Paul and I went for breakfast, it’s what we do. There are certainly tons of people in town for Semana Santa. Turns out gringo tourists and Guate tourists look pretty much the same, camera heavy, scanning for the best restaurants, getting approached to buy things by the street vendors.
Today some of us are going for a little girl’s getaway. I’m pumped. Paul walked me up to La Parada. The coffee shop actually has a name, which means The Stop. There are four of us going over to Casa del Mundo, a hotel that is built into the mountain overlooking the lake. It can only be reached by boat. We went there the last time we lived here. Lots of little pathways, little rooms here and there, lush, flowers, hammocks everywhere. Wonderful little escape.
We walked down to the dock and took the boat over. When we got there we went immediately down to the water and everyone went swimming, since the lake is calmer in the morning. The water was clear. We met a young couple who are opening up a hostel in Mexico. They are travelling the world, following their dreams, full of enthusiasm. As we were walking away one of the women said, “They have so much energy, obviously they have no kids.” Between the four of us, we have 10 kids.
We had a lunch overlooking the lake. The four of us polished off an impressive volume of nachos and laughed our heads off. A diverse and extremely entertaining group of women. After lunch there were four hammocks in a row right on the edge of the lake. We talked, read, napped. They painted their toenails. It was decadently relaxing. What made it the most enjoyable was the women. The conversation is interesting, hilarious, deep, meaningful. We talked a lot about parenting. One of moms raised her two grown kids without their father(s), the other woman is a recent single mom and is regrouping with two small kids. Both are at a crossroads in terms of career. Never a lull in the conversation.
We had to head back to reality around 4pm. As I was walking home, Kier was in one of the restaurants writing on the laptop and having a smoothie. Whenever she tries to sit by herself, she gets too much unwanted attention from a huge age-range of men, yuk, that it’s not all that relaxing for her. I sat with her until she finished what she was working on, then we went to pick up Cali.
As we walked there, we ran into a princess parade coming up Santander. It was short, but lots of little kids pariticipating. There was one little marching band, groups of little girls dressed as princesses, a group of kids dressed as chickens, another group of kids dressed up in different professions.
As I was watching the groups go by I asked myself, what little girl woke up this morning and wanted to be a chicken instead of a princess. But Cali’s developed quite a fascination for chickens lately. She might have chosen to be a chicken. After all, how many princesses can lay an egg. Respect, chickens. Which begs the larger question, who should come first in a parade, the chicken or the princess.
Madi was having so much fun in Santa Cruz at her sleepover, they invited her to stay another night.
Paul discovered the hammock, read a book for most of the day, also did a bike ride and workout.
We thought about going out for the evening, but Cali was already too tired. I stayed home with her while Paul and Kier went out for supper. Then her friends found her at the restaurant and she went off to spend the evening with them.
Cali’s frog blog: Today I had lots and lots of fun. Remember the egg I got from the chicken yesterday? Daddy made it for me for breakfast this morning. I went to the family’s house after lunch time. At the family’s house we made tortillas, we did origami, and we were on the swing. We did each of those for a very long amount of time. I’m really tired, so I need to go to sleep now. P.S. I love you all.