Finding Food in Guatemala

We have been back home on our boat two weeks now and we have been shopping here for what we can find to live the way we like where ever we are. The old saying, “When in Roam live as the Romans do.” won’t work for us very long. For one thing we are not in Roam. We are in Guatemala up a river and living on black beans and rice every day is not our thing. We are old now and this gives us more Independence of thought. In other words we are set in our ways. Pam and I were born in the deep south in the US. Raised on southern cooking. I won’t go today to a restaurant “any where” with a famous chef. I want to go somewhere with just a good cook doing simple cooking. I am not into eating anything you need to drizzle something over. Before you can cook the way we eat back home you need something to cook. It’s harder that you think as you travel. Even when we were driving big rigs together cross country in the US food was a problem. We called the brown gravy back then they put on every thing in truck stops so you could eat it “diesel drizzle. It’s worse now traveling cross country in the US. We have made several long cross country trips for days on our old “like us slow moving ” motor bike. The family run, home cooked meal restaurant is just about gone. You have to be creative out there. In our trucking days we would try to find a grocery store that cooked something even if it was just steaming shrimp for you. On a cross country bike ride going across Mississippi a few years back, we dropped of a state road and went through a town looking and found a family run grocery store that sold barbecue in there meat market. I ask the women behind the meat counter if it was good. She said, “ Sho it is. I cooked this” and she was right. Maybe the best we have ever had anywhere. Remember we were getting a little crazy by now living on fast food and we were getting hungry. You won’t find any grained feed pork here in Guatemala and no real barbecue . We are finding some pork chops now that are just okay and the beef here is not any good for cooking a steak on a grill. When we find a piece of beef that looks maybe a little okay and not turning black we know not to grill it so we take it home to our boat and go at it with a old time cast iron cubing hammer. We carry a lot of the old stuff on our boat to live off the grid. The more you go at it the better. Batter it in flower if you can find any and fry. At least you can chew it. This week it’s grits. We have put this in our blog before but even this can be hit or miss. They sell corn every where here in stores in barrels by the liter. Women here grind this corn and make tortillas every day for every meal. Pam looks at the corn she buys to make sure it has not got weevils in the kernels. You can see a little black hole in the ends. I’m sure every one reading this has eat a bug or two in there life but it’s not what we want to do daily. As old as I am now the cause and effect of things around me are not so clear to me as it was when I was a know it all teenager. Grits made with weevils in the corn is not so good and I’m not sure the bugs in there is why. The eating a bug now and then doesn’t bother me but it’s not really that good the way I like grits. This week Pam found some new fresh corn that had a lot of trash in it like dried corn silks and a few bad kernels but at 12 cent US a liter we can trough out a little for the old chickens in the Guatemala marina here we are in with baby chicks. The grits we make on our boat is pioneer grits like our ancestors made back down on the farm. Takes a little longer to cook but I like them better than any we can buy in the states. Instance grits are good but these are better. The challenge to live well and travel goes on and we love it.

Almost all the stores sell this corn and other grains.

Making Grits aboard “Pamela Ann”

Some of the Chickens at the marina.

Back In Guatemala

We are back in Guatemala and it’s hot. 94 degrees most days where we are. No more setting by the fire burning wood and watching it snow in Kansas. No more eating a real steak. Beef you can chew is not available here. The trip is getting harder as we get older with getting up before day light in the US. Eating a good breakfast knowing you won’t eat this good again for a while. Making a mad dash to the airport and going through all the check points. Then it’s set and wait for the plane. Then it’s hours setting in a small seat maybe with a kids kicking the back of your seat because they are more bored that you are. Back on the ground in Guatemala it’s a mad dash through customs, immigration and baggage clams and on outside where you are bombarded with taxi drivers. This time it was a mad dash to the bus station hoping we could make it before the bus left at 1300 hours and then a five hour plus ride across Guatemala on a bus with one stop where you can get off and get something “you may can eat.” On this bus trip they kept the bathroom on the bus locked with women and kids making a dash now for the bathroom when we stopped for food. Pam leading the pack. After dark when we got here with another cab ride to our boat in the dark with the cab head lights so dim I could not see where we were going. The cab was so old the head lights were glazed over and turning brown. Now on our boat every thing and I mean every thing was green with mold. As we walked down the dock we found the other boaters at the marina were having a party and we were invited to join. No food on the boat but Pam had run across the street and bought some eggs before we got in the last cab with no head lights and we had some bread we had bought at the bus stop with us. We were home. Glad to be back among boating friends. We left the party early and Pam went to work after a real long day to wash enough mold away so we could sleep. The next morning it was sleep late. Eat a late breakfast of eggs and left over bread. Then a trip walking to town for groceries.

