When you make plans to summit volcanos, your plans have to be flexible. Volcan Pacaya just began a new intense eruption yesterday and a new period of increased activity, so the country closed the National Park. Nobody gets to go near the volcano until it slows down. We got the email about it today, so we won’t be climbing to the summit tomorrow night to watch the lava flow down the side of the mountain after all. We’re hoping it will calm down enough before we have to fly back to the United States in a couple weeks, but there’s no way to predict what it will do. Brett’s kids are pretty upset about missing it, but there’s nothing we can do except enjoy our other activities. We’re still expecting to have a great weekend in Semuc Champey this weekend, but even that depends on the weather.
I slept pretty well last night. It was nice to be back in this amazing house in Antigua. The weather is always perfect. There was a gentle breeze and we left the windows open all night. Brett said they also enjoyed the breeze. And the beds are so nice here. We are so spoiled.
Our chefs pulled out another miracle this morning for breakfast: Christmas Tamales. They are a Christmas tradition, but they’re not restricted to Christmas. Our chefs made a batch of 25 tamales for their families over the weekend and they pulled aside some of the best ones for us. They were really great. The masa was moist. The red chile sauce added just a slight kick and depth of flavor. And the pork in the middle was extremely tender. Of course, several of the kids turned up their noses at them, having never seen anything similar in their lives. I think these are the types of experiences Brett wants his kids to have on this trip. I don’t know how anyone wouldn’t love them after a single bite, but I also know I was a picky eater when I was young. I may have behaved the same way.
After breakfast Brett and I drove our cars back to the Alamo shop across town. We had arranged with the woman there to turn the cars in at 9:00. We didn’t get there until about 9:15, but she was running on Guatemala time, so we were a little early. I did wonder if she was enacting her revenge for having to wait for us when we were late picking them up, but I really doubt that. She is still hoping we’ll rent the cars from her again as we continue doing little weekend adventures.
The check-in process was as smooth as expected. I was a little nervous about a dent in the roof that I had failed to mark, but it was pretty obviously done a long time ago, so I figured she wouldn’t care about it. I was right that she didn’t care about it, but for all the wrong reasons. As she walked around Brett’s car I realized… she wasn’t tall enough to see the top of my Toyota Corolla! We walked back to the house, stopping at a bank to pick up as many Quetzales as we could get. We have a lot of things requiring cash payments coming up and we don’t want to come up short, although we won’t need the other half of the Pacaya money anytime soon.
For lunch we had a squash soup with cilantro, oatmeal encrusted chicken breasts, and some small potatoes with garlic and rosemary. I hadn’t ever heard of using oatmeal for breading on chicken, but it was really good. Of course, everything our chefs make seems to be fantastic and/or amazing, so I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am. You might think this was a perfect meal for the kids, or that they would at least love the chicken and potatoes, but you would be wrong. I guess the all-white-meat chicken breasts were just a little too strange looking for them to like. They did enjoy all the potatoes though, and even asked Jess if they could steal some from Brett’s plate. He was late to lunch due to a meeting that ran over.
We played a round of Cover Your Assets (card game) after dinner tonight. Charmaine made papaya banana smoothies and oatmeal. We mixed cinnamon and broken pieces of pan dulce into the oatmeal. It was really good.
