigua. The plantation is only a 10 minute drive and it’s a very large property with beautiful grounds offering coffee tours as well as zip lines, paint ball and horseback riding. There is also a very nice hotel and a couple of restaurants on the property. The 11a tour was only in Spanish so we skipped that opting to stroll around the property on our own. As soon as we got close to it, we could smell the roasting coffee. We could also see where they’d laid out large squares of beans to dry out on a paved deck. There were dark brown beans as well as lighter ones spread out. Of course we had to try some out, so we sat for a relaxing sip of the local product. After picking up a few bags for souvenirs, we caught the shuttle back to town.

Suzanne was feeling a little better after we got back, so we walked to a place a few blocks from our hotel which has a café but is also a nursery. The gardens were beautiful and had many of the plants we have seen all throughout the trip although here they are labeled. The lunch was a very healthy chicken sandwich with a pepian sauce, which they called ‘tipico’ so it must be common Guatemalan food. It tasted like a sort of barbecue sauce. After lunch, we were all tired, so we repaired back to the hotel for a couple of hours rest. In the late afternoon, we headed out to the square for a stroll and some last minute shopping. Most of the wares seemed like stuff we’d seen at the Lake, but without the more personal touch that the small shopkeepers have there. They also have shops geared more towards city people with clothing, pottery, and other goods. We found a beautiful conch shell platter for Patsy and Kim’s wedding gift.

At this point we were totally shopped out so we headed to a nearby restaurant for a Guatemalan style meal. I had a delicious chicken soup with rice and a Guatemalan tamal which is wrapped in banana leaf and is a flatter shape than the Mexican tamales that I see in LA.

After a last tea and some local chocolates, we called it an early night, our last one in Guatemala. It’s been a really amazing trip, seeing a part of the world that I’d never thought to visit, and meeting some of the most amazing people. Truly a once in a lifetime experience.

Antigua

This morning, we left Lago Antitlan to head to Antigua, the first step in our return to civilization. We breakfasted again at Joyce and Joel’s favourite place before catching a shuttle van into town, which is about a 2 hour ride. We’re staying at Hotel la Catedral, right off the cathedral square. Antigua is the ancient colonial capital with cobblestone streets lined with solid walls and imposing but interesting doors. Inside the doors are beautiful courtyards hidden from public view. The hotel’s rooms are off the courtyard and we have two rooms next to each other with a beautiful but small bathroom. This is one of the benefits of being back in civilization!

After settling in, we head to Casa Santo Domingo to catch a ride up the hill to an art compound for lunch. The hotel is next to the old ruins of a convent. The shuttle to the art compound is an open air vehicle that reminds us of being at Disneyland or another theme park. The road leading up to the compound has lots of sculptures of animals along the way, and there are beautiful views of Antigua below. The restaurant here overlooks the two main volcanoes in the area, Agua and Fuego. Apparently Fuego is still active. Another benefit of civilization, the level of food and presentation at the restaurant is superb. We sit on the deck under umbrellas looking out at art on one side and volcanoes and the valley on the other. The food is wonderful, fresh and perfectly prepared.

After lunch we stroll around the grounds looking at the various sculptures and in the gallery where they are showing one artist’s work (one large piece is going for 35,000 quetzales). The entrance to the grounds has a very large caged aviary with dozens of parrots!

After lunch, we head back to town for a short rest in our rooms and to wait for Joel’s friends, Carolina and Rudolfo, and Jaime and Lucky, for dinner. Carolina and Rudolfo arrive first and their English is excellent since they both have spent time in the US studying. Rudolfo is an animator and has his own studio where he does all kinds of commercial work. Carolina is a lawyer but she is currently working for a non-profit that is training government, educators and businesses in ethics. Rudolfo’s father went to school with Joel. We all decide to head to the restaurant, Panza Verde, and meet Jaime and Lucky there. The restaurant is part of a hotel and it’s stunning at night with a courtyard lit by candles, beautiful wrought iron work and carved wood. Dinner is fabulous, the conversation is lively, although much of it on one side happens in Spanish. It turns out that Jaime and Lucky live next to Rudolfo’s studio! Jaime also went to school with Joel and Rudolfo’s father. Joel, Rudolfo and Jaime start telling stories and break out into hysterical laughter. They’re all delightful people, as is everyone we’ve met on this trip.

