Not With a Bang, But a Whimper

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A couple of weeks before the end of our trip–we’re home now–my laptop died. No screeching, or scratching, or warning of any kind. It just died in its sleep. I’ll admit to being more attached to my laptop than most, so I felt like I had lost a good friend. (Is it a Mac thing?) But in practical terms what I lost was a couple months of emails and photos, and the ability to update this blog. That is bad enough, but at least I had a backup on an external drive at home. So that is what I am … Continue reading →

San Cristóbal de las Casas

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After two and half weeks of indolence at the beach we were about as rested and ready to move on as we were likely to get. So we put our traveling clothes back on and got an overnight bus into Mexico’s southern mountains, to the town of San Cristóbal de las Casas,  in the state of Chiapas. Now that we’re here, we’re thinking we should have come sooner (though I can’t say I regret any of those days of swinging in a hammock, reading and listening to the ocean.) The last time we were in San Cristóbal was nearly 14 … Continue reading →

A Book and a Hammock

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Sun, sand, sea breezes–this part of our trip is easier to explain to those who ask, “What do you do down there anyway?” For the past week or so I’ve done little else but hang in a hammock and read a book, with the occasional walk on the beach and nightly sunset supervision. A couple weeks, ago as we were spending another night in the chilly highlands of Guatemala, we decided we needed to go someplace to warm up and relax. The beaches of Guatemala are nothing to brag about, so we decided to make the trek up the coast … Continue reading →

Not So Silent Night

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Virtually every event in Guatemala is celebrated with fireworks–mostly noise makers. And Christmas is the biggest celebration of the year. Whatever Christmas bells there may have been were drowned out, but our ears are still ringing. We left the lake a week or so ago to spend Christmas with the family of my godchildren in the highland city of Quetzaltenango. Though it is Guatemala’s second largest city, it feels relatively sane and safe…except at Christmas. In the days leading up to Christmas we had roamed the streets of the city, past gaudy decorations, sparkly christmas trees, inflated reindeer, and sidewalk … Continue reading →

Getting There

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We arrived in Guatemala after a long but uneventful trip. The flights were bilingual all the way–on the first two legs Air Canada announced everything in both English and French. We got a TACA flight out of L.A., and everything was in English and Spanish. Not very good English, either. We were two of just a handful of gringos on board and even the flight crew spoke English only reluctantly. I am happy to report that we sailed through security with only cursory inspections. The closest either of us came to one of those dreaded TSA pat-downs is when I … Continue reading →