Tuesday, March 23, 2010

March 17

Happy St. Patrick's Day! They say in the U.S. that on St. Patrick's Day everyone's Irish. Evidently Guatemala didn't get the message. In fact the two gringos we wished Happy St. Patrick's Day to looked at us and said, "it is?"

This morning we woke up to find that onions were being washed in the lake below our B&B

and fishermen were already out on the lake.


After breakfast, I puttered around with Joan's printer. It had been out of ink, so we picked up some yesterday. I installed the new cartridge, but it didn't work well. This morning I proceeded to clean the printhead several times and finally got "Print Test Page" to produce some clean copy. I wasn't able to align it properly, since there wasn't a color cartridge with ink and Joan didn't want one, so I decided to put it aside until later in the afternoon.

Mid-morning we decided to climb up the mountain to the church where we could pick up a truck going into Panajachel.

Believe me when I tell you that it's a steep climb.

to the street in front of the Catholic church.


There we located a pick-up truck with wooden bench seats in the back and a welded frame that would take us to Panajachel for Q5 (60 cents) each. Today was the day that we were originally going to Las Canoas to work on their computers, but after being told that it would cost about $50 to make the trip there and back, I reconsidered. I don't mind doing volunteer work, but I don't want to have to spend big bucks to do so.

While we were waiting to leave, these two Kaqchikel men in ropa tipica (typical village clothing) stopped so I could take their picture.


From the road in front of the Catholic Church, you can see Casa Sonrisas. It's the gate with the yellow flowers over it.

Here's a closer look at the gate.


Once we arrive in Panajachel, we started walking. We had three objectives: 1) locate transportation to Xela for Friday, 2) investigate the availability of tours to villages on the lake and 3) have lunch. We also needed to pick up a couple of used books to read, which we did first. Afterwards, we noticed a cafe across the courtyard, so we decided to check it out. Their menu included a chicken burrito for Q44, which we ordered, intending to split it. When it came, we had two plates, each with a burrito, pico de gallo and guacamole. I assumed that they had intentionally misunderstood what we wanted to inflate the bill. After starting to eat the meal, I decided that if that was the case, I could live with it since it was quite good. When we were finished, I was amazed to find that we had only been charged for a single order, two drinks and lime, for a total of Q69 ($8.64). Color me amazed and delighted.

Following lunch, we started walking down the street towards the playa (beach). As we walked, we checked out the various craft shops. It's amazing. In the U.S. we tell businesses that they have to differentiate their product to increase market share. Guatemala must teach that similiarity breeds success, because, almost without exception, every craft shop is a dead ringer for every other craft shop. Now, there are exceptions, but they ARE the exception.

On our walk to the playa (really more of a shoreline), we got to practice our "No gracias!" (no thank you) as we were targeted by street vendor after street vendor. Now I'm starting to add "Mi zapatos no es cuero" (my shoes are not leather) to the shoe shine boys and men, and "No tengo la musica" (I don't have music) to the vendors selling flutes. Today, a women tried to sell us an apron. I held it up to my body and told her "No me gusta!" (I don't like it), while she yelled "Es para una mujer" (It's for a woman!). To be honest, we did buy several things today, but we just don't have room in our luggage to bring Panajachel out of the recession all by ourselves.

When we arrived at the playa, we walked along the promenade before going down to walk along the playa itself.

From there we walked to the east end of the playa, where we walked back towards where we descended to the playa. We stopped to rest and noticed that there was a helado (ice cream) stand looking lonely in front of us, so we purchased some ice cream bars.

After our rest, we began our trek back to the business district because we heard thunder in the distance. I had read that it would rain today, but no one believed me because we are in the dry season. As is so often the case in Guatemala, there were many beautiful flowers on display.


On our way back we noticed this very strange Olympic-style runner on top of a pillar.



we stopped by an ATM to get Q2000 (about $250) for Joan. That's the most you can get with your ATM card on any one day. We also checked out a possible site where Joan can get replacement end caps for her crutches. We think we found it and will stop by tomorrow with her as we are going to Panajachel for breakfast. That done, we headed over to the Dispensa Familiar to pick up some sugar and find a truck heading back to San Antonio PalopĆ³. Believe it or not, the same driver who took us back yesterday saw us and asked if we wanted to go to San Antonio PalopĆ³. We said yes and hopped in the back for the trip back, during which I stood the entire way holding on to the center brace. We had felt a few drops of rain in Panajachel and felt a few more on the trip back, but arrived without any problem. Looking across the lake, however, we could see the clouds moving in.


Once back, I continued my attempt to discover why Joan's printer doesn't print and had just found out that HP color printers had to have a usable color ink cartridge to work. About this time it started raining and kept raining...very hard, which is very unusual, especially in the dry season. It actually rained harder than I've seen it rain in a very long time and, according to Joan, it's never rained this hard here in the two years she's lived here.

To add insult to injury, we soon discovered that the electricty had gone off. This forced us to stop working on the printer, since it couldn't work without electricty, and begin getting supper together, while we still had enough light to eat by.

Supper was shrimp and crab (probably that artificial type) cerviche, from a stand down the street, avocado and crackers. It was much better than I expected, since the fish and seafood isn't cooked, except by the acid in the lime juice that it's prepared with. Here's a recipe to give you an idea of how it's prepared: http://buhos.myislamujeres.com/communicating/recipes.asp?event=&id={603D92CB-14DA-480E-A26D-2A63239D01AF}

With the lights out, we decided to head to our room, where we could record our daily blog entry. Of course, we would have to upload it once we were in Xela, since Joan's Internet service works but isn't that fast, especially for uploading pictures.

We had no sooner started than the lights came on, so I plugged in my laptop. Linda had to use the netbook on battery, since we don't have an adapter (three prong to two prong) for it. Fortunately, it has a 10 hour battery, although I doubt that it would last that long. It will definitely last long enough to record her blog.

Now that my blogging is done, I'm going to take my shower. I had decided to wait until tomorrow morning, since the shower in our room has one of those Guatemalan "widow maker" shower heads that heat the water as it come out.

After my shower, I'll do some reading and still be asleep early tonight.