Hanging Out In Guatemala

In our last blog I said it is some what confusing being up the Rio Dulce river here in Guatemala with the Coronavirus going on. It’s hard to get the real news anytime here or even in the US with out it being sensationalized. We get our news off the internet and you know not to even look at some news organization they are so far from the truth and so political. The cruisers here see this on their computers and tell every one it is the truth. One cruiser said on the VHF radio all boaters listen and talk to each other on. It was confirmed that if you used a hair drier and breath the hot air up your nose you could not get the virus. A doctor here on a boat said no one should try that craziness. I’m sure this goes on every where. The best we can find out is there is no flights from here to the US. There is no buses running to Guatemala City from here and to the airport. A lot of the stores are not open. So far food is available. Bars are closing but this has on effect on us. We don’t drink and this no drinking thing hurts our social life every day where ever we are around boats not just with this virus. This virus has not changed our lives much with us spending most of our time on our boat. The unknown is a problem not knowing what may happen next. We seen two green parrots flying near our boat yesterday and that was special. The marina dog here caught a porky pine looking thing here that is maybe a hedgehog and it left a number of it’s spines embedded in it’s mouth. We all pitched in money here in the marina and got the dog to a vet. No way to get the embedded broke off ones out.

Pam has taught the marina dog to set when she gets a treat.

Dogs looking better. The well to do would but the locals would never spend money on a dog. It’s mating season for a the seagulls and they are here. One minute it’s like all the seagulls in the Caribbean are here on and old falling down dock and then they’re gone. Pam and I dreamed for many a year about getting us a sailboat, going sailing and doing this. We have been living on our boat “Pamela Ann” we “built ourselves” for 25 years now. Working and living in a lot of different places. Friday, March 20th was our anniversary. We have been married for 56 years now and were laughing at how little we knew back then. Pam had never seen the ocean and how could we have thought what our lives would be and how much it would change with us building a sailboat and going sailing. Being raised with more is always better. We went the other way early in life with building a log cabin ourselves on Lake Greenwood and raising our son some what off the grid. Even today we make our own sausage, grind corn on our boat to make grits and Pam can cook it if we can catch it an can skin it. Living this way still bothers some that know us. Maybe we have never had that much money in the bank but we still enjoy the sun set from the cockpit of our old boat in far away places and a lot of people never know what it like to see the moon rise on a dark night sailing across a lonely sea. For all of you that don’t know what that is like when the moon is up and now you are sailing in moon light. It’s not as scary as sailing in total darkness. Good writers and brave people never tell how scary things can get out there. Moon light is good believe me and the adventure even if we are old is still going on.

Our dock at Calypso Marina, Rio Dulce,Guatemala

One of the beautiful flowers that only bloom at night.

Corona Virus?

The Coronivirus is the big thing every where and the fear of it has hit here. People walking around with faces mast from the hardware store that carpenters use when they’re sanding wood. It’s slowly getting hotter up the river here in Guatemala and a lot of people that normally store there boats here all summer and go back home where its cooler are still here. Going back to the US, Europe, Canada and places far away. Russians that have made it out never go back home and there are a lot of people they don’t allow in. Cuban and Muslims. We seam to be stuck here for the time being with no flights leaving or coming in and what a place to be stuck. Stuck in the Caribbean. What is it really like living in a country like Guatemala?

In town the streets are lined with produce they can’t ship and sell any where else. This has nothing to do with the virus it is this way all the time here. Maybe cabbage the size of a small child won’t ship because no one up north wants huge vegetables. Apples shipped in from the US no bigger that a golf ball that didn’t make the grade and want sell up there are piled high for sell down here. There is nothing wrong with it. It is just what they can’t ship up north or what won’t sell up north is shipped down here. It’s piled high on the streets in most towns any where here. You hear cruisers say the produce is great here with it being piled up so high but if it was laded out in the displayed we use back in the states they wouldn’t touch it.

