The little house I am currently staying in on the Rio Dulce

It seems like a lifetime ago that I was sitting in my place on Lake Atitlan making arrangements for Brenda and Adrian´s trip to Guatemala in February. Now they´re gone and I´m wrapping up the last couple of weeks in Central America.

One of the places I reserved was on the Rio Dulce (literally Sweet River) at a place called Hotel Tortugal. With thatched roofs and a real jungle feeling, we decided it was a bargain at $50 a night for an adorable little house in a romantic setting for Brenda and Adrian and reasonable for a bungalow at $40 a night for me.

However, when we arrived last Friday, the romantic little house was very cute but my bungalow was dark, small and wasn´t at all conducive to getting any work done this week. So off I went to speak with the owner about what we could do. Thankfully, she understood completely, especially when she heard I was working on my next book and would be spending lots of time in my place writing.

Once I made it clear to her what was important to me (light, space, privacy and a place to work), she took me to this little house behind where Brenda and Adrian were staying. Very private, located at the top of the hill overlooking the river with jungle all around, Brenda and I were pretty impressed by the size and amenities the little house had. Lovely livingroom furniture, a wrap-around balcony with tables, chairs and plenty of places to work, a full kitchen and a large bedroom all added up to a nice house.

I was thinking, “yikes, if the little bungalow is $40, Brenda and Adrian´s is $50, this place must be $150 a night.” I was calculating in my mind how much I would be willing to pay to have the place which coincidentally had just been vacated that day after a month´s occupancy. Fortuitous or what?

So of course my only comment was, “how much for the week?” She stopped and said, “we normally only rent it out for the month and to people we know and trust but I´ll rent it to you for the week for….$200.” I heard Brenda almost gasp behind me and I quickly said, “it´s a deal. Can you get a cleaner in here this afternoon so I can move in? It will be worth a nice tip if she can do it?” Needless to say, I was moving in before the cleaning lady was locking up the door.

Don´t ask me how she did the math on this one, but what Brenda has noticed repeatedly throughout our journey together is that I know when to shut up in negotiations. I never speak first and I always allow the other person to put out the first offer. Amazingly, it is often better than what I was willing to pay.

So how do you get what you want? First of all, be clear on what you want. Secondly, expect to get what you want OR better. I had told Brenda and Adrian several times on the trip that I couldn´t wait to see what my surprise at the Rio Dulce was going to be. The beauty of Antigua had completely taken me by surprise – I wasn´t expecting it to be so pretty. The weather in Tikal was a complete surprise to all of us as we donned jackets and sweaters instead of sweating profusely. The only thing left was my surprise in Rio Dulce. I expected it to be good but this was an amazing surprise!

Thirdly, learn to keep quiet. Maybe it´s all those years of training as a Jehovah´s Witness going from door to door, I don´t know. But I do know that as much as I can talk, I can also shut up when it´s in my highest and best interest to do so. Negotiations is definitely one of those times and I have repeatedly found that silence and patience are two valuable tools to get what you want.

The owner is thrilled because I´m happy, she´s already rented out my bungalow and she has an extra $200 this week renting the house. Now if she could only talk to the cockroaches that like this place as much as I do….then I´d be even happier.

The hot waterfalls at Finca Paraiso

Life in the Rio Dulce is another world. It´s hard to believe that it´s the same country as Lake Atitlan and Antigua. It reminds me alot of when I lived on the coast in Ecuador. It´s probably all the bugs that has me reminiscing the most. On Saturday Brenda, Adrian and I had a fabulous day, hiring a private boat and a captain to take us to Livingston. Livingston is unique for 2 reasons – you can only get to it by boat and it has a large population of Garfuna people. We got off the boat and thought we were in Jamaica!

Yup, they speak English, they are black like the Jamacians and it felt like another world. It was a total culture shock! After a few hours wandering through the town, eating and drinking, talking to some very interesting folks, we headed back to Rio Dulce. The river, although not the largest by any means in Central America is considered one of the most beautiful and our captain took us through narrow tributaries where we could have been on a Universal Studios movie set in Hollywood.

