When Hilary and I came to Monte Cristo we were given the challenge of finding some business opportunities that would help with their goal of becoming self-sustainable.  Our first road led us to producing honey, a business we researched all the way to the border of Mexico, where we visited a honey cooperative.  It turned out not to be the right fit, but we continued with a venture closely related, which is to make body butter and lip balm using beeswax.  We played around with a couple of names, none of which really clicked, but we handed the marketing and graphic design over to a family member, who came up with the beautiful logo and name of our new lotion business- Queen Bee.

8 Ounce Queen Bee Body Butter

For three months we have been playing with recipes and finally have three finalized.  One product will be a lip balm in flavors such as coconut, vanilla, and mint.  Our main lotion will be a body butter with the same flavors, but we want to change mint out with a lavender smell.  Finally, we also have an oiler lotion that we want to sell as an aromatic massage oil, hopefully to consumers and spa owners in local tourist areas.  All Queen Bee products are 100% natural and distinct from any products we have seen in Guatemala.  Apart from the quality of the product, local companies can’t seem to find quality containers, so all of them look poorly made.  Most of them are also overpriced, even for foreigners.  I don’t know many people that would pay over five dollars for a tube of chapstick.  Hilary and I imported some fancier tubs and chapstick tubes and are keeping our prices in the medium range for tourists.  We also have a price point that could be sold in more local markets when we’re ready to expand.

.25 Ounce Queen Bee Beeswax Lip Balm

We’re hugely excited about Queen Bee and hope to have it showcased in local stores soon.  Make sure to keep up with our progress!  Below are some samples that we’re stoked to start showing local stores.

I’m proud to show off our skincare line- Queen Bee Body Butter and Lip Balm. To the right is a tube of our Coconut-Flavored Chapstick.

8 Ounce Tub of Queen Bee Vanilla Body Butter.

4 Ounce Queen Bee Body Butter.

4 Ounce Tub of Queen Bee Body Butter. The mint flavor logo is only to sample the image.

Monte Cristo is really a breathtaking place. In Spanish, the word for it is bellísimo, or the most beautiful it could possibly be.  After school Hilary and I sit on the back porch and watch the hawks glide in circles through the valley. Their wings, spread 5 feet across, carry them in loops above the pine trees.  I know they’re looking for something but it seems like they’re just enjoying the wind, flying for nothing more than the pleasure of flight. In those moments, when the clouds stop to rest on the volcanoes and the chickens rustle softly around the coffee farm, I think of Monte Cristo as a place that could not be more beautiful. It is perfect.

The peacefulness slips away unnoticed in the chaos of a Middle School classroom. It escapes out the door, diffuses through the windows, and passes like smoke among cracks in the terra cotta roof.  All that remains after is tension. I have a new respect for middle school teachers after my time here. Classrooms are like rubber bands for the children. They stretch it exactly to the point they think it will reach before it snaps back at them.  For that reason, there is always tension. When I started teaching, I snapped harshly against the pressure. I was quick to raise my voice and my face was always stern. During test days I wore all black to scare the children away from cheating. Sometimes my tactics worked, most of the time they didn’t. More importantly, I began to understand that harshness does not soften a rock. It only chips at it roughly or pushes it away altogether.  The gentleness of the brook is what will smooth it to a stone, but only over time.

We teach here five days a week, eleven classes total. Some of our free time is spent typing up assignments and tests to put them into the soon-to-be Monte Cristo English curriculum, which the school can then  pass down from year to year.  For now, we create each week from scratch.  The rest of our time is spent grading or planning, and we use any slivers of a break to press forward with Queen Bee lotions.

I have learned a lot in the last three months of teaching. A lot of it is about myself- my temper, my flexibility, my sense of humor. Some of it is about teenagers- why they don’t listen, what they care about, and how insecure they are.  Much of what I learned is about the classroom itself.  A lot of work has to go into the children away from their desks to prepare them to sit behind it. English is learned in a class;  leadership is learned on the soccer field. Grammar is learned on a blackboard; self-confidence is learned during the talent show. Vocabulary comes from the glossary; respect comes from the lunchroom.  The students remember the moments you spend with them when you don’t have to. When kids take off the weight of their backpacks, they should be carrying each lesson from outside the classroom as a tool to flourish within it.  A better classroom is constructed from the outside in.

