Ex-pats and family friends

This morning, Joel had to head to Pana to meet up with some family friends who will be joining us tonight at the house. Suzanne, Joyce and I headed to Iguana Perdida, a hotel at the water’s edge in Santa Cruz, the closest town to the house. It’s within walking distance so we are following the path along the lake shore, with the precarious looking planks, rocks, and dirt paths. This part of the path was washed out for awhile and only recently rebuilt so it’s not very familiar to Joyce. Luckily, every time we had some confusion, there were local men who pointed out the way. At Iguana, we met up with Romi, a former Los Angeleno who abandoned LA and 12 hour work days for a 7 month sabbatical here. She’s just about to return home since the rainy season will be starting soon. Today, the Iguana has attracted quite a few of the local ex-pat community because there is a small market here. Everyone who lives here identifies each other by the house they are renting or now own. One of the market stalls is run by a couple of girls from a local cooking school in the pueblo. The school is teaching the kids to be able to work in the restaurant industry. They’ve brought some pastries and peanut butter. A couple of older local women have fruits and vegetables or hand crafted textiles. A toothless man originally from Russia is selling wild raw cacao beans and bars. He tells Suzanne and I that the raw cacao will increase blood flow to our brains and hearts, and all of our problems will appear as if they are in front of us so we can better see the solution. Or something to that effect. This I had to try. After our purchases, we take a seat at the Iguana’s café for some coffee and a taste test of one of the pastries. We also tried some of the cacao. It’s bitter, without the usual sugar added, but the consistency and flavor of chocolate is familiar.

While we are taking our coffee break, Joyce arranges with Joel to meet at Isla Verde, another eco-resort with a restaurant a little farther down the path. This part of the lakeside walk has some of the most precarious looking planks we’ve encountered. At Isla Verde, we meet up with Carlos and Loti along with their son Gabriel. Joel has known Loti since they were kids. The restaurant here advertises slow food, using only natural ingredients that are currently available. I had another fruit shake and a falafel wrap along with some shared nachos. The tortillas wrapping the falafel are clearly homemade, since you can see bits of greenery and other ingredients in it. The filling is delicious as is the homemade potato chips that come with it. Carlos is quite the talker and has something to say about almost everything, including his sighting of a UFO when he served in the army! He and Loti have four kids and they are all incredibly accomplished! Gabriel is hoping to attend a cardio-thoracic program in Switzerland, one of their daughters is working at the Guatemalan embassy in Holland, and their other son is a lawyer. We definitely get full meaning of slow food as we took our sweet time over lunch listening to Carlos’ stories.

After lunch, Ramos the lanchero (boat taxi driver) takes us back to the house where we continue the conversation. Carlos notices that the property next to us is a small coffee plantation and proceeds to explain to Suzanne and me how coffee is made. His English is really quite good, but on the occasion when he stumbles for words, we seem to manage to understand each other. After a short rest, the conversation begins again up on the upper porch. Since the lake is surrounded by a ring of hills, the direct sun disappears quickly and the haze moves in during the afternoon, obscuring the volcanoes. We found out from Gabriel that he climbed 18 of the 21 or 22 volcanoes in Guatemala by the time he was 16. He hasn’t tackled Atitlan’s three peaks though. Carlos tells us about the difficulty of painting with water colours and tells us that he and Loti had in the past showed their work at local galleries in Guatemala City.  (Truly, these are amazing, accomplished people.)

As dinner time rolls around, we all head down and start heating up the food that we had started to prepare last night, consisting of chicken, a local squash, small new potatoes, and carrots, adding some tomatoes and basil that we picked up at the Santa Cruz market. The meal was delicious, with the basil and tomatoes being a particularly nice touch. Dessert is the pastries along with some small plums we bought at the market. Over dinner, Loti and Carlos tell us about how they met and married (incredible story), Loti describes studying in Canada (near Lake Superiour and in Ottawa), and some fascinating family history.

Our post-dinner entertainment was a DVD of the Michael Jackson documentary “This Is It”, which was meant to show the preparations going into his tour he was just about to start when he passed away.