Sunday we went for a walk and found a fabulous hotel on the river where we had lunch and we explored the castle that is at the entrance to a massive lake. There were lots of pirates in this area for centuries and the castle has been beautifully rebuilt. It was also great to see lots of Guatemalan families enjoying picnics on the grounds and enjoying their day off together.

Monday morning Brenda and Adrian were off with their private driver to Guatemala City and flew home today. Back on my own for the next few weeks, I´m catching up on my suntanning and work!

As I woke up yesterday morning to my avocado partially eaten by what would appear to be a rat, they fumigated my place and put out rat poison on bananas. This morning I woke up to 14 dead cockroaches in just the livingroom and kitchen. I stopped counting when I got to the bedroom. I could hear the rat in the roof last night but hopefully he stays along ways away from me and we´ll get along just fine.

Instead as there was no electricity this morning, I hopped on a boat into town and caught the local transport out to Finca Paraiso, a local place that is raved about in the guidebooks.

Now local transport was something else again. As Brenda and Adrian chose to do the trip as first class as possible, we have been hiring our own boats and drivers. It really is so affordable to do it that way here but today I was back to my usual setting – what do the locals do? So instead I was in the equivalent of a Chevy van and there were 20 people in it. People were standing, sitting on top of each other and the door was open for part of the trip. The driver, although he was driving fairly slowly was on his cell phone, making change, adjusting the radio and manouvering around corners where the roadsign said, “Dangerous Curves”. It was not a trip for the faint of heart although I never felt like death was imminent which has been the case in other countries.

I arrived at Finca Paraiso 35 minutes later and thankfully another Guatemalan family disembarked with me because there were no proper sign or directions. $1.20 was admission and again no signs as to where to go. I headed off on the path through the jungle and found my own way. Amazingly enough, there was an entire tour bus full of French-speaking people who were just finishing up their swim in the hot thermal waters and then I shared the place with about 15 people from New Zealand and Australia! Incredible how people get around.

Finca Paraiso is unlike anything I have seen. It´s a pool in a river that has cold water with scalding hot waterfalls that warm the water. I take the hottest showers of anyone I know and this was too hot for me. Later the guide took me to the source of the water which bubbles out of the earth at about 76 degrees Centigrade or 169 degrees Farhenheit. The plants in the water are actually white they are so burned by the sulphur and heat.

Needless to say, it was a fabulous experience bathing in the hot/warm/cold waters – it was your choice as to where you wanted to relax. After a very cold beer at the tiny restaurant that wasn´t open except for beer, I got a ride back to Rio Dulce in a similar van – fortunately with only half the people as the trip in.

A bit of shopping, a nice lunch of garlic shrimp and a boat trip back home. Thankfully electricity was back on and I can work for the rest of the day. Tomorrow I will tell you about this amazing little house I am staying in – despite the rat and the bugs, it´s very neat. And how I got it had Brenda spitting nails. It´s a great story of creating what you want.

Senor Pablo buying notebooks

Today I met my dear Senor Pablo in Panajachel to buy 262 notebooks for the students of San Pablo, a poor village on Lake Atitlan. I phoned last night and made arrangements to meet him this morning in the closest and largest town on the lake. He sounded pretty bad with a headache, cough and sore throat. However, he flat turned down my idea that he might not want to do this big trip today.

Although he was late because the boat was later than he expected, he arrived with a delightful smile on his face. I met him at one end of town and the place he wanted to buy the notebooks was at the other end of the town. I would have walked it easily but he was obviously sick. However, again he never suggested that it would be difficult for him. I quickly hailed a tuk-tuk and for about $1.20 for the 2 of us we got to the other end of the town. A small price to buy but half of a day´s wage for Senor Pablo.

I stayed out of the way in this small and very busy store. I just took some pictures and paid the bill. I expected it to be over 1300 Quetzals but the bill came in at just over 300. We even asked them twice if they had charged us the right amount but they insisted that it was right.

