Late Guatemala Blog

For weeks now I have been trying to tell what it like to be in Guatemala and remember we are living in only one place in Guatemala the river at the Rio Dulce. From what I have been reading this is just one of many places to see here. We needed to do some work on our boat when we got here. If you are not a boater you need to remember this. There is always something to do to a boat and with our boat its home built from mostly other people’s junk that they have thrown away and I have tried to fix so there is always a lot of fixing going on. “No one has ever said that Pam and I have more money than we need.” So as we have been doing work on the Pamela Ann we have been settling in here. This is the most fun we have ever had in our boat. There have been other times that were big like the first time we sailed her after 10 years of building her. Sailing her by the Statue of Liberty that was big. Our first over night sail was big. Being here is not so much a big thing as it is fun and the most fun thing here is living in this culture. There is so much to see. Its nothing like living in the states. We don’t buy much from a store. Remember this there are very few stores that even look like a store in the states. Almost all have no air condition and it all ways hot in them. If you go to a grocery store in the meat market you will not find any thing that you would recognize maybe some hamburger and chicken. The rest will be just meat cut in very thin slices. We buy a lot off the street. Farmers sell off there trucks cheap and remember this there is a gringo price for most things that is higher than a locals will pay but at that price it’s still cheap. If you want to take the time you can always get them down. We have a women that comes by our boat in her launcha. Pam is always on deck on Tuesday at 10:30 with her list. She has frozen pork chops, cheese, fresh chicken and very good produce sometimes she will have bananas ripen on the tree all kinds of thing a gringo would buy sold from her boat cheap. We live at a dock with a restaurant, there is a little canal to the back of the restaurant. People come by all day selling something off there boats. Just caught fish, crabs, lobster, bags of coconuts, fire wood for there stoves Most every ones here cooks with wood even the restaurants. Most gringo here that live here on there boats in marina we call “compounds” won’t eat of the street. We do it all the time or at least I will. They say they don’t know how clean they are and they are cooking there in the street with dogs under there table. How many people cook every night in the states at home with there little dog laying on there kitchen floor. Why would you come down here if you want to enjoy this culture? Not just see it but enjoy it with out trying as much as you can and yes there is a line I won’t cross. If it don’t look good I will wait to see if any other gringo will try it then I will think about it. Maybe next time. Pam will always wait to see if I can eat it and how well she thinks I like it. Then she may try It. She will say I can tell when you are lying and I am not going to eat that no mater how much you try to hide what it really taste like. Now all of you that know me know I would never trick Pam in to eating something that was just plain awful just to see how she would look trying to find a place to spit. She will say to me that some men never grow up. That little boys will always try and gross out little girls. I don’t know where all that comes from? One place you will never see gringos shopping is the Mercado that’s the open market in Central America. You need to shop early they hang meat up and cut off pieces all day no refrigeration. We have a place here called the plastic mall. It a street covered with old blue tarps. You can buy meat there under the tarps hanging up out of the sun. Tell them how much you want and they will cut you off a chunk. Remember this all, beef here is free roaming grass feed tasteless and tuff. We have tried it almost every way we can. We now cook beef here by cooking it in a pressure cooker or I cube it with a cubing hammer and we fry it. Cube steak is good and if you beat it long enough with a cubing hammer you can get it tender enough to eat. Pam and I both like watching people live and work here. There favorite tool here is a machete there is not a tree in the jungle that they can’t cut down with a machete. They Mow grass, trim scrubby and build houses all with there machetes. Life here is a lot simpler than even Mexico if that possible. I have hear people in the marinas say it’s like living in the 50s and 60s, that’s not true. It’s just the way they live here. This is there culture. Doug out canoes and cell phone. Living in the past and the further. Cooking with wood and buying chicken live for supper. I found out this week that a lot of the time when you see chickens in some one’s yard they are feeding them for a few days so they know what they have been eating most of the farmers don’t have any in side pluming and most of their chickens are free range free to eat any thing that hit the grown in the yard or near by. It’s a way of life here. They eat a lot of their chicken here fresh never frozen. Do you no what your chicken been eating?

