Another grid

 Inspired by Regina, I decided to make a grid postcard.  I cut a 4 x 6 piece of painted tissue paper and I drew the grid on the back. I stenciled a pattern on the front and I cut the inchies. I wanted to scramble the pattern and glue the inchies on the postcard. This is when I realized I made a mistake - I stenciled the pattern with pan pastels. Great, but not water proof ... so my design was gone. What to do .. what to do ... no focal point anymore. As I was contemplating the mosaic, I saw a circle ... like a head...hmm ... and voilà...

Guatemalan journal

As usual, I had big artistic plans. I will document my trip. I will come back with a journal chockfull of goodies. I too will have one of those little treasures. After all, I see so many on the net, right?! So I made a journal - nothing fancy, 2 signatures of Arches watercolor paper, burlap for the spine and two pieces of mat board for the cover...

And then ...I came back ... with only few spreads  to document the adventure ... hmmm.
Here they are:

Lake Atitlan

This is the deepest lake in Central America, presumably as deep as 340m. Many consider it one of the most beautiful lakes in the world. I had to go!

And I did ...First, I booked a shuttle that would pick me up at the school and drive me to the hotel in Panajachel (or Pana). Or this was the plan. The shuttle did not show up, so instead of leaving Friday afternoon, I left Saturday morning with the chicken bus. I was not too happy about taking the chicken bus, I have to confess. There is no direct bus from Xela to Pana. One needs to take three busses to get there, one from Xela to Los Encuentros; one from Los Encuentros to Solola and one from Solola to Panajachel. The first trip is about 1.5 hrs, the two others are short.
Solola:

So here I was, the gringa in a bus full of Maya people ... but all went well and I got to Pana around 9:30 AM. Checked in the hotel El amigo then went for breakfast. I ate the best tempeh sandwich of my life in Pana! Who would have thought I have to go all the way to Guatemala to find it ... It was the the LLama del fuego on Calle Santander. I tried to extract the recipe for the marinade from them but to no avail of course.

Then, I went looking for a boat to cross the lake over to Santiago. Somebody wanted me to hire a private boat for 400Quetzales. Ha ...funny. I took the public boat for 20Quetzales (about 2.5$).

Santiago de Atitlan is a cute pueblo, population about 95%, if not 100% Maya, but different than in Xela. There are 23 different Maya people in Guatemala. The difference is visible in how they dress of course - around Xela, they use very vivid colors,  a lot of orange, red, purple. In Santiago, they use more blues and purples, as well as more elaborate head scarfs. In the cathedral, there are also the symbols of the cofradias.

From Santiago, I took another boat to San Pedro. This pueblo was preparing for the Fiera de San Pedro; the locals were busy installing carousels and games, as well as BBQ. San Pedro is also home to yoga studios and other New Age things, but not as much as San Marcos. the latter is knows as the hippy village.

I was planning to go to San Marcos as well, then back to Pana. But all this had to happen before 4:30 PM because after that, there are some currents that make it dangerous to take a boat for Pana after that. And it also started raining... I did not know at the time, but that was tropical storm Alex ...I modified my plans and headed straight to Pana; the rain stopped for a brief period, but then it started again and it did not stop for days. When I left Pana on Sunday, it was still raining and uprooted trees were in the middle of the carretera. Solola is one of the pueblos that were most affected by Alex ...

Oh, and Pana ...it is a cute place, with stored of all kinds, including a health food store with gluten-free products and such. It is much more touristic than Xela and that is sometimes a nuisance ...

Salcaja

This is another town - a suburb of Xela. Here there is a church funded by the Spaniards in 1524 - it is the oldest church in Central America.

 Town streets:

Salcaja also has a lot of stores that sell yarn for weaving. The warehouses in these places have all colors of yarn known to mankind.

The market:

San Andres Xecul

One of the trips organized by the school was to the San Andres pueblo to see the yellow church. This is a pueblo where the population is entirely Maya and the influence of Mayan rituals is visible in the exteriors of this church.

Crusade nr 42 - Strip Ease Take 3

Addiction, your name is stripes! Or so it seems these days ...Here is another stripe-inspired spread.

