"It's like camping!" - Mom's visit from Ange's perspective

Wow, so Mom’s really gone! My house is so quiet!!! After she left, I talked to Jeffrey for nearly an hour, called Erin and talked her ear off for a while after work and then blabbed away to Jeffrey again for a while. So I’m easing myself back into the routine of not really talking much.

Anyway, here’s an update on our 2 week adventure from my perspective. If you want the short version, just stick with Mom’s. This is a 4 pager! (Quick update on the goat: she still hates me and I have lots of deep cuts on my ankles from her strategic attacks, wrapping the rope she’s tied with around my legs. I’m really hoping to get the fence fixed this week so I can untie her and be forgiven.)

Day 1: Mom’s stupid flight doesn’t come and I find out my dog is probably dead. Bad day. (Update on August 23: she came home! Insanely skinny, tired and starving for attention from me, she’s back!! I have no idea where she went and the kids were just as surprised as I am. We all thought she was dead. No one had seen her in 3 weeks. She freaked out a bit at the giant goat/sheep in the backyard but got over it.)

Day 2: Mom comes in a whole 24 hours late! I spent the day in town with Carola and then we came back to the Coop. Mom is in good spirits despite being in airports for 2 days. I make a very Guatemalan dinner: cucumber salad, guacamole and refried beans with handmade tortillas. We hang out, watching stupid videos on my computer and then crash to try to squeeze in some sleep pre-BIG DAY.

Day 3: We called Dad in the morning and Mom told him, “It’s like camping! But with a stove and a fridge.” No false advertising on that one: there really is a cockroach containing outhouse, buckets for night bathrooms, garbage washing and sometimes difficulty getting pure bottled water.

This was our BIG DAY. Everyone said it couldn’t be done but it went off wonderfully! Waterfalls were lots of fun and being there until 1 was the perfect amount of time. We did all of Yaxha and got to see the sunset, too! It was a lot of driving but it worked out perfectly. Whoohoo. We were told incorrectly that there would be water for sale at the ruins so Mom and I were hiking around for over 2 (nearly 3?) hours, running up pyramids and sweating our buns off after splitting one small water bottle. Fortunately, we didn’t get dehydrated, chugging drinks from the closest open tienda we could find on our way back to the Coop.

Day 4: Belize. I stocked up on delicious fresh roasted cashews in Belize City, we met a cool DJ named Antonio and I got a cute pair of sandals. We enjoyed Belikin, the yummy Belizean beer, and had a great lunch in town. Nikki, owner of Maruba Resort Jungle Spa, picked us up in their truck and we had another hour and half on a sketchy highway. I had a terrible allergic reaction to a tiny ice cream I bought in Belize, making the already painfully bumpy trip even more brutal. But we were greeted with rum punches at the door, so it was all good.

Day 5: We chilled at the pool, got some spa treatments (my first time!), and read a lot. We pretty much had the pool to ourselves all day.

Day 6: We stayed at the pool all day. There were very few people there and we got a lot of reading done! I played in the pool with Chloe, a 5 year old who we kept bumping into, for a while. My handstand impressed her, haha. I’m fated to socialize with people less than half my age while I’m in Central America.

Day 7: We had to head out early in the morning to catch our bus from Belize City. I bought a lot more cashews (which I suspect I shouldn’t have been able to bring over the border). We bought tickets on the Linea Dorada bus, which was more like a Greyhound bus instead of the van we took there. And it cost the same! It was a lot nicer and got to lie across a row to sleep.

Day 8: I worked and Mom spent 2 hours washing our laundry by hand. I was proud. She took pictures of the fruits of her labour.