Watching hawks and teaching students are two very distinct activities.  Hawks looping in the valley is a beauty already completed.  It makes Monte Cristo seem without want of anything.  But children forming into leaders is a beauty in process. It brings exposed the challenges around us and gives me inner peace in the chaos of the class, because I see the scene forming.  Both together bring a fullness to life here that I cherish.  There is always a long way to go and forever a reminder of where we can arrive.  And always, in everything, beauty.

The dirtcheek boys on the grassless patio
Throw stone and dirtlcod at the mango trees
El chucho viejo limps raggedly away
From the children playing cornstalk apache

—————–

Fuego billows again; black cloud sky writer
Chimaltecos sleep cold for the night
After quieting the emberglow fire

—————–

Flies on the belly at the empty lot
And tortillas a la parilla
Mediodía Monte Cristo
Warm sun with a slice of sandía

—————–

Pati is on the roof again
Yelling for Hilaly
And the hummingbirds
And caballitos
Graze eternally

—————–

Dogs swim in the compost pile
Lunching old caldo soup
Arajely prays for manna rain
To the virgin on the stoop

.......................................

El chucho viejo: The old dog
a la parilla: on the grill
sandía: watermelon
caballitos: little horses
caldo: chicken

Monte Cristo Poems

Our schedule over the last two weeks has been consumed by visitors from the US.  It started with Brennon, a good buddy from my college days that was with me during the early stages of Spring Back Recycling.  In two days, we spent about 8 hours on the motorcycle just trying to see as many backroads as our wheels would show us.  On our second day we traversed some of Guatemala’s worst roads to reach Volcano Pacaya, Central America’s most active volcano that sits just a few kilometers outside of Guatemala City.  Our guide up the Volcano, Marina, was a great host and spoke proudly as Pacaya fumed billows of Volcanic ash into the air.  We roasted marshmallows over the heat vents on the mountain and ran around the slippery sand hills.

The rest of a large Belmont group showed up a day later to make the trek towards the coffee mountains in Central Guatemala.  I made that trek for the first time five years ago and this was the 3rd group I had been with to travel the country studying the economics of cafe.

Not only was this the funniest group I’ve traveled with, but each of the students arrived with a heart open to embrace new cultures and experience everything Guatemala has to offer.  When they left on Sunday Morning, I said goodbye to a group of amazing people that I will consider from now on as my own family.  They fought through debilitating sickness and cold showers to understand the heart of Guatemala as best they could in their short time here.  Obviously, Guatemala has affected Hilary and I deeply, and I pray that it will do something similar to the lives of my Belmont family.

At Asociación Chajulense

Soccer Game at Monte Cristo

Belmont checking out Monte Cristo’s tilapia tanks

Loading up the bus to Chajul

In a few days, a large group of students from Belmont will be arriving in Guatemala for a trip that will no doubt change them in some profound way.  I stepped off the plane almost four years ago in the same manner, excited but unprepared for what lay among the mountain ranges and volcanoes in my new frontier.  Hilary and I have been preparing rigorously for their arrival, trying to be the best hosts we can in our current home.  Our only words of advice are to come open-minded, but with a passion for the experience.

The running joke from family and friends in the months leading up to our wedding late June was that we would get married in Nashville and run off to a yearlong honeymoon in Guatemala.  Though we came here to work, and work hard, Hilary and I did hope for some romance to accompany our first year as newlyweds.  We at least figured the beauty of Guatemala would overshadow petty grievances and the work would make us grateful for what we have.  Almost six months into our trip, I can say that the honeymoon has yet to come and the struggle to get along is hard-pressed to leave.  Very early on, our marriage has been stretched to the brink and tolerance for our life partners has grown thinner already than I expected it would in a lifetime.  For the romantics that hoped the spontaneity of travel would make a relationship easier, including myself, we were wrong.

Hilary has some personality traits that I didn’t expect to encounter, and some I hoped would disappear after marriage.  Most of the time, I blame her for our struggle.  I often characterize her as weak, dependent, absent-minded, and dramatic.  I never imagined myself as a resentful husband, but it didn’t take long for me to find myself as such.  We work together at the same school, plan in the same office, and teach in the same classroom.  We eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner at each other’s side and share the exact same group of acquaintances, hardly any aspect of our lives differing from the other.  I get claustrophobic being at her hip every moment.  Then too many nights I lay down angry at the day, tired from the effort, and wondering why it didn’t turn out how I thought it would.

