Advent 2013

Dear Friends and Family,

At the end of 2013, we can finally say that we are truly "settled" in Decorah, Iowa – our home for the past 15+ months.

Mary is fully acclimated to retirement (and seems to have taken to it quickly). She spends her days reading, cooking & baking, walking & biking, singing in the church choir, volunteering at the local food pantry, hosting an international student at the college, and other activities. This fall she became a volunteer "mentor" for a young elementary music teacher in a small town nearby, but she does not appear to be missing the classroom.

Mark's radio tower. Yes, he climbs it.

Mark still spends a good share of his days in classrooms, however. He continues to enjoy his work in the communication studies department at Luther College. He joins Mary singing in the church choir, biking & hiking as time and weather allow. This past summer and fall he has finally had time to re-establish his ham radio station. While he believes his 50 foot tower with large aluminum antenna on top to be a thing of beauty, we doubt the neighbors share his view.

Our big trip this year was a two week tour of Central America in July. We visited Mayan ruins and experienced contemporary culture in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Belize. In addition, we had a few days to ride bike trails around Madison, Wisconsin, and made several trips to the Twin Cities and the Kansas City areas. We also traveled twice to Washington, DC – at Spring break by air and in summer by car – to spend time with our granddaughter. We are pleased that Mark's parents remain healthy and active enough to have accompanied us on some of these journeys, including the long car trek to DC. 

Guatemala 2013

Harper turned one in October and is a bundle of energy, constantly on the move. Her parents continue their work in two different government agencies. However, Sarah's job will shift somewhat at the new year – a change about which she is excited – prompting them to move from Virginia to the Maryland suburbs to be closer to her new office location.

Harper's 1st birthday gathering in KC.

Katherine continues her work as a composer, with several commissions this year, as well as her work as marketing and communication director for a performing group and concert venue in St. Paul. She and her husband both stay active playing their saxophones in various ensembles in addition to their "day jobs."

Mary with Katherine, Matt & Kaia at Dunning Springs, Decorah

We are very comfortably "settled" in this life we lead, and we pray that the peace and joy of this season will bring you settled comfort and joy, as well.

             Mark & Mary Johns

Our kids didn't believe we old folks went zip-lining in Guatemala. Here's proof.

Harper's First Birthday

 It doesn't seem possible that we've been grandparents for an entire year now, but little Harper is growing up. We got to help her celebrate her first birthday. Despite government shut-downs and such, our daughter and son-in-law were able to get back to Kansas City for an annual family event on his side. His mother was gracious enough to invite our side of the family to crash the party, and opened her home at a very busy time to us and to my parents.

We gathered several days after the actual birthday for this celebration, but we doubt that Harper was worried by the calendar. The poor child doesn't lack for much, especially in the way of toys, but she began by opening gifts. It's a good thing she likes books, because she received plenty! One, from Great Grandma, was about a cow. The cow was also included, and was also a hit.

The next event was the cake, prepared by expert cake decorator, Aunt Ashley. Harper didn't quite know what to make of it at first, but once Mommy put a finger of frosting in her mouth, she got the idea very quickly.

By the end of the event, which came too quickly for us, she had gotten her good from it.

Lamanai

After an adequate breakfast in the same hotel dining room (but served buffet style to circumvent the service issues) we boarded the bus along with another local guide for a 90-minute trip north from Belize City to “Orange Town.” The guide gave us some history and facts about the country that were somewhat more interestingly presented than yesterday.

An iguana suns himself (herself?) on a wall in Belize.

Along the way our driver spotted a large Jabiru stork -- white with red neck -- that the local guide told us was very rare to see, and is the largest bird native to the western hemisphere. Apparently there are no avid bird watchers in our group, because no one was all that excited to see such a rare species.

Jabiru stork in the distance

At Orange Town (which isn’t much of a town) we transferred to a large outboard boat that could easily accommodate all 16 group members, plus our OAT guide. The local guide continued as boat driver. We made good speed, but stopped periodically when he saw particular birds, or in one case, bats, that were noteworthy. Again, no bird watchers aboard to get overly excited, but it was reasonably interesting. But when the skies opened and it began to rain on us, the bird watching stopped entirely as most of us huddled under a tarp.

A cormorant along the river

After about an hour total (the last 15-20 minutes under the tarp) we arrived at the Mayan site called Lamanai, located in a rain forest preservation area along the river. The site was well preserved and uncrowded. The most unique feature was the “masks” decorating two of the structures. One jaguar mask was original, most were reproductions that allowed the originals to be preserved elsewhere, protected from the elements.

