Me like food. Food good. (Lisa)

Well, the food has been pretty amazing on this trip so far - both the local food and the "gringo food". I hadn´t really counted on the fact that a whole lot of vegetarians travel the same route we are on - therefore, there is a vast array of veggie food available. Some of my favorites have been: the Indonesian Gado Gado I mentioned earlier, German spaetzle in Antigua, mango curry in San Pedro (eaten with chopsticks, of course), a tofu burger in Panajachel, "Pepian", a local dish of veggies and rice with a sauce made from sesame, pumpkin, and cinnamon, and "espagheti Diablo" ("devil spaghetti") in Antigua (regular spaghetti, but with the addition of some pretty darned hot peppers).

The food at our family´s house in San Pedro was pretty good, too. Rosa was a good sport about cooking my food without meat (though I´m sure she was wondering why the heck someone who can afford meat would not eat it). She made us the most amazing fried plantains I´ve ever had in my life. I could (and did) eat a whole plateful of those things. (See photo for an example.) Rosa also came up with a broccoli dish that I intend to replicate when we get back home - the cooked broccoli was dipped in egg batter and fried in butter, and topped with tomatoes that she had roasted on a stick in her wood fire. Yum. We sampled some "tortilla tea" one morning, Rosa just tossed some tortillas (that woman is always making tortillas) into a pot of boiling water. That was interesting, but I have to say I prefer the coffee.

Another amazing thing about this area is the fruit that´s just lying all over the ground! We had an avocado tree in our yard, and there are just avocados lying all over the place. I started doing the math in my head: "$1.99 times ten, there´s at least twenty dollars worth of avocados lying around on the ground - not to mention the hundreds still on the tree!" Anthony picked one up this morning on the way to the boat, just lying in the middle of the street. There are also key limes everywhere, oranges, etc. all just lying around for the taking. Pretty cool. We visited a handicraft co-op in Antigua, and the employees were whacking at a tree in the back to get some fruit down - they were nice enough to let us sample it. They told us what it was, but of course we don´t remember. Whatever it was, it was amazing.

Anyway, me like food. Food good.

The San Pedro Report (Lisa)

Well, we're officially students. I had forgotton how hard school is! We're spending four hours each morning attempting to get some kind of grip on this slippery language of Spanish. The school is awesome - it's on a hill (well, everything's on a hill here!) overlooking lake Atitlan and several volcanos. Anthony and I each have our own teacher (mine is Ruben, his is Chino), and we sit at desks under little thatched roofs, with a view of the lake. (The gorgeous view is a little distracting, actually!) We have about an hour of homework every day, too. Did I mention it's hard? Our Spanish is improving bit by bit, although it's still hard to have a normal conversation without resorting to Tarzan Spanish (Me like food. Food good.)

The town of San Pedro is pretty interesting, with a mix of locals (mostly Maya, but a lot of latinos, too), and gringos. Almost all the Mayan women wear their "traje", colorful hand woven wraparound skirts, often with a hand embroidered blouse. Most of the men dress in modern clothes, but there are a few of the old timers in full traje, with very cool colorful hand woven pants. (You can actually take weaving classes here...)

When you walk through the streets you can hear the clapping sound of women making tortillas from scratch (they slap the heck out of them to shape them), and the really bad singing of the Evangelicals in their churches. (The singing is very loud, and can go on for hours. Our house is right next to a church. We have live music every night. Yay.) You'll also hear a whole lot of people in the street speaking to each other in their Mayan language. (Some of them don't even speak much Spanish, from what I understand.) To me, their language sounds like a combination of Dutch and one of those African tongue-clicking languages.

The family we live with is very nice. Our "mother" is Rosa, and our "father" is Domingo. Their kids are mostly grown, with the youngest in high school. Domingo doesn't do any work that brings in money, but he has crops up in the mountains which feed the family. He grows coffee (which we drink in the morning), maize/corn (which we eat every day in the form of tortillas), and other veggies. The only income the family has is from hosting students like us. Domingo heads up into the mountains to chop firewood every day, because they cook tortillas and other things over a wood fire in the kitchen. (They do have a gas stove, too.)

