Why I Chose Tzununa, Part IIb

Charlie

Charlie Rendall was an English something or other who arrived at the lake nine years ago and found himself becoming an architect and builder. He is perfectly English and polite, friendly, knowledgable, and mavenly. He is arguably the lake's most prolific natural builder and I've taken him on as a consulting architect. He knows everything, its price, where to get it, and who is a good guy to have build it. I'd like to do almost all of the design myself, but run it by Charlie while looking at the land to ensure all gaffes are avoided. He is extremely busy and since he's based in San Marcos, I considered his realistic range pretty limited. He's already working on the bamboo at Shad's hotel, so I know he can handle Tzununa. He also rides his motorcycle to the construction site of the medical center in San Pablo. I can tust him to visit one town from San Marcos either way, but beyond, there's probably far less Charlie, if any.

Charlie has a lot to do with this whole plan, certainly more than he knows. He was the architect at the Yoga Forest. His work there was mostly complete while I was around so his presence was limited but the cabanas, dry rock wall terraces, greenhouse and yoga studio were all quite impressive. The master bedroom there I thought was a bit ambitious with the rock face as the back of the room. It was hard to seal up where the roof met the rock so when it rained a good deal, water would trickle down on the rock, causing a backsplash onto the floor. Besides his designs and his expertise, Charlie is really one of the most pleasant people you could ever be around. I intend to keep designs simple and use Charlie only as a consultant because he is just so busy. He seems to know endless small things to do at the constuction stage to keep your house from falling down long before it should. He's in so many places but when you're actually in his office, he doesn't rush anything and you feel welcome.

One time, Charlie was going to give a lecture on natural building for the Permaculture Design Course at the Yoga Forest. I didn't take the course but he invited Tom and I as his guests. Just before the group of us walked up to the Forest for the lecture I was sitting in Charlie's office as he loaded up the digital presentation onto portable media. A moment into this task, he received a phone call, which he took. While his right hand worked the mouse, his left hand held the phone around his torso to his right ear. The call ended before he was done loading the files, but he was so distracted, he forgot to lower the phone. It stayed there for at least a minute or two. I had time to concentrate on suppressing my laughter and though I considered letting him know he still had to his phone to his ear long after his conversational counterpart had released the call, I didn't want to hurt his feelings and wanted to see for how long he could hold the pose.


At Charlie's lecture, he spoke just loud enough for those in the back to hear, but his expertise is so completely obvious that everyone made sure to catch every word. He is certainly the go-to guy for natural building in this region. While studying the way locals have built and survived here, he's been (I'm guessing) reading, doing internet research, talking to other builders and architects, traveling and building plenty himself. Charlie is an invaluable aid on a building project here and I'm happy he agreed to be involved. I'm also considering doing some teaching in a new carpentry workshop he's created. Geometry is a big part of carpentry and locals lack most geometry education. Charlie Rendall is easy to find on the internet. His blog and website is called Return to the Forest. If you're ever here, ask me for a tour of his structures.  

Why I Chose Tzununa, Part IIa

Where the author explains the first reason he chose Tzununa


Tzununa came together to be the almost perfect village to buy and build right now. I was able to come up with some distinct reasons I chose this village, and I'll go into each a bit in ensuing updates.


Dollar Signs
I'm not and have never been much of a business man. I don't care about money or having lots of it, I'm more interested in creating a life I love designed around things I enjoy doing and transfering a good amount of the money that comes in into Mayan hands. I've also never spent this much time in a tourist destination and I couldn't help but see some opportunity. I arrived in the rainy season and went right to San Marcos. The Yoga Forest, where I had lined up a stay ahead of time knowing nothing about the lake villages, happened to be in the mountains above San Marcos. On the lake's north side there is, from west to east, San Pablo, San Marcos, Tzununa, Jaibalito, and Santa Cruz. When it was rainy in San Marcos, it wasn't too busy so gringoes were limited. I stayed and the rain stopped and saw how many white people were in San Marcos, which is the hippiest village and the one most loaded with yoga, spiritual centers and the like. San Marcos is real nice but over-gringoed which is bad enough on its own, but it also means higher land prices. As my friend/architect Charlie told me, three times more expensive in San Marcos than Tzununa, the next village over.