Bats cling to a tree trunk above the water.

We docked at Lamanai in the rain.

Because of the rain the trails were quite muddy and slippery, and climbing pyramids was left only to the youngest and most daring in the group. The guide brought along a picnic lunch for us to eat on the site, and fortunately there was a thatched-roof shelter with picnic tables. Though the rain had abated, as we loaded the boat for the 50 minute return downstream to Orange Town, there were dark and ominous clouds over our path. Fortunately, it did not rain nearly as hard as on the upstream trip, and most managed to tolerate the sprinkles.

A somewhat crude jaguar mask at a very ancient temple.

Mary demonstrates ancient corn grinding equipment.

All in all, we were lucky to have only been rained on this one day in a two week excursion during the rainy season. The trip ended with a nice farewell dinner at a local restaurant (not at the hotel, thankfully), and a short bus ride to the airport the following morning. The trip home was long but uneventful, and we even arrived on time in Minneapolis.

A pyramid emerges from the jungle.

A one of the famous temple masks at Lamanai -- the end of a very good trip.

Belize

This morning we have an early wake-up call and departure at 8 a.m. for another long day. There is one more Mayan city ruin to see here before we leave Guatemala and enter Belize.

"The Lost Gringo" seemed an apt name for a hotel we passed.  Also, something we saw everywhere in the lowlands, green wood used for fence posts sprouts and grows trees in place in the hot, wet climate.

As we drove toward Yaxha we picked up an escort of Guatemalan Tourist Police who followed us all the way into the national park. As our guide explained, there have been some political protests in this part of the country that have disrupted tourism, and the government is anxious not to let this happen.

Our Tourist Police escort.

Our guide stopped at a house along the way where the family was living in extreme poverty, without electricity, water, or other basics. As we were looking around and taking pictures, the Tourist Police officers came up in the yard and wanted our guide to explain why we were stopping here. Our guide was not concerned, but the police were clearly not happy that this aspect of Guatemalan life was being shown to tourists up close.

Parents and nine children (3 of them above) share this hut.

We had the archaeological site nearly to ourselves, and our own guide was able to take us around it, as there was no requirement here for a local “expert.” It was a nicely preserved site and allowed us to see for ourselves some features of the construction that had only been talked about at Copan and Tikal. The view from the top of the main pyramid was spectacular. But it was definitely hot and humid.

A lesser pyramid at Yaxha

View from top of the pyramid at Yaxha.

After two hours, when we got back to the bus, our driver had a cooler with ice cold, wet wash clothes waiting for us -- a very welcome relief!

Remains of round columns are an unusual feature at Yaxha.  Most Mayan columns are square.

The Yaxha ruins are well-hidden in the jungle.

 We drove a short distance to a restaurant for lunch. More tourist police picked us up on the way out of the park, so we again had an escort. The restaurant was open air, under a thatched roof. We had no sooner sat down to eat but a downpour of rain began. It was great timing that this didn’t catch us still walking among the ruins. Despite having only thatch above us, we were perfectly dry. Lunch was a somewhat thinner version of the same stew we had had on the home visit, but the meat was almost non-existent. Our guide bought lunch for the police officers, who were hanging around as we ate.

Well-preserved carvings at Yaxha.

Rounded, rather than squared corners on a temple at Yaxha.

We continued to the Belize border. Getting out of Guatemala was easy. Our guide collected all of the passports and took them into the Migration office for us to get them stamped. Getting into Belize, however, required that we get all of our suitcases off the bus and take everything through with our own passports, one person at a time. Then we had to wait in the rain as they processed the bus and driver through the border. We had to chip in a dollar apiece to tip a guy to help the driver get the baggage back up on the top of the bus -- an expense I think that OAT should have included.

The shore of the Caribbean at Belize City.

Belize requires local guides, so our OAT guide sat silently while the Belize guide droned on about every village we passed and every river we crossed. We quickly fell asleep. One can sum up by saying that Belize is a former British colony populated by the descendants of former slaves imported from Africa, as well as a mixture of Mayans and others. It is part of the British Commonwealth with English as official language, but Spanish and other languages are spoken. The country considers itself Caribbean, rather than Central American. It is small, poor, and sparsely populated, with miles and miles of totally useless savannah that can support no agriculture. Belize City is probably the most godawful place we’ve ever visited, not because it is the poorest, but because the people clearly don’t give a damn what it looks like.