Everywhere through out the Caribbean people are trying to sell you something. In Belize one time a man less say blessed by the sun with long dread-locks, barefoot with a long beard was cutting groves in a stick and ask if we wanted to buy some Belize art. This was just a stick he was whittling on. I said no very nicely and he went off saying I was going to buy this stick. Saying if we are in his country you buy what we have to sell to share your wealth. We just walked on with him flowing us screaming and cursing us. This was one time I was concerned we were going to have trouble but he finely gave up as we were walking to the police station just up the street. I have put in all our blogs that we have never had any “Real” trouble any where down here and this was not any thing to change our minds. You’re as safe here as most places we travel in the US. Saying “No Thank You” in Spanish or in this case in Belize English always works. Most of the time that is. All this makes shopping different here.

In the real stores here you can buy things canned in boxes that have been radiated to kill bacteria not in cans. The weather here is not bad hot now at least you can sleep at night but that will change soon. There is food you can buy in the stores and on the street. Common dust mast are sold out and the people that have them are wearing them like they are protected now. There is a since of disruption that bothers me a little in not knowing how crazy thing “can” get here with this virus thing. Knowing if something happens here or back in the US where our son lives we can not fly out of here and he can’t come here is troubling. Next Friday Pam and I will be married 56 years. Back then we were running away and didn’t know what was coming next. We are not running but with the not knowing what comes next, “Some things in life Never Change”

More Fruit Farm

This blog is a follow up of the trip to the fruit farm last week. You can’t travel off road here where there is not a lot of roads if you leave the main road with out crossing a swinging bridge. You wonder why people hold on in the movies to the cables along side the bridge. It’s a swinging bridge and they move a lot. The dark area along the sides are slick where things grow.

Be Careful

 

I don’t know what all this is but you can eat it they say and it looks different. Not coming to your store soon.

Black Pepper drying

More black pepper.

Don’t know what it is but they say you can eat it. 

Fruit Farm

In lots of our blogs I have put living in this part of the Western Caribbean. The food is bad, music is worse and it’s hot. When ask why we come here and stay as we do, “The answer lies in how interesting it is here. There is the feeling every where here of living very simple and I like living very simple. This is a dug-out canoe they use every day here.

The art of building these from a log cut out of a tree most of the time with only a machete goes on here and you will see kids 8 or 9 years going where they want with no life jacket in one of these. I once saw a crew of 5 men cut down a huge tree “3 feet across the stump” and work it up to remove it from a restaurant parking lot using only machetes. A far as the dug-outs they grow up traveling in these things and every one down here has a machete. We took a trip to a plant nursery Saturday where they are trying to see if fruit from around the world will grow here. The owner first came down here from the peace core and decided to try this on his own. Our ride there was a truck they use on the farm and this is the normal way to travel here. We piled into the back of the truck full of people and off we went with the driver manipulating the traffic of mostly big truck and motor bikes.

Goat Truck

I think you can drive anything on the road here if it runs but there may be a law you must have a horn because no one drives with out using their horn. If traffic is stopped for miles you have miles of horn blowing. The deal was we were to go there, eat lunch and try eating these different fruits then go see some of the fruits trees. It was a good day to be out with friends and seeing all this. A little rain and cloudy but not so hot. This is some of these fruits we were served for lunch.

Every one there in our group was saying how good they were but I was saying “I will stick to this is a little different.” I have put in“All”our blogs how much I like trying all these things as we travel but even here with this I will just stick to different. Not looking to see or buy any of this anytime soon in stores down here. The main meal was goat soup. Now this was something I could eat and this was good. Baby goat maybe from how tender it was and what they told us after I saw the little hide drying. Fried bread fruit I could identify. Taste like a potato some what but a little more bland and sweet potatoes tasting roots of some kind but the rest was I will just say different. One thing I have been looking for down here is black pepper that grows here.

Black Pepper Vine

At one time black pepper was the big thing for curing meat all over the world. Ships caring pepper back was big. This is fresh and has not had time to dry. Growing on a vine and real impressive. Now this I could get in to. As I am always saying about living on our boat here up a river in Guatemala. “The food is bad, music worse and it is hot did not apply here today. Eating baby goat, listening to the sound of the wind and blowing horns riding in the back of a goat truck with friends and with the clouds and a little rain it wasn’t so awful hot. The adventure of life goes on big time down here and that is the real reason why we are still coming down here and then there is the other little thing of our old boat being our home and that we are back home living down here aboard the schooner Pamela Ann enjoying the Caribbean. We will post more pictures over the weekend.

Some of the Happy Goats