Especially people in the states that pay extra for free range chicken. You see fisher men paddle their dug-out to the fish market to sell their fish then they can buy gas for there out board. If you don’t have a good day you just paddle. If you need furniture here a lot just make their own. I have seen their furniture it’s simple but functional. The way I see it they don’t want to change to fast. If they don’t have money they find a way a round it. I am not shore they would know what its like to have a bad week and have a car “you have to have” so you can work then give out of money in the middle of the week and have to buy gas on a credit card. You can’t peddle your car till you get more money. Now you have to work even harder because you are getting behind. I think most people here are “happy” and happy with what they have. I have met a lot of them that speak good English and have spent years in the states and they say they went to the US but have come back They like it better hear in there culture. You can’t even ride in the back of a pickup truck in most places in the states any more. They will say to many laws. Here when people come in to town from the country. They want be any room for one more person to stand in the back of there truck. In Mexico “the police” stand up and ride in the back of the police pick up trucks. I guess we all live in the culture we make. Pam and I are not planning to be here after the first of the year we are plain to go on and see what the next culture is where ever we go will be like. For now we are having a great time. They just celebrated their Independencs Day here and we were here to see it. It was simple the best part was a cook out in the little park here. A big ranch donated a calf. They cut it up in to small thin steak and grilled it over a wood charcoal grills. We have made a lot of friends here with the locals. When we got there they got us in line for a plate it was good “tuff” but good. I know they gave us more than a normal plate. Now this was a cook out for the hold town on this side of the bridge all free even the soft drinks. After we ate we made pictures and thanked them for letting us come. A lot of them came over and hugged us. I am not a hugger but Pam will hug a dead tree if you paint a happy face on it. The truth is they made us feel like we were really welcome and just visiting a very big family. It was like that in Mexico and Belize with the local friends we made there. The gringos here had a little celebration in there marinas we didn’t go. I am glad we went to the park with the local Guatemalans. We plan to make some trips inland very soon. We still haven’t seen wild monkeys and our out board is still suffering from spit and quit maybe we will get that fixed this week there so much we want to see here and so little time before we leave this place to see more of
“The Wonderful World We Live In.”

More Guatemala

We are having problems with the internet connections here and we get a written blog posted later in the week.

Lumberjack

 

Machetes the most used tools. Can cut down the biggest trees I the jungle.

Party in the park

 

Farmers always coming by selling something.

Homemade dresses for the Celebrations

 

School Kids

These kids were rolling this barrel to set it up with another one for some game and they always seam to have speakers for load music with them. When we showed them the camera they ran over to pose.

 

 

Guatemala Indepenance Day Pic

Town Mayor offering us a soda

Town Queen

 

Look for the Parrots

 

 

 

 

Real Time Guatemala

I am sorry for having a short blog but they are having their Independence Day celebrations here so you can see and know what’s happen here real time as it is happens we are just going to have mostly pictures

Runners

Every where there are blue and white flags. Kids don’t seam to know what they are celebrating but they are in to it. The most active are the young people under 30 some with torches but a lot just running, all of them have cheap whistles. They have trucks or chicken buses following them as they go from one village to another stop and run through town then load up and drive to the next village stop and run. Chicken buses are famous in all off Central America it’s the cheapest way to get around and “Yes” you can take your live chickens on board with you and haul almost anything on top.

 

Cool

Chicken Bus

Going to another village

Remember Pam and I don’t see these people as poor like most gringos. We see them as people with less resources. I think it’s great to see women making fancy dresses to dress the little girls up in by hand or on and old pedal sewing machine and remember this, they are the cleanest people I have every seen. Not some but most wash there clothes by hand.
But there is always the gringo touch here. While the Guatemalans run to celebrate, the gringos bungee jump off the bridge.

Bungee Jumper

 

 

 

If you are reading this today Sunday it’s still going on. “Guatemala real time.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another Good Day

We brought our fresh veggies, eggs, strawberries, cheese and pork chops this morning from the lady that comes to our boat .

This afternoon we brought fresh shrimp from the coast off this boat

 

 

 

 

Lots of boats come by everyday selling fish.

 

This is the best way to get fish, caught 3

 

caught one more

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More Guatemala

What is it like to live in Guatemala and up the Rio Dulce?