Gringoes are literally spilling out of San Marcos and they need somewhere to go. Right now, at the time of this typing, Tzununa has four hotels. There is Lomas de Tzununa (10 rooms?), fairly expensive and you could almost consider it out of Tzununa on the path to Jaibalito. Nice place. There is the brand new Maya Moon Lodge, gringo owned, which you could consider out of Tzununa on the road to San Marcos. Both those places have amazing views. The Moon Lodge (14 beds) has a beach bar with swimming and Lomas has a small pool. A real nice place, it's new and more budget. There is the Hotel Yac (six rooms), the awful budget place my faithful readers remember. The Hotel Yac only has a view of its own bathroom. The Yac is being remodeled and will be much improved but I still harbour some trauma behind my time there. The last is where I'm currently living, the Mirador, where I have installed my own three-burner stove with a propane tank. This place has the best view in town hands down. This is where I sit and type these words, with a perfect picture postcard view framed by cement arches and columns in some lovely yet hard to name color between pink and orange, and fairly dull on the saturation scale. Tiles are popular around here and these folks chose to go with that. I love them. If I could choose one single best view in Tzununa, it would be here at the Mirador or about a third of the way up toward El Jocotel from here around the spot where the two cantones Sancwhoyoo and Chinimujuyu border each other. There is also the Xocomil Hotel and Restaurant, whose high walls I have tried to penetrate multiple times with no success. I've never heard of anyone staying there. There is Shad's bamboo hotel in construction above the center of town. Very nice build so far. That will have four rooms. El Jocotel could be the sixth hotel in Tzununa, above Shad's on the hill and just above the village on the 'loma'. There are also some private rentals and my place should hover between small hotel and fully private rental. My current plan is to have four rooms in three different structures. My place will have a view better than Shad's place and about 70% as good as El Mirador. My lake view, that is. My place would have the best view of the mountain across the valley, which is fucking enormous. It juts up from the lake and riverbed at least 2500 feet real quick. It's a wash of trees and rock with at least two or three seasonal waterfalls. What's maybe more impressive than the hill itself is that a huge portion of the impossibly steep terrain is farmed with corn, coffee, beans, squash and different fruits. This is status quo around here.
Besides the lodging bringing in money, the land value, as always, is going up and Tzununa is arriving onto the map. Hotels are popping up and 'siempre vienen las turistas. The tourists always come. It's not that people don't know about it, but it's got little enough going that the last printing of Lonely Planet (a hugely popuar line of travel books) I saw has Tzununa on the Atitlan map as a lancha stop but makes no mention of it in text even though it's right next to the major destination of San Marcos. I don't know the politics of Lonely Planet, but I think they'd add a town that now had six hotels especially if we as a group of owners tried to make it happen. We may not actually want to. I bought my land directly from a Tzununa man at a good price well under the gringo rate and, as I said, one third of the going rate in San Marcos. I believe that if I made a concerted effort to find a bankrolled gringo interested in nice land, I could sell my plot at a profit next week. That's not my intention.


The Castillos of beer fame, like most or all the super-rich families in Guatemala, have lakeside property. As far as I know, Gallo and Brahva, Guatemala's two most popular beers, are both run by a Castillo brother. Partially irrelevent to that: here and there, the Gallo Beer Company chooses a pet town and puts money into construction projects there. Tzununa is one of those towns. They're already responsible for one or two roads here (these are rock roads that may mean a driving speed of five miles an hour, but they are passable roads (mostly)), but just the other day, they had a big ceremony down on the futbol field with a tent and a helicopter to announce the launch of the next phase of charitable work: a big, new health center and more road. (It seems a bit Guatemalan to build something and then forget about it. I'm hoping that doesn't happen with the health center and they ensure it remains staffed as was intended. If any visiting medical folks would like to put time in there while here, I'm sure it would only be as complicated as showing up and working.) I don't know exactly what road the beer company is doing, but there is talk of building a path at least for tuk tuks up to the top of Chinimujuyu, right by El Jocotel. This isn't a huge expense, one I would even hope to fund in a few years time, but it would cut the required walking from the closest motor access from ten minutes to three minutes. That would do well for the potential price of my land and ease my life there for my time. It's a bit steep getting to the Jocotel.

