Maximo Supertramp [Live Update]

I took off from the lake leaving a friend in charge of the house and dog.  Theres only one dog now.  Sanson has not returned though hes rumoured to be with some isolated neighbors nearby.  I felt bad because he was cared for by the couple at the Moon Lodge before I took him.  Chris had some Muscle Milk or a similar product but decided to stop ingesting it himself so he fed it to the mother of the pups as they nursed.  Life goes on and theres plenty of other chuchos and animals to fill the void.

First stop was Tilapita, a coastal sandbar island village very near the mexican border.  I took the scenic route bringing me to the island just after nightfall.  I arrived with two lanchas, which cruise thru the canals behind the island.  Lancha men here are friendlier than at the lake and the boats are more chill too because I think those backwaters remain pretty calm.  The island is like a manhattan shape turned sideways, about 2 ave blocks top to bottom and about 12 streets wide.  The streets and aves or whatever you would call them here are all sand.  I spent the evening with the hotel{s only other guests, three Norwegian girls and didnt realize until the morning that we could see the crashing waves in the ocean from the hotel.

I spent plenty of time in the ocean and in the sun the next day.  Waves were sizable but breaking all over the place.  The big ones were tough to reach but I caught a couple good ones with my bopdy as a board.

After two nights, I set off early yesterday morning for Mexico.  I finished my pot and hopped on the lancha alone.  The pilot offered me a tour of of the mangle (mangrove) and I accepted.  I was up early, and the half hour tour seemed a good idea, and it was.  Most of what we launched thru was mangle colorado if youd like to look it up, and it was cool.  Perusing Tilapita, a sandbar lush with vegetation and mango harvest among others was a major teachable moment for me about how certain plants can thrive in sand.  The mangroves are another example of plants being interesting, adaptable and really strange.  These mangle colorados produce a dart shaped seed 10 inches long which fall from the tree and stick in the mud.  A new tree grows.

At one point, the tourguide Adolfo, pulled up to a small platform on which you could enter a bit into the forest.  He told me here, I could listen to the natural sound.  Once on the platform, he repeated, bellowing, that here I could hear the sound of the naturaleza.  Sure, Adolfo, Ill be able to hear it if you could just SHUT THE FUCK UP FOR A SECOND:  It was a fairly deafening cacophony of some kind of beetle or cricket or something.  A few birds were around.  So were some plastic bottle floating in the water.

My Spanish was partially useless near the coast and even worse in Mexico.  I made it Tapachula and tried to draw some money from a couple ATMs.  They all told me I couldnt connect with my bank.  I didnt have much.  I went on to Escuintla.  At this point, and I hope this will change, but Im plenty happier in Guatemala than Mexico.  There is some good gringo loathing going on lately.

ATMs told me the same in Escuintla.  I was not going to increase my cash flow this day.  I had like 60 pesos, $8US, 250 Quetzales I wished I had changed.  I remembered theres been a US twenty in my backpack for the last 8 months or more.  A tuk tuk driver approached me with some English.  He brought me around to the ATMs and when I asked him what else there was to do in Escuintla he told me Well, that depends on  what the fuck you want to do.  You can go to the fuckin river or walk to the fuckin waterfall or find a fuckin prostitute.  He brought me to guy who give me ten pesos to my dollar.  The rate is just under thirteen.  Not too bad a hit and now I can pay for the room for the night.  I needed to save my money to get to Tonala the next day, so I decided to skip dinner.  It was so hot that I had to get a beer, and some water.

100 pesos for the room.  Shitty room, shitty night.  The fan works, but it has no front.  No problem, my fan didnt have a front cover in Northampton either.  I forgot to mention its very very hot here.  The shared bathroom is a toilet behind a curtain.  Theres no toilet paper, theres no lid on the toilet, no seat.  Theres no shower but you can bucket pila water over yourself and this I did to battle the extreme heat.

The bed was ridden with all kinds of bugs that wanted to bite me throughout the night.  There was a long, loud and close thunderstorm in the night and at one point I thought the the thunder would break the tejas that made up the roof above and my head would be covered in rubble.  That didnt happen but eventually I felt the vibration through the rock pillow of water droplets hitting the pillow.  I was very calm throughout all this and at one point expressed my thanks that at least there wasnt any loud music.  At 3am I exited the room dissapointed to find darkness persisting.  I maximized my situation but putting on my yoga pants and a long sleeve tee and with the fan on high, this was comfortable and the bugs were mostly fought off.  My feet remained exposed and I solved this by placing around them the pillowcase from the extra pillow.  I slept some hours and left quickly in the morning.

