Day Four - Guatemala

Wednesday, April 3, 2019

Watching the sunrise and doing yoga on the balcony – wonderful, restful, energizing way to greet the new day.  We’re having room service deliver our breakfast this morning to see how that works out.  Our tray arrives within the half-hour window we had chosen;  but our steward is apologetic that he wasn’t here earlier!  I’ve requested an omelet with vegetables and goat cheese and it’s delicious.  I’ve also requested coffee since everyone says the room-service coffee is lots better than that on the Lido deck.  I had also ordered milk so I could make café con leche.  The milk didn’t arrive and there isn’t any cream, either, so I’m a bit put out.  But guess what!  The coffee is so good that I can drink it black (with Splenda, of course!)

Our trolley doesn’t leave until 10:45, so we have lots of time to enjoy our breakfast and get down to the dock around ten.  That gives us time to check out the shopping in the terminal, so we’ll know what we’re in for when we get off the trolley.  Dean and Tobi are going on this excursion, too, and they sit right behind us, so we can exchange a few comments.  Mostly I want to hear the commentary.

This isn't really much of a tourist port.  All the shopping is in that building that says "Guatemala, Heart of the Mayan World".  And that's our trolley, or it will be when it comes back!

The other excursions included a three-hour trolley ride through two communities, and a visit to a distant Mayan ruin.

Our guide is a retired teacher, so you know she is fun and very informative!  The most startling thing I remember is that she told us that she makes more in six months as a tour guide than she did in three YEARS of teaching.  And she’s only been retired for three years, so there isn’t that much difference in the economy.

We pause at the town’s cemetery, which is all above ground.  We’re told that every year the people celebrate All-Saints Day.  They wear special clothes and bring their loved ones favorite foods and desserts to the cemetery;  they even bring new babies to meet their ancestors.  Each cemetery in Guatemala has a Saba tree near the entrance.  It is thought to connect the earth and sky.  The Guatemalans do not believe in Heaven.  On All-Saints Day they dance around the tree and make sacrifices. 

There is a small replica of the Taj Mahal in the cemetery to honor the patriarch of an Indian family.  When The United Fruit Company was considering coming to Santo Tomas they required things the village didn’t have.  The Indian man provided the money for the first hotel, shopping, and schools to entice the company.

There is a second port quite close to the one in which we are docked.  It is private and belongs to Chiquita Banana.  There are only three ports in the whole country.

There are a lot of photos because we have a church member who was born in Guatemala and asked for photos.  Love you, Julia!

That's dried fish, and many people are selling it.

There is only one road connecting the two ports.

It's election time.  They elect a new president every four years.  

 One stalk of bananas can weigh between eighty and one hundred pounds!  Coffee, sugar, and hand-made textiles are the major exports.  Most of the roses in the Rose Bowl Parade come from Guatemala!

There are thirty-three volcanoes in the country and three of them are active!  There are twenty-four languages spoken.  Gas is $3.75 per gallon.  The money is the quetzal, a beautiful bird with a magnificent, long tail.  There are 75 quetzals to one US dollar.  The rainforest in Guatemala is protected.  For each tree cut down, five must be replaced.  And there are thousands of bird species.

The most surprising thing I learned is that Guatemala endured a thirty-six year civil war that was only concluded in 1996!  I never knew!  They changed the picture on their money from the quetzal to a dove, to commemorate peace.

We are lucky with the weather – in fifteen days the temperatures will rise to one hundred and twenty degrees!!

Just before the end of the ride, our guide offers each of us a choice of thank-you gifts for taking her excursion.  The choices are Guatemalan worry dolls, hand-made friendship bracelets, or a little wooden bird.  I choose the bird because he will become my travel-necklace charm!  Tobi will give her worry dolls and Dean’s friendship bracelet to Julia when we get home.

We hop off the trolley and head for the shops, figuring we’ll start at the back, work our way to the front, and head for the ship.  We weren’t really going to buy anything.  Oh stop laughing!!  We did a good job of bargaining, though!  Diana is better at it than I am;  but I did okay!

Back on the ship we have a little time to stop by our cabin and drop off our new treasures before going to lunch.  Diana gets a salad and they make it so large that we split it.  I had asked the lady for the fish in caramel sauce, but it turned out to be curried chicken!  Tasty, but I wanted to experiment with something different!

We kill some time, then head to tea at three o’clock.  There we’re offered the opportunity to have two other people join us, and that seems like a good idea.  Actually it turned out to be a great idea!  Mary and Diana are a stitch and we have so much fun.  Their sense of humor matches ours perfectly!  Diana is a retired math teacher and Mary taught science in a school district in the Hudson River Valley.  The Darjeeling tea is delicious and the perfect temperature.  And the cups are constantly refilled.  AND they have gluten-free sandwiches and desserts.  Unfortunately they don’t have GF scones – but we’re so full it doesn’t matter!