The pages were prepped with dry brushed paint. The journal was open on the table and as I peeked at the pages from across the table, I "saw" them. The two women faces on the right page. I then transferred two images at the top of the right page. I then added the dancer and the paint chip stripes at the bottom of the page. I did not know what to do with the remaining of the page. From the layout of the images a solution imposed itself: stripes, of course. Doodled stripes.
The yellow square on the left page is a yupo skin (I took a piece of yupo, painted and printed on it, applied gloss medium, let it dry and then peeled off the skin). At the bottom right there is a half-man face that emerged like the other ones. I should have probably used one colour only for doodles; black would be the obvious choice. Using one pattern per stripe would have made the pages clearer. I am OK with the result, except that it is a bit too busy. Thanks for visiting!

Tajumulco

This was the second mission I set for myself for this trip: hiking Tajumulco, the highest peak in Central America.
Once in Xela, I hesitated signing up because it rained every day. It rained every day for the whole three weeks. I was not sure even if the hike would be possible given the weather. It is hard to know for sure because the tour organizers will always say everything is fine, they run the trips no matter what. I am not saying that they are unprofessional or anything, I am just saying that ultimately it is a guessing game.

In the end I signed up with Quetzaltrekkers. We were 22 hikers and 4 guides. Oh .. and I was the oldest ...like twice as old as some of them; old enough to be the mother of most of them....hmmm. 'Nough said.

We left early morning; took two chicken buses and at around 10:30 we started the hike.

Tajumulco shows in the background here. For a 4200m volcanic peak, I was expecting it to look more "scary".The hike is not difficult, but the effects of the altitude are unpredictable. In fact, I got sick. The breathing became laboured and I had to walk slowly. The headache and nausea intensified overnight. The weather was good until about 3 PM. Then, clouds moved in and later it started raining. It rained the whole night; the water got into the tent, the sleeping bag got wet and I was cold. The next day, I managed to take a picture from the top of the mountain. I could see the waves, not too clearly but they were there. In retrospect, I should have taken the one day tour. The two day tour is organised with the hope of seeing a sunrise from atop the volcano. But that seldom helps because of the clouds. On the other hand, the one day trip does not require a lot of equipment, hence less weight to carry up. The weather seems to be ok until early afternoon, so there are more chances on the one day trip to have a nice view from the top. Of course, this is relative as one can bever be sure how the weather turns out ... however, one day trip is definetely better as far as altitude sickness goes.

Spanish School

There are so many schools in Xela that it took a while to decide, but finally signed up with El mundo en espanol.
This is a small, family run school. Classes are given in the backyard of the school director, Gladis. Her whole family is involved in a way or another. I read somewhere that she pays the teachers and the homestay families a fair wage (which is not always the case) and this was important to me. Their website basically sold the school to me because that was the kind of experience I was looking for. When I signed up, I was not sure if I will live with Gladis and her family or with a different family. Secretly, I was hoping to stay with Gladis because I knew that, with such a big family, there will always be people around to talk to. And guess what ...I stayed with Gladis.

Other members of the family were Mama Chaito, Gladis's two daughters, Gladis's granddaughter, Gladis's sister-in-law Cindy, Cindy's daughter and tio Lionel. In the end, it turned out that tio Lionel was nobody's uncle, but an old family friend that had no place to live and now he lives with Gladis.

There were also a number of friends, relatives, colleagues, teammates etc etc coming in and out all the time. The table at lunch and supper was always full; almost every day there were people I did not know. I spent a lot of time with the family, asking questions about everything starting with cooking and ending with the civil war. It helped that I knew some Spanish already and that I was not afraid to talk, regardless how many mistakes I made.

Oh... I forgot the "mascotas":

The rabbit thought she was a cat - she drunk cat's milk; she ate cat food ...they were a riot together ...
View from the kitchen door:

 

 There were few other independent students and a group of medical students from the US. Guess who was the oldest ...and not by few years, by a generation ... I think I have to face the reality. I might be running marathons, but ...

