Thanksgiving in Guatemala

In our last blog I said. It was raining here in the Rio Dulce in Guatemala where our boat is. It’s still raining. It’s been raining for weeks, I have lost count how many week it been. Most of the time when it raining, you just stay in your boat or get wet. Here you stay on your boat or stay wet. The rain is just not stopping. The local boaters that have come here and never left are saying, this is the most they have seen the river rise since the hurricane Mich. It’s up to the top of some docks and all the rest of the docks have been under for weeks. For all of you that are reading this that have been here before. Even small waves are coming over Bruno’s dock where the water is just about there. A few more inches and you will be docking your boat and walking in the water even there. In most cases I would be laughing at the inconvenience of all of this but we are trying to get our boat ready to leave. First if you don’t know us, let’s just say. We never made the right choices people talk about where the money would flow in. Mostly I just get what people throw away and fix it or find a way to barter for it. Our boat is home made. Our dink was being thrown away. Got it and fixed it. We call our out board motor a 2hp Honda 4 stroke “Frankenstein” resurrected from old motors thrown away. She is truly a bone yard motor. Maybe by now you have the idea. We have very little money and what we do have we have to make go as far as we can. With everything home built or used. Like our boat. Our dink. About every thing we own. Something is always needing work. Now it’s raining so you can complain or just roll with it. We have a nice palapa here at the marina for people here to have gathering. Thanksgiving is a US holiday. They’re a lot of gringos here that celebrate Thanksgiving. Turkeys are expensive here. The locals here think we are just “loco gringos”. The people here at the marina planned to have Thanksgiving at the palapa. We were to cook the turkey. We have a canning pressure cooker. Not a big one like your grandmother had but it’s big enough to cook a 13 lb turkey on our little 2 burner stove, it too is old. It was kerosene and thrown away. I got it, now with a refit, propane is the fuel of the day. It still looks old but works good. Lots of brass and stainless. With 5 inches of water covering the floor of the palapa, There were people saying “Just call of Thanksgiving, have it another day.” Okay with me if that what “they” wanted to do but how do you change Thanksgiving day? We had the turkey so we said. “Were going on with Thanksgiving. We would just do it on our boat.” Our boat was built to be lived in. It looks lived in everyday so it’s not hard to have people over. And when they’re gone it looks the same. Well lived in. Every one that wanted to come was welcome and they came. Twenty three strong. Dinks tied everywhere. A good friend came with their boat and rafted to the Pamela Ann, power cords run across our decks but we had another big cockpit to set in. Did it turn out good? See for your self.

“Guest of Honor”  it fell apart when we took it out of the pot. 

 

                                                                   Food’s ready, “Come and get it”

                                                        Our friend Anna is always Happy

                                                                More Happy Guest

                                                                   Everyone seams to be having a good time.

Rain, Rain

This week the rain has stopped for one day but the water is still rising. It’s has been raining here hard for days. This along with just having normal rainy days for a week at a time. Everything is wet and turning green. But this is the tropics so every thing just goes on. In some ways, I kind of like it. I guess I still have a lot of kid in me. Wading through mud holes is still fun sometimes but have you ever waded around in stores. Really the wading around becomes normal after a week or more but when a boat come by and there big waves in the stores.

 

Most stores are open

This restaurant is open with the stools setting out front

Let’s just say, that is a little different. Any way the days are warm and being here is great. We are trying to get ready to leave but the rain is not helping. I have heard people say “It can’t rain for ever.” I’m not sure but one thing Central America will teach you, “Why be in a hurry?” Tomorrow the rain may stop or maybe not. Remember we live on a boat. What are we worried about? Life goes on.

High Water

This has nothing to do with the rain but where can you go where kid’s pet parrot hangs out in stores along with the dogs and maybe a chickens now and then.

Pet Parrott

Another pet parrot brought to the store

The thing I love about being here the most is maybe said best by saying “traquilo” in the dictionary it means quiet but in all of Central America it means, “Take it easy.” If you complain to the locals, they will just say “Is the rain really that big a problem? The stores are still open, “Traquilo.” So to all that are reading this, if your having a little rainy day in your life, “Traquilo.” From our little schooner “ Pamela Ann” “Floating High” in the Rio Dulce river Guatemala where its still raining.

