Weekend Update - Day of the Dead 3

For the past two years Diane and I have motorcycled up to Sumpongo to see the kite festival. Obviously we enjoyed it, so when the Day of the Dead came around, we decided to go to one of the other two towns that have a festival.  Prior to that was a meeting with the architect in Antigua. For those of you that don't know, Diane and I bought a piece of land in the Historic Polygon of Antigua and we are going to build a small bed and breakfast. Entertainment for ourselves, as this is our last year in education. So is the plan... We had decided that we would attempt to save some money by limiting our trips during long weekends. So this year, we decided to stay in the city and take some day trips.

We headed out on the bike to Antigua to meet with Jose. I was not paying attention and took one of the tumulos, speed bumps, at two high of a speed. The headlight popped out and my bargain priced topbox came off.  Diane walked up the road expecting to see a destroyed topbox, but that was not the case. The headlight was popped back in and reinforced with some black tape, the topbox would require a bit more work. I strolled back up the road to see if I could find the fasteners and I did. With the fasteners in my pocket and the box on Diane's lap we headed to Jose's office.

Jose forgot his keys and that gave me enough time to reinstall the topbox. We hedged our bets, by running a couple of bungees around it too. Jose soon arrived and we, more or less, finalized the house design. Diane and I mounted up and headed to Santiago, a town quite close to Antigua.

There was quite a bit of traffic, but the motorcycle alleviated any difficulty. We arrived in Santiago and started to use the BMW to our advantage. Once we were deep into the town we went to look for a parqueo. I asked at the local police station and the people said that the bike was probably safer here then in any parqueo and the price was right too. We managed to lock away all of our gear and cover the bike with my old bike cover. What you can't see you don't think about stealing or so the saying goes. Of course the police here in Guatemala are often portrayed as not having a high degree of integrity. But, it is only stuff.

We begin to walk up to the cemetery where all the festivities are. There are hundreds of street vendors lining the walk to the cemetery. This must be the black Friday of Santiago.  As we stroll up the street the crowd gets thicker, as you can see in the picture above.  We are pushed along, with one little Guatemalan kid grabbing my mustache. The mom soon put an end to that by taking out a breast to nurse. That apparently was more interesting than my mustache. We continue on up through a ridiculously crowded street to enter the cemetery. As we approach, I understand what the problem is.

 

The thousands of people are being funneled through an entrance maybe 3 meters wide and in the middle of it, sits a woman with a child in a wheelchair begging for money. We are expelled out onto the cemetery much like ketchup is squeezed out of a bottle. As we walk along Diane discovers she cannot find her sunglasses. A little closer inspection reveals why. Someone had slashed her bag and removed her sunglasses and, worse, her motorcycle gloves. We haven't seen bag slashers since the black market in Mongolia. Disappointed we did not catch the thief, we move on.

The landscape for this kite festival is superior to the one in Sumpango.

But so far we are not feeling the love. The kites here in Santiago are right in the cemetery, as opposed to the football field in Sumpango. So though the people attempted to decorate the graves here, having thousands of people trample over them left them a little worse for wear. 

The kites that we saw were, as always, quite impressive.

You can see how detailed the kites are made. All they are made of is paper and glue

However that scenic venue overlooking the valley has one negative attribute. There is a lot of wind. Good for flying kits, but not so good for display, especially if the wind hits them from directly behind. Some merely had a hole blown through them

Others suffered a much worse fate.

But as you can see below, the kites actually do fly.. not the 60 footers, but some decent sized one.

We pushed ourselves back through the crowd, Diane clutching her bag tightly to her chest. Back through the gate. We stopped at the first bag vendor and asked about a bag. Eighty quetzales, he says. I tell Diane, let's go that is a crazy price. Then we hear, 70, 60, 50, 40. Now 40 would be a fair price but this guy started out at the let's ripoff the gringo price, so he does not get our business. A few blocks later we stop at another vendor and Diane buys a replacement purse for about 35 Q's. We get back to the bike and see that it is indeed intact. We head back to the city knowing that this would be our last trip to the kite festival in Santiago. 

On the way back we stop for a late lunch at the Mirador. An overlook just before the city. Our lunch of sausages, tortillas, salad and beans cost about three bucks. We head home to see what time the Movie will start. 

