How to take a shower in Guatemala without getting fried...



The shower head of DEATH!
Mwah-ha-haaa!


Hello!

And now a little advice on how to take a shower without being electrocuted. They aren't called "suicide showers" for nothing! 

First, there are no fancy "Hot" and "Cold" faucets in the showers here. Maybe if you're staying in one of the swanky hotels, but in 99% of the hotels and houses here, the water in the shower is either ON or OFF. Our shower has an especially fancy handle -- similar to those you'd see attached to an outside faucet.





See those wires coming out of the wall and going into the shower head? Those aren't for decoration. They are electric wires. Safe, huh?

Water + Electricity = DEATH


Our fancy on/off handle



..what could be a more natural combination? As tempted as you may be to adjust the aim of the shower head, DO NOT TOUCH IT WHILE THE WATER IS FLOWING! You will get zapped. It's not enough to kill you, but enough to get your attention. Besides, these shower heads point one way -- DOWN. They aren't on hinges, they aren't flexible, they only point down. They don't move. So don't bother touching them, ever.



One thing to keep in mind is the more water pressure going through the shower head, the colder the water coming out will be. It will zip through the shower head quickly, not giving it a lot of time to heat up. If you are like me and prefer a warm or hot shower (how silly of me) you turn the water on very slightly so it sloooowly oozes it way out of the shower head and comes out nice and toasty.


If you are staying at a low-end hotel or a hostel, I highly recommend wearing flip-flops in the shower. I'm not saying the cleaning crews at these places are lacking sanitary skills... Ok, yes. Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. Don't ever go barefoot in a shower here unless you are in a NICE hotel or staying at a house where you trust the host's cleanliness. Otherwise you run the risk of getting a fungus among us.

Oh, and there's no heat in the homes and hotels here. None. Nunca. Nada. Zilch. Zippo. It will be cold when you exit the shower. And all of the floors here are cold, hard tile. (Stress on the COLD part.) There's not a carpeted floor to be found. SO! Prepare to dry off quickly so ice doesn't form on your nether regions.

 

Another rainy day in Antigua Guatemala.

Agua Volcano in background

 

Ok, and other than that, it's been raining raining raining here. IT. RAINED. ALL. DAMN. DAY. YESTERDAY. It is miiiiiiiserable.



If this weather keeps up, I will certainly be blogging more since there's nothing else for me to do!

Stay thirsty my friends! And if you're thirsty for rainwater, come on down -- we have plenty to share! 









Beaches, beer, and bootie sand...



"This beach brought to you by Gallo Beer..."

 Hello again!
 

Our cute $12.50/night hotel. Nice, eh? 



A few weekends ago, Joel was blessed with TWO DAYS OFF IN A ROW. WOW! Rather than sticking around here we decided to go crazy and take a mini road trip. We drove about an hour away to a town called Puerto San Jose. I needed sand between my toes and this was the closest place to Antigua. It's a small, grungy beach town where a lot of people from Guatemala City go for the weekend. We planned on saving money by camping in the car but every time we mentioned our idea to someone, they looked at us like, "Do you WANT to be murdered in your sleep?" (Guatemala is not the safest place to car camp, evidently.) We were also told over and over to NOT walk on the beach at night. The only people who told us "oh yes, yes it's fine to walk on the beach at night" was a group of shady guys who ran a quad rental business.




Me and the beach dogs at sunrise

Luckily, Joel The Master Negotiator, spoke to a nice man at a small hotel and got him to lower the price from $50 to $12.50 per night. YES! So we stayed one night in a little cabana. The hotel had a pool and it was sooo niiice swimming there at night, where the only thing we needed to fear was chlorine in our eyes.

The next morning we got up WAAAY early, due to the chirping of unidentified insects living in the thatched roof and small creatures crawling up the wall outside. Eeeek! How can you sleep with crawly things like that so close to your head?

