More on Guatemala with Tiff and Brad

The Saint who cured people is called Brother Pedro de
Betancur.
We saw a great Guatemalan movie at the video house and
met another travelor from Israel. She was eating
alone and seemed happy to have some company. She had
traveled many places and was going home as a
Vetrinarian. She had just got her degree from
Holland.
The movie was about the Guatemalan Civil War and how
the Mayan people had suffered. Whole villages were
wiped out. I had to run out after it was over as I
needed to cry a little. The name of the movie was
"Daughter of the Puma". The puma is the sacred animal
of the Mayans. In Spanish it is "La Hija de La Puma".
Thursday we went to our new local friends house for
lunch( the one who lives in the converted sacristy of
the cathedral ruins). The lunch was superb. We went
to the market and bought flowers and wine to take and
even wore fresh clothes. I even did deoderant.
Sorry, those of you who are young and single. Did you
ever miss out. The other guest was the most gorgeous
27 year old man I've ever seen. He was about 6'5" of
gorgeous lanky guy. Not only that but he had had
several careers already and was down here to learn
Spanish to make movies in Mexico. He was gracious and
cultured and fun and adventurous and already
multi-lingual. If I had been a young girl--I wouldn't
have been able to say a word--I'd be in a trance. As
it was we all had a ball--everyone talking at once and
laughing and having a good time. Our host was having
a ball. He said it was the best spontanious gathering
of lunch guests he had ever had. Our host had a cook,
a maid, and a valet/masseuse. He was a wonderful old
man--but thinks he will not live another year--so he
has willed all to his Mayan help and they love him
(for real). His heart has been broken since his best
friend/partner killed himself in Persia. He was so
interesting and had seen everything and everywhere and
for some reason liked us a lot. He liked me better
than Brad and said he wished he had known me for the
last 25 years and I could have come to all his
parties. He hugged us both as we left. It was an
instant relationship. He has invited us to come live
with him whenever we want. If I was a young girl I'd
come because the young English man really hit it off
with him too and they have decided to lunch together
every week.
We changed our hotel. Our new hotel is a problem. It
is so nice we keep staying here. The detail is
wonderful. Each time we look around we see new and
interesting items. It is very artfully done and the
people are great. There are so many flowers spread
all over that the smell is everywhere. The hotel lady
spent all day arranging them. There are walls of
flowers.
We went to another ruin whoose walls are about 12-15
feet thick. It is so awesome to see these massive
ruins against the blue sky with the perfect
cone-shaped volcanoes behind them. Its eerie and
mysterious and beautiful all at once. I think of all
the love and labor now crumbled and toppling to the
ground and a whole town desperately teaching
Spanish--hoping to rebuild at least a whisper of what
was before the cholera-the earthquakes, the forced
political abandonement and subsequent looting, and the
earthquakes. Its rally quite heroic. They are
working with no more than shovels, wheelbarrows, and
hand tools.
Another ruin we saw today had a church and convent.
The nuns little cells were in a circular
tower--supported by a single huge single column in a
sort of basement. When they died, they were put in the
basement for 2 days--uuuggghhh!!!! The basement was
round and when you talked it amplified the sound and
it echoed all around--kind of vibrating. Brad stamped
his foot on the stone floor and it sounded like a
cannon.
After 3, the ruins become a sort of lovers lane.
Everyone is pretty relaxed about it though as you walk
up on them--they just giggle.
We visited 2 experimental farms. One is for shade
coffee--which also had a very fine Mayan musical
instrument museum. No chemicals are used on these
farms. They roast garlic and peppers as insecticide.
The Mayan music can't be written so it is being
lost--but a girl played some for us today. The other
farm was a macadamia nut farm where 350 kinds of nuts
grow--there is no grafting. The point of the
macademia farm is to provide a way for the Mayans to
stay in their villages and out of the poverty of the
cities by growing macademias. They make everything
from those nuts. I got a macademia nut facial. Our
guide said I looked fifteen years younger--WELL!!!!