The next day we had decided to ride to the beach to the shack restaurant that we go to for camarones/prawns/shrimp. The beach is not that far, but getting through the city can be a pain in the ass. I decide to be clever and look to take a back way to  the Carretera. Well that certainly didn't work. We end up far from where I wanted to be and ultimately decide to go to Antigua to take the highway from there to the beach. I am pretty sure that I know where that is and I head there directly. Out through Antigua Viejo onto the road. After a short while I realize where we are. This is not the direction we want to go. But is it the correct highway? We ride down to Pastores, about 7 kms away just to look at the sign. Yep, right road, wrong direction. Back we go and we head towards Escuintla. Escuintla proves to be way closer than anticipated and we are now on the highway towards the Sipicate turnoff. We manage to take the correct exit and start heading towards Sipicate. Along the way we witness a BMW SUV that has crashed into a guardrail. It had managed to take the guardrail head on and plunge it through the engine,the body of the car and out through the tailgate. Yuck.

I take all the correct turns and as I am about to enter the roundabout for Sipicate, I notice that my brakes seem to lack the power they usually have. Yep, apparently the power assist has ceased to assist. Oh well, the brakes still work, but now they work more like the brakes on our 58 R50, then a modern era bike We take the turn and head the 30 straight miles to Sipicate, through the sugar cane fields. I only manage to not see one tumulo and we arrive at the beach town outside Sipicate. We go to our, now favorite, restaurant. I park in the shaded parqueo and ask the guy the price. He tells me 10Q and I simply tell him No. He looks perplexed, a gringo telling him no? I explain the last time the price was 5Q. He understands and accepts my offer. At the restaurant I opt for the ceviche. I ask the difference between the few options on the menu and girl cannot think of any difference between them. we have a good laugh and I order a large ceviche. As you can see I don't think I made a bad choice. 

Diane, on the other hand opted for the Camarones con ajo.. Prawns with garlic. I don't think she made a poor choice either

After we left sated, we headed to the dock in Sipicate to buy camarones for dinner tomorrow. At the shrimp and fish seller, I ask if he has the jumbo prawns. We have gotten as good as 7 to the pound, this time it is 8.. He says the price is 60Q per pound, about seven and half dollars. I ask if he can do two pounds for 100Q, about 6.25 a pound. He contemplates and says yes. We pack the shrimp in the containers we brought along and ready ourselves for the ride back. I manage to negotiate the 30 straight tumulo ridden miles without any mistakes. Of course having brakes only powered by Harvey adds to my caution. We ride directly home, hitting rain on the way. It seems every time we return from the beach it rains. None the less, we arrive home safely and pack away our prawns until Sunday dinner.

Sunday is a lazy day, taking care of the usual errands after a breakfast at San Martins. For dinner we decide to go with Spicy Cajun Shrimp (http://www.cooks.com/recipe/br5264yt/spicy-cajun-shrimp.html) with snow peas and cous cous, with the house white wine. Turned out pretty good.

All told, a good weekend for about 450Q (less then $60) plus gasoline (about 45 dollars). 

How traveling to Mayan Ruins turns into Shrimpfest 2013

The original plan was to motorcycle to the Mayan Ruins in Copan, Honduras and then head down to the El Salvador beach for the Semana Santa Holiday. For those of you not aware, Semana Santa is probably the biggest travel holiday in all of Central America and people flock to all of the area attractions. I had made reservations at a Hotel near the main square in Copan The dog sitter was in place and all we had to do was load the motorcycle and go.

The bike was loaded and ready to go, when on the pre-trip inspection I noticed the following:

This meant a change in plans. We could not simply take our school car out of the country without having written authorization. Something not happening on the Saturday of Holy Week. So we had to stay in Guatemala, which is not such a bad option, as there is a lot to see. We decided to go to Quetzaltenango or Xela (pronounced Shaila), an area we had not previously been to. The first night was spent on Lake Atitlan and we took the Garmin route. That means you get there, but sometimes the roads are a bit rough and you wonder whether or not this is really the correct road. The fault. probably, lies with the free map that I downloaded, but I cannot really be sure. This was indeed the case, but only for 20 or so kms, the rest were scenic vista after scenic vista on roads generally not traveled by anyone. We spent the night at a Japanese owned hotel about a ten minute walk from the main street. It was clean, it had hot water and good internet...we had stayed here before.