Why I Chose Tzununa, Part I

Part 1
Where the author almost arrives at why he chose Tzununa


Let's go up one level. Why Guatemala at all? And why Lake Atitlan? For one thing, it's a lake. Though I may not have said that living by water was a real concern of mine, one quickly sees how extremely nice is it to live by water. A lake to me feels more personal than a river or ocean, more a friend, especially this lake. Atitlan has no outlets; it's mountain and volcano-locked. The reasons for the surface level rising and falling are a mystery. Of course, the rain is one cause for rise, but no one is sure why it goes down a certain amount, less and less recently, each year. Theories include volcanic and techtonic activity and underwater river mouths clogged with trash. Right now, the water is at a major recent high. Gringoes, and some rich Guatemalteco families, along with municipalities and businesses have lost a ton of land to the water. I'm told if the surface level rises 15 meters, it will top out there as it begins to spill to the ocean via an outlet to the south. Some people say it's on a 50 year cycle of which we're approaching the high end, so it should begin to recede soon according to those folks.

The rising and falling is part of the Atitlan magic, as I think of it. There's enough of this magic to write a book on, but I don't want to attempt that now. I'll just mention it has to do with the shape of the lake, the water, the wind, the contours of the mountains, the active volcanoes, the lightning, the tremors, rivers, waterfalls, rainbows, rocks, stars, sun, clouds, moon and all the other ways that nature, weather and landscape impress the spirit as they impose a way of life on the Mayan people here.  A day living here is so saturated with beautiful landscapes, cool plants and birds, and food loves sprouting from the earth and falling from trees.  It is a privileged place to live.

Being lakeside is definitely better the longer you stay. The more you learn about what's around and can handle walking up and down steep hills to get to those places, the more fun you'll have. You'll get strong, you'll get in shape. You'll relearn to breathe and walk around slopes that are so steep, if still farmed with corn and coffee, that you worry you'll fall right off the face. I easily admit that living here, or even visiting here, isn't for everyone. If you're OK with the reasons that Guatemala is different from home, like unfixed pricing, transportation you have to jump on and off, language, food, and chuchos and chickens everywhere and you don't lament the lack of things you just don't get here like internet shopping, choices in ethnic food, affordable dairy, tv shows about cakes, or your car and you enjoy all the things that Guatemala throws into the deal like incredible scenery, terrific people, and an inexpensive life then you may really enjoy that life or visit here. For me, it makes sense with the mindset I had nine months ago. Go for less stuff, more experience and cooler surroundings.

So I got here and though the plan had been to stay awhile then take off and explore Central then South America, I got pretty stuck here. Maybe it's being a little older and also listening to my buddy Aaron tell me that you need to travel but also have a good home base so you don't have to come home broke and stay with mom and dad again, but I felt like this was a good enough place to set up that home base. Walking around now, after four months, at times the world-class lake and volcano view starts to feel pedestrian, like walking through our own Forest Park, but most days I'm as stunned by the landscape as my first day here. So when I say it's good enough, I mean it's an incredible place to build a house. I still want to explore Central and South America and the rest the rest of the world, but I'm setting up my home base, and it will be here on Lake Atitlan.