Transport in Mexico is a bit more expensive than it should be and my peso count was low.  I decided to give hitchhiking a try to save a bit.  Good old fashioned hitchhiking in Mexico.  I picked up my first ride pretty quickly.  I sat in the middle seat up front in a box truck between a teen and the guy driving who had had a couple beers quickly in the morning.  When they asked me where I was from I told them Canada.  When we were stopped at a checkpoint, the military guy asked me where I was from.  Hmmmm, I thought.  Quick calculation and I told him I was from Canada.  If he asks for my passport, which he did, Im using the German one, so the double lie can go over undetected.

I was walking along the side of the highway waiting for another ride when I started to get hungry, I still hadnt eaten.  Luckily, God had left a couple ripe mangoes by the side of the road.  Thats a Louis CK reference but really they had a just fallen off a big mango tree.  I made it to Tonala with two free rides and two paid stretches and a few pesos left over.  When I found an ATM, it meted me a bunch of pesos with no trouble and I was back.  I took a nice hotel room for 2.8 times the previous nights price.  King size bed, private bathroom with shower, toilet, toilet seat, paper, soap and a telvision with about 87 channels and lights to read by.  Also air conditioning so tonight I should be happy.

Without bothering to shower, I hit the streets for food.  Opened with a mango smoothie, big size.  20 pesos.  Then three tacos, one beef, one chicken, one tripe.  The tripe wasnt too gross, Just less flavor than the others I thought.  Then the real meal upstairs of chicken in mole with rice and a Sol.  Back to the hotel and now this...

Im in Davis, CA May 20 to 28th.  Im in WMass May 29 to June 11.  

I Moved [Live Update]

I've moved up into my house.  It's been a stretch leading up.  I wouldn't say stressful or frustrating, but a little drawn out.

I'm thrilled to be up there.  It's just as perfect and peaceful as always and on my first night I realized, in addition to everything else, it's firefly season as well.

There is a house, or rather, a deluxe lean-to.

The house has:

• One room
• Adjoining outside kitchen
• No windows yet
• A 200-lb door
• no electricity
• a full-size bed with a semi-firm mattress

The door has:

• No lock yet

Two puppies live at the house.  Two puppies, brother and sister, did live at the house, but the male has been missing for 21 hours.  I do hope he comes back.  I doubt strongly he left on his own accord, unless to Francisco's house, where he is not.  I hope he hasn't been mistreated by any adolescents.  The puppies are:

• Sanson: male, dominant, coffee-colored.  current intelligence: 7/10
• Negra: female, black.  current intelligence: 4/10  current kindness & cuteness: 8/10

 There is a bathroom.  The bathroom is a very pleasant 30-second walk from the house.  The bathroom has:

• a lovely roof of 'tejas romanos'
• a poo hole
• a pee hole
• a spectacular view
• a sink, to follow

Right now, I'm eating from a trail mix I created this morning in Panajachel which includes:

• 1.5 libras raisins (pasas)
• 1 libra salted (manillas)
• 5 oz. pepitas (don't know the English)
• 4 oz. cashews (cashew)
• 4 oz. almonds (almendras?)
• 1 oz. sesame seeds (?)
• 4 oz. coconut (coco)
• 0 oz. macadamia (macadamia).  no macadamias today.

I hope to return to some writing soon, but I haven't had the freedom to write in the morning as I've been directing my construction.  My presence is required on site most times for rapid decision making.  

We Don't Serve Food Here

A hernia and a hemorrhoid walk into a bar.  Bartender says 'Oh great, just what i need.'

I'm So Pleased...

I'm so pleased with my new outhouse, I could just shit.

Why I Chose This Plot, Part II

Is the title clean? Who am I dealing with?
There was a hotel owner back in San Marcos who, while quite sheisty himself, taught me a lot about how all this works when I started looking at land in earnest. I'm not afraid to name him. His name is Rigoberto, or as my friend Jenny nicknamed him, Rigobusiness. Rigobusiness owned land, houses, tiendas and would sell dial-up modems if he found a good deal on them. His hotel where I stayed advertised wireless internet. A couple I knew staying there paid for an entire month or more based on the fact that there was internet that would allow them to work and make money. When they showed up, they found the internet worked extremely slowly or not at all a lot of the time. They wanted to leave the hotel and even had everything about the internet in a contract but if they left, Rigobusiness only agreed to give back a fraction of the money he would've owed. Besides utilizing Dale Carnegie tactics, which work better in business deals at the sale stage rather than when trying to recover money due to a breach in contract, it seemed like their only option was to go to court. I say to hell with going to court in Guatemala against a Guatemalteco. This should be avoided at all costs. Fuck Rigobusiness, I'm not dealing with him and hopefully not anyone else like him. That said, his hotel was really well done and quiet and the two of us are still buddies.

