Chile relleños thanksgiving

So many things to be thankful for. To be healthy, having enough to eat, a place to sleep and being together. And not throwing up on the bus to Coban. A vomitous road for those behind us. We arrived on Thanksgiving day to the splendid city of Coban, with a vibrant yet conservative feel. Dinner in a restaurant filled with locals chatting and sharing a cup of café. Managed to mime the words ¨saxophone reed¨ to buy one for Lucas´s wood clarinet, in the many music stores in the town. A musical place. Each town seems to have a local specialty--in Coban it was peanuts (a boy asleep on his peanut pile) and Argentine empanadas. We loved Coban, maybe because it was off the main tourist circuit and just going about business as usual.

Traveling for three days through Guatemala seems like passing through 3 different countries. The highlands are so different from El Petén, where we did Spanish school. The dress is becoming more colorful as we go and the towns are more traditional, conservative. We had a mini-bus to Panajachel, 6 hours southwest of Coban, and due to some delays, had it to ourselves. The route was a grueling precipitous road with landslides to negotiate every 200 m. Girls along the route were spinning long twine, stretched out across the road. Boys were filling in potholes for spare change. Hardly any other traffic on the road, due to recent rains. We had a moment where Eric, the Guatemalan driver, got stuck in a large mud puddle and began to curse in English. Maybe so we´d understand his level of concern. As we pulled in closer to the lake, a huge fog bank engulfed us and we saw nothing of the view below. Just like Oregon, where the pacific fog sometimes moves inland. Eric dropped us off and continued on home to finish out his 18 hour day of driving.