Anthony and I actually have our own little building next door to the main house, which belongs to their grown daughter. We have our own toilet, and our own TV! We actually have dozens of channels, Discovery, Animal Planet, HBO - we didn't have any of that at home! Cable here is cheap, around $3.50 per month. (Electricity is expensive, though, my teacher actually unplugs his fridge every night to save money.) Anyway, it's entertaining watching Jeff Corwin in Spanish...

The best thing about our house is, there is HOT water in the shower. The water is just a trickle, and you have to jump around to get wet, but by God, it's HOT. It's actually pretty cool here, in the low 60's at night, so the hot shower rocks.

That's the end of my report for now. I just re-read the above, and I'm realizing that for every thing I've shared, there are a dozen more that I don't have time to write about. It's truly amazing to spend time in another culture - entertaining, educational, and humbling........

School in San Pedro (Lisa)

If anyone is out there checking up on us - no worries, we´re still here! We´re in San Pedro la Laguna, on the shores of Lake Atitlan. We´re quite busy, studying Spanish at the school for four hours in the morning, plus an hour or so of homework in the afternoon. School is hard!

 

We´re living with a family, and our "mother" is feeding us well. I´m not sure if I´ll gain weight from all the food I´m eating, or lose weight from all the hill climbing on the streets and paths of San Pedro!

 

Anyway, we´ll post more when we have more than a couple of minutes. There is so much to share.....

 

 

A Morning in the Park (Lisa)

Yesterday I had a goal - to meet someone new and have a chat. I didn´t care who, or what language it was in. I found a comfy bench in the central square of Antigua, got some Guatemalan coffee, and planted myself for three hours. (Anthony was out playing with lava atop a live volcano.) Here´s a brief synopsis of some of the people I met:

A 10-year-old Mayan girl, selling hand woven scarves. She came running up to me, hurling all the English she knew at me (mostly along the lines of "I make you good price"). She made me laugh, and I bought a scarf after an exhilarating round of bargaining. I probably still paid twice what I should, but I had fun. The little girl works five days a week selling her stuff - no school.

A homeless (I think) alcoholic (I know). He shuffled up to me in dirty clothes and stocking feet, reeking of urine and alcohol. I was ignoring him until I realized he was speaking (broken) English to me. I decided to open my mind and hear what he had to say. Turns out he lived in Portland, Oregon for years, working at McDonald´s. He´s actually legal to work in the US. I asked why he left, and he said, "Because I am stupid." He wanted nothing from me, just a chat. In fact, he told me about one of the restaurant owners in town who helps him - "But when she gives me money, I just go drink". He told me he wanted so badly to change, but didn´t know how. He complimented my blue eyes, thanked me for listening, and shuffled away.

A retired expat, a man of around 60 or 65 from L.A. He lives in a five bedroom house all by himself (he pays $300 per month) on the outskirts of Antigua. He went back to school to become a nurse at age 51, and still works and volunteers here in Antigua, using his nursing skills. He´s livin´the good life in Guatemala on $1000 a month.

A Belgian traveler, here for a month visiting the family she lived with 7 years ago when she was studying Spanish in Antigua. We chatted a bit as we were both sitting on a bench writing in our journals.

I enjoyed my morning in the park, and my goal was accomplished. And I have to admit, the folks I met gave me some things to think about.....

Happy Birthday! (Anthony)

I would like to report a birth of serious significance. At 9 am on Sept. 20th 2007, on the Pacaya Volcano (90 minutes outside of Antigua), a small glowing blob of molten discharge was plucked from the womb of an active lava flow (with a stick no less) and flung onto the cooler surface of the adjoining bank and left to solidify. Celebratory notices will be forthcoming.

Not bad after a 6 billion year gestation period.

More fun in Antigua (Lisa)

Ya gotta love a town that has a fountain like this in its central square! There´s one of these lovely (lactating?) ladies on all four sides of the fountain, too - so folks on all sides of the park can enjoy.....

Still enjoying Antigua - my legs and ankles are actually sore from walking for hours on the cobblestone streets (trickier than it sounds, actually). One of the many highlights: dining on Indonesion food while listening to 80´s music. Nothing says "Guatemala" like Air Supply and a plate of Gado Gado....