The next morning we were off to Xela. The road to Xela has just been redone and would have been an enjoyable motorcycle ride. Big sweepers, nice vistas, many volcanoes... typical Guatemala. But we were in the car and my aggressive driving instead seemed to trigger car sickness on Diane's part. Upon arrival in Xela it took a while to find our hotel. Then we decided that our night was better spent elsewhere. We ended up at an interesting place a couple of blocks from the main town square. For 20 dollars a night, with internet and parking, it was a reasonable deal.

Xela had an old central square from which the town was born. There was a lot going on as it was Palm Sunday.

You can see that palm flower arrangements are big here

But walking around the central area of town was fun, as the streets were not straight and the architecture distinctly colonial.

In our travels Diane discovered a church that she wanted to get some pictures of... So we decided to go look for it. We headed out toward Punil, in the area where Diane thought the church would be. This was a heavily agricultural area where they grow those apple sized radishes I posted about last year. We rode around noticing that every person had a pickup truck and every single one of those pickup trucks were Toyotas. Apparently we found the Toyota equivalent of an elephant graveyard, though these Toyotas were all alive and well.

We saw a lot of pretty countryside, but did not find the church. Back to Xela for dinner at the number one Tripadvisor restaurant. Only to discover it was closed, so we had blue cheese burgers at the bar next door with a big pitcher of darkish beer.

The next day we were going to search for the church and then head towards a beach, they were not in the same direction, but we (meaning Diane) had to find that church. After much conversation in Spanish, and showing pictures of the church we eventually found the town where the church was. The town was dusty grey, every building was made out of cinderblocks and unlike many of the other towns in Guatemala, the buildings here were not brightly painted. Except for one, perhaps you can spot it in the photo below

The church is the only reason to come to this town. So here are some pictures

Having completed Diane's mission we were off to the beach. Now the beach is where all of Guatemala goes for Semana Santa. The city is virtually a ghost town because of this, so we were worried about getting accommodations  We picked the town Sipicate, mostly because the Garmin actually had it on the map. The ride was good, but not too fast, through an area of Guatemala we had never seen before. Eventually we came to the turn and then it was 30 miles down a straight road, through sugar cane fields to Sipicate. Sipicate is the intersection of two other roads, one ends at a ferry dock to cross the estuary to the beach, the other ends at a small beach town. We stayed in the best hotel in town. It had what I wanted, air conditioning and a pool. On the other hand it also had no hot water, no internet, and a restaurant that did not inspire confidence. We settled in and around 330 we decided to explore the area. We left the hotel and turned left, going as far as we could. The road ended in a small beach town that had line of beachfront restaurants.

They all looked about the same, but for whatever reason we went to:

Now Diane has been on this shrimp thing for a long time. She always wants to find that beachfront restaurant that gives you a huge pile of camarones (shrimp) for a reasonable price. This is a continuing saga from the times we were on the beach in Colombia and were able to do it. So she has been disappointed for about ten years now. But hey, you never know. So we sat down at this random restaurant and ordered camerones for 80 quetzales, about ten dollars. The prices ranged from 70 to 150 and the price change was based on size (supposedly). Dona Lucy (the owner) did not have any at 150, though it would have been doubtful that we would have ordered it. The dish we ordered was also kind of random. As you can see below, it looks like things turned out okay.

We left comfortably full, with Diane talking about riding down once a month just to eat shrimp.. The beach is about 2 hours away, so it is a totally doable day trip.

The next day we discovered the hotel's restaurant. The huevos rancheros weren't horrible, but I take to task any restaurant in Guatemala that serves instant coffee and this one did. We took the road the other way where we discovered the other boat dock. But we decided to go back to the hotel. We whiled away the day under a big shade tree by the pool, reading, swimming... At around 500 or so, we went back to the beachfront restaurants. We opted for the same place and were now welcomed as long lost return customers.. We sat on the beach and had some of the local beer, Gallo. We wanted to enjoy the sunset and have dinner a bit later. Apparently being returning customers we were entitled to some perks.

More shrimp. This time skewered and fried.After a couple of beers we thought it was wise to order. I ordered the same dish as the day before and Diane ordered something fried. We also split a small bowl of caldo, sort of a fish stew. The stew came with 4, what you would call, jumbo shrimp. That was 4 each, because they served our split bowl of soup in two bowls. Then came the shrimp.

