Volcanic Pizza
If you're looking for a pie and don't mind a little hike (and a 12-hour-or-so plane ride), Drew has a suggestion. Chances are, you won't face an eruption. But, bring TP just in case. Confused? Read on
By Drew Gallagher
HUMORIST
Like most male readers of this column, when I’m not thinking about Rome I’m thinking about Guatemala. Specifically, the two things I tend to think about Guatemala are: the collapse of the Mayan Empire due to genocide fueled by European explorers and the assorted diseases they brought to Mesoamerica, and the more recent 36-year Civil War that also featured genocide against many of Mayan descent whose ancestors happened to survive the genocide of a few thousand years earlier.
For a culture that provided the world with art, architecture, math, a calendar, as well as a study of the moon and its phases, the Mayans have historically been unfairly raped and murdered even if they were partly responsible for making me have to learn shorthand in a journalism class in the fall semester of 1989. (And for any of you who ever put Scotch tape over the indentations of a cassette to record over the Culture Club album that you got from a well-intentioned relative who went to Listening Booth and asked the failed frontman now turned cashier in the mall what a teenage boy might listen to, you know that recording technology was extant in 1989, and shorthand was as dead as the Mayans who invented it. Though that timeline belies a need for shorthand, it did not deter my good friend Dr. Steve Watkins, Distinguished Professor of Journalism, from crushing the dreams of first-semester journalists by telling us that both Woodward and Bernstein insisted that shorthand was the true hero of Watergate. The two reporters understood though that they weren’t going to win Pulitzers for naming their anonymous source “Shorthand” and the Golden Age of Porn was not going to ride in on the wings of a film titled “Shorthand” given Linda Lovelace had above average hands for a woman. That last part may or not be true. I do not suggest typing “How Big Were Linda Lovelace’s…” into your search browser.)
One thing that I’ve never thought of when I think of Guatemala is pizza. Perhaps this is a failing in my Eastern Pennsylvania upbringing, but typically, when my family wanted pizza we would go to Pizza Hut and not book flights to war-torn Guatemala even if we weren’t Mayan and likely not targets of any ongoing genocide. As Timothee Chalamet tells us, The Times They Are A-Changin’.
In the past few years, Guatemala has made a concerted effort to lure tourists to their little slice of heaven with a little slice of pizza. Namely pizza that is cooked on an active volcano at Pizza Pacaya. The pizzeria gets its name from the volcano that provides the cook with his oven in nature and has only erupted 23 times since the Spaniards first came to Guatemala in search of gold and an easier way to quote Lady Six Sky and Pacal the Great in interviews without the benefit of a tape recorder.
For those who might think that a volcanic eruption every few hundreds of years is child’s play and not nearly as risky as eating at Taco Bell, Pacaya did erupt as recently as 2010 and remains active which means that you might get to eat a pizza with everything, including toxic sulfur fumes which are rarely fatal and probably only problematic if Pacaya erupts, and you have to outrun slow-moving lava while unconscious from the sulfur fumes. Even if you are conscious, be aware that you have just hiked uphill for 90 minutes and are now at 8,000 feet above sea level so bring your asthma inhaler along with a roll of toilet paper because if Pacaya wakes up during your meal, you’re likely to need the toilet paper for what just happened in your pants, and there are no bathrooms on site because, again, this restaurant is on the side of an active volcano.
(Here at the Humor Column, we are always looking for sponsors, so if you are a local pest control company, this seems like the perfect time to mention that sulfur candles were once used in pest control, but that technique was discontinued when the human occupants of the pest-infested homes or businesses started to die off. YOUR PEST CONTROL BUSINESS NAME HERE does not use sulfur candles and can handle all of your pest control needs without killing the human occupants of the pest-infested home or business.)
Pizza Pacaya does recognize that a business model based upon people who are fit enough to hike uphill for 90 minutes and also choose to eat pizza in the middle of what is to become a three-hour hike might be a small sliver of the population. Add in the fact that a small pizza will run you about $50.00 (toppings are extra) and they do not serve beer or wine then, you may have limited your customer base. The proprietor, Mario David Garcia Mansilla, could have scoffed at such concerns since he hikes up the volcano each morning with about 60 pounds of ingredients as well as his four-name moniker, but he recognizes that some people might need assistance in getting to his destination restaurant.
As such, if you contact Pizza Pacaya (they are on Instagram) before your next visit and feel that the hike up might be too much for your cholesterol meds, they will make accommodations to get you up the volcano by wheeled-transport or by horse. Pizza Pacaya does recommend making reservations both for the horse and for the pizza, since it would really suck to hike for 90 minutes only to have to wait in line wondering if that rumble you just felt was your tummy or Pacaya about to spew lava all over your new Timberlands.
If all of this seems like a lot of trouble for a slice of pizza (the $50.00 cost of the pizza does not include lodging or air transportation to and from Guatemala), there is always Taco Bell to satisfy your need for a little danger while you eat with the near certain promise of volcanic eruptions.
(Any reader who thought I might make it to the end of a column that mentions active volcanos and Taco Bell without making the obligatory joke about galloping diarrhea just hasn’t been paying attention.)
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