We´ve arrived in Antigua! (Lisa)

We made it! We arrived in Guatemala yesterday afternoon, and it couldn´t have been easier. Got the TriRail to Miami Airport, took a short flight (2 1/2 hours) to Guatemala, grabbed a shuttle to Antigua. It went like clockwork!

We´re staying at a pretty cool hotel, a few doors down from this church (La Merced). Our second floor room looks out over the top of the church, and has a view of three volcanoes! It´s pretty awesome for just over 18 bucks a night. Fun feature - some dude goes up in the bell tower and smacks the heck out of the bell with a hammer or mallet or something at 6am. So, there´s a free wakeup call. He goes up again at 6:15 and 6:30, just in case it didn´t rouse everyone the first time. (Kind of like a snooze alarm.) Of course, the fireworks at 6:10 worked, too. We were actually glad to get up that early, we wandered around with our cameras and took advantage of some great early morning light.

We met up with my ex (John) last night, he is flying back to the US today. The last time we saw him was in Thailand on our honeymoon, which was actually much weirder (this time our meeting was planned, and we had a nice chat over some cold Gallo beer).

That´s it for now. More updates to come!

(P.S. Photo courtesy of a nice guy posting on Flickr, offering Creative Commons usage. I´ll probably continue to use that, as it´s much easier than trying to upload our photos in internet cafes. We´ll post some of those once we return from the trip.)

The "Butt-Kickin' Bakounis" (Lisa)

As we finish packing our bags and getting ready for our departure tomorrow, we just wanted to say a big ol' THANK YOU to the Bakouni family.

Raed, Terri, and Amanda have welcomed us into their home, have fed us some awesome food, and have agreed to take care of our mail and Anthony's car while we're gone. They are part of our extended family, and we love them.

(Of course we HAVE to say nice things about them or they'll kick our butts. They are studying Karate...........)

P.S. Thanks to everyone else out there who has helped make this trip possible (Beth, who is keeping my car safe and sound in Wilmington, and many others - you know who you are.) We couldn't have done all of this without your support.

Key West Highlights (Lisa)

We spent five awesome nights in Key West - here are some of the highlights:

Taking Anthony on a tour of the eight different houses I lived in over my fourteen years in Key West (pictured is the oldest house in KW - it's a museum, I was a live-in caretaker there).

Visiting Key West Watersports (where I worked for 10 years), seeing all the changes that have been made since I last visited.

The mini-reunion party for all the old Watersports employees - lots of laughs, lots of "remember when" stories. ("Remember when our work uniform consisted of a bikini and a pair of flip-flops?")

Chillin' on the beach at Ft. Zachary Taylor State Park, watching the sailboats coming in and out of the harbor.

A late afternoon trip with the Quirk-Murphy family on their flats skiff. We headed out to Snipe Point to stroll in the beach shallows shark-spotting, and fished a little as the sun came down. Tony Murphy is an awesome fishing guide - check out his Key Limey Charters.

Watching the Key West sunset at Mallory Square. It's a KW institution, with singers, vendors and performers. It was kind of quiet this time of year, but some of the old regulars were still there - Will Soto (juggler/tightrope walker) and DW Blademaster (sword swallower) have been doing their thing at Sunset since before I arrived in 1986.

Getting my hip "fixed"! Some of you may remember that I was limping around before I left, with a mystery pain in my hip. Turns out it was trochanteric bursitis, which was diagnosed at a dinner party by Mike Quirk (dad to my old pal Colleen), who is a P.A. in Key West. One stop by his office for a freebie cortisone shot, and I was good as new!

Riding bikes around old town, balancing cafe con leches in the basket. I think that's what I miss most about living in KW - pedaling lazily through the streets, roosters scattering ahead. (Thanks to Rich and Ema for lending us their awesome "conch cruisers" - as well as putting us up in their home and guest cottage!)

El Siboney. Black beans, yellow rice. Plaintains. Cuban toast. Yum.

It was hard to pull ourselves away from Key West's spell and head north on US1 again. But, we have another chapter of the adventure ahead (it begins tomorrow - adios, Florida, and hola Guatemala!).