As far as Guatemala in general, I have had nothing but a good time in all my excursions away from the lake. I've seen some amazing things and have loads more to see for the first time. The people are friendly, helpful and interested. The traffic infrastructure is efficient and smooth and any journey, if a bit cramped at times, is so entertaining with bus vendors, bus driving, scenery and conversation that trips seem to come to their end swiftly. Even though very mountainous, Guatemala is only the size of Pennsylvania, so your domestic journies can't be that long. I've spent some time in the infamous Guatemala City and was surprised at its moderness and cleanliness. My opinion is that the US State Department Travel Bureau has some motive for deterring citizens from traveling to Guatemala, or maybe traveling in general, and misrepresents the true level of danger here and I think that's unfortunate. Having lived many years in the United States, I know it has its fair share of dicks, thieves, drug addicts and drunks, probably a higher share per capita than Guatemala. Take measures to reduce your chances of being targeted and when you show up here your worries will quickly fade.

New Blog Title

Yesterday, work began on the new property.  I chopped down about 20 coffee trees, which leaves around 2380 more to come down (eventually).   The reprieve is over, and so too must end The Reprieve Report.  In the interest of cohesion and ease of transition for my faithful readers and myself, I´m continuing the same blog with a new title.

I´ve purchased a great piece of land in Tzununa here at Lake Atitlan with the intention of building a few cabins for rental, a sweet kitchen, a small yoga studio and a farm of fruit trees, vegetables, chickens, rabbits, ducks and worms.  This will take a few years to build up.

The place will be called El Jocotel.

First and foremost, I need to address blog content.  I do not intend to provide extensive details of construction or progress at the site of my new home.  Rather, I intend to continue the line of unfettered, unmoderated, unreliable and maybe uninteresting posts that you are used to.

Please look forward to reading about the following (assuming I follow through with writing them):

Why I Chose Tzununa
Why I Chose This Plot
Hotel Namesake and Mission
Corrections

Once again, if you would like to be added to a list of people who get emailed when I post, please get me your email address in the comments or in a private note.  In conclusion, I would like to wish everyone a Happy Dia de San Pablo this Saturday.  

[VIDEO] How to Eat Ramen

Hello Readers,
In lieu of more text and as an apology for the recent lack of photos, I am posting one of Youtube's finest videos, which I happened to be shown yesterday.  It is unrelated to anything Reprieve Report or Guatemala.   Please enjoy.

Dear Four-Year-Olds in the US,

Dont you hate when you go down to your corner store and they wont sell you firecrackers even though you feel well mature enough to handle them responsibly?  Consider a trip´to Guatemala, where a minimum age requirement for the purchase of such incendiary devces in unheard of.

Happy daily celebrations,
Maximo

How to Deal with the Tzununa Food Situation

I'm not sure yet.


I tried not eating. That doesn't work. I got cranky, headachey, weak, tired, a loud stomach and hungry.


As my faithful readers know, there's no kitchen here at the Mirador. I'm not fully comfortable arranging dinner with the family yet. They usually like to know this kind of thing in advance and my hours and presence here are highly irregular. I'm not ready to say, "Hey, I smell food and hear tortillas being clapped into delicious shape. Is there extra food I can eat right now? I'm starving. There are are no restaurants in this town and your stove doesn't work even though it makes me all warm and fuzzy on the inside that I'm free to use it whenever I like. Muy amable." Assuming I still possessed the lingual wherewithal to translate this well enough in my depleted and delirious condition, I'm sure I would be offered all the food needed to fill me up.


There is one restaurant in town. It'd be about a twenty-five minute walk to the posh hotel on the hill and the food is probably expensive. Out of the question. I've heard about a lady somewhere in town that
"if you're hungry and you ask her, she'll make you food."
"What will she make you?"
"Whatever you want to eat"


Like you, I know that last statement is dying for some qualification. When it sounds to good to be true and all that. Here however, qualification is often thrown to the wind. I can attempt to qualify for you:


"What will she make you?"
"Whatever you want to eat that involves, on any given day, a selection from the following: tortillas, tamales, rice, beans, eggs, maybe tiny dried, salty fish, tomato sauce or ramen noodles."


It is a good list, but I haven't found the lady yet.