Crusade nr 42 - Strip Ease Take 2

Hohum ...Looks like I am addicted to stripes! I wanted to use horizontal and diagonal stripes this time. On the left page, I used wallpaper stripes. Focal point is an image tranfer on wallpaper. I added some doodles and wrote on top. I should have maybe written only around the image; now everything sort of blends together. On the right page, I wanted to preserve the images at the top, so I glued the stripes diagonally, added some stamping and doodling. I contemplating adding a strong color to add some contrast but in the end I voted against. I don't know how good this is, but my studio assistant studied it attentively ...

Xela

Early morning, I took the bus to Xela, my final destination for the three weeks of Spanish immersion. I went with Linea Dorada; the ride was comfortable, the highway clean and the weather nice. Traces of Agatha were still visible on the road, but the ride took only 3.5 hours. My guatemalan mom picked me up from the bus station and brought me home. Xela is the second largest city in Guatemala; it is quiet and away from the tourist traps; it is safer that Guatemala city, but it is still not a good idea no walk alone after dark. Here are some pics:

Around the market:

 The Parque Central:

Home-made tofu

The newest addition on the list of homemaking attempts is (drum roll...drum roll...drum roll) tofu, ladies and gents! Yes, the humble, bland tofu!

Why did I wait so long to leave my personalized imprint on the process whose ultimate result is a cake of whitish soy surd? The reason is simple. I thought I needed a special starter to have the soy curd. Turns out I do not. Lemon juice works just fine.

So what did I do, you might wonder. Well, let me explain.
First, I took two cups of soy beans and soaked them. For a while. How long is a while? Hmm .....say overnight. That should do it.

I then rinsed the beans and blended them in the Vitamix - once cup beans, three cups hot water. What? I did not hear. Oh, no the Vitamix is not essential. It helps if you have it, but any blender would work.

Then, I strained the milk and brought it to a boil. Then I turned the stove off and add about 1/2 cup lemon juice. And voila ...the milk started curdling. I strained it through double cheese cloth, then I pressed the resulting tofu cake and voila...the result:

Now, if only I can find organic soy beans ... Soy is one of the most genetically modified crops as far as I know, so I prefer to buy organic or not buy.

This, ladies and gents, concludes my adventure in tofu-making. A presto!

Guatemala

Why Guatemala you might wonder ... It sort of happened. I wanted to perfect my Spanish; I started checking countries that offered homestay and Spanish immersion courses, but the prices were higher. I started reading about Guatemala and in the end, I decided to take the leap. This does not mean I was not concerned. I was. I usually go in an all-inclusive resort and do not wonder on my own. Now, I wanted to break this "rule".

So, after much to-and-fro I finally booked the ticket. And as luck would have it, few days later Pacaya erupted. And then Agatha hit. Disaster! What was I supposed to do now? I contacted American Airlines to see what happens with the flights; I contacted my school in Xela to check how things were; I contacted the bus line to make sure the buses run; I contacted Inguat to have the latest on the weather. Then, I packed and left at 3AM on a Saturday mid-June.

The flights were uneventful; I flew via Miami. I was surprised when I landed - the airport was big, new, clean ... and empty. I think we were the only flight that landed at that time. I had booked a room for the night at Dos Lunas ; the package included transfer from the airport and from the hotel to the bus. So I safely arrived in Guatemala. This is what I found at the hotel:

Of course, there were other flags, but I had a strong patriotic feeling that evening...

Crusade nr 42 - Strip Ease

I decided to brave the elements and move along with the crusade. I followed the instructions; things went along smoothly. But I had three images that stubbornly decided they "needed" to be in this spread as well. These images come from those freebie postcards used to advertise this and that. This is the end result:

There were some elements on the pages that I wanted to preserve, such as the heart and a little flower on the first page. My name, of course! I glued a fabric flower and a stripe of green to two of the faces to make a kind of dress. I wanted to add some doodling, but I think it is busy enough. I "lost" the stripes though ...
Thank you for visiting!

Back just in time ...

... for the worst heat wave in 23 years. Temperatures up to 45C and no reprieve until at least Saturday. The city opened six cooling centres and offers transportation to those who cannot make it to the centers on their own. Ouuch...

I spend the last three weeks in Guatemala, learning Spanish and hiking. I hoped to fill in a travel journal, but I only managed few drawings that I will be posting soon. For now, I will go hide from the heat ... see you soon!