The Mystery of the Emerald (Lisa)

Some of you may already know the story - but here's a brief synopsis: In 1987 I was given a rough emerald by a man who worked for Mel Fisher, the famous Key West treasure salvor who salvaged the 1622 wreck of the Spanish galleon Atocha. (Read more about the shipwreck here.) The man never told me how he came by the emerald, but I always assumed it was from the Atocha. I threw it in a box and forgot about it. (I was 22 and not very smart.)

Twenty years later, I thought I should find out more about my emerald (especially after seeing similar stones selling for tens of thousands of dollars!). The king of emerald knowledge - especially Atocha emeralds - is in Key West, at Emeralds International. His appraisals ain't cheap ($250), but we decided to go for it. We brought the stone with us to Key West, and went to visit with Manuel Marcial.

Manuel was pretty excited about my emerald at first glance (and we were too, when we saw one in his display case that wasn't much bigger, and was listed at $48,000!). We left the emerald for him to study, and went off to plan our early retirement.

My cell phone rang a few hours later, when I was out on a flats skiff in the Key West backcountry with friends - and it was Manuel. Of course I immediately thought he was calling because he couldn't contain his excitement and wanted to share great news. Alas, that was not why he called. He wanted to pop our balloon earlier rather than later.

Turns out, the emerald did NOT come from the Atocha, or any other shipwreck. (Manuel is able to tell a lot of things about a stone when he puts it under the microscope, including whether it was on the bottom of the sea for 400 years.) And it is NOT a Columbian emerald, which was his original assumption - it is from Brazil, from a mine in the Itabira region. Manuel apologized profusely for his initial bad assessment, and assured me he would refund half the appraisal fee. But just when I was ready to ask him to just toss the stone in the trash bin, he sadly informed met that it was worth "only" $700 to $900. (My question is: how much did he THINK that sucker might be worth when he first eyeballed it???)

At any rate, the mystery continues. How did my friend come to have a Brazilian emerald that did NOT come from the wreck?? He worked for Mel, and was surrounded by nothing but shipwreck treasure all day! I'll never know. We didn't keep in touch, and I don't even remember his last name. I guess it really doesn't matter.

I'll eventually have the stone "free form" faceted, and hang it on a pretty chain around my neck. The mystery will live on........

Cuban Coffee in Key West (Lisa)

I know it doesn't look like much, but Sandy's Cafe (located inside the M&M Laundromat) is a little slice of heaven. There's a crowd every morning, lining up for cafe con leche and Cuban toast and sandwiches. (And for the the hard core addicts, "buchi" - a tiny little cup with a concentrated "shot" of thick coffee.)

Who knew that fourteen years of memories could be concentrated in one styrofoam cup of steaming hot Cuban coffee? I swear, tears came to my eyes with the first sip. Anthony and I took our coffees (and egg/cheese/lettuce/tomato/mayo/on Cuban bread sandwiches) down to the beach to watch a storm come in. It was paradise........

Spoiled in St. Augustine (Lisa)

Well, if our first night on the road is any kind of omen, we're headed for wonderful things! Our intention was to stop at a Motel 6-style motel near the interstate, and have a short visit with John and Sarah Zaruba - friends and coworkers from my Key West beach days. Well, the Zarubas pulled out all the stops, and rolled out the red carpet. They called in some favors and got us a comp room (yes, FREE) at the Casa Monica - an amazing colonial hotel in the heart of St. Augustine, built in 1888 (yes, that's it in the attached photo). This place rocks - absolutely gorgeous, luxurious as all get-out. Pool, hot tub, valet parking, and a matching his 'n hers set of Hugh Hefner robes in the room. (Did I mention it was FREE?)

The visit with the Zarubas was a lot of fun - though Anthony may have gotten tired of all the "remember when" Key West stories being shared! It had been about 8 years since I'd seen John and Sarah, and their kids Sydney and Jack (now in 7th and 3rd grades, and so grown up!). They are wonderful people. They run charters on a big, gorgeous sailboat called "Schooner Freedom". If you're ever in St. Augustine, you should look 'em up! (Check out the boat at http://www.schoonerfreedom.com)