Mary, Diana, and Diana!

Some more wandering and we check out the special wine at 5:00.  It’s only five dollars and that is surely cheaper than anything offered at dinner!  We fine Mix, the location, and there are Mary and Diana!!  Yay!  Turns out the white is a chardonnay that does nothing for Diana;  but the red is my old friend, the Australian shiraz!!  Yes, please!  There’s supposed to be an appetizer, too;  but goodness knows we don’t need any more food!  And dinner is at six!!

We spend almost the whole hour chatting and head off for The Pinnacle.  Dean has suggested that we have a special dinner one night, instead of the one that we’ve already paid for.  Tonight’s the night.  Diana and I had made reservations for the eight of us yesterday, at Dean’s suggestion;  but it turns out the family is having the Caribbean dinner instead, so during the day we had stopped by to change it from eight to four.  Turns out Dean wasn’t sure we’d do it, so he had also changed the reservation.  Good thing they didn’t change the four to zero!!

We arrive no more than five minutes after five, but Tobi and Dean are already at our table.  Happily there wasn’t a comment made!  They’ve brought a beautiful wine and Dean offers to share with me.  So smooth and happy on the tongue!

Our attentive waiter has us make all our selections at one time.  (Later we’ll learn what a mistake we’ve made!)  As we’re waiting for our appetizers, we are each presented with a small plate with a tiny spoon resting on it, containing one scallop nestled on a bed of pureed pumpkin;  it’s a gift from the chef!  The two bread baskets each contain two large rolls.  One of them must have been baked with garlic butter inside, because when you break off a piece it is pre-buttered with this wonder goo!  It smells so amazing I’m willing to risk the consequences and have a bite.  Worth it!!

Next comes two flavorful lump crab cakes, then the forest mushroom soup.  The bowl is presented with a small mound of mushrooms centered in it, topped with a dollop of cream.  Hmm.  Then the waiter pours the soup around it!  Diana has lobster bisque presented the same way, with a mound of lobster.  The mushroom soup is superb!

At last, the entrée arrives.  I’ve ordered the seven-ounce fillet mignon and it’s about two inches thick, topped with two onion rings.  One slice through the middle and I’m a happy camper even before it hits my taste buds.  The color is perfect.  And the flavor?  OMG!  Now I’m happy to have spent the extra money for dinner!  We also choose as many sides to share as we’d like, so there are sautéed mushrooms, basmati rice pilaf, roasted baby beets with blue cheese crumbles, and hashed potatoes with a separate pitcher of truffle-blue cheese aioli to pour over them.  I believe I’m the only one to finish my entrée,  I just couldn’t quit savoring!!  In fairness, Dean had an eighteen-ounce bone-in rib eye;  Tobi never finishes anything;  and Diana had scallops over riced cauliflower and she’s not wild about cauliflower.  All that said, had we known what we were in for, no one would have ordered dessert!

As we’re waiting, and hoping for a miracle that will reduce the amount of food already in our tummies, the waiter brings a little silver pedestal – another gift!  It has four dark chocolate truffles, four white chocolate truffles, and four orange squares that resemble Turkish delight, except there is coconut instead of powdered sugar.  This would have been the perfect finish.  Instead we each have a chocolate souffle with crème anglais to pour in the center.  They’re still hot from the oven.  (I actually ordered the not-so-classic baked Alaska, but I’m so full that it doesn’t matter what I eat two bites of!)  AND, because you never know, Dean had ordered a crème brulee for the table!  Everyone had a bit or two of that as well, and it really is much more wonderful than the one served in the regular dining room.  And we had all thought that one was pretty darn good!

Dean is taking his left-over steak and the garlic rolls with him and he receives them in an aluminum basket and a matching peacock!

 By the time we’ve finished making total pigs of ourselves, it’s time for the eight o’clock show, billed as comedy magic.  Maneuvering Tobi’s scooter is always a challenge but she is getting much better at it!  And we’ve got to make sure we choose the side of the theater that has a ramp.  There aren’t any seats left;  but in the five minutes we’ve been here, it obvious that we aren’t missing anything.  He has a lady on stage and he has, apparently, asked her to pick a card.  He then produces it from inside the zipper of his pants.  Yea, I’m done.

Everyone breaks into small groups at this point.  I find that being out of sync with ship time and getting up two hours before the rest of the world, combined with a lot of wine and a ton of food, has wiped me out.  I head back to the cabin and fall asleep before Diana is through in the casino.

I’ve figured out that if I pull the duvet up higher, so there isn’t so much weight pulling it down at the foot of the bed, it doesn’t hold my toes captive!  Ahhh, that’s much better!  Of course, I’m so tired that I might not be capable of making a reasoned evaluation!  Whatever!  Off to sleep!