Rio Life

If you have been keeping up with our blog you know we are planing to leave here soon. Some how it has me trying to pack in as much as we can of Central America. A lot of people see this as having a lot of poor places. I see happy people living out their lives their way. A lot of the places where people live are just maybe you could call them apartments they’re built so close together. There they just have the basics to get along with. When our son was here he said if he ever came here to live he would build him a screened in porch. That would be all he would need. He wouldn’t need a house. Some how you always see the poor side of this places but if you look at these places as just a basic place to live where it maybe all they can afford and they are doing all they can on less money than we can even imagine. They take on a beauty I see as the beauty of a community surviving.

Village with houses all built together

When I see these places I think of the many stories of the people that live there. Young people and maybe love stories. Old people and how it was years ago when no one had electric power. Kids doing kid stuff. Here people like having neighbors. It’s like their neighbors are part of the family. It’s all happening right there. There will always be some thing I will think of when ever I think of being down here it bananas and chickens. Even in town there are chickens and bananas trees.

Bananas and Chickens

As I have been saying of some time now shopping takes on new meaning being here. Where we have the most trouble is the fish market. If I go there and ask for fish they always tell me its about a days wages for one fish. I take my helper with me now and let him find us some fish. Remember there no fish on ice here. They may have been in the bottom of a boat covered up with leaves all day and its always hot here. We have mastered most of how to shop here but there is a few things we have trouble working out. Like how to buy shoes when most people here are just 5 feet tall. Little people have little feet. No shoes to fit a gringo. If you find shoes to fit maybe you could see paying a little more to get them. At the fish market they always hit the gringo hard even if it’s hot and their fish laying all over the dock in the sun. Christmas we went there thinking we could maybe have fish fixed some way to make it special. A women there had a nice fish maybe 3 lbs. I ask how much in Spanish and she said 50. I was thinking that about what most people make in half a day here. I ask Pam what she thought about paying Q50 for it when the women said no no no 50 US dollars. That is close to a weeks pay here for a 3 lb fish. I just smiled and we walked away with her just going off on us. I don’t know what she was saying but I know it wasn’t she was happy we were walking off and not paying here a week wages for one fish.

Fish Market

Remember there is no heath inspectors here and fanning your fish with a limb covered in leaves won’t keep them fresh. If you want to buy fish here take a local with you if you are buying at the fish market where the locals sell their fish. Remember we love it here it all just in the adventure of being here.

Boat Life

When Pam and I stared dreaming about going cruising we were young. We made our first little cruse many years later after I turned 40 down the ICW. I thought maybe at 40 we were to old to go cruising. Now as we cruise to other countries most of the cruisers are all over 65. A lot of people that are here in the Caribbean are just living here on their boats. They’re not cruisers any more they are just boat dwellers as some people say. Sadly some die here. Maybe we shouldn’t feel sad. Maybe it was a dream for-filled. There was a steel sail boat here a man had built and sailed here and sadly died on and it was still setting here many years later when we came here. It seemed the family wasn’t interested in having it. The marina claimed it, It finely sold and the marina got the little money it brought. Not much as the price came steadily down when they finely decided to sell it. A man that scrapes boats bought it and now it has the top cut off and is being used as a barge.

 Not a sailboat anymore” barge boat”

There is a good many boats here that need a good home and sadly again the people that own them value them too much to sell them for what they are really worth and they let them set here until they have no value. There a Tahiti Ketch here that is beginning to lose the battle with rot. Tahiti Ketch were the most popular boat for cruiser in the ’60s. There wooden boats and could be built in your back yard. Pam and I had plains for one that hung on our bed room wall for years. There just 30 feet long and were the dream of the times for people with out much money. Its sad to see one just setting there now slowly rotting away.

Tahiti Ketch                                                                                                     

It was the boat of our dreams for so long and now how much has changed. They’re small now and to us back them it seemed if we built one it would be large. The plans hung there as the years went by and we dreamed of living on a boat. Now when this boat sells it won’t sell for anything. There’s another boat here that a sad story where a man with money and a dream came down here and bought a big boat That was his thing. It had to be big. It’s a concrete boat with a wood deck covered with fiber glass. He paid enough to have bought a good 35 foot boat with every thing and ready to go. He still thinks it worth something. He is still proud it’s a big boat.

                                                 Large cement boat with rotten decks

The marina ask me to put a bilge pump in it. I did with the owner saying it was too much but he paid me. I did it really cheap. I mostly did it to help the marina. I didn’t want any excitement here at the marina like a boat sinking. Been there done that. When I dealt with him direct I found he still has no idea just how much money he will have to spend to go any where in this boat. There is nothing there that works. Remember this if you have the dream, do your home work before you buy. If you love horses and some one gives you one you may find out why every one doesn’t have one.

  This is at the end of one of our trips up the lake. The kids always see us off.

Simple Days

In all our blogs we have tried to explained how we travel. We are not in to the boating community when we stop where old movie night and happy hour is what we look forward to. The marina we are in is just a safe place to leave your boat and very quiet not geared to the “in the click boating community”. Just what we always look for. We can travel inland and not worry about our boat as much as if it was anchored out. Another thing is we are here to see this country not to always be setting in a marina with a gate to keep the locals out. We love being with the locals. This week our neighbors near the marina dog had puppies. They came you tell us in Spanish and we went to see. We see them in passing as they come through the marina yard. They live in a little two room house with a porch near the marina. Their little girls have bicycles a sign that they are living well. They have a motor bike too and I like seeing them come by with the two little girls holding the dog. The whole family on that little bike even the dog going some where. The people here that take care of this marina are locals and don’t speak a word of English. I like that too. They have as most locals do a lot of chickens.

                                                  Chicken in a basket  “For Sale”

We have a palapa here that we can work under. Pam sews mostly doing sail repair. We had two sails under the table out of the way and Pam said she saw a chicken setting in the sails. It was with two eggs under her. This just makes me feel alive. A lot of what we see here makes me think of how many people have told us we are living poor. Living on our boat where we have just the basics. No car living in a space some claim would make then claustrophobia. I have heard a lot of happy people in my life say they didn’t know they were poor until some one told them. Watching these little girl playing with there bikes playing with their dog and hearing people laughing over there I hope no one ever tell them they’re poor. Look at this little girl we saw on the street. I hope no one tell her that her hat is tearing up. She looks to me like she is a girl with big plans.

                                                                              She likes her hat

Here Pam is saying I make to many pitcher of her eating but look how sad she is setting there eating hot bread in a little bakery here and we carry our on butter with us. When your living poor, “You just have do what you have to do.”

                                                           Hey this is Good