There life as we left it was still going on. This is a very little women we call (behind her back), “The Cookie Princess.” She is only about 4 foot 6 and sells bread and cookies she bakes. A treat sometimes.

This is main street with little three wheel looking thing they use as cabs called “Tuk Tuks.” The name comes from how they sound trying to get you up a little hill.

There is more stuff sold on the street here that in stores but it’s best if you like to dicker over the price. Something I hate and Pam loves. We are home on our boat now for a few months and the adventure of life goes on here in Guatemala.

In Kansas, This is Pam’s bird feeder house she can look out the kitchen window and watch them eat.

Leaving Kansas

This is maybe our last blog in Kansas for this visit and the next blog will be hopefully in Guatemala. Going home to our old sail boat up the Rio Dulce river there. Pam and I have spent a life time traveling. This means leaving friends behind but there is always the unknown out there. I think that unknown is what keeps Pam and maybe me too always looking toward the next trip. She is already planning our next trip back here in the summer and on top of that maybe a motor bike trip when we are here the next time we come. We road our old motor bike Sunday then the expected happen. The weather out here is one extreme to another. That is why I said the expected. If it’s great today expect it to change tomorrow. Spring weather Sunday now as we are writing this it’s snowing. It’s hard to plan your day out here with out knowing the weather. What is it really like out here where we are in Kansas. We hear people say they have been to places like Texas maybe even Alaska and tell how it is there. How can you say what it’s like if you go to any one place in places that big. Here where we are is farm country. Our little house is in town here but that to is a little deceiving too. This town is just a spot on a map and just maybe two blocks in any direction to open fields.

Our Little House

Farm Coop grain bends

We have a farm coop here and a grain silo that is the main and only business here. There are a few farmers that live here but farm outside of town. At one time they had a small grocery store and a restaurant here but there is just not enough people to keep them open. This is happening in most of these small places they call towns out here. Farms are getting bigger and need less help to run them. Young people care very little for farm life and women care even less for living where they can’t see the next house. I don’t think Pam and I will ever have a “small” thousand plus acre farm out here but living the simple farm life we can do. This is made more possible with our son’s place with his chickens and farm animals just 3 miles away. You can buy fresh meat easily here so we cut,cure and make our own sausage and eat like we are down on the farm. I don’t see it possible to eat like this any where in the Caribbean and if you could it would cost a fortune. Home grown tomato and okra is a luxury most people never know. The wild life is amazing here with what you may see in “your yard.” When Pam and I fly a plane she is always looking for traffic. Looking for another plane up there with us. Out here it’s looking for wild life if we are driving or riding our old motor bike. Running over a grown wild turkey on a bike will give you something to talk about. Two people were killed out here last year when they were hit by a buzzard and lost control of there bike. Pam and I have done battle with Grasshoppers so big I consider them wild life and it can get worse if your ridding in wind gust of 30 plus and hit a giant grasshopper with a tail wind coming at you and you’re doing 50 MPH. Last summer we came back from town to find I had grasshopper parts all over me. There is always something to do our here if you’re willing to drive the distance and now it’s foot ball. Super bowl madness. The passion there is more than I understand. Personally I would rather go see if I can see a live badger out of it’s hole. Watching for live badgers and mountains lions will have to be put on hold as we change to watching river otters and parrots. See all our friends in the Caribbean soon.

We will be missing our Grandogs Too