Another wonderful day in Guatemala. Bert and Pachi and I went for a walk around Jucanya yesterday and took a bunch of cool pictures. I love this place!
Found some giant toadstools on the side of the road just outside Jucanya./
The crown was bigger than the palm of my hand!
Walking into Jucanya, we decided to talk a left turn onto Calle de Cementerio -- Cemetery Street. Guess what was at the end?
I've had a fascination with cemeteries for a long time. Growing up in Canada, there was a gravel road near our house that I would walk down a lot, and about one kilometer down the road was an old cemetery. I loved it there: the peacefulness, the mystery, the solitude. I loved reading all the mossy gravestones, trying to find the one with the oldest date. I even discovered some small stones fallen in the grass in the back corner of the lot, overgrown with weeds and shadowed by pine trees. Fabulous place.
A Guatemalan cemetery is entirely different. The mausoleums are painted in bright colours, decorated with sentimental artwork, and multitudes of flowers mark the more recent memorials. It was a truly fascinating experience to wander through the aisles. I will definitely return to find the oldest marker.
This big gate was locked, and I thought maybe we couldn't get in. But a few meters down the road is an opening to enter.
A little church area to sit and pray.
We walked through this arch and turned left to enter the cemetery.
Some of the sections were empty.
So many pretty colours!
Some of the artwork on the mausoleums were quite beautiful.
After visiting the cemetery, we walked down a stone ramp that led right to the lake. We strolled along the lake, but it was quite smelly with the algae (more on this in another post), so we headed back up into the streets of Jucanya to explore some more.
Bert & Pachi heading down to the lake, with clouds covering the volcano ahead.
Bert & Pachi on the shore of Lake Atitlan in Jucanya.
There was a man snorkeling in the weeds!
This was a neat stone platform we found. There were several small stone plinths around it with Mayan symbols on them.
We found this plaque near the circle. It says "Respect this area of Mayan ceremonies."
Also along the shore was a nice park with play equipment for kids. There were a few of these signs posted around the park.
It says, "Do you like coming to stroll? Do you like coming to swim? Then stop making it dirty!"
Today was the first day of voting in the Guatemalan elections. We found out from a Guatemalan friend that there are two rounds of voting. *sigh* I am already so sick of the political advertising but I guess we've got another few months to go before we're done with it.
Santander was partially closed for voting. The street vendors all gathered to sell ice cream, tacos, and chicken & fries.
Part of the election rules is that no liquor can be sold for the days surrounding the election.
This is the liquor display in the grocery store.
We were just heading up to the market when the rain started. Wow, what a downpour! It's good though, since the country has been suffering quite a lack of rain for a while now. We scooted under an awning and thought about waiting it out... but it kept going on and on! So we hailed a tuk-tuk, went to the Despensa to buy some dinner, then were lucky enough to flag down our friend Brian in his tuk-tuk, who drove us through massive puddles right to our front door!
This video is from when were huddled on the steps of a closed store.
The funniest (and grossest) part of the ride home was just as we were approaching the Yellow Bridge. Another tuk-tuk was coming from the other direction and hit a huge puddle at quite a clip. The water splashed up... and came right through the side flap of the tuk-tuk and INTO MY MOUTH! I spit it out, laughing, and Bert quipped: "Great. Now you've got dysentery." Icky!
I hope your day was as wonderful as mine was... except you didn't get dirty rainwater in your mouth. :D
I tried very hard in my three days of Internet freedom to not worry about all the work I was missing. It was difficult because we have many bills coming up, but since there wasn't much I could do, I just put my worries on the back burner for a few days and enjoyed some unconnected time in Guatemala.
Aw yah! Pizza cones!
I strolled around Panajachel wearing a backpack, which got me a lot of attention from the vendors. But I'm pretty adept now at the litany: "No, gracias. No, gracias. No lo necesito. Ya tengo uno. No soy una turista. Yo vivo aca. Buena suerte." (No, thank you. No, thank you. I don't need it. I have one already. I'm not a tourist. I live here. Good luck.) When I sat for lunch at the pizza cone place -- and had a hamburger, go figure -- I had a nice chat with a vendor named Margarita. It's cool to be able to converse relatively coherently in Spanish, although I am grateful that a lot of the vendors know English as well. I really loved the small rugs she was selling, but I can't afford them now. So I told her I would talk to her again in two weeks when I got my paycheck. And trust me, she'll remember!
