Sunday Walk to the Beach

Life continues with its ups and downs. Bert & I went for a walk on Sunday with Chunk & Big Boy on leashes, and the escapees, Velvet & Honeybear who ran free and stayed close (luckily). We avoided the crowded Christmas areas downtown and instead went to the beach here in Jucanya. Even that is decorated for the holidays!

After almost 10 years here in Guatemala, Christmas still feels strange with the bright sun, warm weather, and no snow. But we adapt. Guatemalans love Xmas and celebrate with street parties, parades, and lots of fireworks. 

Bert is the shadowy figure in the middle. Paraglider in the sky. San Pedro volcano in the afternoon haze.

These lovely yellow flowers bloom every fall all along the riverside.

This pink grass practically glows in the sunlight. I love it!

Bert and dogs. This is the beach road in Jucanya. It is always lined with stalls selling things but during the holidays, it is extra festive! All over town, people love to string up decorations over the roads.

A fake Christmas tree and a sleigh with reindeer silhouetted by the setting sun on Lake Atitlan.

These flowers are usually orange and red, but these ones are pretty pink & yellow. They are quite small but there are many of them all over the plant, which is very tall, almost like a tree.

Bert & dogs on the beach road. Palm trees, yay!

Hard to see but those red berries are COFFEE!!

Bananas growing over a wall. My friend had banana trees in his yard and said there were too many for one person to eat!

Rob's favourite plant -- Angel's Trumpet. Smells gorgeous, but is toxic to touch!

Our Christmas Coffee Table! No tree, but stocking, gifts, and cookies for "Santa". :D

Merry Christmas to everyone! 🎄

Because It's There

I climbed a big hill today. 😊

The view from the road. I want to climb up to that lone dark tree in the middle.

Walking on the wall between bean fields and onion fields.

The first look at the road up. Cobblestones!

A trickling waterfall down rocks.

Two black vultures looking kinda sus by the side of the road.

It's the end of the dry season so the road was pretty nice.
I wouldn't want to try to climb this in the rainy season due to landslides and mud.

There's the tree!

View from the almost-top. San Pedro volcano and Lake Atitlan.

I thought the road would keep going to the top, but it ended at the onion fields.
There may have been a small trail but I couldn't see it ... and I wouldn't have taken it anyway!

Scenic vista with Panajachel at the bottom left.

Starting back down.

I can see my house!

I'm proud I finally did this hike. It was arduous but so worth it! 😅

Still Here

 I'm still here in Panajachel, bumbling along through life as best I can.

Rainy Day Walk to the Mirador

Woke up late today and decided to go for a walk to the lookout on the way to Santa Catarina. I chose to ignore the dark blue clouds on the horizon as I set out.

Didn't huff and puff too badly on the long upward walk to the mirador. I remember the first time I walked up there, six years ago, and I hadn't yet adjusted to the altitude and felt like I had a bad hangover -- dizzy, breathless, and pain in the back of my head. Now it's just regular pain from being out of shape and climbing a big hill for 45 minutes. Totally worth it though, as you can see from this picture.

View from the lookout (mirador) near Santa Catarina Palopó, Guatemala

Just as I arrived at the viewing area, the rain started. I took some video, gazed around a bit, then figured I should start walking back. The thing with rain in Guatemala is that it could stop in 10 minutes or it go on all night, and it's hard to predict which is going to happen. So it's often just best to get it over with, even if you get soaked.

The rain got heavier as I walked downhill at a brisk pace. It's the end of dry season, all the leaves are brown, (hmm, that's a song, isn't it?), so it feels warm like summer but it smells like fall. I was wearing a tank top and shorts, but it wasn't that cold until I entered an open area where the wind blew off the lake. Brrr. I was happy I wore a baseball hat too as it kept the rain off my head. I'm sure I would have been a lot colder if my hair was wet. As it was, the most irritating part of walking in the rain was that my feet slipped around in my sandals.

About halfway home, it actually hailed for a little bit. The hailstones were pretty small, about the size of Nerds candy (weird size reference, sorry) and they pinged off the steamy asphalt and stung my arms as they fell. I figure that's the closest I've been to a snowstorm in six years. Luckily, it didn't last for long. I think I would have taken shelter if I was going to get pelted with hail for more than a few minutes.

Was soaked to the skin by the time I got home. It was nice to warm up with a hot coffee. It's a weird thing here when the weather is so nice all the time. Any change, even a supposed negative one like getting caught in the rain, seems exciting. I always thought that winter makes summer feel better. Here in Guatemala, the rainy season makes you appreciate the dry season. 

