Ushering Susan in.

Susan has arrived!

I didn't have a chance to blog yesterday evening because of the celebration we had to commemorate her arrival.

We split up from Jessica and Katy in the morning yesterday and they took a shuttle to Chichicastanango, which resulted in their having a very fine day. They shopped (including getting a very special gift for every single member of their softball team!) and visited the church there and had lunch in a second story restaurant that afforded them a bird's eye view of the marketplace.

While they were in Chichi, Chris and I did some major shopping of our own. We hit the market to prepare for a Guatemalan dinner party. The first time we went to the market, there were several things I was comfortable purchasing: pineapple, carrots, bananas... mostly things that were extremely familiar and/or had peels. After multiple repeat visits, my comfort level grew to include the purchase of fruits I had never seen or eaten before, like the dragon fruit or the lychee, and all manner of vegetables that were well loved and newly discovered. It's interesting what staying in a place for several weeks will do and yesterday I didn't think a thing of buying our shrimp for dinner in the marketplace. It did give me pause, however, to have to behead them myself and so Chris asked the woman to do it for us. She just nodded her head and started ripping the heads off. When she tired of it, she nudged her daughter to do it, who rolled her eyes a bit but finished the job.
We had decided on fish and shrimp tacos with guacamole and mango salsa and stir-fried fajita vegetables for our menu and we were able to get everything we needed and all of it is pictured above.

Chris and I spent a considerable chunk of the afternoon chopping vegetables but also enjoying one another's company, and we were done in time to finish the afternoon in the pool.

Katy and Jessica returned from Chichi safely and we did some show and tell about our purchases and theirs. Susan's shuttle was scheduled to arrive at 6:30 and it did. Her first flight of the day was at 5:30 in the morning, so she had been up since 2 a.m. and was utterly exhausted so we had dinner as soon as she arrived and it was decent food with delicious conversation and hearty laughter. While we were only able to share one evening all together with Katy, Jessica and Susan, it was a good one. I think everyone slept the sleep of the contented afterward.

We broke bread again this morning, having a simple meal of bread and jam and peanut butter while we waited for Jessica's shuttle to collect her for the return trip to Guatemala City. I was sorry to see her go but so impressed she came in the first place, and I hope that in the end she feels it was worth it do so.

We went into town today so that Susan could get a sense of Pana. We wandered up and down Calle Santander and in and out of stalls, where our eyes danced from one beautiful textile to the next and Katy helped us drive down the prices on several things in which we were interested, at one point bringing something down from Q2800 to Q700--a great savings. We had lunch in town which I thought was very good, and if I could remember the name of the place, I would recommend it to others who were coming here but I can't.

After a morning in town, Katy spent the rest of the day at the pool, Chris was a bit under the weather and kept to himself and Susan and I went to the nature reserve up the road. Chris and I were there the first week we spent in Guatemala but it is worth a trip back and another trip back just to see the monkeys. Susan, like me, had little experience observing monkeys in their natural habitat and was captivated by them. We brought some dragon fruit for them and it is amazing watching them come down to the ground from the tree tops to collect their booty, eat some at the ground level, wrap what is left in their tail and then climb back up to the tree canopy to eat the rest. It is so neat. We walked the short trail and passed in front of the waterfall on a hammock bridge and visited the butterfly breeding ground, as well. We finished our afternoon in the swimming pool.

Chris still wasn't feeling well at dinner time so he begged off and the three of us went downtown first to investigate possible curatives in the pharmacy for him (found one--antibiotics here are unregulated!) and then to make some travel arrangements for a mountain biking tour Katy is going on in the morning and then to have dinner. We walked down to the water and cut across town at the lakefront to eat at one of the restaurants that sit right on the lake and, in the dark, the tiny twinkling of lights from the towns on the other side are like tinsel on a distant tree: gorgeous.

Now, it's time for bed so Katy can be up and out and on her mountain bike at 8 a.m. and a boat is picking Susan and I (and hopefully Chris will feel better enough to join us) at our dock for a tour of four different towns on the far side of the lake that we have not yet been to see. Everything suggests it will be another great day for us so I look forward to my dreams tonight.