Two months ago, during a class with 7th graders, Hilary led an exercise with the group that I considered boring and poorly created.  I watched as the kids became confused and uninterested, talking over Hilary and ignoring the instructions.  I stood in a corner, not saying a word, congratulating myself for my accurate prediction.  Meanwhile, Hilary was visibly frustrated, alone against the chaos of middle school apathy.  She left the classroom well aware of her shortcoming, and I was quick criticize what I felt was a lack of creativity and classroom discipline.  Once again, I wondered why I carried such an unbalanced portion of the load in our relationship.  Last Thursday, I had the same class of 7th graders by myself, as Hilary sat outside to tutor a small group of girls.  The class period turned into a 45-minute war between the students and me.  As they looked on, confused and uninterested, I tried to prepare them for an upcoming exam, but my instructions were drowned out by their incessant talking and by the snap-hums of rubber bands sending paper hornets across the room.  I left the class with my stomach in a knot, anxious from my classroom failure, but almost in tears because of my arrogance with Hilary two months before.  I have acted as a proud and self-serving husband too often, and my frustration was caused by my egomaniacal fascination with my own strength and willpower.  In that moment, I looked back at 5 months of Hilary’s tender and benevolent words, but felt my knees break and my sternum compress inward from the whole weight of her humbling action.  I saw her marathon-class patience so clearly and her sheep’s meekness began to gnash at my consciousness like a wolf.   Dozens of prideful moments flooded my memory and I hated myself intensely until the point she walked up and asked how class went.  When I confessed of my failure in capturing the student’s attention, she flashed her beautiful smile and rubbed my shoulders.  She reassured me and empathized with my struggle in the classroom.  Without even a tinge of disappointment or resentfulness, she wrecked me again with grace.

I don’t pray as much as I used to, but I started praying more about my desire for peace with Hilary.  I realized, or perhaps was shown, that I set myself up for failure.  I founded my relationship with Hilary on the principles and expectations of Ephesians 5 and the life of Jesus, but I hold her accountable to my own self-designed standard.  I misled both of us and turned out to be the source of my own misery.

I am thankful to the family that has taken us in here.  Hilary and I are surrounded by perfect examples of what a successful and loving marriage looks like.  Miky recently had surgery on her leg and has been away from the school to recover.  Twice a day, Mario walks her to the end of the driveway and back, 5 times, at a snail’s pace.  After more than 40 years of marriage, they still have enough to laugh about the whole way, and Miky smiles as big as Hilary did at our wedding, just honored to hold on to the arm of the man she loves most.  Mario never belittles her for the one weak knee, because he knows it holds a woman strong enough to make the earth tremble and the sky fall.  Their love is palpable, and slowly it is rubbing off on me.

Travel doesn’t make a relationship easier.  It amplifies the weaknesses of both participants, then introduces unimaginable obstacles to exploit tension and grate against tired nerves.  Hilary and I have been honored recipients of the rarities and wonderment of travel, but also the inevitable hardships that seek out young hearts.  I’m thankful to have a beautiful partner to share both with me, a partner that teaches me grace, patience, and forgiveness at new depths and higher boundaries.  I wake up next to her every day a better man with a softer heart.  Hilary has her own versions of Miky’s weak knee, but she has strength like the bursting of celestial forces to rock me when I’m impatient and tumble my impressive ego.

To Hilary: I’m learning, I’m improving, I’m humbled, and I’m thankful.

To Readers: Don’t travel if you need your relationship to be easier.  Travel if you want to really know the magnitude of your own faults and make yourself vulnerable to depend fully on another.  Two irons that enter the crucible, if able to leave, are forged inseparably.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude.  It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends.  As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.  For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.  When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.  When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.  For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.  So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

I love this beautiful woman.

After encountering a surprisingly violent drug culture on the shores around Lake Atitlan, we decided to escape to the water for a few hours to put some distance between the violent hippies and ourselves.  We rented a kayak and paddled across the placid water, amazed to have such a view with three volcanoes looming over us.  We paddled to San Marcos, where we had heard there was a decent spot for cliff jumping, and parked our small watercraft along some shaded crags.  We climbed up to the jumping spot, which was actually a beautifully constructed wooden deck that overlooked the chilly lake and even had a small gate in the fence that gave easy access to jumpers.  I had jumped off of higher spots before and didn’t see much reason to be scared on this occasion, so I was quick to take flight off the deck.  My body clenched like a brief episode of rigor mortis when I entered the frigid water, but the sun was waiting as I resurfaced and my body became accustomed to the coldness surrounding me.  I re-ascended the cliffs and watched proudly as Hilary made the jump and braved the same cold embrace that I had just escaped.