Water getting higher

More on Last Trip

In the last few weeks. It has been crazy here. Our son came down from the US to help us get ready to leave here. And before we leave, you know to Pam, our son is still a little boy so she is showing him all she can. Getting ready can wait or we can do that when were not going some place. The great adventure last week was the Kite Festival. A couple of weeks ago, it was going to Belize and two different Maya Ruins. Our son took a pictures of something in the Mayan Ruins. We laughed and showed it to people. We said it was the ghost of people still hanging around that may have died there many centuries ago. A couple of blogs back I said I would tell what we think it is but the picture it self is just the way he took it. He smokes and maybe the camera caught some of that are maybe it is true as I said “Maybe its proof, we are not alone.” Maybe you can go back and see if you think its a ghost or a spirit or simply cigarette smoke.

Going to the Kite Festival, just being there is special. It’s hard to say how many people were there. It’s many thousands. I would guess maybe as much as ten thousand people. We went to the town of Santiago, Guatemala. The town is beautiful by its’ self but during the festival the town is wall to wall with people. They have a field set up out of town to fly the big kites on. It is big and was covered in people too. Food every where. Beer sold every where you go but one thing you won’t see is the police. Its so different from the US where they would have an army of police with a crowd this size. I don’t think an event like this could even happen in the US. The last time I was in the US on the 4^th of July, we went to the park to watch the fireworks with maybe a few hundred people there. There were at-least 20 police there. The fireworks were not even in the park but beside the park so far away it was disappointing. I ask a man in uniform setting under a tent with ice chest setting all around if they were selling water. He let me know “real” quick his reason for being there was to protect me, Not to sell me water. He was with Fire and Rescue.  You just don’t have any thing like that happen down here. When they needed to fly a kite there. They just ask people in the crowd to move back just enough to lay out the rope they use to fly the big kites.

One of the big kites they flew, look at the art work.

As the kite goes up, the space that was cleared is filled in entirely and if the kite comes back down, it can whack you good. Remember these kites are big. This is part of the fun of going any where down here. Down here believe me, You can get as close to the action as you want. You can get close enough to the fire works here to set you hair on fire. When you was young, did you ever have a ball of string like this?

A Ball of kite string.

It takes 6 or 8 people here to hold down a big kite. Team effort to fly one. If you go to one of these events. You will always see people dressing in there traditional cloths. These girls are maybe in there very early teens. They would stop and pose if any one wanted to make there pictures. Remember these clothes are always made by hand at home. It’s wonderful to see these young girls holding on to there heritage.

Traditional Dress

But there hanging just over me I saw something I did not expect. No one seamed to see it but me until I told them where to look. Not up high where the kites were flying but just over our heads, maybe 20 feet high.

Drone over head.

People were screaming and running from the kites but there it was. Flying around over me and the crowd. A little drone. This is truly a land of surprises. Where you can see people living so simple they have no lights at night. No running water. Dirt floors in there homes. Maybe just a candle. No one in the states would believe people here are as happy as they are living that simple. Where you can set and watch a volcano “puff”. That’s what we call it. When steam or smoke or whatever it is comes out. They puff the most in early morning.

Puff, Puff

“ I think,” Why would we ever want to leave a place like this? I really think most people never realize just how wonderful the world really is and maybe the reason we are always leaving is what we have not seen. The older we get the less the big things matter to me. If we sail around the world now, it will be by accident. We move too slow. What we live for now is too small for most people. Things like riding a mule to install a solar panel and lights in a school so far from a power line. It maybe a life time before power comes to there village. The reason I volunteered to do that is. “Seeing how people live there.” Watching people build kites so big and flying then with out any committee or anyone trying to tell them what they can’t do. Telling them they can’t do something because “they” need to protect them. Ask any one that has really lived in Central America.,how free you feel here. It won’t be long now before we head out again. Maybe I will tell soon what we are planing to do and where we are going to try to go next.  It’s maybe more than we can do, with us getting old. Our boat being so home built but one thing I have found out in all our travels, it’s not the destination that matters most. It’s the trip and what happens along the way. I hope anyone reading this is as happy as Pam is with our son here to help us get ready. To tell the truth, I’m fairly happy myself.

Kites Everywhere

Have you ever been so busy you forget what day it is? Right now we are that busy. We just came back from the Kite Festival in Sunpango, Guatemala so we have not had time to write a blog. We have so much to tell and if you give us time, I will but for now to save time we are just going to post some pictures. We are leaving here on the high tide with the boat this month. That’s when the moon is full and the tide is the highest so we can make it over the sand bar in the river. Maybe next week, we can tell you where we are going and maybe we can tell you what made the spirit picture on our last blog.

Antigua, Guatemala

You ever wander what a volcano looks like from the little towns around them?

Pull pork Guatemala style.

Very Good

When you were little did you ever build kits this big?

 

Lots of Work

Some are 45 to 50 feet.

This is our heads ( Tim & Pam) in left hand corner