So here's some video for your enjoyment.

Easter in Panajachel 2021

A very subdued Semana Santa this year. Lots of food booths and vendors set up, but no big alfombras -- the religious carpets of colored sawdust they usually put down in the streets for the procession to walk through. The only one we saw was in front of the church. I saw on Facebook that there were carpets in other towns around the Lake though. Maybe next year it will be back to normal.

The big church in Panajachel showing Easter decorations.

Bert and I took Big Boy & Chunk for a walk to the church near sunset on Good Friday to see what was going on. Not much, to be honest. There was only a tiny procession with no band. The music came from a speaker system dragged behind. Perhaps we missed the big parades? We've been here six years and neither of us can ever remember what happens when. 

Big Boy taking in the sights.

Chunk was super squirrelly on the walk. So much excitement!

We strolled down a very crowded Santander Street but Bert actually bailed before the Lake because there were too many people. We went back again on Saturday (minus the dogs) to see more sights and eat some yummy carnival food. Everywhere smells like barbecue -- so mouth-watering! People walk around eating corn on the cob or pizza or cotton candy. There are a lot of extra booths but they all seem to sell the same old touristy stuff like tshirts, sun hats, jewelry, toys, local textiles, and crafts.

Near sunset at Lake Atitlan showing the volcanoes.

In the picture above, you can see in the bottom right, there is a guy selling tiny bags of cotton candy. They only cost Q1. That's about 16 cents Canadian or 13 cents American.

Granizadas are slushies or slurpees. These ones are made with alcoholl. A michelada is beer with tomato juice. Very strange.

Delicious fried platano (plaintain) with cream and sugar.

Churros! They need to sell these year-round, rather than just during fairs.

The party boats were kinda quiet this year. Usually their music is painfully loud.

Walking across the river delta from the Pana side to the Jucanya side.

A chicken bus passing under an Easter arch in Panajachel.

Easter (known here as Semana Santa -- Holy Week) is a pretty even split between fanatic religious traditions and insane drunkenness. On Santander, the bars were all pumping out crazy-loud music and the "sexy dancing ladies" were back in town. They're attractive women hired by the alcohol companies to dance and sell booze. They were dressed rather modestly this year, I thought, plus they were wearing masks and face shields, which was nice.

There we tons of cops hanging about, plus I saw a few young people wearing special shirts that said something like "Pana we protect you". They were giving people hand sanitizer and masks. There were signs posted on the way into Panajachel that reminded people to wear masks and keep distance. The mask-wearing was pretty well adhered to but social distancing certainly was not. But I mean, it's the biggest festival all year, so... can't really blame them. I saw a newspaper article that said they estimated there were 100,000 visitors to Panajachel on Saturday. (The town has less than 20,000 residents.)

Anyhoo, here's a very short video of the Easter procession from some footage of how crowded it was around town.

I had a strange realization -- there are no Easter activities for kids here like we do back home in Canada. No coloring eggs or hunting for hidden jelly beans. No Easter bunny. The only Easter chocolates I saw in the store were imports like KitKat and M&Ms. I wonder if non-religious Easter traditions will eventually start to catch on here like Halloween has? 

I hope everyone had a nice Easter weekend. 🐰 

In case anyone is wondering, here are the COVID-19 numbers for Guatemala. 

COVID-19 Situation in Guatemala

Quick translation:

Active cases - 8,592

Accumulated cases - 195,471

Registered deaths - 6,891

I would beseech any tourists who are visiting Panajachel, please please PLEASE wear your mask whenever you are out of your hotel room. Tourists are bringing more of the virus into the country and being blatantly disrespectful by not wearing masks. Guatemala can't handle this pandemic. I read that the local hospital has only two ventilators. TWO. They don't have enough beds for everyone and sick people are literally sleeping on the floor in the hallways of the hospital. You may not be sick, but you could infect a local person and they won't get the medical help they need. The "registered" deaths listed above is a huge underestimate. Most Guatemalans in the Lake Atitlan area don't trust doctors and will die in their homes. Lake Atitlan's biggest income source is tourism, so they need foreigners to come and spend their money. But PLEASE show some respect to the country that has accepted you as a valued guest. Wear your mask! 😷

Five Things to Love About Guatemala

Sorry I haven't been blogging. I was surprised to see how long it had been seen I last posted! I guess the coronavirus lockdown kinda makes time weird. I often don't know what day it is. 😁

To be quite honest, I haven't been all that happy for a while. I'm not sure if it's COVID-19 or culture fatigue or just the blues. Bert and I were seriously talking about going back to Canada. Of course, that's impossible right now -- and not just because the airport is closed. We have far too many pets to go anywhere. Plus I think we've forgotten how expensive it is to live in Canada. I mean, we'd have to get, like, real jobs or something! 😝

So instead of allowing myself to feel bummed out, I'm focusing on what I love about living in Panajachel. Here are my top 5 things about Guatemala that make me happy. 

