Greetings from Guatemala! Time is slowing down here. We are finding a routine. Jill is messing with Excel and cooking a little for us. I am bartending and attempting Spanish with the locals. A good topic with them is asking about Q’eqchi’, their Mayan language. They say phrases and repeat a spanish translation. It is a complicated way to communicate. Mah-Sah-Lock-Ch’ol means buenas dias or como estas, I’m not sure.
Not many people are in the hostel today. A nice couple left this morning. Julianne and Junior are from Peru and traveling for a few months. They stayed for a couple days which is standard for our guests. We also have Maaike, from Holland, who came yesterday. And two young Israelis who have been here a week or it feels like a week. They hang around the hostel waiting for something to happen. They get a little burdensome.
Jill and I went to Coban yesterday (or was it the day before). That is a bone-jarring journey on mountain roads if there ever was one. Max gave us a free ride there in his VW bus though. We went with his two sons, who are adorable. Lorraine and the two Israeli girls came along. Coban is a city of a couple hundred thousand. We went to Max and Anne’s restaurant/bagelry. I had a tuna salad bagel and it was excellent. Jill and Anne jabbered about food like old friends. We walked around the market and bought some Churros. They are a lot like mini donuts and reminded me of the state fair. Lorraine stayed in Coban to help out Anne at the restaurant for a while. She is finding out about a teaching job in Russia that Jill helped her apply for. She found out the school wants an interview via Skype.
Max, the Israelis, Jill, and I took a collectivo back to Lanquin. I bought a strange looking piece of street food from the bus. It was a fried wedge of a coconut-sized ball. The skin that was cut off was green and bumpy. Our driver called it Mas-ah-pan. Max said it was Jack Fruit. The frier gave it a crispy exterior, inside was a creamy banana-like texture. The taste was not unlike fresh bread. There was a little salt sprinkled on it. It was savory and delicious. After I bought one almost the entire collectivo started buying some, it was funny. Jill and I even convinced the Israelis to try it.
The ride back to Lanquin was a little quicker but much more crowded with people and boxes. Almost all the people on the bus were going to Lanquin so it didn’t get any less crowded. When we got back to the hostel there had been a few more check-ins but it was a quiet night.
Yea, Martin! We’ve been waiting for more news. Thank you!
I thought of breadfruit when you started describing that green bumpy food, but Max must know. Jackfruit is similar, I think. We had breadfruit in PR and it was so delicious. I peeled it and boiled it like potatoes and with salt and butter it was out of this world!
All OK here. Getting ready for Thanksgiving in S.C. Best to you two on that day – we’ll miss you!
Thanks again.