A hole new world.

Something I’ve mentioned in this blog is that when you travel in a developing country, your mind adjusts and you accept things that you wouldn’t at home. I have mentioned weird creatures indoors, putting toilet paper in a basket, a lack of electricity. The other week, I wrote about taking the time to notice the differences and enjoy them, make them part of the experience. At first, when encountering such differences, you might think, “Holy Cow (or Holy Baby Cow as the case may be), that is something, isn’t it? Well, you just don’t see that in the U.S. now do ya? But this is a developing country, so things are just not the same.”

Sometimes you’re walking down the street and you come across something that pushes you into the aforementioned thought process. Sometimes, you see something like this:

This is street construction in Xela, Guatemala. It was
the weekend, hence the lack of workers. 

Now surely you would never see construction like that here in the good ol’ U.S. of A. Oh yes, you will see construction galore, but it doesn’t look like that ... like someone drank way too much cerveza and decided to party with a backhoe, leaving a random, gaping hole in the middle of a street.

To that I will simply say: guess again.

Sometimes when you are traveling in your own country, your perspective switches around, and you see things that remind you of the developing country you visited, only turned up a notch.

This is construction on a street in Manhattan. As in New York City. As in the greatest city in the world (as people who live there, and David Letterman, will tell you). At the time, I wasn’t actually reminded of the street in Xela. I was just shocked. I think more than a backhoe was used for that job. I mean what the heck was going on there? 

I am not writing this to say this hole is bigger than that hole, or this mess is more complex than that mess. I’m just pointing out that sometimes things aren’t quite as different as you thought. And sometimes you see some unexpected sites in your own country. And sometimes the universal message is as simple as: there are circumstances in this world that are inevitable, Grasshopper. Street construction is evidently one of them.

Every hour can be happy hour when it's hot.

It’s hot. Very hot. Oh so extremely hot. The United States is under a “heat dome” as I read in an article yesterday. Every corner, it seems, is being hit by high temperatures and humidity. In this blog, I have often referred to the heat one encounters in the tropical areas of Latin America, but now most of you in the U.S. can just step outside and sample it for yourself. If you are reading this from another country, maybe you are also in sweltering heat. Maybe it’s normal for where you live, or maybe you, too, are suffering from an unprecedented heat wave that is making everyone droopy, drippy, and grumpy. I just know that right now, as I am writing this, a lot of people are feeling the heat.

I am presently in Central Texas where temperatures over 100 in July and August are pretty normal (although even here, it is a hotter summer than usual). But I’m not necessarily used to it. All this talk about heat, heat index readings, power shortages, frying eggs on the sidewalk, etc. has me yearning for one wonderful way to beat the heat: a nice cold drink. Last week’s post mentioned a wonderful watermelon drink (liquado) in Guatemala, and a few weeks ago I wrote about a similar drink made from pitaya in Nicaragua (see here). But now I want to tell you about another type of drink that should also be tried and enjoyed during your travels. A drink with a kick: a local beer, mixed drink, cocktail, or as they say in Spanish, un trago.

Even though Xela, Guatemala didn’t have such hot temperatures, I did enjoy the local beer there. The best bottle I had was a liter of Gallo I shared with my homestay host and his 90-something father, during my last meal at their house before leaving. None of the other women in the house drank beer, so it was just the guys and me. They toasted me, I toasted them back, we had our beer, we ate our meal, and we said “adios.” It was awesome.

Here is Don Rafa, and his granddaughter Luci pouring
us some Gallo beer in Xela, Guatemala.

In Nicaragua, I had a delicious local drink that was perfect in the heat and humidity of Granada. Macua is a drink make from orange, guava and lime juices with rum, served over ice made from purified water (lest you worry about stomach issues such as these). Holy yumminess! I don’t know if I have ever enjoyed a fruit drink so much. It looked great, it felt great, it tasted great. Of course, I had tried the local beer too. But even Cerveza Toña could not compare to the deliciousness of the Macua.

My travel friend Abate Sebsibe and I are in Granada, Nicaragua, enjoying the delicious Macua.

I do find that when I am in a hot, tropical place, I enjoy those fruity drinks more than I might usually. At home, I typically only drink them at Chinese restaurants that have a good selection of drinks like Mai Tais, Singapore Slings, and whatever that flaming drink is they put in a volcano glass that is big enough for two people. When I was in St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands several years back, I stayed in a great place (mentioned in a post here) that was built on a hill, overlooking a gorgeous beach, and the amazing Caribbean Sea. It was a little like camping, only I did not cook for myself. The restaurant on the property served meals three times a day, so why cook? But the restaurant was only open at certain times, and those were the only times you could get wine or beer. You could bring in your own booze, but I was by myself and I honestly don’t drink more than one usually. Maybe two. So it wasn’t worth the effort.

