Salir a San Pedro

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Tomorrow we leave San Pedro, our home for the last two weeks. We are now full of spanish for the time being and ready to put our studies into practice for a while.

We had our first bout of food poisoning this week. It involved a day of laying in bed trying to stay hydrated as our bodies tried really hard to keep dehydrating us. Kevin had a high fever for about 8 hours and is now feeling great. I was not as sick, but am feeling the lingering effects and now have a cold.


Many of you have asked about the people here. They are mostly Tzutuhil maya with a few foreigners who have dropped out of the world. There are lots of dirty hippies here who have decided to live the cheap life in Guatemala. There is some controversy with the local community about this as they make money with restaurants and tourist businesses that does not all go back to the community. However, they also pay more than any of the local businesses and so provide good jobs. This (and the fact that you can get a hotel for $1.50 a night) make it a big party town--what this means is that they play REALLY loud music on Friday and Saturday night and that a few people dance. It also means that you can buy beer cheap and drink it in the street. We did get to see a live version of Buena Vista Social Club (from Cuba) in a tiny club which was pretty cool.

All of the local people here are friendly and extremely helpful. They work hard and most are up and in the"streets" (many of which are dirt or stone trails) by 5:00 a.m. One of the biggest industries here is growing coffee. There are coffee plants in every available space--between houses, in the front yard, where ever they can find room. The processing is interesting and I will try to get a photo of it. Then you will hear my plea for fair trade coffee.

They are shocked that we don´t go home at lunch to eat with our families. Most indigenous people in Guatemala live in poverty and many in extreme poverty (defined as less than $1 a day for a family of 4). This means that many people eat only one small meal a day. This makes it a challenge for me to bargain at the market!

One of the hardest things for us to stomach has been the amount of garbage here. People just throw their trash in the streets for some reason. There is garbage service and it is cheap. We have asked why people do and no one really knows. It makes this beautiful lake kind of gross, with plastic covering the shores everywhere. The locals love the lake-- they swim in it, fish in it, do their laundry and picnic by the beach on sunday. So it is a puzzle. The neighboring town is really clean and has garbage cans in the streets and there are places like that here, too.

The weather is really pleasant. Cool enough in the evenings to wear a jacket and pants and warm enough for shorts when the sun comes up in the morning. It is not very humid and not too many bugs. Although we did see a scorpion last night on our terrace!!

We head off tomorrow for the city of Xela which is the coldest spot in Guatemala. They have had nights in the 30´s so we hope we can survive! We dont plan to stay long, but there are some sites we need to see including the largest market in Guatemala!

Life in San Pedro

We are adjusting to the pace of life here in San Pedro. Things take time here and people aren´t in a hurry. We went to the market today to look for a sewing needle. We ended up asking about ten different people and looking through all the stores. There is so much amazing needle work here it seemed like it would be easy. We went to one fabric store to look and the only person who knew where the needles were was the blind grandmother! Eventually we found what we wanted and asked what we should pay. The woman told us 5 centavos which is 5/100ths of one quetzal ( a quetzal is only about 13 cents)! We were all laughing and the grandmother was joking with us about how expensive it was.

Yesterday we went on a hike up the Nadiz del Maya, or the nose of the indian. We had a guide named Matteo. Unfortunatley, he was the 14 year old son of the owner of our spanish school. Like most other 14 year old boys I have met, he wasn´t too interested in talking to us. We kept asking him questions in our poor spanish and were usually met with those international teenage monosyllables and one word answers. We still thouroughly enjoyed ourselves.

The trip began with a ride on a typical Guatemalan chicken bus. If you have never seen one, just use your imagination until we get a good picture. They are old Bluebird school buses that are totally tricked out with fancy paint jobs and loud stereos. They drive through the towns blaring their horns at every turn. This can mean several things: look out I´ll pick you up, look out I´ll hit you, hello to a friend, or I am in the wrong lane going uphill around a steep corner. They also fill the bus with three people per seat and more people standing in the aisle-- I counted about 60 people on the bus with us.

The hike was through farm fields of corn, beans and squash, cash crops of shade grown organic coffee and forest filled with zillions of different plants. Oh, and it was really humid, steep and slippery. When we got to the top we were greeted by amazing views of the lake and surrounding volcanoes, tons of different butterflies, and a kind Tzutihil mayan family who began speaking to us and asking where we are from. We walked down the other side of the mountian to the neighboring town. Then we got to ride home in a collectivo-- or a pickup full of people. It is a common way to travel here-- the trucks get so heavy and the hills are so steep that sometimes the people riding on the bumper need to jump off and push to get going!