View of San Pedro volcano that we get to see on our walk into Pana every day.
NJP has two dogs that visit him regularly at his new place. They are quite comfortable coming into his yard, and even his bedroom! We're not sure if they used to live there and were abandoned when the previous owner left, or if they are just local friendly strays. Rob likes the brindled one! But we don't really have room for another dog, so we have to be content with just feeding them kibble when we see them.
I think we're calling him Calvin.
He's such a cool looking doggie.
I want to call this one Giraffe. Those long legs!
If he was a she, I would have named her Bridget Bardot.
Guatemala is a great place for someone like me: a person who notices all sorts of little things. It frustrates Bert to no end that I can't walk 10 feet without stopping to stare at a bug or flower or gaggle of kids playing in the street. It's much more relaxing for me to walk alone like I did these past few days. Then I can cheerfully climb into the scrub, stepping carefully over trash and coconut shells, to take pictures of pretty purple flowers growing by the river. :D
Lovely flower growing in Jucanya.
We saw this strange place the very first week we were here, and thought it was an arcade.
Stumbled upon it again while wandering the streets of Pana and realized it's a mini-casino.
(Guarded by a cocker spaniel. Ha!)
A statue in the garden beside the cathedral.
PACHI!!
Willow has found a new favourite spot... Bert's pillow!
Even funnier is that he won't move her when he goes to bed. He just sleeps on the corner. Ha!
Guava that fell from our tree out front.
Inside of the guava. I was going to eat it... then one of the "seeds" starting squirming. It had worms!
The fruit was then flung as far as it could be flung. :D
It was a wonderful few days of freedom from my desk chair but I am glad to be reconnected again to share my adventures with you, faithful readers. Until next time!
On Wednesday night around 6pm, a big storm knocked out our Internet. We didn't think much of it -- it happens a lot here -- until we woke up Thursday morning to find the Internet was still not responding. I rebooted our modem and the upstairs modem multiple times, thinking maybe a power flicker had just messed things up. Nope, no Internet.
I can't work without Internet, so I figured I'd use this impromptu vacation day to walk into town with Bert and see if everyone was down or just me. Well, about halfway up the driveway, we found the problem!
No amount of rebooting is gonna fix that!
Our Mayan neighbours were already at the fallen tree, cutting off branches and taking away the wood for firewood. The cables were all the tangled mess on the ground and all the way down the driveway. Luckily, the Internet cables were on a separate pole than the electricity, so we still had power at the house.
Bert and I walked to NJP's house to use his Internet. (Thanks, bro!) I emailed my work to tell them why I had disappeared so suddenly, and then emailed my landlady and asked her who to call. She advised me to call our local handyman, Joselino, who speaks some English and would know who to contact to fix the problem.
Surprisingly, the Claro guy showed up the next day! He didn't get the job finished on Friday, but returned on Saturday to finish running new lines to our house, with the help of our guardian, Antonio.
This was Friday looking down our driveway from near the top of the hill.
If you look closely, you can see the black cables lying on the road to the left and right.
That's the Claro guy's truck.
Saturday morning, the guy returned to climb up the poles and attach everything.
This is walking up the driveway from the house.
Big pile of logs from cutting down the big ol' tree that fell. Lotsa good firewood there!
So what did I do with three days of virtually no Internet? Gosh, everything! I baked bread, cleaned, did laundry, deleted useless junk on my computer, read, played my ocarina, played Minecraft (offline), went to town a lot, walked the dogs, napped, and also found time to watch John Wick, Guardians of the Galaxy, and two seasons of Parks & Rec. :)
And of course, the best part: the Ultimate Neverending Wrestling Battle for Doggie Supremacy featuring Greta vs. Pachi!! Endless entertainment with my morning coffee. :D
Tomorrow I'm going to post a bunch of random photos I took while out and about for the past three days, unconnected and loving life!