My scout is Santiago and the land owner was Don Ilario. Santiago is like an angel who fell into my lap. Most gringoes seem to have their 'guy'. Santiago is 'my guy'. He is the Andres to my Terry, the Nicolas to my Shad. He showed me this land as one he has known for a while is really nice. Other gringoes have looked and shown interest but no one ever got it together and made with the cash. I realized where Santiago lived and he said "I want you to buy this land, I want you to be my neighbor." He'd be just below in the village, about five minutes away, and I'll be welcome for tortillas and meals. How can I trust Santiago, besides the neighbor thing? Santiago is the lead builder on Shad's bamboo hotel. Walter, the leader of the other crew, has more bamboo experience, but Santiago is really in charge. Charlie is the architect on Shad's hotel and he picked Santiago and his group.

Little things happen like once I was standing on the rock viewpoint at my place's edge before the deal quite went through. A kid came up and we got to chatting and I mentioned the land. He said something like, "Oh, you're buying the land of Don Ilario?". Everyone knows it's his land. No second or third person can come out of nowhere and say 'hey, that's actually my land, Ilario can't sell it unless I approve' or something worse. The paper's are good. I went to dinner at Santiago's house New Year's Eve and it was quite good. I was speaking to Santiago's father, another Andres, who seemed happy at the whole deal. A real nice guy, he concluded "Don Ilario's been a friend of mine for 35 years". Ilario might run for mayor at the next election. Why would he want to get into any issues behind this land? Why would Santiago, a successful builder and trusted land scout, want to get into any issues behind this land and jeopardize his reputation and Charlie's confidence, especially over a plot only five minutes from his own? The commision is certainly not enough for that. The deal done, Santiago is still a great help and has expressed his interest in working for me. That'll be discussed down the line. I'll hire him if chooses to drop some of his other obligations and take care of my place, or I'll hire someone else and we'll remain friends and he'll still help me out. Meanwhile, I've been threatened (not really) by Shad that, right now, Santiago's responibility is to have his bamboo hotel finished by this May. After that, Santiago is up for grabs and he does come with Shad's recommendation, which is weighty. Serendipitously, Santiago was born about a month after me. All in all, I went on the fact that this deal had Charlie's stamp on it and Ilario is a longtime, respected member of the Tzununa community. He'll be a neighbor, too, just further down the hill. Because this deal has been so smooth, I may have been a little light on all the manner of horrible headache that can accompany a land deal or the acheievement of building permit, power or water thereafter. Suffice it to say things can be sufficiently bogged down in bullshit and added expense. I guess if there's one thing to take away, it's that a good, trusted land scout will help all these other things fall into place.


Is the price right?
If you do enough looking and asking, you get a feel for the real going rate of land. Then, you add or substact based on assets or drawbacks and their added expenses. I got a really nice price per cuerda. Responsibilty for this lies with Santiago as well.


How's the view?
View is important. If you're here on the lake, you should have one. It's nice and different throughout the day and each day of the year. Tourists love it. There are amazing views, awesome views, cool views, and views. Mine is amazing. When I first wrote this, I wrote awesome but a couple weeks later, ready to post this and having more time up there, I have to change it to truly amazing.


___________



There you have my primer on Atitlan real estate. If anyone is interested in a piece land here, hit me up in private, I'll consult. I'm a land scout too now. I'll plant fruit trees, bamboo and cypress and keep an eye on it until you come down.

Why I Chose This Plot, Part I

     I sometimes tell people that the thing I'm most expert in is photography. That's not to say I'm a grandmaster, but in a comparison to my knowledge of other topics, I probably know the most about taking photos. The process of buying land in Guatemala has been such an education that it may now be my number two. I feel that because I've done it once, and had to learn everything it took to get it done fairly easily after finding the right spot, I would be well to do it a few more times as investment if I didn't want to focus on improving my first place, which is well big enough. At this point, I want to stop and touch wood. After finally finding the combination of the right fixer, piece of land, seller and price, the process has been eerily smooth, through to the point of having my building permit in hand and my taxes paid for the year 2014(only six days after the land deal went through). Water and power remain to be connected; both should be smooth and easy as well.