Where we are. It’s the most fun place we have ever had our boat. It’s just so different. We go in Dumpling our dink to town. There’s a little canal completely covered with tree limbs just off the river that just wide enough to get 2 small boats through. We can get up all the way to a street maybe 3 stores from main street. Main street is the road going through town. From there we can go any where we want. We go sometimes just to get lunch. Its so cheap and so much fun. On the south side of town there is some women that cook right on the street and when I say right on the street you are standing in the road when you order so if there a big truck is coming you have to walk down the street and wait for it to pass before you can get your food. Maybe that why I like it. Where in the states are you in danger trying to by food.  Its like playing ball in heavy traffic. If we by food from them I some times get fish that hold fish head on rice and a potato paddy battered and fried with a green hot pepper in the middle. Its really good. We pay 15 Q. About 2 dollars per plate. We walk down to the river to eat sat on a wall some where there are a lot of small walls around town maybe it to stop people from driving over other people probity. You never know what you will see in town. Farmer bring stuff to sale. Fisher men bring thing to sale. Every ones is trying to sale you something. The farmers are the most fun. They bring things like chickens live in baskets . The baskets are maybe 3 feet across and a foot deep covered with a fish neat over the top with a handle on top to carry the basket.

 

Chickens in a Basket

People buy chickens alive and carry them home then they dress them and have fresh chicken for supper. We know a local young women that buys chicken that way. She will ring there neck on the street and brings them back home hanging of the handle-bars on her motor bike. Its not what you see every day in the states. The girl is young and very pretty and she is taking good care of her family. There is know frozen chicken for her family. It’s changed so much in the states you would never see a house wife carrying a live or just dead chicken home to dress for supper. The last chicken I dressed we were at a very nice marina in the states the manager had some pet chicken one rooster was just being a rooster and was running the managers son away from the hens in there yard so he gave me the rooster. Brought it to me in and cat carrier. He left it for a few minutes in a lay down yard for equipment call me I went by and there was a woman there off a boat demanding to know where the chicken came from I said it was mine and I was going to kill and dress it. She said “No you can not do that it just not right.“ I said “Lady where do you think chicken comes from. You think they grow up in a plastic bag.” It was very good. We are going to town tomorrow we may have fresh chicken tomorrow night. Can you see us coming across the river in Dumpling with Pam holding supper still alive.
Like I keep saying it’s different here and like I keep saying we live in a white mans world here. Marinas here are just compounds. Gated community for boaters and most of the boaters here are over 60. They play volley ball, take water color classes you know old people stuff but just out side the gate it Guatemala and that’s what we came to see and we like it. There is no one in these marinas that would dress a chicken. Pam has no trouble dressing one. They have other things we have never seen like a grapefruit that no one in the states would buy, they are small full of seeds but are really good and if you don’t get to town early you will never see one they go fast. There is no market size here. There is no 6 inch carrots here they just bring what they have it may be carrots big as a tea glass and 16 inch long. There is no seedless anything here and every thing tasted better than all that stuff you find in the states with no seeds. You don’t buy fish here that dressed, filleted and ready to fry. You buy them laying in the bottom of a dugout. Not on ice but they may have been covered up with a palm leaf to keep the sun off all day. There are no washing machines here for the locals they wash there clothes in the river or on a wash board that every one has some where at their house.

Most homes have these

People at the marinas here say the people here are poor. We don’t see them that a way but if you look at them and see what they don’t have. I can see how you would say that. There a lot they don’t have like new cars washing machines and maybe big houses but they are generally happy. I hate it when people try to tell them how poor they are and what they don’t have. Pam and I have been told “many” times what we don’t have like a car or a microwave or a 6 foot TV. For years when Pam and I have lived in a small town along the coast we just had a bicycle and we are happier when we are not being told how poor we are. I am not sure we are as happy as we can be but I think we are the happiest when we are unemployed living on our old home built boat going some where trying to live on what little we have saved when we were working. We have very little and it’s hard to explain what it like to live that a way and how happy we are and what it’s like to be coming down the coast in the early winter going to where its warm and to be anchored at night in some cove laying in bed watching a 5 inch TV when you notice how quite it is and when you go to look you find the boat is covered with snow. You come back and put another peace of wood we cut our selves in the wood heater and go back to watching our DC 12 volt little TV and maybe pop some popcorn on the wood heater.
I think the people here are great and they treat us great. The kids here play with toys I played with I was a little boy like tops that you throw and make spin, simple things and I don’t think that makes them poor. You can hear them running playing and laughing all day and most of them are not fat.

