Busy in Guatemala

Here in Rio Dulce, Guatemala

We are still in Guatemala in Central America and working harder than ever. To top this I fell and twisted everything on my body I think on a wet tile floor working. No time to heal just push ahead. Our little guy that has been helps us is working with his friends now doing what I trained him to do and not working for us and to top this it’s raining everyday. The age old problem. Time, money and how to get work done. For one thing this life is not new to us. We have had a life time of working it out. So first as I have said in lots of our blog no mater the problems, don’t let a day get by with out taking time to realize where you are and how good life is if you don’t just focus on what is going wrong. Pam and I are on our boat together and this was and still is a dream to build a boat and go sailing. Being here and it being so different makes it special. A lot of Ex-pats call this paradise with what they left behind in there country. Mostly not having to deal with so many laws and rules. If you were born to bitch you sure can find something to bitch about here. Today we have had people coming buy off and on all day and maybe they’re friends or maybe we are like horses put in a coral together sometimes and we just get used to being together. Ether way the talk most of the time is how to get work done and push on. The laughs uselessly come from our failures. We have put in lot of our blogs the difference I talk about with being here.

Night Out On The River

Last night we went with a friends to eat supper in a restaurant on the other side of the river and it was getting dark when we got there. This meant we eat literary in the dark because of the magflys coming out early in the evening. This is an open air restaurant like most here and one little candle in a yellow glass in the middle of the table is not much light to eat by. A half hour later the lights were turned back on and the flying bugs were gone. We sat there at our table looking at the bridge down the river maybe a half a mile away watching traffic crossing the bridge and watched boats going and coming up and down the river most with no lights. Maybe holding up a light sometimes. This is normal down here. This is a land where you take care of yourself and the law very seldom gets involved in your daily life. Dumpling, our little dink has no running lights but Pamela usually carries a gallon water jug and put light under it. If it has any water in it it makes a really big light. Taking care of your self this doesn’t stop with lights on boats down here running the river at night. You may leave in the day light and going back at night the locals may have a fish net across the inlet and maybe swimming with the net in the dark. Someone blocking your way to your boat in the water waving there hand and arms shouting something you don’t understand. Just more fun. Then there is the late evening event just before dark when your thinking enough is enough of this and then the sounds of wild monkeys in the jungle will bring you back to why you’re here in the first place and working so hard. Does it to me every time. Fireworks anytime day or night will make Pam smile. She was born to shoot fireworks and make a noise. Here with the take care of your self thing shooting fire works can get wild. In the middle of town just roll out a 30 foot long roll in the street and let them go. Now paper blowing around every where. Remember a 30 foot long roll not just one little pack. Maybe you’re caught up in your life with just count your blessing.

Lots of fireworks for sale.

What do you Need?

Here with finding what you want to buy. The blessing is in finding something you need or want. Delivered the next day does not happen here ever if it happens at all. You need a nail here your in luck if you find one the size you want. They sale nails by the each nail. You need one or 34 you are in luck. They will count them out and sell you one.

Pam working her way through traffic. The white line is the road. No sidewalk.

Motor Work.

We are still working on replacing our motors in our boat and working with the blessings of finding what we need.

3G YANMAR.  We hope the paint stay on,

Ask for motor paint they will hand you something quick saying motor paint. Spray a test spot let it dry and wash it all off with just a little gasoline. What do you do? Count your blessing the way they see it at lest you have paint. Just another day in paradise.

                                           The Adventure Goes ON

 

Free to do More

Why the Caribbean?

People back in the states ask us what it’s like to live in the Western Caribbean. For one thing people are freer here for sure than in the US. Here we are eating in an open air restaurant with a young chicken running around picking up scraps off the floor.

No One Cares

Chick enjoying being in restaurant.

checking out what it can find every where.

You bake a cake and walk around town selling pieces of cake there is no one asking for your license. No inspections where you cooked it. This is one of the biggest draws for the ex-pats living here. How free you are. Here you see a cop looking at you or coming at you. They have for years walked on by but in the states it makes you wonder if you are going to have trouble. If they do start checking you out in the US they keep checking till they find something to fine you for. The other day a drunk that you seldom see on the street down here was harassing some people and the man yelled at him to leave. The drunk fell down doing push-ups then jumped up headed at the man like he just proved how strong he was. A police man saw him and ran into him knocking him to the ground. As he got up the cop grabbed pushing him sending him running down the street with the cop telling him to leave. The cop went back to directing traffic and it was over. It was just over. This don’t happen in the US. Solve the problem and back to business as usual is how most things happen here.

Work Boat

This is a home built boat with no restrictions of any kind working the river hauling rock to build something some where in the river. No one ever has a life jacket. No lights. No boat is ever inspected to see if it meets some specification some where.                                     We have a neighbor here at the next marina that if she sees dust in the water where some one is working on there boat she calls the law. Any little skim on the water where some one put a little too much gas in the outboard motor and you can see even if it’s just a little on the water she is calling. The law never shows up but she keeps calling. How do we know she is doing this. She tells anyone she see what she is doing. Of course she is not from here but came here from up north in the US.