Thanks for all your emails! love chrissy

San Pedro la Laguna

Hello everyone. We have found a sweet little Spanish School, Casa Rosaria, here in San Pedro de la Laguna on Lago Atilan. We started yesterday and had a lot of fun. We study one on one in little palapas set among banana and papaya trees. It is quite the scene. I watched hummingbirds pollinating the bananas while learning Spanish. We are staying in a hotel that is a 3 minute walk away through the farmfields of corn, squash, beans and basil. We have a great view on the surrounding volcanoes, the lake and the farm fields from our room and deck. Things
are super affordable here with 20hours of classes going for 400 Quetzales and our room for 40 Q (7.5Q per U.S. $) The food is quite deliscious and equally cheap. We have a swimming hole nearby. The town is quite small and there are very few cars. Most of the streets are simply foot paths between farm fields and buildings. The real streets are all cobblestone and quite steep. There is quite the group of travelers here as the many schools and cheap prices attract many.

We are mostly happy.The days we move from place to place prove difficult. Any time a local sees you wearing a backpack they are instantly your guide and won´t take no for an answer. Looking for hotels with a guide is distracting and our first night here we stayed in a real dive that we would not have stayed at if we hadn´t been drug all the way across town to see it. We are developing techniques to avoid such encounters, but everywhere people are hungry for any little bit of money they might make for a tip or for a loaf of banana bread. Hopefully a better grasp of Spanish will help us transition from place to place more smoothly.

All around us we also hear the native Mayan language for which I don´t even know the name yet. It is an interesting language and the chosen language with which the locals address each other. When we ask for directions or help, they talk with each other in Mayan to figure our what we´ve said and what they should tell us, and then answer us in Spanish. Most the locals wear the traditional garb all the time which makes for beautiful scenery with the women in beautiful blouses and extravagantly woven skirts. And their cowboy husbands also wear nicely decorated work clothes. The people here get up early and work hard and alot. A cement pour we watched at 8am today consisted of 30 guys with gallon pails passing cement up ladders and across a rooftop in a fireline.

We had planned to go to Xela for school, but after visiting the lake and encountering the beautiful rural setting here we are holding off on visiting the city for school. Xela is supposed to hold more wonders so we will likely go there next, probably in acouple of weeks.

So, all is well and Guatemala keeps us fascinated and enthralled. Thanks for you emails and comments.
Adios-Ricardo

A Volcano, a lake and the best hotel ever

It is hard to believe that it was barely a week ago that we got on the plane to Guatemala. It seems we have been here forever and done so much. As you can see, I bought the necklace from Florie, but like all good crushes it was kind of a let down. I felt used, just another tourist and not special anymore. Alas, there will be more cute mayan girls in my future.

On Friday, we took a trip upto Volcan Pacaya, which is an active volcano. It was truly amazing and exhirlarating. We were able to get pretty close to the lava and watched it flow for about an hour. We had some great guides who spoke good "tourist spanish". We were explaining how we felt about the volcano and he put it well-- "we are close to earth and when we see the heartbeat of the earth it makes our heartbeat faster too."

Saturday found us on a 2.5 hour bus ride to Lago Atitlan. As we searched for a boat to take us to the town on San Marcos, we were directed to the Titanic. An ominous name, but the captain assured us that there was no ice on the lake and therefore, no problem. After some shuffling and getting taken for too much money, we arrived in the jungle paradise of San Marcos de La Laguna. It is an amazing place covered in flowers, with tons of birds and perfect rocks to dive off of into a lake that is exactly the right temperature. We spent 3 days there just soaking it in. Unfortunately, it is also kind of expensive, by Guatemalan standards anyway, about $21 a night for a room overlooking the lake with a private bath. We stayed in the coolest hotel ever-- there were rocks in the room and stained glass everywhere.

Now we are in San Pedro and might start Spanish school here. We miss you all, so if you read this write to us!