Kids at play

 

What we like here the most is the people we were at a restaurant, in the back is a little store. Pam went to see if they had some fresh pork to made sausage out of. They have never seen Jimmy Dean sausage here. So we make our on. We carry a meat grinder. We use our old family recipe. It’s part of our life, living simple. There was a young women there cleaning up a mass on the dock. She pointed up in a tree. I went over she tried to help me see what it was making the mess Pam came back we looked but we could not see what was making the mess. Finally Pam said I see it a ”Monkey?” I don’t know how to say monkey in Spanish so I acted like a monkey the girl said “No.” We all laughed. The girl was so pleased I thought see was going to hug me and I don’t like to be touched but I would of let her huge me just because she was so happy trying to show us what was up there. We think it was big squirrel, that’s what it looked like If it had been a monkey I might have hugged her I want to see a wild monkeys. Pam and I maybe going this week up a creek before daylight here where they say they are wild monkeys. Both of our out-boards have been giving trouble. That another thing about being poor you have to keep fixing things that have been used a lot. Maybe being rich would be nice and maybe its just we have always lived so cheap we don know how to live rich. I put in a Nav system in a boat one time for a pair of shoes, later I was told by some one that would know how the well to do would dress that the shoes were 1000 dollars shoes. I was told later by the shoe salesman they were worth only about 6oo dollars. I was working in them and had just about destroyed them they were covered with paint and epoxy. We are writing a book if it sales and we make a lot of money I will have to get someone to dress me because I didn’t know those shoes we better shoes than a good pair from Pennies I know we can live here and in all of Central America and not worry about how big our TV is are what kind of shoes we wear. Maybe that’s why we love these people so much we fit in. Just living here simply and being happy that we can. Is a great adventure. There’s a great adventure coming we are going soon to find some wild monkey on our on and here it want cost a dime.

Business as usual on the RD

Wood for the cook stoves at most  restaurants:

Cut by hand

Lady returning from market

 

A load of gravel to go up river

 

 

