More Guatemala

This week has been just a blur with all we have going. Trying to get the boat back in shape to go again as we live here in constant amazement.

Orchids are always in season. More beautiful in the morning dew.

Trucks come to town filled with standing room only people.

Where strawberries are always in season.

Where plums are sold by size. Bigger ones cost more by the pound.

Where chickens can be bought as fresh as you can get them.

Where a young girl will always pose for a picture.

Where you can buy shelled corn to grind at home for bread. We make Grits.

Where there is always something new. Things to try like beans soaking in water ready to cook.

Where every woman has a washboard.

Where the Pamela Ann sets peacefully in places a few years ago we could only dream of.

Days on the Rio Dulce

What is it like to be back in Guatemala and home on our boat. “ Its hot. “ We wake up each morning to roosters crowing, strange birds making noises and “ yes we are very happy.” I set in the cockpit and watch chicken scratching in the marina yard with they’re baby chicks running around.

 

Outdoor kitchen

New baby chicks

Smelling the smoke of the older Guatemalan women that lives here in the marina cooking over and open fire in the morning. Cooking tortillas. Later she will be cooking beans. We have seen many a chicken that were running around in the yard in the morning and later in the day make it in to her cook pot.

Iguana hide. maybe it got in the cook-pot too

No one in the US eats bread like the people down here eat fresh cooked tortilla bread. I’m not crazy about it. I can eat it but I do love to watch them cooking it. It’s almost like and art the way young girls can roll the dough and paddy out the bread so thin just with their hands. Most people here like the little smoky taste the wood fire gives it. We are in the Rio Dulce in Guatemala where there are a lot of boats but very few I guess you can say “white people or gringos.” Most of the gringos are gone and left there boats here to go back to where ever they came from for the summer and won’t be back till maybe after hurricane season is over and “it cools off a little.” Some will go on to fulfill their dreams and travel on after the treat of a hurricane is over. Some will come in here to get out of the ocean for hurricane season. A lot just stay here and call themselves cruiser but they’re through. They’re not going any further. This too is fine. This is not just in the Rio. Where ever you go there are people that are saying they are going next year. Sometimes when you come back through you see them and their boats are worse off than when you left but in the US, a lot of the times their boats are always being outfitted with the latest and greatest things money can buy. Year in and year out. Some how I wish sometimes we had some of the things that are put on these boats with the greatest of plans that are never going anywhere. We live and travel with less than what they throw away most of the time. I hope we make it out in October. We are making big plans ourselves. We may tell in our blog what our plans are but for now, if we say we are going some where and don’t, we will get the reply all cruiser hate to hear. “You didn’t make it? What happen?” For now we are just working hard to get ready to leave but we are not working so hard we miss seeing what is here first. We have not seen a volcano acting up. That would be a trip worth taking. For now, if we get to needing a little adventure we can always go to the next town on a caltivo and go shopping. That’s a little van here with just 4 seats that can carry more that 30 people if you count the people riding hanging on top. Shopping can be and adventure any where down here. Today I needed four bolts to bolt down our commode in the head. We used a variety of parts we finally found to rebuild it but we needed new bolts to mount it. At one time we had four people trying to help us. I drew pictures of the bolts.“ Good picture.” Finally I was showing them where they went on a real commode setting in the floor for sale when a women pushed through the men and said a lot in Spanish and went smiling and got them. Customers and sale’s people a like cheering loudly. We had finely communicated our thought and had a communication break through. 