The "big city"

The air is very clear this morning and on the chilly side. Today we head into Panajachel in the morning. This is the largest town on the lake and the point where we arrived our first day. Joyce and Joel took us to their favourite place for breakfast, Lazzaroni's, where a full plate is 3 or 4 dollars, including eggs, cheese, black beans, tortilla or bread and either sausages or guacamole. There’s a lot of activity on the main streets of Pana. We’re here mainly for the shopping, but Joel has some stuff to do with Francisco for the house, and Joyce and Joel are meeting with their real estate broker and accountant as well. The shops have an incredible variety of embroidered pillows, table runners, tote bags plus leather goods, shoes, men’s beanies, jewelry of all kinds with beads and stones (turquoise is popular). There are also lots of tourists here, some in small groups like ours, others in large organized tours. Today we did really great on our shopping! We’ve all honed our bargaining skills and picked up a few words of Spanish over the last couple of days.

For lunch, Joyce and Joel’s accountant is joining us for pizza. He’s a young man attending a local university, the first in his family to do so. The pizza place is a cute little establishment called Circus Bar, with walls lined with circus posters from around the world. There’s a wood burning oven in the back. We got one pizza with eggplant and zucchini and another with sausage, jamon and olives. They are delicious!

On our way back to the boat launch, we finish up our last bit of shopping. Today we took public boats, since Pana is a short way from Paxanax but the boat is crowded in the early afternoon since everyone is trying to get back home before the water gets too choppy. In addition to all the people, two large baskets of goods are riding on the roof. The boat has gotten stuck in the sand so it takes three men quite a bit of effort to get the boat back into the water (I’ve noticed that people step in to help quickly and without being asked around here). The boat is riding very low in the water and the lake is very choppy so we can’t go very fast but even so, the ride back is quite exciting, with the boat bouncing up and down quite a bit in the waves. One very large bounce brings a wave right into the boat, soaking Suzanne and Joyce. It’s kind of a relief to get back home, and I’m sure the other riders on the boat are happy for the boat to be lighter by 4 people.

In the late afternoon, Laura and Miguel visit. They are a young couple who are going to be moving into the upper house next weekend. They’re staying through the summer rainy season, what Guatemalans consider to be winter. Laura is a medical student who is working at the clinic in the pueblo at Santa Cruz and Miguel is helping her by writing software programs for the clinic. What amazing people! The clinic they work at was started by an American doctor who fell in love with Guatemala. The local Mayan community doesn’t have great access to care and often can’t afford the medicine. Laura describes the people having a little bit of magical thinking when it comes to medicine.  After a long day of working at the clinic, they still have work to do at home on a research project! We’re all hoping to see them when they return to the US as Laura is hoping to take some elective classes in the Bay Area and San Diego before starting her residency in Internal Medicine. Tonight is our last evening and meal in this little slice of paradise. We’ve got some soup from last night, left over pasta and pizza from lunch and more delicious pears. The sky is incredibly clear, full of stars and there is lightening over the Pacific Ocean which is silhouetting the volcano. It’s an incredible sight, with the lights of San Pedro and Santiago twinkling on either side of it.

Santiago

Today after breakfast (and more stories from Carlos) we all headed to Santiago, which is on the other side of the lake. As we ride in the boat across, it becomes clear how big the lake really is. Santiago is in a little inlet and from here, you can see the third of the three volcanoes, which is invisible from where Paxanax is. Santiago is also filled with more aggressive selling techniques. Local women and girls follow you up the main street asking you to look at their wares. One of the reasons for this is that there appear to be more western tourists here. I noticed a few people were here with a local guide or groups of people traveling here together. The product is mostly the same sorts of things that we found in San Pedro, however I found the level of workmanship not quite as high. There are more leather goods (some of the cutest little baby shoes), more children’s clothes, men’s pants and the women’s huipils and skirts. In fact, we got a picture of Suzanne wearing one! There are also a lot of vendors selling beaded jewelry, wooden carvings, paintings. The variety is amazing.

The lake is at its choppiest on the ride back and it’s quite challenging to get out of the boat onto the dock. It’s also quite late and some of us are starving. Joel arranges for us to partake of the vegetarian buffet at Villa Sumaya, which is a yoga retreat center. Carlos and family are heading home though, so we say our goodbyes, exchange emails and wish them a safe trip home.

We can walk to Villa Sumaya, so we’re there in a few minutes. The buffet consists of some bread and grilled vegetables for sandwiches, along with fresh greens and dressing. The veggies, like all of what we’ve eaten here, is grown locally and tastes amazingly good. They also have an absolutely delicious oil that I use on the sandwich in lieu of dressing. After lunch, we stroll a bit around the grounds, which consists of a small shop, a yoga studio, and a few different buildings with rooms for guests. They also have a small pool, hot tub and children’s area. I can imagine it must be quite an experience to come here for a week of yoga.