During dinner we were entertained by the beach action...the usual football game.

As the sun was setting, they began to pick up the chairs. Apparently the restaurants all close at sundown. Good thing we did not come for a late dinner.

The next day we decided to leave early and head back to the city. But first we stopped at one of the many vendors and bought two pounds of shrimp.

As you can see the meaning of Jumbo Shrimp has shifted. These weighed in at 7 to a pound. But what do with them?

We discussed this during the ride back home. Along the way, we saw one of the many Guatemalan volcanoes letting off a bit of steam.

Upon arriving at home, I looked over the various recipes and decided on a Cajun Shrimp recipe. Diane cleaned the shrimp, a chore made much easier simply by the enormity of the shrimp.

We accompanied the shrimp with linguine and a simple sauce of butter and garlic, and some stir fried spinach. Diane again had her fill of shrimp and the meal was quite satisfactory.

Traffic in Guatemala City tends to be horrible. On Sunday, it is fairly empty, so it easy to cross the town. But as I stated before, everyone leaves the city for Semana Santa. This makes it a great time for traveling in and around the city. Since we were back, Diane wanted to view some of the processions that happen in Antigua. So we left at 9 on Good Friday and headed up to Antigua. We managed to find a free place to park in a lot that we often use. However the crowd in Antigua for Semana Santa is crazy. Below are some pictures to give you an idea. Those decorations on the ground are made of colored sand and are called alfombras (rugs/carpets), they take hours and hours to make and end up destroyed shortly afterwards.

The remainder of the holiday was spent quietly enjoying the empty city. We hope you had a great holiday too

Day of the Dead Two.... Return to Sumpongo

A short movie this time.... click on it beneath the picture

Return to Atitlan

 

Return to Atitlan

When you live in a foreign country for an extended period of time, you find places that you continually enjoy going to. In Jordan it was the backcountry in Petra, in Colombia it was the colonial village of Villa De Leyva, in Lesotho it was Hluhulwe game park, Mongolia it was Teralj... Here in Guatemala the place we seem to return to the most is Lake Atitlan. Of course we go to Antigua more frequently, but it is only a 45 minute journey, the lake, however, takes about 3 hours.

Each time we stay at the Lake we have stayed in a different village. The different towns have different flavors. Panajachel is the major town center, Santa Cruz is tranquil, San Pedro is the adventure center. We have stayed in each of these towns in the past and have enjoyed our stays. When we decided to go to the Lake for this long weekend, I looked for places to stay. I examined the various reviews from the Tripadvisor website and saw that the top two restaurants were both located in San Marcos, the spiritual center of the lake, you know, crystals, pyramids, meditation and yoga. All things right up my alley, Yeah right..

I found a highly rated interesting hotel in San Marcos and attempted to book reservations. For whatever reason Paypal was not working. So I deposited the money in the bank account of the Hotel, typical for places in Guatemala. This was an “art” hotel, all stained glass with a theme in each room. Our room had a bedroom, a big private bath and a private terrace. Now this place had a rate that was, shall we say, higher than I normally pay, but it included breakfast.

We left fairly early on Friday morning with our friends Steve and Marion following us in their car. As usual there was traffic aplenty as we fought our way across the city. Once beyond Antigua, the road emptied and the climbing and curves began. This was Steve and Marion's first trip to the Lake, so they had no idea of the experience that was awaiting them. We made reasonable time to the “muelle” (dock) and parked nearby. In the parking lot we contracted for a private launch to take us to Santa Cruz where Steve, Marion and their two dogs were staying. In chatting with “provider” we also contracted for the launch the following day for a lake tour. The price we agreed on was two-thirds the amount we had paid last Christmas with Tristan. We help Steve and Marion get settled in their place and they decided that they were going to “veg out” that day in Santa Clara. The private boat will pick them up in the morning and bring them to San Marcos, where we are staying. We walk down and get on the public launch which takes us to San Marcos, stopping four times along the way.

