We are back home now on our boat. Back in the river in Guatemala. The trip back was maybe good or maybe bad. This lies in how you see it. We usually see it as just another part of the adventure. We never have enough money? It’s not that we live above our means, it’s that our means is below how we live. Years now of “let’s go do that” has left us older and with less than most at our age. What to do now but just keep on keeping on. We booked cheap flights, 3 planes to get home, long lay overs. In Guatemala we had reservations at the old Howard Johnson’s hotel. A little pricey but really nice for Guatemala. There they give you a card for the restaurant for breakfast, order what you want not just some donuts. They have a shuttle and the ride to the bus is free. Compared to a cheep room, cab rides and street food it’s not that much more and nice. At the bus you feel the 3rd world with signs saying no dogs,cats,chicken,baby pigs or parrots. They put you on a small bus to take you to a bigger bus on the edge of the city. You change buses there and hope your bags make the trip with you. Then it’s a most of the day ride to make the Rio Dulce near the coast where we are going. It’s about 25 miles down the river to the ocean from the marina we are at. On the bus trip they make one stop where you can get off and back on the bus about half way. There is little restaurant in the big bus stop and real bath rooms. Remember what its like traveling with a women. You might say its the destination between bathrooms. On the way we soon ran into road work. At less they didn’t have a movie on this bus. No Dumb and Dumber movie. We did have WIFI and good cell phone service. This mint people speaking in Spanish really loud and sometimes laughing louder on their phones. Always babies crying with us just setting and waiting for the road to clear. Finely we made it close too where we could get off the bus and the road closed. Setting and waiting again. They had an accident somewhere up the road. Some of the accidents in Guatemala can be horrific. The bus driver seemed to be annoyed. He pulled over on the side of the road and slowly went by some trucks going down the side of the road then turned in to the town of el Rancho. This town was not designed for cars and surely not for a bus but it is what you see if you get off the main roads down there. Slowly we went over speed bumps. There is no red lights in small towns just lots of speed bumps down here. Stopping to let cars coming the other way by. We made it through town to an old abandon rail road tressel over the road. We made that with Pam holding on and now we were on a dirt road with me saying it’s getting better and her saying “hush”. The hush is because things can change quick down here. On the dirt road we came to a one lane bridge over a small river. Guard rail falling off and a long ways across and far enough down to hurt if something happen. Back on the dirt road then back to payment and then back to the main road turned and we were on our way again with trucks and cars stopped going the other way for miles. There is only one road going to Guatemala City across Guatemala with little roads going off the main two lane road through little towns. I said it’s two lane but sometimes if someone is passing and meeting something coming the other way the bus will pull closer to the side of the road and the other vehicle will do the same and make it three lanes. On the way we came by two dump trucks upside down in a deep ditch with trucks stopping where it had just happen. People running down the bank, our lane was clear and the bus went on. Maybe they were doing the three lane thing or something but two of them were as I said up side down wheels up in the air deep in the ditch and it had just happen. When we got off the bus in Fronteris we walked down to a little store where old men like to set around and drink beer. There’s a table there they call the table of knowledge . Pam went to the grocery store while I set and listened to gossip. Some friends showed up with a car and took us on to our boat. We were too tired to walk the mile or so across the bridge over the river so this really helped. Going on the boat I ask Pam if she was okay after leaving our little house we bought out on the prairie in Kansas. She turned and said, “Don’t ask me to choose.”I guess this means we will be flying back to Kansas in a little while but for now. We are home on the little home built schooner “Pamela Ann” we built ourselves now setting peacefully in the Rio Dulce river in Guatemala. In surveying the boat after we got back we found a red headed wood pecker had pecked a hole in our main mast. All I guess in living where on a still quit morning you can hear hollower monkeys claiming there territories. I built the mast and soon I will scarf new wood in the mast and maybe leave no scares. The adventure go’s on.
BAD BIRDS
Glad to be home.
schoonerpamelaann 