Finding Food We Like?

The biggest problem we have here is food we like. No American steak. No prime cut of meat just meat cut thin for a reason. It’s tough and no trained butchers here. Maybe pork chops sometimes but mostly just chunks of meat cut as I said. Sliced thin. Chicken varies here from old laid out laying hens cut up in strange pieces packed and frozen in boxes and shipped here from who knows where. Some whole dressed chickens sold out on the street with out any refrigeration are ice laying there in the hot sun all day to live chicken sold on the street. Eggs are plentiful. Vegetables look great stacked high on the street but it’s mostly what they can’t ship north or what they can’t sell in the US sent down here. Apples are in now in the US with some so small I don’t know what to do with them. This is Apples that didn’t make the grade some where up north so they sent them down here. Pam and I are getting old now but remember the old ways living down on the farm. This helps us a lot with how we eat where ever we are. Find fresh corn we can make cream corn. Blackberries make jam. Plain wheat flour, Pam can make fine biscuits. The list goes on living the simple life. We have put this in our blog a lot us making grits from fresh corn as we travel but it’s so good where you can’t get much stuff we are use to in the states.

Making grits

Grits for lunch.

The two old but new to us motors we are trying to put in our boat are here now. Getting them clean and painted. Getting them in is going to be a challenge with the boat in the water at the dock here. We may have to use some Caribbean engineering to get them in. May have to build something. Ether way the adventure goes on.                                                                  Never a dull day aboard the old  “Schooner Pamela Ann”

 

Making Changes

We are still in Guatemala and working.

New engines

We have made a deal to buy two little Yanmar engines that are old but still running and we are replacing our old VW car motors with them in our boat.

     This is one of the Yanmar engines It’s a G4. We heard it run in the shop we are buying it from.

Remember we never have enough money and never have in our life. In the beginning as in building the boat getting these motors was impossible. Now they’re old and not worth much but if I can get them in and working the boat doesn’t know they’re old if they work well. It’s like this, We have an old house in the states small but well kept. And old truck we use out there well kept. Old Motor bike. Truck and bike are old with antique tags. Even an old riding lawn mower they don’t make parts for anymore. It’s close to 50 years old so I made some parts myself and with some new paint it’s doing the job. Why did I buy a mower 50 years old. Didn’t. Gave to me cleaning out a barn in sad shape. Runs good now.

                         Cutting grass the day before we left the US, on the old mower.

Why is my life always this way? We can only have what we can afford. Building the boat getting boat motors just cost too much money so I took two old at the time VW rabbit diesel motors out of junk cars and made a hook up for a boat transmission myself that failed for a while before we got it to work. Trying to work with a machinist has never worked out with them saying they know better what to do than you do. Finely if you wait and want long enough sometimes your dreams do come true. A long with all the other odd old stuff we have now we have our own machinist metal lathe now so now I can make what I want. Remember making parts for the lawn mower this helped. Metal lathe a little old but works great. Have some papers on the old lathe where it was bought new in 1930.We paid very little for it just what it would bring at a scrap yard selling it for scrap metal. Biggest problem was getting it freed up. Everything free up and working now. I am an established artist in Kansas and sell some of my art so maybe I see things different but I see beauty sometimes in old stuff still working and that old lathe was built for a shop with only one shaft running down through the shop and every thing in the shop running off that shaft. This means there are big pulleys up in the cycling for this so we left them there and put a small motor hook up we designed ourselves and it works really good but but looks really old but really cool. One of the motors we bought the other we made a deal. Part of the deal is taking it out. It’s always something. It’s in a catamaran in a boat yard on stands with an out drive. Now we have to get all that mess off to get it out then we need to buy a transmission and that hook up. Get all this to the boat and try to get it all cleaned before we can put it in. I love it when I hear some one say. “ I could not live like you do everyday with nothing to do. Living on a boat in the Caribbean with nothing to do but set on the beach all day.” One thing even with the hard work it’s never boring. When things get too much I sometimes just set in the cockpit of the Pamela Ann and take time to realize where we are and how we got here. Lots of life has been lived on this old boat we built ourselves. With the improvement of better motors maybe there is a lot to still live on this old boat even with us getting old ourselves. Having birthdays again. If we can make it another year and 4 months I hope we are celebrating our 60th wedding anniversary under way on this old boat going some where we have never been. Making money to be put in a bank has never been an option if there is an adventure out there with-in reach. Not making more money and going for the adventure has put us here.

                                             Old with very little. What a life.

                                                 “The Adventure Goes ON”

                                                                  Big Pinata     

Thoght everyone might like to see this pinata. It stands at least 4 feet and will be pulled up on a cable. We saw it where some of the locals were having a birthday party. It was already filled with candy.