We find our hotel,drop off our stuff and go in search of the locations of the top two restaurants on Lake Atitlan. First we walk up the little street to the top of the hill. Directly in front of us, sits Blind Lemon, the number one restaurant on Tripadvisor for the Lake. We wander around some more and find Restaurant Fe, the number two restaurant. Now all Diane knows is that I had found these two restaurants in San Marcos, nothing more. So I ask her which one does she want eat at? As usual, she gives the Cohen non-committal answer. Okay, I ask her, does she want to eat at the number one or the number two restaurant. Since she has no idea which is which, she easily decides to go to the number 2 restaurant first. Tonight’s dinner will be at Restaurant Fe.

We wander the town some more and return to our terrace to read the Kindles and enjoy the temperate climate. An early evening shower plays music on our roof for an hour, but afterward we head out to Restaurant Fe. The menu has some variety, but we both decide to go for Indian dishes with two pieces of Naan. At the last minute Diane decides to order a dish of lentils too. We patiently wait, enjoy our lemonadas. Eventually our food comes. It seems they had to order the Naan from an outside source and it took him a while for him to deliver it. Normally we eat Indian, like Chinese, family style. Indian food generally comes in these smallish metal bowls with individual spoons to serve them. Not here at Restaurant Fe, our meal comes in two large bowls, and then another large bowl of lentils to go with the two large pieces of Naan. I look at Diane and give her a hard time saying, “you just had to order that extra bowl of lentils, didn't you?”

This was the first time we have ever gotten spicy food in Guatemala. Coincidentally, last week we found an Indian restaurant and though the food was well spiced, it lacked the heat one would have expected. These dishes had ample heat, though I would not call the food Indian food, it was Indian inspired. We enjoyed all of the dishes and could in no shape or form finish everything. So although, the food was not what we expected it was pretty good. We hoped that the restaurant rated number one would be even better.

We ate our free breakfast at our hotel, and it was almost overpriced. Hard boiled eggs, toast, coffee and some darn good fresh fruit. The coffee had been tainted with Cardamon and the bread was poor. We walked to the dock to meet Steve and Marion. Our launcha privada arrived and picked up Steve and Marion to take them to San Marcos. As you can see from the picture, the Lake did not shine with it's usual morning glassiness. We wandered the town with Steve and Marion, so they could feel the spiritualism that is so readily apparent to others who come here. Once they have elevated themselves to our highly spiritual level, we went back to the launch and headed to San Juan, the painting town.

Having been here before, we had some places that we liked. But as you can see from the pictures, the walk is a bit steep. We stop off and look at the art. Steve and Marion find a piece that think they would like, but we continue the uphill trek visiting the various shops. Now you have to understand that Diane and I took the car because we did not think we could take a painting back with us on the motorcycle. We looked at a lot of different art but nothing jumped out at us, at least nothing we could agree upon. On the way back we stop at the shop that had the painting that Steve and Marion liked. So I negotiated with the artist. I used feel that there was something distasteful in negotiating for art, but I am well over that now.

So the artist and I go back and forth. I want to get the painting for 600 Q and he was holding fast at 700. I am using all of my bargaining charm, in Spanish, to try to get Steve and Marion the 600 Q price. As I am joking with the artist I used the wrong word, nothing disgusting, just wrong. This provided Diane with a great deal of satisfaction, as I am always correcting her Spanish, and I am sure that Diane will be able to juice up a good story for you. Anyway he holds fast at 7 and we walk out at 6. Now this usually is followed with a final, final, final offer. Nope, not this time. A few steps later Steve and Marion decide to pay the price and go get their painting. The artist is happy, as is Steve and Marion. We head back to the boat and head off to Santiago, the big craft village. Some towns on the lake specialize in painting, others pottery, others weaving, but Santiago has it all.

Santiago also has one family that does really original art. The father and two sons have different styles and we like them all. What we don't like is the price. Apparently quality does come at price. The last time we were there we bought a painting we both really liked at a good price. They had lots of stuff that we both really liked, but there are limits to how much we are willing to pay. After spending a long time there, twice, we never came to either a price on something we both liked, or something that was at a good price, that we both liked. So our quest to find art to put in our Vermont house without any walls had failed. On the way back to our launch, Diane did manage to stimulate the economy. She found a wall hanging/runner that she liked. To me it seemed like an unnecessary expense, but I think that most things are an unnecessary expense. The last time we were here, we bought a similar runner for 200 Q, but since I wasn't so enthused this time, I offered 150. We go back and forth and finally we say okay, thanks, bye. As I am walking away I hear her final offer of 160, I tell her No, gracias... then she says “Ciento cincuenta, ok.” and another purchase has been made.

