Christmas In Guatemala

We are back on our boat up the Rio Dulce river in Guatemala again. Our boat is still our home. The Chinese virus and it being so hot down here we went back to the US for the summer before we left we covered up the boat as most people do and when we got back every thing was green with mold and mildew. When we opened up the boat water was over the floor boards. How long water had been in the boat we don’t know but the moisture had every door and draw to where they were swelled and wouldn’t open. All the ships battery were under water and no way to get the bilge pump to work. We took a battery for cranking the motors that was above the water out and rigged up a pump. Got out our portable battery charge only to find no power at out plug end on the dock. All this was taking place in the dark after a long hard bus trip from Guatemala City. 9 hours on the bus getting here. Wrecks, road work and bad driving. This driver would start off fast and then slam on brakes. Have had computer and internet trouble so we are late on doing a blog. and what else can go wrong? It’s rainy season here. Trying to dry the boat out with it raining. Found out the bilge pumps were fine and don’t know how long the battery kept up with the leak before the battery went down. We have not found what was letting the water in the first place. We know some one or some thing is to blame but now to solve the problem is all we are thinking about now. To add to this we don’t have any money in a budget to pay for this. When this happens to other people and all they can do is complain we tell them to call 1-800 Cry Baby and get to work. Slowly the boat is getting more livable. Used some other money for just two new batteries. We usually carry eight and now the lights are on and all the other things that makes life on our old home built sail boat home are working. Now it’s “If you are caught up in the thorns of a roses bush always take time to smell the roses.” Our little boat we uses to tend to our boat is named Dumpling. Taking little Dumpling to town is an adventure. Buying groceries here is an adventure. If you find something today does not mean you can buy it tomorrow. Beef is out. It’s just not good. Chicken and eggs are always in. Raw dry corn is always in so tomorrow we are grinding corn for grits on our boat with a hand grinder. Christmas is coming and it sounds different to hear Christmas carols in Spanish on the radio and to see plastic snow men they decorate with down here. How they put snow men with Christmas down here I don’t know. In the states I was doing art shows and sold some art. I still have trouble saying I’m an artist but here a women wants us to bring some of my art and do a little show in her restaurant and maybe she can introduce me to some of her friends that have art galleys in Antigua. If we could have my art in gallery down here. That would be better than Santa Claus coming to town. One thing Pam and I have learned over our long life together is “You never know what is just around the corner in life but some of it makes life wonderful. Living on our old sail boat in the Caribbean may be expanding my art career and it’s Christmas. The adventure of life goes on and to all that read this                                          “We Wish You A Very Merry Christmas”

Pam headed to the grocery store.

What do you want for Christmas?

 

Travel

We left our little house early Friday morning 3AM. We were in the air before daylight headed back to our boat in Guatemala. We had Thanksgiving at our little house with cheap turkey bought on sale early. We cut it in two frozen pieces with a new saw blade and my old saw all. A whole turkey was just too much at one time. It’s cold out in Kansas now so with Pam and I still living the old ways we had home grown tomatoes we wrapped green in paper and stored the old way in the basement on Thanksgiving day. We have had tomatoes well after Christmas from our own garden living this way. They really taste like you just picked them. Fried green tomatoes are good any time. Living that way will be over soon back in Guatemala on our boat. No more home made blackberry jam with Pam’s Martha White biscuits. Martha White is a flour Pam uses to make the lightest biscuits I have ever ate anywhere. Last week we had home sugar cured ham again cured in our basement. We had wild rabbit and a pheasant. Even with it getting cold an the temperature going below freezing at night our turnip greens are doing well in the garden. Food we really love is hard to find traveling but we carry a meat grinder and make out on sausage as we go. In a pinch even chicken sausage is eatable but what I will miss the most out in Kansas is steak. Its very affordable and good as it gets. This is a different culture out there from what we are going back to. It is mostly farmers or farm related. The men all wear boots and drive trucks. A few have facial hair but most are clean shaven. No man out here has long hair. You never even smell marijuana. To my surprise there are very few horses out here but every farmer has an ATV. There are a few people they call Mexicans out here that live here. To the people out here if you can speak Spanish your a Mexican. They work hard and always dress nice. There always clean if there out and about. Our son doses heat and air out here and the so called Mexicans like him because they say he doesn’t try to cheat them. This will all change when we get back to our boat in the Caribbean. A lot of men traveling on boats maybe think letting their hair grow and tying it back or just letting it hang is a form of freedom. Old tee shirts that are falling off them, flip flops and smoking dope is also a sign of their freedom. Mostly what they want to talk about is what they drank and smoked last night. Usually the first few days after we go back Pam and I really enjoy the reasons we go back beside our old home made sail boat we designed and built ourselves and have lived on for over 24 years is there. Being in a foreign country bring on challenges you don’t experience in everyday life if you never travel. What to eat? How to get your message across to someone what you want. How to get where you want to go. Along the way you never know what you may see. We were on a bus one time where they closed the road and the bus driver decided to go around through a small village or maybe it was a town but they had to get people to walk in front of the bus to get people to move stuff so we could get through. Then we had to cross a bridge so narrow they had to walk in front of the bus and watch the tires because they were hanging off the side. This doesn’t happen in the US. This was a big Greyhound type bus and no one on the bus seemed to be concerned that the bridge wasn’t built for this. Just another day to them. We need to bring our boat back to the US but once there in the Caribbean the debate goes on to live this way a little longer. We are getting old and have lived this way a long time but all good things come to an end. How old is too old for people that love adventure that know it’s getting harder to do. But for now the adventure goes on.