We got up and walked on the beach. At that time of morning, it was just us, the friendly beach dogs (similar to Antigua's street dogs, but these guys have sand in their paws) and the litter cleaning crew. Unfortunately, our phone was taken from our beach bag by a cleaning guy or a beach dog. (My money is on the cleaning crew -- I mean, how many dogs do YOU know that can dial a cell phone?) Aaaanyway, other than that minor mishap it was a great trip. We drank some Gallos, ate seafood, walked on the beach, swung in hammocks, swam in the pool and in the Pacific ocean.


Joel and the giant driftwood



OH! Something you should know about the beaches here. First, they have black sand. And yes, it gets very very very hot in the sun when you're not wearing shoes. Second, and perhaps most importantly, the waves will kill you. Noooo kidding! I'm not saying they'll knock you  unconscious, but the undertow will pull you down, swish you around, and by the time you surface you will be in China. Many many MANY times while Joel and I were out splashing around, I got pummeled by waves and ended up on my butt, being rolled over by waves that were doing their best to suck me out to sea. Luckily, Joel knew death was imminent and grabbed me under my arms and pulled me up to the surface. (Thank you, Joel.) Not only is being dragged underwater along the sand an excellent way to drown, it's also a great exfoliator. And what's more fun than reaching into your bikini bottom and scooping handfuls of sand out of your bootie -- in public??? Nothing, that's what! Yeaaaah. Parts of me were exfoliated that really didn't WANT to be exfoliated.

Ay-yi-yiiiiii... Always an adventure!

Stay thirsty, my friends!

Swinging in the hammock by the pool -- weeeee!

This is my way of helping Joel put on sunscreen.

Gallo beer in soccer ball glasses... Is anything classier? No way, Jose.

Holy rusted metal, Batman! A rusty pier on the beach.
Mildy dangerous in an "I need a tetanus shot" kind of way, but very photogenic.



Guatemala has never won a single Olympic medal...

...I mean, no medals at all -- no Bronze, no Silver, and no GOLD in either the Summer or Winter Olympics. I mean, you'd think they might have a medal in a summer sport (since winter is a joke here -- no snow -- and how can you practice skiing on moguls when there's no snow? The mountains here are lava-spewing volcanoes -- hence, NO SNOW) but nope, they got nada. This is really only important in the gold medal category.

And I know why Guatemala has no gold medals. It's not that they lack talent or ambition. It's due to time constraints.

Let me 'splain. Guatemala celebrated their Independence Day earlier this week. (Independence from Spain, that is.) Ok, I gotta be honest -- I didn't know from whom they gained independence from, either -- from the Aztecs? From Mexico? From Jamaica? -- until I asked Joel. He was nice about it and didn't make me feel stooopid when he said, "Oh, from Spain. Like the U.S. got their independence from England." So, not only does he know the details on his country's independence, he knows mine, too. 

Duuuh.

...Ah, but I digress.

So! As we were driving the other day, the Guatemalan National Anthem came on the radio. (The Subaru has a radio -- no A/C, no CD player, no decent transmission -- but by golly it has a radio.) Joel was singing along like a good Guatemala and I was sitting there, taking it in, without a clue as to what the words were. And it went on. And on. And onnnnn... No kidding, that song lasted at least 4 minutes. ('Quatro minutos! Mas tiempo!' for my Spanish-speaking amigos.)

I've counted -- the U.S. National Anthem has a mere 16 lines. Sixteen! Short and sweet. Basically ours says, "The U.S. is awesome. Our flag stands through it all. 'Nuff said."

According to Joel, the Guatemalan National Anthem is 48 lines long. ('Quatro y ocho' for my Spanish-speaking amigos/) FORTY-EIGHT long, painstaking lines saying things like, "May your altars never never be profaned by cruel men" (whaaaat?) and "people would prefer death to slavery" and something about plows fertilizing the soil and honor and thrones of love and the native bird flying around... On and on it goes. I think it repeats itself. I mean, who wouldn't want to hear about the "thrones of love" more than once? Bring on the thrones of love! ('Silla de amore' for my Spanish-speaking amigos.) Soon, every living room in the free world will have a throne of love. Mark my words.