Our final town, prior to disembarking in Panajachel (you can call me Pana), is Santa Catarina. The sole purpose is buy bracelets that support a local school. We had stopped here with Tristan on our last boat tour. Diane thought it was the town next door, but I was adamant and  was soon to be proven correct. We walk uphill to the coop and Diane basically buys all 5 of the bracelets that they have. We wander around the small town and make it back to the dock to see that our boat is gone. Hmmmmm.... I ask and one of the guys on the dock tells me he should be back in ten minutes. So it is time for a beer. While we are enjoying our beers, I managed to take a top view picture of the pentagon shaped boats that the locals have been using on the lake, forever. You stand towards the front and paddle standing up. A few minutes later Captain David comes to find us. He had probably picked up an additional fare and had not figured on our quick return. We load up and head back to Pana.

We walk up and dump our purchases into the trunk of the car and walk through Pana. We decide to take a tuk-tuk back. We arrive just in time to see the launch leave. We have to wait about 20 minutes for the next one and Steve is feeling a bit queasy from the bumpy boat tour. The launch fills, Steve waits on the dock until just before we leave. He makes it to Santa Cruz without embarrassing himself and we make it back to San Marcos for our evening repast at the number one restaurant on Lake Atitlan, Blind Lemon.

We head up the hill to Blind Lemon's before seven. The parking lot is very quiet and the gate to the building is closed, but unlocked. We enter a large building with lots of open spaces, but very few customers. Apparently this is the off season. While we are waiting a guy comes over and pulls up a chair. He is the owner of Blind Lemon We ask what are the best things are on the menu, what is the most interesting, etc. I ordered the blackened tilapia, but then that was what Diane wanted. So I told the waitress that I would have the burritos and Diane would have the blackened tilapia. Diane says she would like rice, then she asked me, I told her french fries. French fries with burrito's? Who knows? We also order two gin and tonics. Forty or so minutes later, we are still chatting with the owner. There has been no sign of our dinner or our drinks. So I ask him if he is the bartender? He says sometimes. So I ask if we can get our drinks. He is quite embarrassed and makes it up to us with gin and tonics made with Bombay Sapphire. Eventually, my burrito's arrive. The dish is interesting, but the chicken was cooked very poorly. It is very chewy, so it was a disappointment. I try to eat slowly, to wait for Diane's dish, but it is taking too long. Diane shares some of the burrito and after we are done, here comes Diane s plate. Wait, it is two plates, maybe I am getting my french fries after all. The waitress brings out two orders of tilapia, one with rice and one with fries. I told her we only wanted one order and the owner, again embarrassed, takes my french fries away. Diane and I are having a good laugh in the number one restaurant on Lake Atitlan. We have another drink, Diane finishes her dinner and we leave thinking that number one might be too high a rating.

In the morning we are awakened at 5 AM by some people welcoming the dawn. There is music blasting, people singing, it was loud, really loud. Diane forces me out of bed to go with her to see what the noise is all about. Apparently it is the local Catholic church spewing noise across the whole village. By the time we got there the people were gone, but the loud music continued. Not my idea of a good neighbor. We walked down the path and had breakfast. San Marcos apparently moves at slow pace, as my breakfast took 45 minutes to prepare. Fortunately we were not in a rush, having been awoken by the local church. We wander back to our hotel, shower in boiling hot water (Diane had taken a frigid shower before we left for breakfast) pack our bags and walk down to the dock to await the public launch. Soon after we whipped out our Kindles, our ship had come in. We loaded up and headed back to the dock in Pana.

Our boat is a local. It stops at each of the towns between San Marcos and Pana, but they will also pull in to a private dock, if you flag them down. By the time we are outside of Santa Cruz, the boat has over 30 people on it. It is full, really full. So when the Captain asks if anyone is stopping in Santa Cruz and no one replies in the affirmative, we felt it was a good sign. He would go directly to Pana and not stop in Santa Cruz. Nope, wrong again. Stop in Santa Cruz and load up another 10 people. My thoughts immediately go to those overloaded ferries in Indonesia. We remain afloat and make it to the dock in Pana without incident. Diane and I head up to the local restaurant for a Capuccino, while we wait for Steve and Marion to arrive. After that it is just another uneventful ride home....