Day 9: We took our time getting up, having a nice lazy breakfast at the Comedor, the restaurant the Coop. The profits from the restaurant go back to the Coop. It was delicious. Then we made our way to Santa Elena, where we got a bus to Tikal. We dumped our stuff in our room at the Jungle Lodge hotel, took a quick dip in the pool and headed out to Temple IV for the sunset. A guard told us that was the best place to check out the sunset which is apparently part of this big guard scheme. After 6 pm, the time we got to the temple, you’re not supposed to be able to be in the park without a guide. When we bought our tickets at like 5:30, the person at the front desk neglected to mention this. Taking pity, the guard at the bottom said we could go up to the sunset. As Mom said, I held out and we got to see the sunset after bribing the guard only $5 each. Even more beautiful than the sunset was the moonrise on the east side. Mom busted up her ankle on the tour we joined for the way back, so that was the end of her Tikal hiking.

Day 10: I was up at 4:09 am to go out on the sunrise hike. The sunrise was a big disappointment but it was an interesting study of how people cannot SHUT UP! The guides tell everyone (there are over 200 people sitting on top of Temple IV at like 5:30 am) that they need to be silent for half an hour. Um, no. People were shouting at each other, giving instructions on how to climb up to higher sections of the pyramid (Mom would have had a heart attack, so it was good she was still in bed, injured.) until enough people yelled at them to shut up. Then people were eating loudly. And people felt the need to whisper commentary throughout the whole thing. Pathetic. We did a tour after the sunrise, went back for breakfast, and then I went off on my third tour which, as you know, Mom joined for a little bit. I recommend doing tours of Tikal, but sunset and sunrise would have been enough. The third tour was pretty repetitive.

Our bad luck in Tikal wasn’t over! Somehow I managed to lose our ticket for the bus to go back that afternoon. Which may have not been a problem since they had our names down anyway. While I was looking for the ticket, people behind us got into the bus, filling it. Past Mom, who was limping around with a cane. Classy. So the jerk with San Juan Travel (oh yeah, I’m naming names, lol) told us “Well, it’s full anyway” and drove away. I walked back to the hotel to try to get back into our room to search for the ticket and wait for the next bus. I bumped into Antonio, General Manager and awesome tour guide for all three of my tours (not be confused with Antonio the DJ from Belize) who mentioned that one of his drivers was going out to El Remate (which has a lot of buses to Flores going through) so we could tag along. This van only had a few other people and I got a window seat, so we were quite pleased. Well, when dropping us off at El Remate, Mom paid the driver Q100 (although we thought it was going to be a free ride…) because we were just so thankful. The driver then (suddenly inspired by this demonstration of cash, I suspect) offered to drive us all the way back to Horizonte, which was amazing since it meant Mom wouldn’t have to try to walk around and we wouldn’t be cutting it close with the last bus, for Q150. I thought he meant another Q50 but Mom and I agreed that even if he meant an additional Q150, it would be worth it for the lack of trouble. When we got back to the Cooperative, he informed me that it would be another Q200 since it was further than he thought. So it’s usually Q30 one way per person to Tikal. We paid Q150 per person to get back!!! It was totally ridiculous and I was fuming. We just paid it and trudged back to the house after buying a few beers from the front tienda :)

Day 11: I dragged my butt back into work. They fumigated, so Mom had to limp over to the restaurant to drink coffee and read her book. I bought two fresh fish from the tilapia farm project that they keep in a pool at the restaurant for sale. Achala handed me the bag, told me she was impressed that I would be cooking them, and Mom and I started walking home. Turns out the fish were ALIVE in this black shopping bag and started to move a few steps out of the restaurant! I had made a joke about this to Mom while Achala was getting them out of the pool but I was absolutely 100% kidding. So the whole way back, we were laughing our heads off as I jumped every time the fish moved. Their deaths were not the most humane but we don’t need to get into that…We watched the Sex and the City movie with terrible Spanish subtitles that night.

Day 12: Another day at the office. For dinner, I was all ready to cook the poor fish. Mom asked if I knew how to clean them but I explained I didn’t need to: Tono just shoved metal rods in them and put them over the fire when we ate fresh fish at the laguna. Well, of course, I baked them with oil, lime, onion and spices and they smelled AMAZING. I opened the tin foil only to find that they were full of worms and a beautiful, unhealthy emerald green colour. So we ate cashews, steamed broccoli and rice for dinner. I was pretty bummed about it.