Okaaay. So the lyrics are bold and brave and -- dare I say it? -- macho, but the song goes on and on. I took a nap halfway through and woke up to find it was still not finished. Wow. ('Que paso!' for my Spanish-speaking amigos.)

I think the folks at the Olympics throw off the results whenever a Guatemalan is competing ONLY because they think no one (but the Guatemalans) will want to sit through a four-minute-long anthem. And that is my theory on why Guatemala has never won an Olympic Gold Medal.

Yes, I've been drinking. (Something with rum... and lime -- every drink here has a lime in it somehow. Beer with lime. Coke with lime. Water with lime. Milk with lime. Coffee with lime... I won't get scurvy!) And yes, these are my deepest thoughts at the moment. That and the fact I need to floss. ('Mi dientes estoy malo' for my Spanish-speaking amigos.)

Hope you are having a great day. And I hope you enjoyed my Spanish lesson. I am so bilingual. Si.

Yep, I'm a writer

These masks caught my eye

Ok, it's so cool to see your name on the title of a magazine article. As I was proofing the articles for the October edition of the REVUE Magazine (Guatemala's biggest English language magazine) I come across not one, but TWO articles I wrote and by golly my name is right there in black and white. Is it ok to say I wet my pants a little? (Just a little.) (Not enough to tie a sweater around my waist.) It was exciting! And it's a little nerve-wracking to know there will be people from Guatemala and visitors from all over the world reading these words (they have a circulation of 20,000). I hope they like me. One article was waaaay more fun and easy to write than the other. See if you can figure out which one when the Oct. edition comes out.   http://revuemag.com/




   

This is not a rescue dog. This is Sabrina, a cat who lives here.

Other than writing and proofing, I've been helping Terry (one of the dog rescue ladies) organize and get a little thrift/resale shop ready for business. Proceeds will benefit the dog rescue group. She said if I work there she will pay me 20% in commission for whatever I sell. And she will install wi-fi there. And provide me with a laptop to use. And it's in the front room of the Puppy Palace, where some of the rescue dogs stay. The Puppy Palace is a house in central Antigua that has been converted to several rooms and an outside courtyard -- houses here are SO different than in the US. Anyway, the front two rooms will be converted into the store. The front room opens up to a very busy street, so we will get a lot of foot traffic. Even better, I will have rescue dogs around me -- meaning I can bring my dear sweet friend Savannah, Rescue Dog Extraordinaire, to the front room to keep me company. She will be great at luring in shoppers. Those brown puppy dogs eyes would snare me if I were walking by. But I'm a sucker for dogs. (Gee, can you tell?)

Fun? Frisky? Oh yeah, that's me!

I got my hair cut. Yeah. I finally accepted the fact that I will never look good with long hair. NEVER. I have stupidly fine, curly hair -- like that of a curly-haired 3-week-old kitten -- and it looks really bad when it's long. I'm not sure what member of my gene pool made me this kitten-haired freak of nature, but I'd like to examine my DNA and figure out who to blame. Plus, parts of it curl "tighter" than other parts so even when it's down, it's all funky and uneven and frazzled (oh my!). Sooooo I'd rather have short, healthy hair than hang on to snaggly long hair. So, short it is. It makes me feel fun and frisky. Reeeowwwwl! Better yet, it only cost me Q20 -- about $2.50. Suck it, Supercuts!

Nice market lady

I'm attaching a picture I took of a really nice indigenous lady we met at the market. I'd say 98% of the people who have booths in the market are indigenous, and as you know, I love the traditional clothes they wear. (I am actually in awe of it -- I want to hug them and tell them how beautiful they look.) She had the tidiest little booth in the whole place and stacked her fruits and veggies into neat little pyramids. Even though she's not smiling in the picture (no one here smiles for pictures -- it's weeeeeird!) she was really nice and let me take pictures of her booth. No kidding -- there are people who act very strange when you photograph their veggies. Again, weeeird. I usually just click away, acting like a completely oblivious tourist. I once had a lady shoo me away and give me the evil eye. We decided we would never buy anything from her booth. She is now known as "Mean Market Lady."

More later! Adios and stay thirsty, my friends!