One afternoon, I was down on the beach, lounging in the sand, and reading a book. There was a concession stand there, and a place to rent snorkel equipment, umbrellas, chairs, etc. The food stand sold frozen non-alcoholic drinks, with a variety of flavors, including piña colada. So I decided I would get myself one of those. It seemed like a beachy thing to do. After I ordered, I jokingly asked the kid working if he had any rum back there he could slip into my colada. He said, “Yeah, you want some?” Surprised and delighted, I said, “Sure!” So he poured some in there, and I had my cocktail after all. The virgin drink would have been fine, but somehow having rum on a Caribbean island makes it even better. It inspired me to drink the islands’ fabulous rum punch whenever the opportunity presented itself. I was so inspired, that I had to get “just one more” in St. Thomas as I was wheeling my suitcase around town before heading to the airport.

When at home, I often crave the drinks I’ve had in other countries (there have been too many good ones to mention all of them in this post), especially when roasting under a “heat dome.” I would love to be sipping any one of them right now. But drinking them here, in my own country, is not quite the same. There is something special about drinking a local drink that makes the refreshing aspect of it even more enjoyable. And it's great to share something local, something that was brewed or distilled in the place you are visiting. 

That is not to say there aren’t refreshing drinks here at home. Those Chinese restaurants with liquor licenses are a sure bet. There are dozens of different types of “martinis” out there, at pretty much any bar, that will rock your world. And here in Texas, the margarita’s got it going on (not to mention Shiner Bock)! I cannot complain about that. I can complain about how the heat makes me look like a longhaired chihuahua just coming out of the pool after a few laps. But I will never complain about a nice, cool, refreshing, local drink that makes me go “Ahhhh!”

You watch my back, I’ll watch yours.

One of the great things about traveling with someone is that she/he has your back. They’re there to help you along the way: assist you in lifting your backpack to the top of a bus, share snacks with you while you people watch in the park, take photos of you in front of cool things, make sure you don’t get run over by a bus as you cross a street.

On a day trip from Xela, Guatemala that I took with my new friend Anna, and my new student/volunteer and soon-to-be-friend Sarah, this sort of “team thinking” was very helpful. We took a van with a guide and a couple of other travelers to a coffee farm cooperative. The tour of the farm was on foot and included a very scenic hike to a lovely waterfall. This particular farm grew its coffee plants within the forest, on hillsides amongst the trees, and we were able to see and learn exactly how the coffee was grown. Because we were now at a lower elevation, the heat and humidity increased, and so did the perspiring and panting.

The first part of the hike was downhill, which may seem like the easy part, but not so much for me. I have some trouble looking down, as one does to walk down a steep hill, because of double vision I have from a car accident years ago. I only have it when looking down, and can get rid of it if I close one eye, but that, of course, leaves me with no depth perception. So it can be a little slow going, with or without heat and humidity. This particular hike was also a little tricky as the path was cut against a steep hill and had quite a number of switchbacks zigzagging up and down the incline. But luckily, my girls had my back. Sarah walked in front of me, and Anna stayed behind me. They stuck with me. The others in the group, especially at the end of the hike when we were walking up hill, were a lot faster than I. Had my friends kept up with them, I would have been left behind to eat raw coffee beans off the ground for sustenance, drink collected rain from leaves, and live with a family of spider monkeys. Did they leave me behind? No. Did they get annoyed when I had to stop and rest? No. Did they scold me when I ran out of water? No. Did they laugh at me? A little, sure. They were hot and sweaty, too, but they could handle it, whereas it pretty much kicked my ass. I’m sure I was quite a sight.

Here I am, after the hike down to the waterfall. I was too weak to smile
after the hike back up the hill. 

But glory to the gods of refreshments when we finally made it back to the eating quarters of the farm and were served the most amazing watermelon drink. Liquados are very popular in Guatemala, made of fresh fruit that is blended with ice or milk or both. (There has to be more to them than that, but I don’t know what it is because when I throw fruit and ice into a blender here in the U.S., it is nothing special, believe me). And we also had lunch to refuel after the hike. But that liquado de sandía was the best drink ever! I could have drunk a gallon of it. In fact, I quite possibly did.

Here are Sarah (left) and Anna (right, white), with the
fast walkers and the amazing watermelon liquados.

I’m not sure if Anna and Sarah knew how much I appreciated their patience and guidance. Anna had been trying to convince me to go on a moonlit hike up Santa Maria, a nearby volcano that is a very popular hiking destination. I had told her, “I lived in Wyoming and Colorado in the Rocky Mountains and never climbed a mountain. I was in Ecuador, in the freakin’ Andes, and never climbed a mountain. Now I’m in Guatemala, and guess what! I’m not climbing a mountain.” But she had persisted ... until that day at the coffee farm. Over the watermelon liquado I asked her, “Do you see why I don’t want to hike up Santa Maria?” And she said, “Um, yeah” and agreed that it wouldn’t be a good idea.

This is Santa Maria, the volcano I preferred to admire from afar.

When you are traveling with someone, whether it’s someone you know from home or a new friend you meet on your trip, you have a tendency to watch out for each other, even if you don’t know them all that well. Once you step out to explore new corners of the world with another person(s), you are a team, even if you just met them at your language school the day before. It is part of the energy when you travel and it’s really pretty awesome. It is also another reason why strangers on the road soon become friends ... especially when that road is long, steep, winding, hot and challenging.