After lunch, we take a brief rest, and I decide to try showering now rather than competing with the morning rush to ensure more consistent hot water. Well, no luck, it still goes out quite a bit, but I do manage to get myself clean. Up in my room, I spot a few more interesting birds, including a small blue one with an interesting song, and the return of the yellow, black and red woodpecker. Since I’m up above the kitchen, I’m right at bird level and as long as I don’t move much, they get quite close.

Earlier in the day, we had decided to make soup for dinner to use up some of the remaining veggies and leftovers. So after our brief rest we regroup to start that going on the stove. While the soup is bubbling away, Suzanne teaches us a Pilates class. It feels really good to stretch a bit after days of walking up and down hills and getting in and out of boats! During our class the skies open up and the rain just starts coming down in buckets! Although it has rained every night we’ve been here, this is the heaviest we’ve seen it. There’s lightning and thunder to go with it. The soup turns out to be absolutely delicious! I suspect it has more to do with the quality of the ingredients than with any particular skill on our parts. Everything here just tastes so much more like what it’s supposed to, unlike most of the grocery store produce that we typically eat. Along with the soup, we have two different kinds of sweet potato, some bread we bought at the Santa Cruz market, and corn on the cob.

After dinner entertainment is The Descendants, one of the few movies I haven’t seen from the past Oscars crop. Tonight on our way to bed, the stars are finally out!

Ex-pats and family friends

This morning, Joel had to head to Pana to meet up with some family friends who will be joining us tonight at the house. Suzanne, Joyce and I headed to Iguana Perdida, a hotel at the water’s edge in Santa Cruz, the closest town to the house. It’s within walking distance so we are following the path along the lake shore, with the precarious looking planks, rocks, and dirt paths. This part of the path was washed out for awhile and only recently rebuilt so it’s not very familiar to Joyce. Luckily, every time we had some confusion, there were local men who pointed out the way. At Iguana, we met up with Romi, a former Los Angeleno who abandoned LA and 12 hour work days for a 7 month sabbatical here. She’s just about to return home since the rainy season will be starting soon. Today, the Iguana has attracted quite a few of the local ex-pat community because there is a small market here. Everyone who lives here identifies each other by the house they are renting or now own. One of the market stalls is run by a couple of girls from a local cooking school in the pueblo. The school is teaching the kids to be able to work in the restaurant industry. They’ve brought some pastries and peanut butter. A couple of older local women have fruits and vegetables or hand crafted textiles. A toothless man originally from Russia is selling wild raw cacao beans and bars. He tells Suzanne and I that the raw cacao will increase blood flow to our brains and hearts, and all of our problems will appear as if they are in front of us so we can better see the solution. Or something to that effect. This I had to try. After our purchases, we take a seat at the Iguana’s café for some coffee and a taste test of one of the pastries. We also tried some of the cacao. It’s bitter, without the usual sugar added, but the consistency and flavor of chocolate is familiar.

While we are taking our coffee break, Joyce arranges with Joel to meet at Isla Verde, another eco-resort with a restaurant a little farther down the path. This part of the lakeside walk has some of the most precarious looking planks we’ve encountered. At Isla Verde, we meet up with Carlos and Loti along with their son Gabriel. Joel has known Loti since they were kids. The restaurant here advertises slow food, using only natural ingredients that are currently available. I had another fruit shake and a falafel wrap along with some shared nachos. The tortillas wrapping the falafel are clearly homemade, since you can see bits of greenery and other ingredients in it. The filling is delicious as is the homemade potato chips that come with it. Carlos is quite the talker and has something to say about almost everything, including his sighting of a UFO when he served in the army! He and Loti have four kids and they are all incredibly accomplished! Gabriel is hoping to attend a cardio-thoracic program in Switzerland, one of their daughters is working at the Guatemalan embassy in Holland, and their other son is a lawyer. We definitely get full meaning of slow food as we took our sweet time over lunch listening to Carlos’ stories.

After lunch, Ramos the lanchero (boat taxi driver) takes us back to the house where we continue the conversation. Carlos notices that the property next to us is a small coffee plantation and proceeds to explain to Suzanne and me how coffee is made. His English is really quite good, but on the occasion when he stumbles for words, we seem to manage to understand each other. After a short rest, the conversation begins again up on the upper porch. Since the lake is surrounded by a ring of hills, the direct sun disappears quickly and the haze moves in during the afternoon, obscuring the volcanoes. We found out from Gabriel that he climbed 18 of the 21 or 22 volcanoes in Guatemala by the time he was 16. He hasn’t tackled Atitlan’s three peaks though. Carlos tells us about the difficulty of painting with water colours and tells us that he and Loti had in the past showed their work at local galleries in Guatemala City.  (Truly, these are amazing, accomplished people.)

