jane´s here 🙂 spending the next few days exploring other communities around the lake together.

if you are visiting guatemala, you absolutely must see antigua. it is a lovely city, full of old buildings and older ruins, cafes, bookstores, and nice hotels. however, if you are travelling around the country, excluding tikal, don’t buy any souvenirs here, they are ridiculously expensive. it is also by far the most expensive place to sleep and eat in the country.

just saying…

off with jane (woohoo!) to explore some more of the pueblos around the lake starting tomorrow.

a coup in honduras, wow.

all michael jackson all the time on the news because he died, meh.

i’m home!

well, future home, anyway. it was a wonderful feeling cresting the hill and seeing the lake for the first time. a bit rough on the brakes on the way down, and i had to do most of it in first gear, but the farbeltruck made it with flying colors. am staying in the hotel owned by the brother of the guy we are hoping to buy land from. the title registration still isn’t complete, so i’ll have to come back again later this year. awww. so far it looks like we will own the land sometime this fall. i went over there today and envisioned what it will look like filled with fruit and shade trees, terraces, gardens, a solar hottub, and our passive solar water collecting home! it took eleven days to drive here. about 5 hours driving a day and three with no driving at all. on the way back we are going to palenque and then heading up through the interior with a brief jog to the coast to avoid mexico city. that trip doesn’t start for 11 days, though 🙂

next time you are disappointed by or pissed at obama, consider the alternative:

pic thanks to

http://www.papacho.ch

the website of a swiss photographer here in san cristobal. he is quite good.

an hour uphill, through the fog, with occasional glimpses of stunning mountains and canyons, and we are now in san cristobal de las casas, chiapas, where we will stay for at least three days. this is my kind of town. old, colonial buildings, rich culture, cool weather, good food, inexpensive hotels (we are paying about $16 a night for a double room in the center of town and another $8 for secure parking), and lots to do and see. jane, you will love this town when you come here. lydia, any recomendations for restaurants, sights, etc?

estamos en tuxla, chiapas, casi un hora de san cristobal. desfortunadamente, hay lluvia, y no podemos explorar. espero que sera posible en la mañana.

mucho manejando hoy. ahorita, negra modelo…

This is from an article in the St. Petersburg Times
Newspaper on Sunday.

The Business Section asked readers for ideas on “How
Would You Fix
the Economy?”

Dear Mr. President,
Please find below my suggestion for fixing America’s economy. Instead
of giving billions of dollars to companies that will squander the money on
lavish parties and unearned bonuses, use the following plan. You can
call it the Patriotic Retirement Plan:

There are about 40 million people over 50 in the work
force. – Pay them $1 million apiece severance for early retirement with
the following stipulations:
1) They MUST retire. Forty million job openings – Unemployment fixed.
2) They MUST buy a new American CAR. Forty million cars ordered – Auto Industry fixed.
3) They MUST either buy a house or pay off their mortgage – Housing Crisis fixed.

It can’t get any easier than that!

P.S. If more money is needed, have all members in
Congress and their constituents pay their taxes…

via my dad.

EDIT… as my dad pointed out in his next email, this would cost 40 trillion dollars.

hoy estamos en acapulco. habia un poco lluvia este mañana, pero ahora esta perfecto. fue cientos de personas en la playa ayer (domingo). todos mexicanos. este mañana, nunca. pienso que es lo mismo cada fin de semana. yo quise visitar la fuerte de san diego, pero esta cerrado lunes. que lastima. es un sitio historico con gran vistas de acapulco. en cambio, estoy caminando en el centro. mañana vamos por puerto escondido. hasta luego!

today we are in acapulco. there was a brief rainstorm this morning, but the sun is out now. there were hundreds of people on the beach yesterday (sunday). all mexicans. this morning, none. i imagine it´s the same every weekend. i wanted to visit the fuerte de san diego, but it´s closed mondays. a shame. its a historic site with views of the whole city. instead i´m walking around the center of town. tomorrow, we are heading to puerto escondido. ciao!

a long day of driving today, dodging slow trucks and fast but stupid iguanas. we stopped at playa la ticala, a surfer´s hangout frequented in the past by a couple of tucson friends, had a wonderful lunch, said no thanks to some mota, took some pictures, and headed south to playa azul, where we are spending the night. the coast is unbelievably beautiful and virtually undeveloped. the mexican people should thank their government for restricting access to miltinational hotels! tomorrow we should make it to acapulco for some much needed laundry. there will probably be few tourists, thanks to a shootout that happened a while ago. in order to do laundry, we´ll stay two nights.

paz