Coffee and painting at Lake Atitlan & creating a new card game and watching waves in El Paredón.

January 14, 16:56

We have two cups of coffee in front of us - a dark roast and a medium roast. We just had a really great coffee tour in San Juan. The woman giving the tour spoke English which made it a lot easier for me. And she explained the whole business and process very well! I did a coffee tour in Bolivia with my parents as well, but this company, where we are now, is a little bigger so we got to see more of the plantation and even saw people working on the fermentation of the beans! Well, ‘working’ the Guatemalan way, which means that one person actually does something and the others just stand there and look. Anyways, my favourite is the dark roast so I’m gonna buy a bag to bring with me to The States!

January 15, 14:40

Back on our private boat in direction of San Pedro. Yes you read that right - private boat. Crazyyyy. We wanted to go to San Antonio today, which is a small non-touristic town on the other side of the lake. There are no public boats that go there, so the idea was to take a boat to Panajachel and then take a bus from there. But the total journey would take us at least one and a half hour each way, whereas the private boat only takes us half an hour. And since we haven’t really been doing expensive things the past week we figured we could afford it. But why all the effort? - For pottery! Or so we thought. Us was told that San Antiono is the pottery town at the lake. We heard you could do pottery classes and we could just go there and there would be plenty of options. Maybe because there was a party going on or maybe we were just misinformed, but that was not the case. There are indeed a couple of pottery companies but none where we could try it for ourselves. So we were slightly disappointed, but only slightly cause we found a great alternative!

We were able to paint one of the ceramics! The painting table was placed right in front of a window with a beautiful view. We could choose our own ceramic to paint and took place next to the two men working. We tried our best to make a good first drawing with pencil before we dared to touch the paint. But at some point we really had to start painting. And OMG how I wish we could have practiced on something else first. I’m really afraid of how this is gonna turn out. We couldn’t take the ceramics with us immediately cause they have to glaze it first. And very kindly they offered to ship them to Antigua where we will be in a couple of days. So I’m both super curious and scared for what the final product is gonna look like.

January 16, 14:26

In the shuttle bus to El Paredón! Final last destination and I’m so excited to be going back to the coast! Where the weather is way too hot, daily sunsets on the beach, reading at coffeeshops, looking at waves. Perfect life if you ask me!

This morning we got up at 3:30 to see the sunrise. Every time the alarm goes off to watch a sunrise my brain goes something like this: “why the fuck are you doing this. Sunsets are just as nice. Just go watch those and have a good nights rest.” But then some hours later you sit on top of a mountain and all the different colours start appearing in the sky. And at that moment all I can think is: “this is such a beautiful thing. I should do this more often.” Cause it really was beautiful. Especially with the clouds hovering above the lake and steam coming from one of the volcanos. It almost stole the show from the pretty colours.

Januari 17, 09:28

We’re back at one of my favourite coffeeshops in El Paredón: Zoah Cafè! The place with the restaurant on the first floor so you can feel some of the wind and the three cats. Although there is only one cat that gifts us with their presence right now. But honestly, better one cat than none. Before we came here we went to the beach for an early morning swim and after breakfast I think we’re gonna enjoy the doing of nothing that is best enjoyed at the beach.

January 18, 10:55

OMG Mike got a kitten. A 9 weeks old kitten! He’s all black and super fluffy. And we named him Keizer Kuzco! It’s the movie ‘The Emperors new groove’, but in Dutch. We watched it when we were in Vilcabamba, Ecuador and afterwards continued to call every Llama we saw: Kuzco. SO CUTE.

What’s also cute is that Karo and I just finished making our own bracelets. We could choose our own colours and own design, and then a woman from El Paredón taught us how to do it. Super easy too and we now have our own little souvenir!

January 19, 18:31

Let’s play some cards. Again. It’s all we have been doing the past days or weeks really. And I love it. We even tried to come up with a new game. It’s a bit messy and chaotic but that’s honestly how we like to play card games. The game is called: ‘Zussen’, we have yet to think of the right English translation. Maybe ‘Sisters?’

I’ll try to explain: you play with two decks. They get shuffled and you deal the cards amongst every player until the two shuffled decks are gone. Then you both take 7 cards from your own deck and the game starts once you look at the cards. The goal is to get rid of your cards first. You do so by making sets of cards. The sets belong to everyone and you’re allowed to add a card or even remove a card from a set to make a new one, as long as the remaining is a set of at least three cards. You keep taking cards from your deck to make the sets or add to a set, until you have no cards left in your deck or in your hands. The person who gets rid of their cards first, wins. TADA.

January 20, 17:18

We’re on the mooooove. After spending three full days and half a day today at the beach doing barely anything it’s time to go to our last destination: Antigua. The past days we’ve swam in the ocean with crazy currents, chilled in a hammock, played cards, went kayaking/ supping and watched the sunset. I really love El Paredón and being close to the ocean just really calms me down. I feel more at peace, I feel like life is easier, I am more excited about the future and I am completely living in the lovely moments. I’m just my best me when I’m close to the ocean, so I’m really excited that in not even a week I will be living only 30 minutes away from the beach. So happy!