“4 lag bolts in brass so they won’t rust with nuts and washers, ” What a Day”

                                  

Pepsi  “also” in deposit bottle like we could get in the US when we were kids

Home aboard “Pamela Ann”

I guess our trip back to the US is over for sure. For all that are following our blog. We are back on Guatemalan soil. We left our old motor bike we have been traveling the back roads of the US on from the Gulf Coast to Kansas and back at a friends house and flew back to Guatemala City. The flight back was about the same as it was going. No cheap flight from New Orleans to Guatemala so we had to fly to Fort Lauerdale FL. Sat there over night in the airport and then flew back here the next morning. Trying to sleep in and airport with “lots” of homeless people and them announcing over the loud speaker all night Don’t walk away from your luggage or you will be fined 250 dollars is “very hard” if you can sleep at all. The homeless people didn’t seem to mind. We saw 2 we met 2 months before still sleeping on the same seats there. We enjoyed being back on US soil for a time but it felts good being back here. Remember Guatemala City is built on top of mountains and it’s cooler there than you would think. We were sleeping on a friends boat setting in the water but always in the sun in Louisiana. It was HOT. Now we were walking around in the 70s. Maybe that’s why most of the people in Guatemala live in one city, Guatemala city. The bus ride back to the Rio was about as hard as the flight. 11 hours where it normally takes 5. Bad accident. “Head on” about half way back. Takes time to clear up a mess that bad in the middle of no where. Don’t know how many hurt but there were ambulances. We sat there on the bus and watched a young boy of maybe 10 helping move cattle. He was running in front of 2 other men opening gates. The cattle had to be taken across the road now covered with stopped trucks car and buses. No easy task. Finally the cows decided to just go down the side of the road. This sent the young boy in a flat out run to turn the cattle between a big truck and the bus.

 

Just waiting

Small cattle drive

This was a lot better to watch than the movie playing in Spanish on the bus. “Dumb and Dumber” When we were able to move again , it was slow going with the traffic build up but to make it worse the weather had turned stormy. It was after dark when we came over the bridge over the Rio Dulce with Pam looking hard as she could for our top mast. That’s all you can see of our boat in the day light from the bridge. I was telling her “Its there, Don’t worry.” To tell the truth I was looking too. Now what to do. It was raining very hard. We were on the streets of Fronteras in the dark with no phone to call the marina that is locked up at night and the caretaker there sometimes fires off a shot or two to let people know he has a shot gun. There a little store there on the end of town before the bridge. Rain coming down hard but we could see they were closing. We ran for the store where they speak a little Spanglish and we speak a little Spanish. We shop there a lot and I think we are friends so they offered to take us to our boat for less money than a taxi. Remember we are in Central America. There’s nothing done for nothing down here. All went well until we got to the guard shack where the road crosses a planed development. He took forever taking down names and tag numbers. Telling us they had been working on the road. I could get that much with my bad Spanish. We went on in and about half way the truck went in a ditch and wouldn’t back up so we walked on in the rain carrying 4 bags maybe an eight of a mile. One heavy with parts and thing we brought back from the states. So close but not there. We walked on in the rain. Finally when we got to the gate it was open a little. We went on in. Our Guatemala friends that were taking us to the boat had called the number we had from his phone but had handed the phone to Pam, It went like this. Pam talking. “Tim y Pam aqui.” Guard answered. “No probiema.” Did you get that? One word sentences working for us. “Tim and Pam here.” Guard “No problem.” We had emailed the owner that we were coming back today. Maybe he told him. Either way we were in the gate. When we got to the boat and turned on the lights. The batteries were a little below 12volts. Not good but there was no water in the bilge. I hooked up the power cord and went back in, Pam was already washing things down. There were large spot of green all over the boat that were green with mold. One thing I have learned in the 51 years we have been married. If I ask Pam if she is all right and it’s very cold. She may say, I’m alright but if she’s crying I know she’s not. I ask her if she was alright and watched to see. She said. “Stop staring at me I’m alright. It’s just mold. “No hay probiema.” That’s “There is no problem.” in Spanish. She then said. “She is just beautiful even if she is a little green.

The white spot is really green mold.