Swimming in San Marcos was my favorite thing we did during out time to Atitlan, and we shared the story of our adventure with the family here upon our return.  I had not thought much about that memory until last night, during yet another dinner table conversation with a teacher from Monte Cristo.  At around 12am, after most of the family had gone to sleep, I sat across the table from the teacher and we talked about all the usual madness that surfaces when philosophizing at midnight.  He shared with me his views of the world and man’s purpose here on earth, a perspective I linked to his Latin Americanism, but it’s one I’m now sure is shared by people in all parts of the world.

He asked me if I thought humans had a purpose other than destruction.  He explained that all life on earth spins in its infinite cycle, naturally consuming and producing, diminishing and nourishing according to its assigned role.  Humans, on the other hand, have reached the unprecedented level of indiscriminate destroyer.  We have harnessed all the power of the natural world, only to unleash it with the most fearsome intensity so that we prey on every living organism simultaneously and unsustainably.  We somehow became the all-mighty destroyer of all, including fellow mankind, and the future continues to seem evermore grim.  Unfortunately, I agree with him.  Especially after my time in Guatemala and the nights I spent immersed in its gruesome history books, I acknowledge that society, including and most especially the US, has been a thief of human dignity and countless lives for far too long.  Even so, our outlooks differ when asked what comes next.

The teacher sat across from me, looking hopeless and defeated.  He told me his belief is that humans are doomed to out-consume themselves and at this point, we’re really only biding time.  I asked him what he thought we should do.  He brought up my story of cliff jumping in Atitlan and asked me to remember resurfacing from the water.  He demonstrated each stroke with his own arms, naming a revolutionary icon each time he flapped them down.  His point was to say that humanity is drowning, and figures such as Chavez, Guevara, and Castro have been a fleeting motion in the struggle to keep our head above water.  Eventually the Sun will descend below the volcanoes and there will exist no respite from the iciness that pulls us back down.  Struggling to stay afloat is all there is left.

It was very much a dark conversation.  In my head I thought of all the people I had met throughout the world that were making real strides in social and environmental change.  Though I agree we’re on the wrong path, I don’t feel as defeated as he seemed to in that moment at 2 in the morning.  So I asked him: why is he at Monte Cristo instead of chasing other vices?  If humanity is doomed, why spend time passing on values to a new generation instead of pursuing the pleasures of the world.  Why not give up and just let the icy lake pull him down?  He looked at me, smiled, and stroked his arms one last time.  “Monte Cristo is swimming, and if it spreads to the world, there may be hope of reaching shore.”

As Christmas wound down and the hours of our vacation days began to drag on again, Hilary and I decided we would give our travelling legs another chance to run, so we packed up our bags again and set to the Pan-American Highway, this time heading north.  We decided that our mistakes last time were 1) Packing too big of a bag, and 2) Leaving too late in the day, so we downsized our cargo and walked away from our bedroom door at 7:05AM on a cold Saturday morning.  At 8:00, we stopped at a cliffside Swiss restaurant and stuffed ourselves on ham and cheese crêpes, bought Hilary a pair of gloves, and then continued our climb up the mountain.  At the highest point in our trip, on top of a mountain that peaks about 3,000 meters above sea level, Hilary and I stopped at the lookout point to enjoy the breathtaking views of our pristine destination- Guatemala’s treasured Lake Atitlan.  Surrounded by 3 volcanoes and considered by many as the World’s Most Beautiful Lake, paradise beckoned us to descend into its warmth, so we climbed back on El Herocito and kindly obliged.

Close to thirty seconds after we left the lookout point, the motorcycle began to make terrible noises.  When pushing it hard in fifth gear, it just seemed too loud.  When coming off the acceleration a little, it transformed into a moving bubble-maker.  Though we didn’t seem to be producing any bubbles, El Herocito puttered along to a noise that seemed more appropriate in a Willy Wonka factory.  As is a common experience for us in Guatemala, we felt very silly.  Ten kilometers later, we pulled into a gas station to make sure fuel wasn’t the problem and to get a little advice on our noise dilemma.  The very friendly gas station attendant gave our vehicle a once-over and kindly pointed out that there was a gaping space where an important pipe should be, and a large hole in the engine was now exposed the outside world instead of being properly rerouted to the muffler.  He also told us that aside from sounding a bit undignified, we should make it just fine to Solola, where a moto-shop could help us out with a new part.  About 10 minutes down the road, Hilary tugged at my arm and we pulled into “El Shaday Moto Shop,” a quaint but welcoming repair joint in a small countryside strip mall.  Once again, a very friendly Guatemalan recognized that we were missing an important pipe, found an old Honda with a matching part, and set us back on the road to vacation for a mere $30.