We walked out with 2 boxes of notebooks for a great price! Senor Pablo then asked if I would be willing to pay for two of his youngest children to complete their education. He has a 17-year-old son and a 15-year-old daughter who can´t go to school this year because the bill for the registration and supplies is $50 each. I decided that we had got such an amazing deal on the notebooks that I would give him the $100 for the two teens to go to school this year. When you are supporting a family on $2.50 per day and have a very ill wife, $50 is a huge amount of money.

I also gave him 50 Quetzales ($6) for his boat trips to Panajachel and back, the tuk-tuk back to the dock with the 2 heavy boxes and his day´s lost wage of 20 Quetzales. He was incredibly grateful.

I found it fascinating that since Sunday when we arranged to get together to make this purchase, he never once talked about losing a day´s wage or the cost of traveling to Panajachel. Amazingly, he has only ever asked for money for others and never once asked for himself.

I know that if I was about to lose 1/6 of my wage for the week and I had no savings, nothing to fall back on, had a sick wife at home and kids still in school with expenses looming, I would have a worry or two. I might have even whined a bit or at least brought up the loss of my wages and expenses involved in doing this charitable act. But not him. Not a peep. I was pretty impressed because I don´t know that I would have been so obliging or gracious.

This little man has certainly been a gift in my life. My dear friend Brenda arrives on Monday and so on Wednesday we are scheduled to go to San Pablo to help hand out the school supplies.

What an amazing week it has been. I am having a potluck here at the place tomorrow night for the folks staying in the building. There should be 8 or 9 of us. It will be fun to get to know these adventurous foreigners.

Have a fabulous weekend and I´ll be back next week with some other things I am anxious to share with you about the lake and life here in Guatemala.

Senor Pablo outside his home in San Pablo

Last week while I was in San Pedro, an older man approached me and started chatting with me. Once you´ve had this happen a couple of times, you figure out pretty quickly that they always want something from you. Sure enough, he got straight to the point in a very convincing manner. Senor Pablo from the small village of San Pablo was soliciting funds for pencils for the school in his town.

San Pablo was hard hit by Hurricane Stan in 2005 and is one of the few major villages on Lake Atitlan that has no tourism revenue. We talked for about 30 minutes while he showed me his credentials – a letter signed by the mayor of the village attesting to his honesty and credibility.

We finally agreed that I would give him the equivalent of $25 and he would buy pencils for 100 students and however many notebooks he could with the money left over. We also agreed that I would come to his house to see what he bought with my money.

I took his telephone number and on Sunday morning I phoned Senor Pablo and made arrangements to be in his village at 1:30 in the afternoon. I arrived in town by tuktuk during their massive annual festival but Senor Pablo was waiting for my phone call. He met me in front of the church and took me back to his very humble abode.

In a room that was dark, smoky from using firewood inside to cook over with no proper ventilation, a rooster tied up and crowing away and a makeshift shower where a man (in his underwear) was busy washing himself, with children and grandchildren coming and going, he pulled up a chair for me and proudly showed me the 100 pencils and 38 notebooks.

We talked for about half an hour about what else the children needed as he is looking after the poorest 100 children in the school, orphans or children without fathers or destitute families that cannot afford the school supplies. The school has about 1200 students in the morning and 1200 students in the afternoon but his concern is for the poorest.

Considering this is a man 58 years old who works in the fields 6 days a week for $2.40 a day, his compassion and passion for raising the village out of poverty through educating the young was impressive. I left him money for medicine for his sick wife and said I would get back to him about the rest of the supplies which was now a $200 bill.

I emailed my dear friend Brenda who is arriving here on Monday and asked her if she wanted to contribute to the project. “Absolutely!” she said. Not only is she helping out financially but she also has her suitcase filled with more goodies for the children. I talked to Greg and he offered cash and algae, his special healing product, for the wife. I was near tears I was so thrilled that two of the most special people in my life would be contributing to making a difference in this little village.

Yesterday I went to San Pedro to get the $200 out of the bank but alas, both bank machines in San Pedro were out of cash and there are no ATM machines in San Marcos or San Pablo. However, I phoned Senor Pablo and let him know that we would be providing the money for the rest of the notebooks the 100 students require for the next several months.