It feels so good to be home.” Now there was a little tear in her eyes. I felt the same. With the rain hammering down it felt good just being inside our little schooner and where ever she is, “Is Home.” The next day we put Dumpling our little dink back in the water with big iguana running around in the marina birds crying out chickens every where and went to town. There is and energy in going to town in a third world country that’s not there in the states. It’s maybe in not knowing what you may see. The rain had stopped and we found most of what we went to town for. A good day is when you find more that half of what you went to town for. By the time we got back to the boat I had been thoroughly hugged. I’m not a huger but I’m not sure what the Guatemala friends we know now here would think if I tried to stop them. Sometimes you just have to go with it. With long waits for plane rides, buses, old motor bikes and always boats. Hugs in countries that are more than just miles apart. We still have people that ask us why we do this. I don’t even try to answer.

They call it Fronteras for a reason

A Day in New Orleans

For all that follow our blog. We are still in Louisiana. At the boat yard in Mandeville. For those that are just looking for the first time. We are off our boat and traveling on a little trip from here to Kansans and back to here on our old Honda 450 motor bike we had stored in Mississippi. We leave here on July 8^th fly to Fort Lauderdale FL. Getting there late. Spend the night there in the airport and fly out the next morning to Guatemala City, Guatemala. Then we have a 5 hour bus ride to our boat in the river there in the Rio Dulce. When you love traveling as much as we do. Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do. Life here in the boat yard is a change from the way we normally live now but we have lived here on our boat before. We are sleeping on a friends boat. When we were young and every one was having children. One of our nephews was replying to his aunt that was saying. I was his crazy uncle. He said. No. He not crazy. He is just different. He was about 6 then. This has been the way life has been for most of our life and the people we met “are” sometimes a little different for sure. The friend that we are sleeping on his boat is on another adventure in Alaska and trying to make some money. Last night we met an actor. He has had some successes with a few bit parts and one liner over the years. Then we went on to the Waffle House and there we met a price fighter. In his younger years he had some successes winning fights and traveling to other countries to fight. He was proud of his nose the doctors had fixed so he looks normal. We know more than a few crop dusters and one that flew in air shows for years. I have a little single engine land ticket. Nothing to brag about but I do like flying planes and I am proud I got my pilots license. Where and why do we meet all these people. When someone would say “Birds of a feather” to my Granddaddy. He would say. No that’s not right. It’s just if you want to see fish you don’t have to be a fish to go where the fish are. Maybe its because we are out doing things all the time. When you are out doing things you will meet other people that are doing “amazing” thing sometimes. Things I could never do. We know some mountain climbers that sleep in a little net they carry and hang on the side of a mountain cliff to sleep. Most of what “we” do is low key. Remember we love adventure but not enough to scare me. Remember most of what we love is the simple things in life like we spent one Christmas here in this boat yard and we were the only people here. It was so quit most of the day. Lonely really. It was like being in a grave yard for boats but in the after noon people stared to come by. Finally I just left the gate open and we almost had a little crowd on our boat. All laughing and drinking hot drinks like Apple cider and tea. Eating cake and cookies. Telling wild story about sailing, motor bikes, planes and stuff they had been doing. After they had all gone I realized we had had a great day. A Christmas to remember. Now we will spend the 4 of July here. It’s sad not having our boat here. Even if some one lets you stay on there boat, it’s not like being home on your on boat but we do have friends here. That makes it better. Now we are the ones telling the wild stories about sailing in the Western Caribbean. What will we do when we get back to our boat? I’m getting old. I think I may just sleep for at least one full day but maybe not. We have friends there and maybe it we will be us telling wild stories about riding our old motor bike around on the back roads of the USA. The great thing about living like we do is “We do have a story to tell most of the time and never have to make one up.”

Rickshaw in New Orleans

Pam and I designed and built two rickshaws in Southport, NC and we gave tours on them for several years.

 

Inside trolley car New Orleans

Wall column fragment from “North Tower World Trade Center”

Sadly we were there on the New Jersey side on 9/11/2001 on the Pamela Ann and watched it all happen.

Pam enjoying Soft Shell Crab