Day 13: Turns out there is a bit of dengue epidemic going on. About 8 people had it at this time, including 2 with hemorrhagic dengue who were coughing up blood. So they fumigated a second time and my poor gimpy mother had to walk to the restaurant to wait. They’ve since had people cleaning up garbage and did an extra garbage pick up to try to discourage mosquitoes from hanging out here. By Saturday, when I’m writing this, my house is basically back to normal, being full of mosquitoes again. However, I wear DEET everyday, burn anti-mosquito coils and sleep under a net. Carola is also lending me this liquid stuff that you plug in that keeps mosquitoes away. Most of the people here just aren’t used to wearing repellent (and the stuff sold in the grocery store is only 5%) or using nets. Hopefully things will change soon because there is no dengue vaccine or cure.

On a lighter note, we had a really nice dinner with Carola for Mom’s last night at the Cooperative. I made papaya chicken and salad. We also had Chilean white wine and fair trade chocolate. It was a really nice night. I was able to translate pretty well for Mom and Carola and I don’t think we missed anything because of language. There was a bug incident that you can check out on Facebook.

Day 14: In the afternoon, Mom and I went to Flores. She was a great sport and we did a bit of walking to go to a restaurant with internet, got souvenirs for the fam and then went back to La Luna for another really delicious dinner. They were slow on the bill but when the waiter came by, he was bearing two shot glasses with rum on the house. So that made up for it! The power went out at the Hotel Isla de Flores where we stayed, which was terrible since we were on the 4th floor (which Mom picked without considering the fact that I’d have to carry her 40 lb suitcase up all of those flights of stairs!) and it was over 40°! Everyday for Mom’s last week was over 40°. We were boiling without the fan, AC or running water. Fortunately it was off for only 30 minutes but the cable stopped working so my one night of cable TV (I got to see maybe 3 minutes of Friends!) was not to be.

Day 15: Mom leaves in the morning and then I bus back for a very productive Friday at work. As I write this on Saturday afternoon, Mom should be landing in Ottawa after overnighting in Houston.

It was a great trip with some awesome memories. It was nice to have someone here who knew where I was coming from and could appreciate the difference in culture and lifestyle from what I’m used to. Mom was a great sport, despite being injured and living in conditions that are so much more uncomfortable than what she’s used to! We were woken up in the middle of the night multiple times by fireworks, dog fights, and loud music. There were days where ranchero music was blaring from the house next door (including a whole CD that was like Alvin and the Chipmunks Mexico style or something) and she survived!! Plus, her Spanish definitely improved –she’s got numbers, some food and stuff that sounds like French- and is better at converting Quetzales to dollars than I am.

She brought lots of fun toys and gifts that will keep me occupied for a while yet. Brendan sent me tons of CDs that are going to get me through many more days of cleaning. Jessica got me addicted to Lost (which we were both watching last night! We texted. It was like we were hanging out, haha). I have a lot of colouring books and stickers for the kids from Mom, Dad and Grandmaman that I still haven’t taken out. I need to wait for a day when I have a lot of energy and that hasn’t happened yet! They’re going to freak out. The big hit so far has been this chicken magnet that has magnets on its hands and feet which are on strings so you can pose it on the fridge. Fridge magnets alone will entertain these kids for hours, but this chicken…kids of all ages are loving it, haha (see pictures on Facebook). I’m looking for the perfect spot for my Canadian flag that Mom got on sale. I have oodles of books to read in my hammock (complete with a pig bookmark)! Mom also bought me some candles which have a melted top layer during the day here because it’s so hot, haha. I’m so spoiled. I ate all of the soft pure maple leaves Mom bought me already…not so good on the rationing.