     I've never actively looked for land in the US or any other place, so I can't compare it. Here, it's quite tiring. It's generally hot and sunny, especially in the morning. I joke that you can get two things done per day here. One in the morning, and one in the afternoon, give or take. If you blow one of those looking at land, you've blown one maybe taking a boat, maybe a tuk-tuk, but probably walking uphill and scrambling around steep, rocky, unkempt squares of the mountain. Unkempt isn't a reason to write off land so you have to give due diligence around through the brush as tall as you to try to quickly imagine where a house might go and the degree of impossibilty of constructing in that location. The person escorting you has strong odds of being sheisty and their company can be a drag or can be tolerable.

     Here's how it works commonly, not exclusively. An owner puts it out there in the aether that heshe would sell a certain piece of land if someone was buying. Anyone interested (in quickly becoming a real estate agent) could come by this information easily. You can show the land to all the gringoes you want and if you bring an eventual buyer into the owner, you get paid. For this reason, multiple people may show you the same spot, a great waste of time and kick to the day's enthusiasm. What did Yogi say? You always find something in the last place you look. Most of the properties you're shown are a bust and dealbroken quickly for one reason or another(e.g., no water, too far, too loud, too steep). At that point, you figure out how to most quickly have the scout take you over to the next place and address a new set of measurements and asking price.


     In my assessment below, I could see many gringoes disagreeing with me on a couple things. I was willing to sacrifice lake proximity and view for other advantages and securities. After you've chosen a village, here's what you need to ask for about the piece of land:


How big should it be?
Guatemala deals in cuerdas, which is pretty Guatemala because a cuerda can be anything from a bathroom tile to Lake Huron. I'm joking. A saving grace is that, I think, Guatemala uses the smallest version of a cuerda, 25m x 25m. I was looking for three to six cuerdas. Bigger would've been fine, but price was likely to prohibit. I ended up with six cuerdas, about an acre, which I'm thrilled about. The place is plenty large and spread out, and I hope it always feels that way with way less coffee and a few simple structures. It should be plenty of space for casitas, kitchen, chickens, garden and yoga. What's tricky about this aspect of the search is that a lot of gringoes end up buying up and combining several different properties into one, so that option is always there if you have interest and someone to help do the owner research. There is land open around El Jocotel, but that'll have to be later and hotel owners keep telling me 'don't let it get too big'.


What's the slope like?
People build on almost any kind of slope. Examples are close around. They know exactly how to excavate, refill, and build retaining walls and flat surfaces. It's still a lot of work and it leads to a very vertical life. If you succeed in finding flatter land, you've probably sacrificed your perfectly splendid lake view, and this is what I did. My land resembles the top of the cross section of an airfoil. The upper limit is nice and gentle, sloped, but softly not requiring much excavation to flatten out. This will unearth rocks all of which whill be used in building. I'll put the structures nearer the top, where it's flatter with better view. Garden and trees below. Good spot for chickens fenced in where the neighbor's chickens currently peck through.


Is there water?
Locals always tell me 'Water is the most important thing' or 'Water is the fluid of life' so they like water, too. You pretty much gotta have it. You can do four things here. 1. Tap municipal water. This is the best I think, for price and ease. This is what I'll do. The pipe runs very close to the property and, knock wood, it comes through good and cheap. 2. You can tap for your own water, either into the ground or from a river. This is a nice option, but probably more expensive, if you're digging, than the muni. Smaller surface rivers run dry, but good underwater rivers run all the time, keeping trees nearby lush. Those trees help lead you to the water. Not every place has this option. 3. You can pump from the lake (regionally). People do this, but I would not be happy drinking filtered lake water. 4. You can not have water. This seems like it would become a drag fast.


Is there electricity?
Using the electrical grid ended up being the best option for my purposes. Electricity is cheap here, and it would've taken years and years to pay off a simple solar electricity system that surely would need replacement parts or new batteries not to mention sourcing the parts and putting it all together. A group of three power lines runs about 12 meters from the corner of my property. The power is helpful running certain tools so it would be nice to have power for building. This gets confusing. The electric company has a rule that you can't hook up power until you have a house. The loophole is that the neighbor between myself and the power pole can agree to have an electric counter (that I pay for) put in and and I can 'steal' electricity from that until I have a house up. I'm not sure this will actually work because they don't have a house up either. We'll see. I think it'll be easy, we'll see.


