Guatemala day 4

OK I have now officially had a few days in this country and I have one pretty serious thing I must talk about. What is the deal with the food here? Ok now I know that I am a vegetarian…ok well honestly I eat fish and seafood but no other meats. Although I do eat a small amount of cheeses and yogurt but rarely other dairy products.  OK so yeah I’m a vegetarian and I know that sometimes having weird diet habits in foreign countries is super difficult. But I figure heck it’s like Mexican-ish and that’s super easy to eat things from and with the seafood it should be fine. Yeah I was a little wrong. Ok so yes some of the places have some veggie things to choose from but many don’t.  It’s been ok so far but I am a little disappointed.

But what is disappointing me a tons more is the fact that so far most everything I have eaten has turned out to be super bland.  Here I am in this wonderful colorful country with a million different colors and full of bright bold flavors but all the food I have eaten is super bland. I mean what’s up with that? Where is the spice? I was expecting lots of bold pungent flavors but so far my expectations have fallen flat.  I must say that maybe it is just me because the three other women I have been with the last few days seem to be totally ok with the food and sometimes even enjoying it remarkably a lot.  I’m puzzled because very bite to me seems to be lacking in some serious spice and heck I’ll even say it flavor. I feel like I could have walked to my local taco time and eaten more authentic Latin American food and that even with the weird ranch dressing taco time uses instead of sour cream. That’s so not a good comparison.   I now that you were expecting some huge detailed description about my latest day in Guatemala but I am so perplexed by this whole food thing that I cant seem to move on and write about anything else.  Shrug?

 These last few days have been spent at the lake. It has been very enjoyable to spend time with my aunt and her friends. Donna is from California and also works for the same program that my Aunt does. It’s an origination that helps to get low income rural area people into higher education by providing scholarships and such. One of the ways that they do fundraising is by buying up all this local hand made crafts and such and selling it in the states. It’s amazing how much junk there is to buy. Now I am not a huge shopper so it’s hard for me to spend a whole day doing it. But it’s fascinating to watch someone like Donna who obviously loves it and knows what she is doing. These towns are full of local markets and merchants that want to do nothing else but bargain and get you to buy all their junk.  It’s like a whole different world walking into these little stands full of beaded jewelry and purses. Next door is woven bags of every imaginable size and shape. You have hanging rugs and table linens, tiles, wall hanging, paper products, and seriously so much more that I couldn’t even begin to name it all.  The part about the shopping that I found the most fascinating is that the local villages all have their own style of dress and head pieces and clothing. Each village differs a ton from the other and being with Donna she was able to know so many from just the look of it. I was able to learn a lot of what each different place represents and their individual style.  Let me tell you watching all this shopping and seeing all this bartering sure made me tired.

Isn't it pretty?

a view from afar

the town next to the one we stayed in

its such a different world.

shopping like crazy

enjoying drinks after a long day

I was able to have a little time to myself to walk down to the pretty lake side park and see some of the sights along the water.  I enjoyed it a lot and just sitting watching the locals fish and work the boats was very relaxing and just what I needed after such a busy day.

the very pretty water front park

this place was so nice

all the boats and ferrys

I just sat and watched.. just relaxing and listening to the waves