There is fried chicken in town. "Rostipollos y Papas". Fried chicken is the only hot thing on offer in the centro and there are three identical stands. I had a nice chat with Pablo at the stand by the tienda when I first came to town. We got friendly quickly because he's so friendly. His teeth are done up like many of his countrymen of both sexes: gold-rimmed front upper four with a gold star center two front. I liked his chicken right off the bat. It was very lean, dark and flavorsome and reminded me of the fresh chicken, as my faithful readers know, that I prepared and ate back at the Yoga Forest. If it ain't broke and all that, so I stuck with Pablo for a while. I don't do too much fried chicken even though it is crack delicious when hot, but the papas are a good snack whenever. One day Pablo wasn't around so I strolled across the little street to Maria. The sort of dejected disinterest she always showed after I walked away having gone to Pablo for food wore off as soon as I said hello to her and she too was quite friendly. I found out there that the three stands are run, one, by a father, two, by a son (Pablo), and, three, a daughter (Maria), but they are separate even though I've seen them run to one of the other stands when they come up short on chicken, fries, plates, napkins, toothpicks, ketchup, picante or bolsitas. With Maria:


"Who makes the most money?"
"Someone different each day."
"What do you do to give your chicken a special touch?"
"Nothing. The chicken and the french fries are all exactly the same. I don't know why the earnings come out different each day. It's just luck."


This seems to be the Guatemalan way. If you want to open a tienda or a tortilleria, tornilleria, libreria, ferreteria, carniceria or diarrhea, you build it with concrete, stock it with the same stuff as the other guy/gal, paint it with the same font as every other place but change the first name that comes after the type of shop. Sure, there are places that stand out among any type of business, especially the panaderias, but it's pretty standardized. Maybe there's pride or a sense of legitimacy in building something exactly the same as everyone else.


I asked Maria about her relationships with her siblings. She said besides Pablo, they were all good. Something happened a year ago and they don't really talk since. I had trouble understanding exactly everything. In fact, I understood nothing about what happened because of my lingual limitations and I was busy cleaning a leg of her delicious rostipollo. I'm pretty sure whatever caused the rift had nothing to do with the purveyance of poultry. It will be my New Years' Resolution to broker a sit-down with these two so maybe they can squash it, or at least quash it. They spend about 14 hours every day working 14 feet apart cutting the potatoes and dressing the chicken, which, before slaughter, roam free on a farm in San Juan la Laguna Atitlan, Solola, Guatemala.


Today, when not eating stopped working, I tried the Tzununa Centro combo lunch, which I made up today. I was looking for a small plate of fries. I like Pablo and Maria equally (though I've never been over to the father's cart), so I chose on the basis of who would have fresher fries. Maria's were in the oil and only needed three minutes to finish. Pablo looked a bit hurt maybe but he'll be friendly next time. I went to the little overcharging tienda across the way and picked up:


2 bananas                           Q1
slice of watermelon             Q1
slice of canteloupe              Q1
slice of pineapple                Q1
pan dulce                           Q1.25          should've been Q1 at the most
different pan dulce              Q1.25          should've been Q1 at the most


I went back and asked for a Q3 plate of fries. She filled the dessert plate nicely and plenty of ketchup, hold the (disgusting, atificial, plastic) picante. With the fresh fries, I am faced with the preeminent Max Benjamin dilemma. I've told people countless times that I'm nearly incapable of traveling with food. I can either stay and eat the fresh fries, take them back to the hotel and eat there, or eat them on the way. The hotel is 120 feet away up a paved road at an 18% incline. If I eat them on the way, which I do, I will arrive at the top of the hill now short on not only calories but also oxygen. If I pass out anywhere along the way, the fries are likely to hit the ground where they'll be immediately devoured by chuchos.


With the fries                    Q3


we have a


subtotal                           Q9.5
sales tax                          Q0.0


for a


grand total                      Q9.5


With today's accurate (made up) exchange rate, this equates to $1.21USD. I was never too into watermelon back home, but I'm getting into it here. Can't say why. My favorite stuff here that's new is the papaya and the passion fruit, but nothing compares with almighty Jocote when they're in their long season.



For desert, I'm having some sunflowers seeds in the shell. Here, they come in this flavor called Sunflower Seeds. Tastes real authentic.