LAZY HORSES

Getting ready to watch a movie called "Adam Resurrected" in the garden of the ranch that has been our Couchsurfing home for the last few days.

We arrived here on Sunday (5th July) then on Tuesday morning (7th July) we left to pick up Ryan best mate, Adam in Guatemala's airport. 24h in Antigua and surrounding mountain then returned to the ranch.

We're very happy to be back.

I'm punching these words into my word processor on a yellow picnic table. On the other table there's a bunch of coconuts ready to be drank. Ryan is swigging on an hammock and so is Adam. They're enjoying their last day in this paradise, and will fly back to USA tomorrow morning (Friday 10th July).

Adam is a flight attendant for a major US airline so he's working this Saturday whilst Ryan does not have a day job to return to yet as he's just after finishing University, nevertheless he has to go home to write up a Curriculum Vitae in order to start applying for jobs. The good thing is that he has lots of possible work choices.

Ryan dude, just remember that you can do anything anywhere: The Sky is the limit.

Under the trees there are 3 horses just resting. Lito, the keeper saddled them up for us this morning then we went on a ranch tour for a couple hours. My horse and Ryan's were very responsive and would gallop as fast as they could but Adam's one was kinda lazy so he would only trot and stop to munch on grass.

During that "tour" we were blessed to witnessed a small wonder of nature: A cow giving birth.

We could see the calf's head and front hooves peeking out her mother's huge vagina. The cow was unable to push the calf out on its own so Lito lassoed the cow's horns to hold her still whilst one of the farm workers lassoed the calf's hooves and pulled hard.

Result: a new born daisy! The little animal was successfully pulled out and was covered with this skin bag (placenta, I think it is), so the keeper removed it slowly. The calf was not moving so the keeper blown into its left ear, forcing it to react by shaking its head. Lito explained that they always do this to all newly born. If the calf does not react then it is dead or will die shortly afterwards.

It was such an awesome experience to witness such a enormous animal giving birth. Both Adam and Ryan took dozens of photos of the whole day so I'm now transferring them into my laptop. There are photos of the calf's birth, Las Lisas beach, tour around the ranch on horseback, jeep ride, etc.

So shortly after the birth event, we hopped on the 1973 Land Rover Jeep and drove down to the pier. Parked the old but very reliable vehicle and took a taxi boat to Las Lisas beach.

The beach was more than we could expect: Very dark and hot as hell sand that forced us to run around in tip toes, remarkable view with amazing and huge waves breaking very near to the shore. We looked around but saw no one surfing. What a shame!

This spot would be ideal for surfers as:

• its quiet
• waves are huuuuuuge
• No wind blowing
• cheap to get here.

Immediately we changed into our swimming gear and ran into the sea to face the wild waves. Some of the waves were easy to jump over, others were so high and strong that we got trapped in them and were twisted & turned as if we were inside some tumbler. Trapped. Yesterday late afternoon (Wednesday 8th July) we ran into a Guatemalan couple that were sort of trapped in Las Lisas. the couple told us that they came down here to spend the day on the beach but forgot to check the bus schedule to Guatemala City. They were waiting for over one hour but no sign of a bus.

All travellers are susceptible (at least once in their journey) to end up stuck in a dead end village with no hostels or accommodation, so we offered to take them all the way up to the main highway as that could increase their chance of getting a bus. The couple didn't think that option would be safe as nightfall was nearing, instead they thanked us and decided to continue to wait for the next bus.

We headed back up to the farm and sure enough a bus was coming towards the village so I guess that they'd be OK but in any event we drove back to where they were and offered: "We're staying in a big ranch with lots of rooms. We'll do this: We'll drive by again in 1 hour. If you guys are still here, you can come with us to the farm, if not, we'll assume that the bus took you home. Fair?"

They agreed and so, one hour later, Ryan drove back down but the couple was no longer there so we can only imagine that the bus took them to a safer place. Speaking of safer places, this farm is so damn safe and sound, but the day before yesterday (Tuesday 7th July) was spent going up a rather unsafe place: Volcano Pacaya.

After picking up Adam from the airport we spent a little over two hours in Antigua followed by a minivan to the entry gates of the Mountain that houses the mentioned Volcano. The beginning of the hike was OK but soon enough it got steeper and steeper so some struggled a bit, other a lot! I wore jeans and trainers, but Ryan and Adam sported sandals and flip-flops. Dude, that's no hiking attire.

Anyways, all struggle paid off when we reached the peak: A red hot lava river flowed in front of us. Nature is in fact precious and beautiful. Soon enough everyone was putting sticks with marshmallows onto the hot lava. I even saw a girl ready to fry (or burn) some fresh rashers of bacon. Lots of tourists ensured lots of photos from all angles.

Our guide advised us to start our descend ASAP as it would be dark soon. The descent was hard for a lot of people. This old guy fell off so many times that he had his arms and knees covered in blood. Even Adam tripped up and got his foot stuck in the rocks. Took us a while to get him out.

When we got back to Antigua we were so tired that we just crashed in a hostel.

Enough daydreaming. Alfredo is just saying that his Mom is ready to teach me how to make fresh cheese out of cow's milk so I leave the boys to watch the movie whilst I have to see a lady about a cheese.

Ciao 4 now

~ Paulo ~