1. The weather. I've said it before -- the weather at Lake Atitlan is perfect every freaking day. Even the rains are nice. It's sunny and warm almost every day, but not too hot. The hottest part is obviously the middle of the day, so you just hang out in the shade until after 3pm and then you go out in the cool evening air. When it gets chilly at night, you put on some fuzzy socks to go to bed. When the rains come, you just hunker down inside. It's almost like when it snows back home in Canada. If you have nowhere to go, it's lovely to look at from inside your cozy home. It's a weird little thing but I love being able to have a hot coffee in the morning, an iced coffee in the afternoon, and a hot chocolate at night. 

It looks like the volcano is erupting but it's just clouds. 😄

2. The scenery. Guatemala is gorgeous. The volcanoes at Lake Atitlan are stunning. My eyes are always drawn to them. I've always loved nature and Panajachel is small enough that it's easy to get off the cobbled streets and find green spaces. There are beautiful flowers and interesting plants and the big green hills all around and the rushing river and lizards sunning on the rocks. And of course, there is Lake Atitlan, El Lago Mas Bello del Mundo, the Most Beautiful Lake in the World. Its blue waters in the distance always lift my spirits.

I am anxiously awaiting the travel restrictions to be removed so I can go on more trips around this beautiful country. I want to go back to the Pacific Ocean, up to Huehue, and over to the east coast to see that side and hopefully fit in another trip to Tikal while I'm there!

3. My quirky house. I love my house. It's a total wreck and has a lot of problems but it's two stories, which means I can look out into the trees and watch the birds. I have a totally awesome big yard that the dogs love. They sunbathe and dig up the plants and chase each other in circles. I can sit outside in the sun and the big fence means I have almost total privacy. (The only exception is sometimes my neighbours go up on their third floor roof to have a look around.) Bonus points -- I have an awesome landlord who isn't upset that my dogs have trashed the place! I could not afford to have such a nice big house if I lived in Canada. When I left Canada in 2015, I was living in a crappy, cold, tiny one-bedroom apartment in a sketchy neighbourhood. Total upgrade here!

This is not a great photo in any way but I had to include it because it's a snapshot of my life.
Tarzan is sitting on top of my Ecofiltro (water filter) while Reina & Sebastian are having a spat, and in the background is my messy home with all my windows WIDE OPEN. 😁

4. Low cost of living. When Bert and I got all homesick and started googling rental houses in Canada, we were instantly reminded at how expensive stuff is back home. Here in Guatemala, I work online part-time and have a pretty easy life. I'm not running on a hamster wheel to keep up with my bills. Rent is cheap. Utilities are cheap. (Internet is expensive and slow but this post isn't about complaining!) If I eat locally, I can stuff my face for hardly any money at all. If I want to splurge on imported foods or American style dinner, I can do that too. I don't have a car here so no more gas or repairs or insurance bills. If I don't feel like walking, I can get in a tuc-tuc for Q5 (less than a dollar) and go anywhere in town. This easygoing lifestyle is something that I appreciate every single day when I sleep in until noon and wake up without an alarm because I'm no longer part of the rat race. 😊

5. The novelty. I've been an expat in Guatemala for more than five years now and I am still being surprised. The culture here is wonderful and strange. When a stupid virus isn't messing things up, there are always elaborate parades and fascinating events going on. Even just walking to the store, I'll notice a new flower or stop to watch a bird or say hola to a cute street dog. I've found myself pausing to watch Guatemalans doing bizarre things. 

The other day a big truck tried to go down a small callejon and got caught up in the electrical wires, stopping all traffic and seriously endangering everyone involved. People came out of their houses to watch. It's like TV has no interest for them. They'd rather see if some poor guy is gonna get electrocuted as he climbs on top of a truck to move cables. #JustGuatemalanThings 🤦

I think if you stay in one place your whole life, you end up walking through it like a zombie. Being in a foreign country forces you to open your eyes and really notice what's going on around you. It's not always a good feeling but it certainly isn't boring.

Um, what the heck is this plant?? LOL

My five best things about Panajachel may not be the same as my expat friends' lists. Some have told me that they love different things than I do, like the cheerful locals, the freedom from rules, or the anonymity. I think if you maintain a positive attitude and grateful mindset, any visitor to Guatemala will find something to love. When travel restrictions lift, I hope all my readers will consider a trip to Guatemala to experience just a little bit of what makes it such a wonderful place. 