I will return to San Pedro this morning to hopefully get the money or I will have to travel to Panajachel. We are going to meet on Friday and do the shopping together and then Brenda and I will meet up with him and the students next week to dispense the school supplies. I am sure it will be quite the experience.

To watch his face and to feel his sincerity and conviction to move his people out of their poverty has been an empowering experience for me. To be so diligent with so little materially but to have a hope and purpose has been an inspiration. It also reinforces my goal to create massive income to be able to do massive work. This is a small drop in the bucket of what needs to be done in this one little area.

However, it has been a joy to get to know this delightful little man and to be part of raising a whole new generation that will hopefully be able to move out of this cycle of poverty. Makes me even more grateful that I have the education and opportunities I have and more committed than ever to use those to help others.

I am working on a win-win-win for everybody where you will have an opportunity to help out here at the lake. It won´t be ready for a few weeks yet but I know that many of you will want to share in helping out with some of these most amazing projects.

Have a fabulous day and feel lots of gratitude for all of the advantages you have wherever you live. Please also send a thought or two to the majority who are so much less fortunate.

The lake is used as a laundry mat and bathtub

Called “the closest thing to Eden on Earth”, by The Lonely Planet Guide, Lake Atitlan is now being threatened. Since Hurricane Stan ravaged the area is 2005, Lake Atitlan has never been the same. During the hurricane, an entire village was destroyed killing 1,400 people and leaving 5,000 homeless but also the sewage treatment plant in Panajachel, one of the largest towns on the lake, was severely damaged and has never been repaired.

It´s been interesting putting the pieces together as I have spoken to locals, foreigners and done lots of research on the internet. I feel like I have just scratched the surface but I certainly know more than I did a month ago.

Just before I arrived, I was completely unaware that the lake has suffered a terrible algae bloom. You can see pictures and learn more at www.lakeatitlanhealth.com Apparently this beautiful lake I look at every day with awe and wonderment was more like pea soup. The photos are pretty alarming! It scared some people for awhile and some action was taken but once it cleared, life has unfortunately for the most part returned to normal.

It´s a long story of what has happened since the hurricane and I don´t have all the pieces…yet. There is lots that still remains to be learned about this toxic form of algae but Lake Atitlan is by no means out of the woods. I have learned that there are currently six villages that have raw sewage coming directly into the lake. This is just one of the more serious problems on top of the pesticides from the coffee production and farming that flow into the lake.

Lake Atitlan is unusual because it was formed by a collapsed volcano cone thousands of years ago. Consequently, there is no fresh water source. It is so beautiful because it is surrounded by 3 traditional cone shaped volcanoes. It is also considered the deepest lake in Central America (320 metres – 1050 feet approximately) but that has given people a false sense of security. They honestly believe that because of the depth, Lake Atitlan can handle whatever they give it. Unfortunately, that is not true as is obvious by the toxic algae bloom this past fall.

There are several contributing factors to the growing problem in the lake. One is the picture above. The lake is used as a laundrymat by many of the indigenous people and unfortunately, the soap they are using is full of phosphates. Now I will be the first to tell you, I know very little about phosphates but I do know that the typical laundry soap most people buy is bad for us and the environment. And now that the lake is sick, it´s like a person who has had a serious ailment. It can´t handle the extra stress and pressure of all the toxins from laundry soap, pesticides and other sources of contamination.

In the past the Mayan women made their own homemade soap; now they buy the packaged soap instead. And honestly, with the heavy loads these women already carry, babies on their backs, huge loads of produce and firewood literally on their heads, combined with extreme poverty, little medical care and primitive living conditions, it´s hard to begrudge them the luxury of buying a package of soap like I do to wash the clothes. However, this change in custom is just one more deadly change in habit that is threatening the lake.

Aldous Huxley apparently described the lake as “the most beautiful lake in the world and really too much of a good thing”. And seriously, there hasn´t been a morning that I have awoken here that hasn´t taken my breath away and made me smile.

I will continue to share what I am learning and also some ways that changes are being made. I know there are alot of foreigners in the area that are deeply concerned and are doing some great things. I´ll look forward to sharing those with you too!