Half an hour after our appointment with El Shaday, and a full kilometer lower in altitude, we arrived at our hotel in Panajachel, Lake Atitlan.  Well-known as an old hippie town set beside crystal waters in a volcanic crater, we were ready for a few days of rest and tranquility.  Instead, we found a dirty, overrun drug mecca with few redeeming qualities.  Most of the corners were converted into homes for coked-up troubadours on bad trips that were overconfident in their harmonica skills.  Over-ambitious Guatemalans set up their artisan shops along the streets or just simply carried racks full of goods down the sidewalks.  Under-ambitious Guatemalans that had immigrated to Panajachel pestered tourists to buy them a beer or share a toke in the spirit of unity.  Hilary and I were in the mood for none of it, so we swatted the noise of the town away best we could as we searched for a decent taco.  I always imagined a town full of hippies would be a peaceful place, blissfully nostalgic for many from an older generation.  As I was reflecting on that in the streets of Pana, a neo-hippie wearing rolled up red chino khakis, a white linen shirt, no shoes, and a homemade guitar, assaulted a man on a bike for the hell of it.  On a serene Saturday afternoon, he just had the urge to scare someone.  After giving the man a good jostle, he detached himself from the victim’s handlebars and continued walking, whistling and plucking at his ramshackle guitar, like a fault line settling after a tremor.  Who were these terrorist hippies, and why had so many gathered in one such beautiful place?  I worked on my theories and tried to put our hostile environment behind me as I planned the next day of our trip.

Hilary and I woke up early on Sunday to avoid the crowds.  We planned to catch a boat across the lake where the terrorists are scant and the kayaks are cheaper.  We asked for a boat at 8.  The boat drivers said they would leave at 9.  We grabbed a cup of coffee to pass the time and returned to the dock.  The boat left at 10.  Panajachel.  The boats on Lake Atitlan are seemingly fashioned out of some mix of plaster, paper maché, and lacquer.  The drivers overfill the 12-passenger novelties with 25 nervous tourists.  Then they drive as fast as they can for 45 minutes across the immense body of water.  They hit each wake full speed, tempting the lake to break through the boat floor and welcome visitors into its frigid, daunting embrace.  We finally pulled into the shanty dock in San Pedro, wet with mist and at ease to be so far from hippie terrorism.  San Pedro is good and full of hippies too, but the aura must affect their Chi in a different way, because it was over an hour before we were hassled for anything.  We ate yogurt and eggs in a Hindu meditation club, or some combination of the sort, and breathed easy for the first time since descending Atitlan’s mountainous walls.

In our kitschy breakfast meditation spot, I read through Che Guevara’s Motorcycle Diaries as we sat by the lake in peace, less aware of the contact high that inevitably hovered over the lake and mellowed its inhabitants.  After we finished our coffee, we took to the streets to explore the charming city that invited us in with its more passive nature.   The strength of fate must be strong in Atitlan, because after ten minutes of loitering in the streets, we ran upon a bearded friend from Pittsburgh we had met only a week earlier, about eight hours away on a Monterrico beach.  He happened to be living in a hostel and looking for Spanish lessons in San Pedro, and somehow the chaos of the Universe brought us to the same spot on the same Volcano lake at the same time.  Busy, busy, busy.  Then again, the whole encounter could have been a hallucinogenic vision set on by the aforementioned contact high.  Nonetheless, we were happy to see each other again and caught each other up on a week’s worth of Guatemala adventure.  As we were talking, another guy from the hostel walked out to the street and introduced himself.  His name escapes me, but I’m sure it was “Spirit Child” or “Chris.”  Anyway, he wore natty dreadlocks, cut-off cargo pants, and a t-shirt covered in screen-printed marijuana leaves, and he was tripping hard.  He came in on the part of the conversation where we told our friend about our unfortunate moto part, which really got him riled up.

“So where’d it fall off?” he asked in his  high-pitched voice as he jittered around and bit his yellow fingernails.

“On the highway.”

“The highway? I said where.” Clearly my answer didn’t satisfy him.

“On the Pan-American-” He interrupted me.

“Yeah, but I said where.” Hilary tried to help me out.

“It was up on the Pan-American, on the top of the mountain that looks down over the lake, close to the split for Chichicastenango.”

