A day at the dentist; an evening with a con artist; chicken buses: I don’t have enough words or pictures to write a full entry about all of these, so please accept, instead, this entry of mini-stories.

Lake Atitlan is surrounded by relatively isolated small towns, each becoming known in its own way as a tourist destination. San Pedro is for the druggies, San Marcos is for yoga and hippies, and Santa Cruz is tiny and mostly just to relax. I stayed a few days in San Pedro, learning weaving and meeting Diego, the famous chocolatier, but I soon moved on to Santa Cruz. It was there that I met one of the most interesting characters of my trip to date.
Continue reading Those Stories That Don’t Fit Anywhere Else

I spent more than a month in Mexico - what a great country to start the trip in! The sheer variety of life there could be overwhelming: colonial churches stood near pre-Columbian ruins; poor farmers and rich American-schooled politicians shared cities; a wide blend of settings from beaches to deserts, mountains to rain forests; the clean cobble-stoned streets of San Cristobal contrasting with the grittiness of Mexico City. Sure, my debit card stopped working, and I fell victim to one of the many maladies that have long plagued travelers, but I also was cared for by distant relatives and spent my first three weeks bonding with my Abuelita. These entry describes my impressions of the cities I visited in Mexico - I hope it is helpful to someone planning a similar trip.
Continue reading Mexico City to Chetumal (plus an update)

Guatemala is well-known for the Lake Atitlan: deep, crystal-blue waters ringed by deep blue volcanoes. Aldous Huxley called it the most beautiful lake in the world, and amazing pictures of it grace every Guatemalan guidebook and travel website. I won’t lie; it isn’t as stunning in rainy season when everything goes dull gray, and the light gray clouds roll in over the dark gray mountains overlooking the churning gray water. Still, I spent five days in various small towns on the lake’s edge relaxing, reading book after book, meeting American travelers and con artists, learning to weave, and best of all, visiting a small kitchen in which amazing chocolates are created.
Continue reading Lake Atitlan

I’ve been pretty busy since Antigua, and yes, I am still alive!  Unfortunately with the loss of my computer I haven’t been able to upload any pictures or spend much time writing entries.  Here’s a quick update of where I’ve been since my last full entry… consider a hint of things to come:

Continue reading The Last Few Weeks

Mmm, some of the sweets in Guatemala were excellent. I’ve already mentioned briefly my favorite, a cinnamon and almond flavored paste, encasing a single roasted almond, all glazed in sugar. The paste was so rich it tasted like cookie dough, and the coating of sugar helped add a little delicious sweetness. I actually returned to the store two more times to buy more of these delicate little treats (called Yemas de San Leandro) and am even now regretting not buying more. But what else was there?
Continue reading A Selection of Guatemalan Candies

A few entries back, I wrote about making chocolate at the Maya Mountain Research Farm, an organic agro-forestry demonstration farm. I left a lot of it out.  I didn’t write about how green and fertile everything seemed, about seeing the decades-old hardwood trees flourishing alongside of recently planted pineapple bushes and coconut trees.  How it had taken Chris and Dawn years of work to reclaim the land back from the unfertile pasture.  I didn’t write about the way Chris looked when he talked about his neighbors practicing slash and burn agriculture, the worry on his face, or the danger of fires getting out of control and spreading, as happens every year.  I didn’t talk about the ever-present smell of ash in southern Belize and eastern Guatemala, as farmers cleared their crops before the rainy season.  I didn’t talk about the distant puffs of dark foreboding smoke visible from my bedroom at the farm.
Continue reading Fire at the Farm

The day started early.   Alarm set at 2:45 AM, out the door at 3.  Flores is deserted, shops closed and houses boarded up.  Walking through the darkened streets, I find the empty shuttle and climb aboard.  In a few minutes it will be packed full, people sitting on the floor and squeezed against the door.  We ride through the jungle but everyone is sleeping.  Then, we are in Tikal, walking quickly to beat the sunrise, climbing and climbing hills, with light beginning to ease out from under the mist, the trees full of screeching birds and buzzing insects.  Up hundreds of stairs, and we are almost there, almost to the top of the highest temple where we can watch the sun rise over the ruins.
Continue reading Early Morning at Tikal

On a street near the town center in Antigua is a small, white store.  Inside, the wood is polished, the walls covered with ceramic dishes and, oddly, owls. Glass display cases gleam. Flowers, candles, crucifixes, and grandfather clocks serve as decorations for the neatly ordered wares. Customers jostle for position while aproned women, their faces framed by pressed paper headbands, carefully take orders and package boxes. Behind the counter, lines of sweets seduce me.
Continue reading Behind the Counter

Candy has a lifespan: a beginning, a middle, and an end. Raw ingredients are combined using secret recipes in giant factories or methods passed down for generations in a family kitchen; the resulting candies are packaged and distributed to where they find their final destination; and, of course, the hopefully delicious moment of consumption. It’s pretty easy to learn about the end of a candy’s lifespan - just grab it at the store and eat it. That’s the “research” I’ve been doing for most of the entries in this blog. Recently, I was fortunate enough to spend some time at a small agro-forestry farm (Maya Mountain Research Farm) in southern Belize learning a little bit about some of the earlier stages of candy production… how the ingredients themselves are harvested and prepared long before anything resembles candy.
Continue reading Life at the Maya Mountain Research Farm