Here in Guatemala

A long time ago when Pam and I met she was into going and doing things. Who could have guessed how much going and doing thing we would do. In our early life it seemed impossible to ever go on an real adventure. We read books and saw movies and they make it look so easy. Remember she was just 15 when we ran away together. I was a lot older at 17. We lied about our age and just got marred. This was in the day of the freedom of not having computers. Mostly after we married we found ourselves just settling in to working and running a steady job. We couldn’t go back to school. The boredom of working every day doing the same thing ever day was harder than doing the work. Dealing with the people you always have to deal with just running a job was always there. The slacker and the back stabbers always trying to make you look bad and them look better. At and early stage in our life we broke from tradition and started working for ourselves only to find why most people never make money in their life but just work for wages for some one that can. Very few people can make money but there is freedom and entrapment in working for yourselves. One you work all the time now. Maybe it just going to look at a job but it’s working. The back stabber and slickers are still there and there is no way around it. They’re always there in life. Why couldn’t we just build a little sailboat and sail away and live a simple life with no worries. Looking back at the last 58 years we have been married we were on a great adventure all the time and didn’t know it. Flying planes and getting a pilot license at a early age is not a great achievement to day but for me having my woman in the plane with me flying into the wild blue yonder was and still is an adventure. Motor bikes riding cross country. Hiking trails and learning to live off the grid then designing a sailboat and going sailing with the boat we built with our own hands. Maybe not much of an accomplishment but to us it was an adventure. With building a sailboat there is no just sailing away. It takes hard work and money but what a dream for us that the boat we designed and built acutely sails. Remember what is adventure for us in all of this may not be for most. Now being in the Caribbean on that boat we built working on boats and sails as we travel to make our way is a dream that came true. Who could ever have thought we would become sail maker in our life time and learn enough to make a living as sail makers and that living would take us to paradise where here in the Caribbean the food is bad, the music worse and it always hot. Where the streets are crowded and if you find something you can use buy it quick for tomorrow it may be gone. Land of warm breezes and coconut palms.

Early morning and late evening rituals of setting on our boat and listening for howler monkeys to start sounding off. Where if you need are want to go somewhere inland in there little mini-vans it can mean riding with some one holding a chicken or you holding someone’s kid with people riding on top or for sure hanging on the side. How many can a clativo carry? At least one more. Parrots and fidget birds flying over head where your always prepared for a rain shower. Flower always in bloom.

Where banana are every where but no one eats banana sandwiches or banana ice cream and for sure banana pudding, where inflatables don’t stay inflated and I work on them.

Any money helps. For those that still believe in Santa Clause or sailing away. Maybe Santa Clause is a far stretch but you can still sail away even if it’s harder to find paradise than you think.

 

Paradise?

Living in paradise has it’s draw backs. Like the food is bad. The music is worse and it’s hot. You can’t get a meal here with out black beans and rice served with tortilla. Every meal. Every day. Maybe breakfast served with fresh watermelon juice or cantaloupe juice. Pancakes severed covered with hot chocolate syrup with black bean swiped into a paste on the side. To say it’s bad is wrong with how they love it but it’s not IHOP with breakfast serving pancakes with bacon and maple syrup. The music down here is rap done in Spanish. Maybe that is not bad ether with how many people like rap. Even to day in the U.S. rap is common in county music. Chew tobacco, Chew tobacco, Spit. Is not music to me. Called country music or not it’s not my music. How hot is it. Raining yesterday with a heat index of 108F. If you see little beads of sweat on the upper lip of these little women working maybe in a store. I’m so hot I’m about to faint. Why is it called paradise? There is so much to see here and the people live slower life styles. Very few rules. No life jackets required. No running lights on boats. No paper work on who owns the run-a-bouts or your out board. No police stopping you and checking and checking and checking and checking till he finds something to fine you for. There is a freedom in that. The only thing in life that is constant is change. Most of the jungle is gone now cleared to farm or ranch. Lots of motor cycles. When we first came in here the first time 8 years ago there were maybe twenty launchas doing tours now there are hundreds. The old dug outs are being over taken by fiberglass. The cost for boats slips is going up to near what they get in the states. I guess the lure of cruising and the Caribbean is the unknown. Here Pam has a weaver’s bird nest we cut out of the rigging of our boat.

How different is it here to living maybe on some street in New Your city. A lot but a lot alike. Most people live out of small markets and local vendors. Knowing when the boat selling groceries coming down the river is coming by you or the man selling newspapers blows a whistle as he walks around. The unknown is always here and there. In Mexico one time a young girl was trying to make an iguana leave in front of their apartment with a broom when it ran out in the street and was almost run over by a motor bike driving the iguana back by the little girl as it ran right in the apartment. Now may-ham was happening as what seemed to be Mama and Grand Mama were in the apartment and the little girl was outside maybe with the only broom. I seen it happen in New York city with a big rat being chased by a young girl away from a trash can on the street doubling back running right in the apartment with Mama and Grand Mama now in the street with the young girl. Maybe the word here is excited. Here if your having a bad day there is always flowers.

Never a day here with out something in bloom. My favorite is orchids. This is not orchids but it’s in bloom. Chickens are here every where and all ways for sell live on the street. Maybe there was a over run at some hatchery some where and they ended here there is so many this time of year.

That happens here a lot. Apples from the US the size of a quarter they can’t sell up there end up here. I saw a pretty young girl buy a chicken here. Rung it’s neck right there on the street. Held it till it quit flopping then hung it on the handle bars of her 49CC motor bike and left. Fresh chicken for supper. The simple living thing here I guess is why this is paradise. My wife Pam will ring a chicken neck and dress it for supper but will try to get me to do the killing if she can. The rest she is happy with. Women today that don’t live in paradise are not chicken killers like their Grandmother were just a few years ago. Simple living. We love it. The adventure of life for the few that feel the need to see what is just over the horizon. The adventure goes on.