One Year

Today we celebrate our first anniversary - among the activities is a viewi g of our wedding video (thanks again Terry). We had a wonderful day and we are so happy that all of you joined us.

Lisa and Stephen

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

A good cause

Through our new friends in Guatemala, we learned about Camino Seguro, an NGO doing great work here. The organization lost its founder in a tragic car accident 2 years ago, but the hard work continues.

Feliz Neuvo Año

Lisa arranged private Spanish lessons with a local couple Ana and Dany. We have been working a few hours a day with them here in Antigua. Of course, Lisa being charming, by the end our our third day of lessons, Ana had invited us to their home to celebrate New Years.

We surveyed the local scene on the way there - Antigua is a popular Guatemalan destination for New Years and the streets were packed with celebrants. By 7:00, the street that hosted the city's festivities was filling up and we saw parts of two processions - a mix of Catholicism, traditional music and fireworks. There is a really cool wearable framework that essentially straps a whole lot of fireworks to someone's body - it doesn't seem the slightest bit like a good idea but it looked cool. The fact that we saw 2 of these go off at around 8:00 indicated the kind of party we were to see.

We made it to Dany and Ana's around 8:30 (having run into Dany on the street and followed him home) and enjoyed a snack of tamales. They were tasty, but not what i'd expected: I'm familiar with the tamale of Mexican (or American) cuisine, cooked in a corn husk. These were cooked in a plantain leaf and were a soupy mix of corn meal, tomato sauce and cheese, sopped up with a piece of bread - tasty nonetheless.

After the tamales, we visited and drank until the main meal at midnight. We had pollo con arroz (chicken with rice). They were cooked separately, the chicken roasted with chorizo, onions and wine - it was fall off the bone and fantastic. There was more wine and visting after dinner until we finally had to call it a night and head home.

While it was late for all of us, the festivities in Antigua were far from over. We drifted to sleep around 2:00 AM in spite of the myriad fireworks demonstrations still going on (they were still going on around noon the next day too).

Mayans - the people who discovered chocolate

It is a sad statement about our study of pre-Columbian history that many well educated Americans (okay, me, and I presume many others who fancy ourselves well versed in history) studied the Mayans and then learned about the Aztecs and sort of thought of the Mayans as disappearing into history. Some of that is natural to the study of history - students are often unclear about when the Ancient Greeks became the Greeks who have big fat weddings...

Guatemala´s population is heavily Mayan - percentages widely vary, but most people are either a mix of Mayan and European ancestry or just straight Mayan. There are Mayan language schools here in Antigua and Spanish is the second language in many rural homes. The mais y frijoles diet here dates to Mayan times and the backstrap weaving we´ve purchased so much of is Mayan in origin too.

I have a new appreciation for the most famous contribution of Mesoamerican culture to the world - chocolate. I would hardly call myself a chocoholic, but I enjoy an M&M, the occasional Twix or a hot cocoa now and again. Since I´ve been here, i´ve gained a new appreciation for Guatemalan hot chocolate (Guatemalan has sugar, the Mayans was unsweetened). It makes the expensive hot cocoas I have at home taste like the back of a postage stamp. I´m hoping to bring some home, but am a bit concerned that the supermarkets are closing for New Year´s Eve....

If I find some, i´ll have you over for hot chocolate

El Mercado de Panajachel

We passed up a chance to go to the big Sunday market in Chichicastenango and stayed closer to base to hit the Sunday market in Pana. The Chichi market is one of Guatemala´s biggest tourist attractions, but the idea of a large portion of the day taken up by bus rides was not terribly appealing. Aside from that, we had a connection to the Pana market: through Kiva, we´d lent to a group of weavers who sold in Pana. Although we wouldn´t have necessarily seen them at the market, we spent enough on Mayan textiles to safely say that we helped pay back our own loan.

After another fine evening at La Casa del Mundo, we set off early Monday for a return to Antigua.

Lago de Atitlan

We arrived late on Friday night into Antigua de Guatemala - and the lovely Hotel Aurora. After breakfast, we strolled out to the market before catching a shuttle to Panajachel, the largest town on Lake Atitlan - a large volcanic lake in the Guatemalan Highlands. The ride was the typical "minibus" trip - a large Hyundai or Toyota van with every seat taken, driven faster than my comfort level on winding mountain roads - nearly identical to one we took in Thailand. Only tourists can afford minibus trips, so we shared the ride with a Bavarian, 2 Italians, a gringo of unknown origins (he didn"t go to the lake, so he may be ex-pat) and another American couple.

Aside from the aforementioned gringo, we all got off at the docks to catch a launch to one of the many lakeside towns and resorts. Lisa and I paid for a private boat (suckers) to get to La Casa del Mundo - easily one of the most beautiful places either of us has ever been, The hotel is the only game in town, so everyone has dinner there, ensuring interesting conversation and comparing of notes on travels here and elsewhere. Lisa reserved the hottub after dinner, so we sat underneath the very dark sky and saw more stars than I knew existed. The tub was made on site- a wood burning stove stuck in the middle of a small pool - smells of oak rather than chlorine - i may try to duplicate someday (probably harder than it looks).

An incredible place to spend a weekend

$$##""*¨foreign keyboard

try writing an email without using an apostrophe..... i see it printed on the key but can{t make it work.... i get {{{{ instead......