Guatemala, Part Five: Tom and Asa Decide To Go Shopping

Our departure for Pana was supposed to mark the beginning of the "true vacation" part of the trip. Up till then we had been renting a house and fending for ourselves: buying groceries, cooking meals, washing dishes, doing laundry -- and when I say "we" I mean above all Tesi. Add to that the water/plumbing fiasco and a somewhat busy social schedule, including emotionally laden meetings with Amadi's birth family, and you have a week that was long on satisfaction but short on relaxation.

I have to say about the grocery shopping that, although it was different from home in some respects (bumpy roads, hard to park, hard to find things in the store), it was just like home in one way: in spite of our best efforts to plan ahead there was always at least one more thing we needed, and I don't think a day ever went by without a trip to La Bodegona, the supermarket.

The next 48+ hours were to be different. On Saturday we were to be driven to Pana, where we had rooms reserved at a very good hotel. On Sunday we were to have a private tour of Lake Atitlan by motorboat (lancha). On Monday we would be driven back to Antigua. In between, we would be free to choose between swimming in the hotel pool, napping in a hammock or in the room, doing a little gift shopping -- whatever. We would have meals in the hotel or in some nearby restaurant. In short, it was time to take it easy. Furthermore, Tesi had arranged for someone else to prepare dinner for us when we got back to the house Antigua on Monday: Nancy, who cleans the house twice a week. Tesi even had a plan for Tuesday dinner, which was to save us from another trip to La Bodegona before leaving for home on Wednesday.

And that's basically how the weekend went, except for a couple of us getting a pretty severe case of the kind of gastro-intestinal trouble that sometimes affects visitors to that part of the world.

When we got back to Antigua on Monday, Gerry mentioned that she was at a stage where she would very much like to have some fruit to eat -- the one thing we didn't have! Asa and I volunteered to go to the store, and in no time there was a shopping list: as long as you're going there, how about a couple of big red onions? And some yogurt. And a thing of whole milk, but not too big. Sugar. Paper napkins. And we could probably use another loaf of bread. You could even, instead of supermarket bread, get something good from one of those other places: Organico or Sabe Rico. And we might as well see if they have an ice pack for Gerry's back. Oh, and just see if they have any brightly colored kitchen towels to take home, with pictures of something Guatemalan on them.

It was Asa's idea to make this expedition on foot rather than by Jeep. I thought it was a great idea: a little exercise, a little adventure, a little special time together. I did stop and raise the question of timing -- I didn't want to delay dinner, especially if Nancy was sticking around to serve it to us -- but after a brief discussion it was agreed that dinner would not be until 5:30 anyway, and off we went.