As dinner time rolls around, we all head down and start heating up the food that we had started to prepare last night, consisting of chicken, a local squash, small new potatoes, and carrots, adding some tomatoes and basil that we picked up at the Santa Cruz market. The meal was delicious, with the basil and tomatoes being a particularly nice touch. Dessert is the pastries along with some small plums we bought at the market. Over dinner, Loti and Carlos tell us about how they met and married (incredible story), Loti describes studying in Canada (near Lake Superiour and in Ottawa), and some fascinating family history.

Our post-dinner entertainment was a DVD of the Michael Jackson documentary “This Is It”, which was meant to show the preparations going into his tour he was just about to start when he passed away.

Visiting around Lago Atitlan

Last night, the rain just poured, buckets and buckets came down, it was rather incredible. I woke up this morning to a cacophony of noises: birds, insects, other critters. In fact, it’s never quiet here. Aside from the noise of power boats, there are so many different types of natural noises out there. I spent some time this morning taking pictures of the house and grounds. Everywhere you turn is another beautiful flower, plant, detail of some kind. I saw a huge black bee of some kind that sounded like a lawnmower! After breakfast, we headed out in a private water taxi to explore around the lake. Our first stop was San Pedro, but as we headed to the other side of the lake, we passed the pueblo where the locals live, built up the side of the mountain. The lake shore is littered with hotels, private houses and little shacks, all dotting the hillsides, every single one built by people bringing materials by boat, carrying it up the mountain and then constructing by hand. There is every style of property imaginable, including a beautiful modernist home, some tiny thatched roof shacks and some very narrow but very steep private homes. The town of San Pedro has a market today, so we head up the steep narrow main road towards it. Along the way are shops selling all kinds of things, hand woven and embroidered textiles, leather goods, postcards and art. Most of the vehicles that pass us are little tuk-tuks, although small cars, trucks and motorcycles are also common. At the market, there are live chickens, fruits of all kinds, and plastic wares. The women are all wearing native woven skirts and colourful blouses, called huipils. After bargaining with some local shop keepers for some souvenirs, we headed back to the taxi to our next stop, San Marcos.

Here, we are heading to Aaculaax, which is an eco-resort. It’s an incredibly beautiful place, with distinctive rooms built into the side of the hill, all with a great view of the lake. Most of the materials are recycled and you can see former beer bottles and other types of glass finding a second life. The proprietor showed us a few rooms and the prices are amazing, $65, $75 dollars a night for a room with breakfast.  They are still building rooms here! Just past the resort there is a cliff that adventurous people can climb up to try a high dive into the lake! Our third stop is Casa del Mundo which is another resort and where we have lunch. The food is so good, I had a chicken burrito with fresh salsa and the most amazing guacamole. They also feature fruit shakes and the strawberry mango one that I had was incredible, the mangos are so fresh.

After lunch, it’s time to head back to Joyce and Joel’s home as the lake starts to get choppy in the afternoon.  We all head to our rooms to rest. As I’m downloading my pictures onto the computer, the racket outside is incredible, and I hear a tap tapping on a tree outside my window. With my binoculars, I can see a yellow bird with a red cap pecking away at some holes in the dead tree. I also saw hummingbirds sipping from a flower, an ochre bird and a very large fat squirrel. Although the tree is dead, there are quite a lot of plants growing on its trunk, bromeliads, air plants, it's like an apartment complex. Joyce mentions that she saw a small snake with gold, black and white stripes! Dinner tonight is leftover spaghetti from yesterday and some delicious pear. After dinner we watched a DVD of Don Quixote performed by the National Ballet of Cuba. It pours down raining again but by the time we turn in to bed, it’s stopped. The noise at night is of cicadas.

Arriving in Guatemala

Suzanne and I flew Taca airlines on a late red-eye to Guatemala City where we would meet up with Joyce and Joel. The plane was very nice, roomy, not crowded. I was only able to catch a little sleep, though, and caught the beautiful site of the sun’s glow appearing on the curved horizon of the earth with the sliver of moon hanging over it. The airport in Guatemala City is modern and clean, and the whole process was incredibly easy, from Immigration to Customs to getting our bags, which basically appeared on the carousel as we walked up to it!