Do you have a right of access to your own property?
This means: are you allowed to walk to your own property? On the mountain, getting somewhere can involve either a public path or going through someone's property or both at the same time. Some properties I was shown would've required leaving the public path and crossing private property to get home. This could be fine for years and years with all your visitors perhaps or the landowner could have a problem and then you have a problem. Public path goes from the village right to the corner of my place then through it. I have no issue getting there. We're talking dirt walking paths here. There could be a bit of a grey area here as to what is considered a 'public trail' and what's private but the people seem to know. There is one more thing. If what's considered a 'public trail' runs through your property and you intend to fence it off, you must provide alternate trail access for the people. My property has an obviously public path running through it from the middle of the top to halfway down the side. Our first work project is to rework the path to the property corner. We'll smooth it out really nice and at each side add a rock seat area for people carrying firewood or bags of crops to rest. There is another trail through my place, but I'm told it's not public. It is well smaller but I know some people use it (and throw their trash on it). I'm very sorry, but people will have to detour around a bit. They are welcome to stop and rest at my resting area. I hope to not have a problem here. I wrestled, and still wrestle, with myself about whether or not to have a fence and what type of fence to build. Even though I waver, I've long since decided a fence was best for the place I want and the visitors I'd like. There's a group of well-intentioned people, neighbor's chickens and chuchos who need to have a reason not to wander in. If a real thief wants in, they're gonna come in but a fence is pretty necessary.


How far is it from a town? How far is it from a road?
In terms of getting materials there, you can build a house anywhere if you have some extra money for dragging materials up the paths to those places by hand. In some places, there's water and power, but i's an hour and a half walk from the boat. Much of your material will come in by truck, so the closer a truck can get, the better. My closest access will be at the road right where Shad's hotel is. It should be about a ten-minute walk up. I won't be super happy watching young and older Mayan men struggle with heavy loads for construction at my place, and I certainly won't be too happy while I'm struggling with them (while carrying way less), but I believe in the project and having a house. Charlie said that relative to being next to the road, construction would cost me 10% more. Maybe I can offset that by always helping out with 'cargando' and I'm thrilled with my location so I'm on board. As I mentioned, Gallo Beer may add tuk tuk access to very near El Jocotel, and if they do this while I still have things to construct, it will ease the labor heavily for all time.


Where is it? Who are the neighbors?
Tranquility was a must for me. Some places were dealbroken immediately for being right in the village. Tzununa is a loud town, be it church music, stereo music, corn grinders or chuchos in the night. I will hear some of it, but my place is just on the edge of the village with a bit of a buffer. I do have neighbors at one edge point of the property. These are Kaqchikel Mayan people. There's a guy Andres and his family of wife and four young daughters. Unfortunately, I did look at four of his properties and did not end up buying. I was worried he'd hold a grudge but I ran into him at the San Pablo Day Fair yesterday and he greeted me warmly. I'll be at the top of the village so behind me is just mountain. It's all people's property and mostly farmed and harvested for something or other. There are people around and passing through, but they're quiet, friendly and often carrying something heavy and going straight home.

As far as visitors and guests arriving to the hotel, I think it's cool that people will be forced to go right through the village to get there. Lomas and the Moon Lodge are not part of the village. Shad will be and we will be. We are in the village. What people have to say at the hill climb required, that's up in the air. I like it and I'll be in shape.


Is it geographically safe?

I just mentioned living on the same slope as the local people. Doing so gives me comfort that no rocks bigger than my house will roll down and crush my own while I sleep or that I won't wake up swimming in a soup of mud and rock sludge barreling down to the valley below. This is where a lot of gringoes throw Mayan caution to the wind and build right in a spot they like in a dangerous valley or right next to a rising lake. Sure, your house may be safe for five years or even all of your lifetime, but there were storms that devastated here in both 2005 and 2009 so the occurence of another couldn't come as a surprise. Tzununa's river is known to jump and carry over to unknown places. Because of property, trees, deception, magic, and lack of easy access to detailed topographical information, it's often really hard to understand the contours of the land, especially in dry season, and figure out what the water will do. Remember, these are huge mountains and a lot of water spills out and when it comes it happens fast.  

Photos on the Way

Thank you to all my faithful readers who have stuck with me through these photo-less times.

In a week or so, I'll be moving up to the new house on my own property.  At that point, I'm commited to finding a way to make some photos of the place and posting them here for everyone to finally see.  I know everyone won't but I wish everyone would come visit.  I'm sure the photos will act as encouragement so please stay tuned another week or so to have a look at my new home and it's surroundings.

When the time is right, when I'm ready, and probably when I'm in the states in May/June, I will get a new camera and resume my photography.  I love photography and miss the activity but there is certainly something to be said for being in the moment without necessarily having the digital proof or needing to show/tell someone.