“Yeah, okay, but I’m like saying, like where did it happen?!” At this point he was flailing his arms and yelling at me.  I looked at Hil and my friend from Monterrico.  We laughed nervously.  Spirit Child laughed too.  He offered us some weed breadloaf and we declined.  Then he got distracted by something down the street and told us not to move because he would come back within an hour.  We all looked at each other, a bit confused but a little less nervous.  Maybe we answered his question and he had gone in search of the moto part, or maybe he just saw something shiny.  Whichever it was, we said goodbye again to our friend from Monterrico and set off looking for the kayaks.  I pondered a little on my theories of hippie terrorism, but mostly I thanked God for my gorgeous wife and His gift of beautiful, incomprehensible nature.  Then I prayed he would give Spirit Child whatever answer he had been searching for.

Hilary and I pose together at the Mountain Lookout Point, just before our Muffler Troubles.

Here is our engine without the pipe, exposing a large hole to the outside world.

Hilary watches the owner of “El Shaday Moto Taller” install a piece from a used Honda to El Herocito.

Here is our engine with a pipe newly installed.

The sturdy craft that transported us across the lake to San Pedro rests against the dock, closest to the volcano.

Hilary hugged me tightly as we passed Volcano Pacaya.  The air was starting to warm on our shoulders and the morning clouds had cleared.  We weaved around each country curve, descending rapidly, and Hilary snapped photos of Antigua’s beauty.  We passed one more curve and met a clearing in the trees.  Towering over us, Volcano Pacaya was gently pushing billows of ash into the air.  Hilary got the picture and put her arms firmly back around me.

We weren’t exactly sure where we were going.  I had tried my best to memorize a Google Map, but on Guatemala roads, the Internet can only tell you so much.  “Take the highway straight through Antigua, follow the big curve around Escuintla.  Left by the ocean on the big roundabout and weave your way to the bridge.”  That was the extent of our directions to Monterrico, a black sand beach about 4 hours away from our home. Sure enough, we made it without consulting another map, but I did stop once to ask a stoic military patrol if we were on the right highway.  The sun was intense and the change in climate took us by surprise, as we found ourselves sweating for the first time in weeks.  We pulled into Monterrico at 2 in the afternoon and I barely kept the motorcycle upright as it struggled to maneuver on the sandy roads.

Fatefully, we took the Goldilocks approach to finding a Hotel.  Without having made a reservation, we stopped at the most recommended spot in town, but it was too expensive and fully booked for part of our trip.  The second joint was a budget deal, probably because it was sketchy and run-down, and I wasn’t planning on putting my wife in Hotel Skeezehole during our vacation to paradise.  The third hotel, hotel El Delfin, was just right.  The owners were nice, the rooms were comfortable, and there were enough hammocks to serve an army of beach bums, the army in which we had just enlisted.  We unstrapped our bags from the motorcycle and settled into our home for the next 4 nights- a relaxed beachside haven on the edge of Guatemala that faced the vast expanse of the Pacific tide.

Our first night was the only regrettable experience.  We hadn’t realized how hot it would be, so we laid next to each other until 2 in the morning, covered in sweat, praying for the slightest breeze.  I eventually moved to the twin bed that sat in the other corner of the room, which sat more directly under our ceiling fan and put further space between me and Hilary’s furnace of a body.  The next day the hotel was nice enough to give us an oscillating fan, which fixed our heat problem and kept us from dreading the night.

We spent the days hammocking and reading, sunbathing, and fighting the waves.  Each night, the local nature reserve lets visitors free a sea turtle into the ocean, so we signed up and watched our little fighter make her way towards the sea, finally being swallowed by a giant wave and lifted off to her life as an eternal drifter.  I still think about her, we named her La Gringa, and I hope that she’s surviving well in the vast expanse of her home.

The most important part of the trip for me was the community of travelers we found in Monterrico.  From Sweden, America, India, and Australia, we found spirited travellers like ourselves to share the beauty of paradise and swap stories of time abroad.  We shared views on politics, our favorite spots in France, and the best books to read on the road.  Although we have family in Chimaltenango, for the first time, we connected with friends on the beach.  I am grateful to have found such an interesting and passionate group of people.

The sun rose on December 23rd and we checked out on time to be home for the holidays.  The whole way home, we ignored the roar of the motorcycle and daydreamed of our days spent floating in hammocks with a Cuba Libre on the table.  We passed Pacaya again, who was now guarding her billows, and climbed back up the mountain as the cold reentered our bones.  We are now like the turtles of Monterrico.  We will venture out and we will return, but we will forever dream of the ocean.

Pacaya on Day 1

Another night in the hammock

Hilary holding La Gringa