Joyce and Joel were waiting for us and their friend Miguelangel was driving us in his little van to Panajachel, which is about 2 ½ hours away on Lake Atitlan. Driving through Guatemala City you can see this is a developing country, but there is an incredible amount of construction everywhere. Once out of the city, the countryside is beautiful, with cows, dogs, horses, pigs, Mayan women carrying stuff on their heads and wearing their native clothing. It’s such a pleasure to be somewhere with people who still have a strong sense of their own culture, rather than looking all like Westerners.

The road to Pana is long, often winding, but smooth. We made a pit stop at a complex with a restaurant and shop to stretch our legs. We pass a few small towns on our way, each one getting smaller and more rural. After a climbing a mountain and then coming back down, we finally make it into Pana. We stopped at a grocery store to pick up some supplies. Many of the signs in the store don’t look like Spanish and Joel explains that they are in the local Mayan dialect (of which apparently there are many). In order to get to the house, we need to catch a boat from Pana. They’ve arranged for a private taxi since the public boat taxis get very crowded. Francisco, the caretaker of the property is in Pana and helps us with luggage. The taxi drops us off at Laguna Lodge, which is a high-end eco-resort, for lunch (apparently Leo DiCaprio was just here). Francisco will continue with the water taxi to the house and transfer our luggage. The lodge is just beautiful, like something out of a fancy travel magazine. The food is vegetarian, and most of us had the Kum Pao, which is really just stir fried vegetables with a soy based sauce and tofu. It was delicious. Everything here is freshly made, including the salsa, tortillas, chips, etc. The dining room looks out over the lake, surrounded by volcanoes and is immediately very relaxing and serene.

After lunch we walk along the lake edge to the house at Paxanax. The path is a combination of dirt, wood planks (looking very precarious) and stone. The house is up the hill a bit and is quite a large property. There is a main house with a large central room (called the Buddha room and originally used for yoga classes and the like) and kitchen, and several smaller properties with bedrooms and bathrooms. I chose a small room above the main house with windows looking out over the property towards the lake. I’m hoping to see some stars at night. There is a chicken coop and laundry shed on one side and the whole area is landscaped beautifully with incredible flowers and plants. It’s truly a tropical paradise.

After a well needed nap, we regrouped and made a lovely spaghetti dinner with zucchini, tomatoes, onion and corn. After the sun sets, the sky is pitch black and overcast. You can see lights along the opposite shore from the small towns along the lake. There are fireflies among the beautifully landscaped grounds and lightening in the distance. It starts to rain during dinner, echoing off the incredible domed ceiling of the Buddha room. The house was built by an American who moved here some 14 years ago and was a carpenter by trade. He built the property by hand with the assistance of Francisco who started with him when he was 17! There is beautifully hand carved wood everywhere, including most of the doors, handmade fabric lampshades and beautiful details everywhere. Joyce and Joel bought most of the original property from the original owner when he decided to move to Thailand. A smaller portion was parceled off and sold separately.

Since this is a place without constant electronic interruptions, we are making an early night of it, as do the locals who live here.

SF Ballet Program 6

This program certainly covered the gamut of this company's talents. It started with Raymonda, Act 3. This is a classical, traditional ballet and is hardly ever performed as a whole. I'm not even really clear what the story is. Act 3 is a wedding scene set in medieval Hungary, which means we get the chance to see great variations and character dancing. The set is lavish and the costumes beautiful and glittery. Vanessa Zahorian handled the famed solo variation with a lot of panache. My toes hurt just watching all those bourrees.

The second piece is Raku, new from last year. The music is by a member of the SF Ballet Orchestra, the story set in ancient Japan based around a love triangle at a temple. We were lucky to see Yuan Yuan Tan perform the female role. She's remarkable for her flexibility as well as expressiveness. This is a beautiful, tragic piece with strong dancing by all three leads. The set uses moveable pieces with projection to good effect. This is a knockout newer piece for the company, in a contemporary vein but maintaining a story line.

The third piece is brand new this year and choreographed by the artistic director of the Scottish Ballet, who I saw last year and thoroughly enjoyed. The music is John Adams. Four pairs of dancers are highlighted in the piece, with various groups of corps dancers in the background. Everyone wears shorts unitards with varying colour schemes. The costumes were great for highlighting the dancers muscularity, but I found it hard to tell individuals apart and the soloists from the corps. The dancing was fantastic (the company is full of strong dancers) but the music wore on me after awhile. While this piece is contemporary like the second one, it's more abstract with very little sense of story (aside from whatever each individual audience member may read into it).