Hurricanes

 
The weather here almost never changes it can rain any time We don’t go any where with out closing our hatches. The wind comes up every afternoon from the north east about 20MPH drops at night. It’s not as hot as I thought it would be here. As long as we have cloud cover it’s not to bad but if the sun is not covered up it hurts You just have to get in the shade and if the wind is blowing every thing is find. We were told that you would have to sleep under a blanket ever night. That’s “not true” but we have sleep under a sheet when there have been strong thunder storm that bring the cool air down off the mountains. We don’t speak Spanish well enough to get the weather report but in Belize they would say low 60 in the mountains. That’s great for August or I think it’s Aug. I don’t keep up much. You forget its hurricane season being here in the lake.
Our friends on Maus the little sail boat that just 23 feet have left to go back to New Orleans and we worry about them but they are real sailors and they have made it back to Isla Mujeres, Mexico. They sent us an email saying they have decided to leave their boat in Mexico and fly home make a new adventure out of coming back after hurricane season to get Muus. We will let every one know when they make it back to New Orleans. Coming down they were 9 days at sea making the crossing. If a hurricane develops in the Gulf it can build in 2 days. Pam and I have rode out 13 hurricane with the eye with in 30 miles of us 6 we were in the eye. I told Pam maybe we can just go sailing now and we won’t ever be in another as many as we have been in but if we are maybe we can set a record. Pam answer was simple. “No!” “We are here and we are staying in the Rio Dulce this year safe from hurricanes.” A few things about hurricane they turn counter clock wise. They are a low pressure system. If you follow them on a tracking chart you can most of the time see what the wind speed is going to be where you are and what direction the wind will come from. It’s very important where you are. We rode out a hurricane tied behind a big building had a terrible time with the police trying to get us off our boat. I was so mad I was going to fight even if it meant going to jail. They finally went away said they would arrest us if we stepped off our boat even on the dock and they did arrest 2 drunk fisher men swimming near our boat it was that calm where we were. The building was keeping us out of the wind till the eye pasted then we had strong winds againest us from the other direction but nothing like the winds before the eye. We were prepared for the switch. We were fine. I am sorry we need the police but there are a big problem in a hurricane they don’t do boats not big boat. They see them as a danger with out a hurricane. When they find out you are on a boat they just go crazy and won’t listen to any thing like this boat is made of steel you go stay in a wooden house. This is built for bad weather. We were in town if thing go bad we want have far to swim and if we go up in the street the city would put us back in the water. How many boats are left in the street for long after a storm and how many go up in the street if there is someone on them that knows boats has years of sea time taking care of them. Remember it’s not there job to listen and when they are not in control they will go crazy. There is no way to control a hurricane and there’s very little they can control till it’s over like I said they will go crazy. If you take your boat out some where up a creek you may not be safe there. If the marine police find you remember they can’t handle a boat bigger than their little speed boat they drive and have no idea how to take care of a boat in a storm. Have never anchored in there life and most can’t tie a single sailors knot in a line. I have never seen the Coast Guard bother anybody taking care of their own boats in a storm and they don’t go crazy. They will only come if you call. There is one thing for sure if you leave your boat tied up a creek here and you leave it for long when you come back it would look like a abandon car in New York city they wouldn’t be much left. We have been here for a month and I don’t know if I know what a Guatemala policeman looks like. I don’t know if I have seen one. If you have or carry money you have an armed guard with you even the delivery trucks have guards. Do we feel safe here? We do. We sleep behind a locked gate at night that’s how all these marina are they are compounds for white people and “all” Guatemala sleep locked up at night it just the way it is. You put a lock on it or take it in or it’s gone by morning. Pam and I are from the U.S. where you can be robbed for your shoes just walking down the street. That don’t happen here it’s at night that thing change owner ship here.
What is it like to be in a hurricane? There is some things that is always the same. Hurricanes are like this we were in a hurricane in Louisiana. We were getting ready. We have a fiend that was there he said the wind was going to blow hard and the water was going to be high he had seen it on the internet. I said “ No Won’t Happen.” It’s not going to be that bad “here” After hearing this a few more times I stared to tell him you are “going to die” I seen it on the internet. Every one laughed Pam said I was mean. We put everything up high so the water could not get to it tied down every thing. Set up the Pamela Ann before dark We were set. Our friend came over and said “I am thinking about staying.” Pam said You have been watching Sesame Street to long the police won’t be your friend in a hurricane you can’t get off your boat till they lift the curfew. He said I am not going to stay on my boat I want to stay on yours. So he did. We tied the stern of the Pamela Ann to a old crane mounted in cement and a power pole. I know that not good but the power company didn’t see us. We took the anchors line and chain over in the state park maybe 70 feet from our dock and placed them around big cypress trees. This way we could use the anchor winless to turn the boat up in the wind. We were set. Had wind at 94 not that bad. The water came in 5 feet that is what will get you is the water. We put poles on the dock so we could see the dock. Every thing was under water so we didn’t want to get on top off the docks . All night the wind blew the next morning after day light Pam made breakfast, home made sausage grits and eggs with biscuits. What else is there to do in a hurricane but make biscuits. We were listening to AM talk radio They talk hurricane when it is happing not the usual stuff about how bad life is. They said the wind was 73 our friend stared to smile it was going down and would be over soon. After a hurricane it all ways hot with no wind. It was days before the water went down. Every thing was dirty The rich will stared to clean up before the hurricane is over get there life back in order the poor will scream for a year they need help. If you go by their houses there will be storm trash in there yards they are stepping over mouths later. “That always the same.”
Its feel good to be here and not worry about hurricane but to tell the true it just feels good to be here. We are settling in now we are learning how to get along. There are chickens on the docks, manatees in the water and it good to see clouds on top of the mountains here.

Dock Chicken

View from R D Bridge

 

 

There is very little here that’s the way it is in the states. Women wash close in the river. Kid play with parrots most of the fisher men have dug -out canoes and cell phones. And a good out board motor is a prize procession here but sometimes they paddle there boat around with the motor up till they can sell some fish and buy gas. Shopping here is a problem unless you have a good since of humor.

Saturday shopping

 
We want to see more of Central America. I don’t know if it get better than here maybe Panama then I wonder how hard it would be to take and old home built schooner with car motors and baseball bats on top of her mast to maybe South America .