I woke up at my usual time around 5:30 this morning. I enjoyed sitting out on the porch watching the colors change. I especially like San Fuego putting up some smoke. 

Absolutely beautiful nice and cool. Lower 60s this morning. I had a good talk with Kathy this  morning. That’s always good. Keep in touch with loved ones. 

Had a delicious breakfast at Casa Juanita this morning. Today I had huevos rancheros. Salsa was absolutely delicious. Such a great spot to just chill and drink coffee. I also liked the hammock they had set up.  It was fun to swing on that for a while. I’m never really done hammocks before but I really liked this one this morning. I use the one at Berena but I didn’t like that one as much. 

After I ate breakfast, I went over to the docks to catch a boat over to Santa Cruz which was my goal for today. But apparently Santa Cruz is such a small town that unless you have a private boat you don’t go there. Not a big deal. It’s not uncommon for me to completely change plans on the fly. 

Couple of days ago went to Tzununá, which is kind the sister town over from San Marcos la Laguna. I really enjoyed that place. It’s a good walk about 2 miles. So I felt like well, I’ll get some exercise and go over there today.

They’ve got some restaurants down there by the lake. I thought might be fun. It’s just good not to be stressed out by too many plans. I had only rough ideas of what I was going to do except for the major cities like Antigua and Lake Atitlan and the volcano Acatenango next Monday. 

The roads are still closed here in Guatemala. But the news from the US Embassy was that they’re supposed to open sometime today. I’m supposed to go back to Antigua on Sunday. If the roads are still closed then I’ll have to start calling around and changing plans. I have to be at Guatemala city I think Thursday morning, so I still got some time before that all happens, so not worried about it.

I walked about a mile and a half to Tzununa not to go to this restaurant on the lake. Apparently they were supposed to have like circus performers or something? Bottom line is it was closed because of the protest all the roads are closed.  There’s always Plan C. So I’m heading on into Tzununa  and see what kind of restaurants where I can get a cold drink maybe some Wi-Fi.  Life is good, baby. 

As is typical the unplanned is best. After the restaurant by the lake was closed, I hiked up the mountain and when I got above the city a little bit I started looking for places that have Wi-Fi so I connect with people.  My iPhone said Hotel Bambú had Wi-Fi so I walked up the hill and checked out the hotel’s restaurant. It’s an all natural place called Atitlan Organics and the Hotel Bambú. Getting some lemonade here and chilling with a magnificent view here and just exquisite lemonade. 

Something h that I decided yesterday after climbing the Lookout point at San Juan was to take a second shirt. That way I have something dry to put on while my first completely soaking wet shirt dries out. That’s what I’m doing now I’ve got my yellow parrot shirt on a Little table drying out in the sun and the breeze.  My back up shirt is nice and dry. 

I saw another sign for a restaurant that said La Cascada, which means the waterfall. I thought that might be a nice place to check out drink a Coke and look at the waterfall. 

I climbed up this path that was like it’s some kind of mountain goat trail.  It was like climbing up a mountain with just an animal path. It was all locked up and I started yelling, real loud Hola! Hola! Finally some ladies came out and let me in and let me look around a little bit. The sign said restaurant, and a hotel.  I talked to the owner and he made it sound like “You tell me what you want and I’ll go down to the village and bring food back.” 

All part of the adventure.

I walked down the road from the mountain path and still hadn’t had anything to eat because there wasn’t a restaurant at that Hotel. I passed by this smoothie shop and this guy with long beard and long hair called out to me and said that I looked like a friend of his that had died. I went over and told him “I’m not dead yet.”

We struck up a conversation and he was an interesting enough guy. We were talking and these three little Guatemalan girls came up to us. One of them was extremely precocious. She wanted to know where I was from and I told her. And she said she had been to the States. She was maybe six years old. So I asked her was she scared when she rode on the airplane and she said no she wasn’t so I asked her how old are you and she told me she was 17 and we just laughed and laughed. Her came up about two minutes later and I told her mother that she just told me that her daughter was 17. She just looked at me like that’s what kids will do.

The hippie guy was named Dylan and said he knew where there was a good place to eat. I’m always for that. He was kind of a homeless looking guy didn’t even have any shoes on. He walked up this rocky road I told him he reminded me of an African being able to walk on rocks like that.

We got to the restaurant which was really interesting looking place. It was a farm and they raised everything that they were cooking. Dylan started rolling a cigarette with his little pack of tobacco and I walked to the other side of the restaurant eventually told him you know dude I’m being transparent with you,  I really don’t like cigarette smoke. He didn’t ask me if he could do that or anybody else in the restaurant. He just started doing it. Anyway, that immediately put me off.

We got Food in a little while, and he started talking about a long line of conspiracy theories such as being anti-VAX. He just started talking about all kinds of wacky things including drinking raw milk, and reverse osmosis water. And I was just like “that’s OK if that’s what you wanna believe.” I finished my lunch and just said “OK I’m not mad at you but I’m leaving.” 

I’m sure he thought, I was mad and was leaving in a huff. But that wasn’t really the case. I was leaving because I thought he was stupid and boring. But I thought it was better just to say I have other things I need to do.

I walked about 2 1/2 miles back to San Marcos. I went pretty fast because that was usually about this time the rain started rolling in. Fortunately, it didn’t rain at all. But as I’m writing it is pouring down rain.

I stopped by one store and talked to the owner there about what he had heard about the protest. He made it sound like there had been no progress, and that the situation was getting worse around the lake. There was no gas for even the boats to go back-and-forth between the cities. 

I talked with a couple of girls who were also staying in the hotel, and they said they had been to the main city on the lake Panajachel, and that place didn’t even have any power. 

So all in all I’m glad I’m here and not other parts of Guatemala. This is by far the safest place to be I think.

That’s just part of traveling in other countries you never know what can happen. Honestly, the same thing could happen in the USA. we’ve had our power go out. We’ve had times we couldn’t get any gasoline. We’ve had times we couldn’t drive around because of weather.

I had a long talk with the caretaker of this place this evening and we were both on the same page. It seemed to us that we were better off than other parts of Guatemala. At least we had plenty of food, water and electricity. Amen.