Antigua, Guatemala

After 30 hours of travel we are very safe and happy in Antigua. We had a minibus ride not to be matched by any of my previous experiences. It was really fun if you just went with it and didn't worry about dieing all the time. This guy took lessons from race car drivers, who don't have turn signals or lanes either.
He did drop us right at the door of a hotel we picked out of the guidebook and really like. With firm beds, clean rooms and banos, hot showers, free internet and purified water its a bargain at $14 a night. Not the cheapest digs in town, but a comfortable place to recoup, and we figure the $ we save on water and internet cafes will make it a wash.
Antigua is stunning, all cobblestone streets, architecture from the 1700's half of it in ruins from 1800's earthquakes, surrounded by jungle covered volcanoes. We watched a lightning storm behind the tallest o f the volcanoes tonight after an amazing misty sunset. The topography in this part of Guatemala is stunning, jagged and wild.

This morning we went to the marcado, which had hundreds upon hundreds of stalls selling everything you could want. We bought some avacados, tomatoes, watermelon, lime and oranges all for about 3 bucks. We have a kitchen at our casa so we made guacamole for lunch and ate on the small patio. In the morning, we saw several of the local churches. The one you see with no roof was destroyed by an earthquake in 1778 and they are slowly repairing it.

Antigua is an interesting town. In the vegetable market there were many native people who grow veggies out in the country, yet I saw one of them on a cell phone. You can also buy red delicious apples from washington there! There are several restaurants advertising free wireless and almost every place has an internet cafe. One of the biggest curiousities are the many gringo couples walking around with Guatemalan babies, I counted about 12 yesterday. I haven't seen any gringos with Guatemalan kids so I am assuming it is easy to adopt here.

The vendors in the central park are relentless. Many of them are small girls in beautiful native costumes. They are really fun to practice spanish with and most know english well. They have learned our names, so as I walk through the square I hear ''Christy! Buenos dias!'' They have some funny lines and amazing guilt tripping skills. They like to say, ''the husband will buy. the husband is the bank. and business is business'' So far I have resisted, but may have to buy a small token from Florie, the cutest and best guilt tripper of them all.

Willamette Valley Rain

Dick told me that I needed to post every day so if this is boring, blame him. We are patiently wating for tomorrow to arrive. We fly out of here at 6 am, visit Grandma for a few hours in California and then head to Guatemala! (already?) I think we have all that we need and more, though the shoe saga still continues and now I might need jeans and what about an umbrella? Hmm... maybe I'm just anxious.
Anyway, we have been enjoying our last visits with family. It included a night of frolic in Wilsonville where we tried to go black light bowling with the teenagers (but it was totally booked) and then paid 75 cents apiece to go virtual skiing. That was way fun, especially since you could crash into trees and rock cliffs and it didn't hurt. Oh, yeah I also reach 116 mph or something like that.
It has been raining here everyday and seems like it was never ever sunny! So, enough of my babble hopefully our next post will be from down south and have some photos.

Hasta Luego! (ps-Nancy informed my that all is well at home and Oscar is doing fine, although heis not a big fan of fiddle music. I think he likes rap better:)

Stuffing the Stuff

Part of my motivation for wanting to bail out to Central America was to experience a culture that is (hopefully) less enthralled with consumerism. Of course, poverty does have a way of forcing this on a person. I think that so often Americans are on the constant "stuff hunt" and that many think they are defined by their stuff. You see it everywhere, "He who dies with the most stuff wins", "The difference between the men and the boys is the size of their toys" etc.

I consider myself a person with less stuff than the average American. I hate shopping, spending money, clutter and frivolous belongings. So, as I started packing I thought it would be a breeze. But as I dug deeper into the closets, the cupboards, the shop, the greenhouse and the guestroom, I started to feel ashamed. We have a lot of crap! Our last two weeks at the house seemed to center around how and where we were going to store the crap, and how to keep the crap from going to crap while we are away. The stuff was running my life.

Oh, I'd like to think I could just get rid of it all, that it is not that important. But the attachment to the stuff is strong. I mean, I NEED this stuff! I need these turtle skulls I collected in Florida...I haven't looked at them in years, but they are SO cool. I need this shop full of tools, what if something breaks? I need a fully stocked kitchen, closets and drawers overflowing with clothes, a huge bookshelf of books, and all these beach treasures we've collected etc etc. So it's been an exhausting two weeks of packing. It is tiring to be held captive by stuff.

I am looking forward to the months ahead with just a small backpack and fanny pack with minimal stuff within. Just the necessities...of course, is a snorkel mask a necessity? I think so.