Five Years in Guatemala!

Yes, today is our 5th Guateversary! On April 1st, 2015, Bert and I packed up our lives and got on a plane from Toronto to Guatemala. How crazy is that? 😊

I think this is the most interesting, adventurous, life-changing thing I have ever done. Not saying I won't do something MORE life-changing in the future, but so far, this tops the list.

The beautiful Lake Atitlan

I'm struggling to figure out what to say about living for five years in Guatemala as an expatriate, expat, foreigner, immigrant, or extranjera. It's hard because everything right now is about COVID-19, the coronavirus pandemic. Guatemala has taken drastic measures to flatten the curve, which is awesome. So far, there have been only 38 cases in the whole country, I believe. There are zero cases in Panajachel, the town where I live. I am grateful for that, although I worry that if I do get sick, the healthcare system here is not nearly as good as in Canada. But no sense fretting over something I can't control.

So back to the topic of five years as a Canadian expat in Guatemala....it's great! I've written about the pros and cons before but I will sum up.
Biggest downsides -- culture differences, which includes language problems, morality, safety, and racism.
Biggest bright sides -- lovely climate and low cost of living, plus I'm meeting a wide array of fascinating people from all over the world.

What I would say to anyone thinking about leaving Canada to move to Guatemala? Go for it! Honestly, the scariest part was leaving. Now that I'm out of my home country, I feel so free. Like I can go anywhere and do anything. It's not as hard as I thought it would be to live in a foreign country. Daily life becomes fairly routine after a while, even though I still stop and stare at Guatemalan things that would never happen at home. For instance, a family of five riding on one motorcycle, people banging pots in the middle of the night to wake up the moon, a barefoot five-year-old running to the store to buy eggs, and soooooooo many stray dogs everywhere. Life is certainly different here but it is also most definitely GOOD.

Take care of yourselves, dear readers, and keep your eyes looking forward to a better time when you can follow those dreams you've been putting on the back burner. 😀

Pollution in Lake Atitlan

Lake Atitlan in Guatemala is often touted as The Most Beautiful Lake in the World. But it won't be that way forever if something isn't done about all the raw sewage, garbage, and pollution going into its beautiful waters every day.

Drone photo of the river delta in Panajachel emptying silt and sewage into Lake Atitlan.

I filmed that video just a few days ago. I like to walk the dogs down this gravel road to the lake cuz it's peaceful -- albeit stinky! Sometimes there are big gobs of dirty foam in the water that comes out from the sewage plant.

The amount of untreated sewage water (aguas residuales no tratadas) being dumped into Lake Atitlan every year.

The governmental organization here that is assigned to take care of Lake Atitlan is called AMSCLAE -- La Autoridad para el Manejo Sustentable de la Cuenca del Lago de Atitlán y su Entorno. In English, this is The Authority for Sustainable Management of the Lake Atitlan Basin and its Environment. They have a lot of great info on their site, but in Spanish of course! They do studies, offer educational programs, and spread awareness. Not everyone agrees with their methods and proposals, but it is good to have a central official governmental body.

For some heavy reading, here is an extensive article about wastewater treatment at Lake Atitlan in English:
https://collections.unu.edu/eserv/UNU:6451/WorkingPaper_No6.pdf

Almost every day on my Facebook feed, I see photos, links, complaints, and posters about Lake Atitlan's dirty water, garbage, and pollution. Locals and expats alike are very concerned and working as best they can to find a solution. Education and awareness are key. But I think the limiting factor here is money, unfortunately. I can only hope that something gets done before it's too late. 😔

High Praise for Lake Atitlan from Fodor's Travel

I just read this great article about how you can vacation at Lake Atitlan for far less than a trip to Italy and still experience all the joys and beauty you would expect from a European destination.

👉🏼 An Affordable Alternative to Italy 👈🏼

Casa Palopó, Lake Atitlan, Guatemala

The article from Fodor's features several rather ritzy places and activities, but I can tell you that you can get a lovely hotel for far cheaper than you might think. Plus eating at the restaurants here is very inexpensive, especially for traditional barbecue (churrasco).  That means you'll have more money to splurge on traditional hand-woven fabrics, real jade, beaded animals, wooden masks, amazing paintings of the lake, and buying knick-knacks from the cute child vendors. 

Bert and my sister in the jacuzzi and Hotel Atitlan.
This is not some fancy photo from a hotel website. This is a real pic that I took!

