Wonder of wonders: Santa appears to have dropped by during the night. For years my mother has threatened to stop sending me stocking stuffers. The nerve. Here I am, a mere child, and she wants to deprive me of such joy. But bless her great big heart: once again she came through for me this year. Last night I stuffed M’s stocking and then my own with the red-tissue-paper-wrapped goodies from Mom. My mother gave […]
Read moreCategory: Travel
On the road
A Farewell to Atitlí¡n
Here’s a little map I drew that shows the lake and where we went. After breakfast (M ordered The Gringo) we wandered down to the dock to wait for the lancha publica to take us to Panajachel. It arrived so jammed with passengers that it took concerted human repackaging to get us all to fit. I sat next to a Maya woman with sparkling gold teeth and a sparkling pink huipil. We both lifted our […]
Read moreDay of Rest
After a lazy morning, we rented kayaks which were unlike any I’ve encountered before. Made of thin plastic with little round, keel-less bellies, they didn’t cut through the water so much as flit across the surface driven by invisible forces. My attempts to steer prompted bouts of swearing; things were better when I just bobbed around, pivoting my mighty craft only to face the wake of a passing speedboat. Later, we swam in the very […]
Read morePuddle-Jumping
Last night I kept waking up to the howls of dog-packs. This morning there was a shower-water deficit so I had to go talk to Cristobal [how do you make accents over “o’s”?], the hotel guy. I wasn’t sufficiently awake: “I give water cold, but coffee? Boat change time?” At the hotel restaurant I ordered the breakfast Maria had told me about: blue corn pancakes with macadamia syrup. A cigarette-smoking, flat-butted, grey-ponytailed Santa passed by, […]
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