When my sisters visited for the first time, they stayed at the beautiful Hotel Lake Atitlan. It is located just outside of Pana so it is very quiet. They have gorgeous gardens to wander through, a pool with a view of the lake and volcanoes, and extravagant rooms decorated with local art and textiles. My sisters loved it because you could flush your toilet paper. 😄 (Read my article about bathrooms here.)

Lakeview room in Porta Hotel Del Lago

For a more first-world style hotel -- complete with elevator! -- The Porta Hotel Del Lago is a popular choice. It is located right in the middle of Panajachel, only steps from the waterfront. They recently installed a "living wall" of plants that goes all the way up the side of the building. They have a pool, lakeview rooms, conference facilities, and gardens.

Gardens at Hotel Posada de Don Rodrigo, Panajachel

Another popular waterfront hotel is Hotel Posada de Don Rodrigo. They are proud to feature Guatemalan traditions, food, dance, clothing, and decor, yet they still offer first-world amenities to refresh and relax you. Wouldn't you love to be in one of those hammocks right now?

"But I'm a poor traveler. I can't afford those hotels!"
No worries, my friend! Head over to TripAdvisor and sort by price low to high. You will find rooms for as little as $25 Canadian ($20 American) per night! Hmm, at those prices, I might spend a night in a hotel myself!

TIP: Many folks are scared off of Guatemala due to over-exaggerated news reports about violence and crime. While the city and border towns can be a bit scary, Lake Atitlan is pretty peaceful and safe. The locals know that tourism is their bread and butter -- or should I say tortillas and beans -- and they want visitors to enjoy their time. (And spend lots of money too, of course!) Use your common sense, as you would in any city, and you'll be just fine.

I hope to see more of you strolling around Panajachel in the near future. And in case you need more incentive, today it's 23°C (73°F), sunny and breezy and beautiful! 😎

Picture This...

It's January.
I'm wearing shorts and a tshirt, as I always do.
I'm walking home from the store, munching on fresh green coconut slices that I bought for less than a dollar.
I stop to admire this sunset...

And then a tuc-tuc rips by in a cloud of dust, playing TARZAN BOY at full blast. Ha ha ha!
Guatemala, you still make me laugh after all this time. 😄

For those who can't recall what Tarzan Boy sounds like, let me take you back to 1985...where Guatemala still happily lives!

Christmas in Guatemala 2019

This Christmas in Panajachel was unfortunately soured by many little troubles. But I am focusing on the good things that happened and not the bad, and I am especially thankful for all my good friends here in Pana who made my Xmas very special.

I had a wonderful trip across the lake to San Pedro to visit a friend.
I had a delicious potluck Xmas dinner.
I enjoyed the midnight fireworks on Christmas Eve.
I received thoughtful, generous, and unexpected gifts.
I am blessed with a house full of adorable cats and dogs.
I got to video chat with my family in Canada on Christmas Day.

One of the most special moments was small and simple. I was walking home from the potluck and feeling a little down. I saw three young girls playing with some firecrackers, just little ones that spit and sparkle. I walked over to them and gave them each a huge two-foot-long sparkler that I had in my bag. Their faces lit up with excitement! They ran quickly to a nearby tienda to tell their mother. They said (in Spanish), "Look what the gringa gave us!!!" 😄 There was one more child in the store that got the last of my sparklers and I wished them a Feliz Navidad and walked away with a smile on my face.

Below are some photos and videos from the last few days. Christmas here is very special, full of family and traditions, and it's just like home in that way.

Bert got a Christmas basket from one of his dogwalking clients.

This is Coco. She is staying with us for Xmas while her mom is in the States.

The J sound in Spanish sounds like H.

A family selling moss, lichens, pine boughs by the road.
Guatemalans use them to make nativity scenes.

I bought a stick & moss deer for only Q10. The pets love it!

Leo has killed the deer!

There are a lot of parades at Christmastime. Random Santas on motorcycles one night.

A beautiful mural painted on the wall on the way to the docks.

The docks in Panajachel. We went to visit a friend across the lake in San Pedro.

The old Mikaso hotel.

The church in San Pedro.

Some lovely gifts from my friends.

A cute card from my friend.

The "tree" and church in Panajachel

Olafs at the bakery.

My friend built this beer tree for the bar!

The giant sparklers. Only Q10 a pack and 4 sparklers per pack.
That's about $1.71 Canadian or $1.30 American.

Bert and his sparkler at the potluck dinner on Xmas Eve.

Bert's creative Christmas wrapping of my gifts!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas or other holiday celebration! 🎄🎅🎉