Memory of Yaxha.

Our evening meal was by far the worst we’ve had, with terrible service, bad food, and air conditioning turned up so high we had to go back to our rooms and get jackets. Hopefully, tomorrow, we’ll see something worthwhile that improves our impression of this country.

Tikal

We were up early and rather surprised to discover that the balcony outside our room overlooks a large and beautiful lake! It was much too dark to see last night, and because there is virtually no development, there were no lights on the opposite shore to clue us in. As inviting as the lake appears, however, the crocodiles make swimming here unwise (though later in the evening we saw an American mom and ~10 year old boy swimming in the lake off the hotel dock without incident or, apparently, concern).

Breakfast was one of the best we’ve had, and unlike at the previous hotel, provided both ample choices and ample quantity. We were unable to linger over coffee, however, because the bus departed at 7:30 a.m. for the Mayan ruins at Tikal, the largest and most famous of the Mayan sites, about 45 minutes away. At a rather seedy little tienda along the way we stopped to pick up our “local expert guide,” Marco Antonio, who turned out to be pretty worthless. He walked us around for nearly five hours and told us what we could have read off the signs. We tipped him accordingly. The heat and humidity did nothing to improve our opinion -- it was like August in Iowa.

Tikal would have been spectacular if we hadn't already seen previous sites with better guides. Our guide at Copan was so excellent, that this site was mostly a confirmation of what we had learned already there. I know this was supposed to be the high point of the trip (and I guess it was "high" in that we climbed to the top of the famous "Pyramid 4" for a fantastic view) but it was something of a let down in that there were no really new discoveries here for us.

A little after 1 p.m. lunch was served at an open air restaurant on the archaeological site, and although the menu was yet another soup, chicken & rice with tortilla, and dessert, it was quite good. They gave us each a cold wash cloth as we entered, and that was pretty heavenly in itself. Cold soft drinks were included, and those also hit the spot. Hot soup didn’t seem appropriate, but was really good, and the dessert was a plain banana with a hot rum sauce and a little nutmeg on top. We were amazed so many in our group wouldn’t touch that banana and rejected it without even tasting it -- thus, I had two!

Dinner was “on our own” this evening, which was really pretty ridiculous, since we are out in the jungle there is nothing for miles other than this hotel. Forced choice. Fortunately, we stopped at another local tienda and tried to spend the last of our Guatemalan Quetsales on junk food. We were also amazed that so many who couldn’t eat lunch less than an hour ago could go nuts for ice cream now.

Star Wars fans may recognize this view from the top of Pyramid 4

After a shower, some time in the hotel pool felt good. We also caught up on some laundry and later walked down to the lake shore just before sunset. The lake is gorgeous, and almost totally undeveloped. We saw only two boats -- a slow pontoon very far off in the distance and a little fishing canoe somewhat closer. When we returned to our room, we sat on our little balcony to watch the sunset and the lightning of the approaching, rainy season thunderstorm.

Sunset on Lake PetenItza

From the balcony of our room.

 We drank our cheap beer and ate our junk food. It was plenty of supper after a big breakfast and lunch. No one else was out on their balconies at all -- too humid? But we found it very pleasant. Who would guess that there would be fewer bugs by a lake in a tropical jungle than in our own Iowa back yard?

Memory of Tikal

Flight

After breakfast our guide offered to take any who wished to see some nearby villages. These turned out to be more like barrios or neighborhoods of the city of Antigua, rather than rural villages. Along the way, the guide had the bus stop to celebrate the birthday of one of our group members in traditional Guatemalan fashion -- with a very large string of powerful firecrackers!

The birthday celebration: Before

After (yes, our guide survived -- he merely ran quickly)

In the first barrio, we visited the general hospital, which treats Guatemalans who do not have private health insurance (most of the population). The waiting room was crowded, and there were even more people (mostly family members) waiting outside.

A national hospital, free for all.

Nothing looked very advanced, and there was a “funeraria” (undertaker) right across the street -- an ominous sign! There were also several “pharmacias” (pharmacies) nearby, as the national health care system often doesn’t include medications, even for in-patients in the hospital, so family members go down the street to buy prescribed drugs and then bring them back to the hospital to be administered. There is a pharmacy in the hospital, but shopping around can mean getting a better price on the medication your loved one needs.

Crowded waiting room.

Many family members wait outside, including this little girl and her dad.

We visited an “art school” where a woman and her husband make almost nothing but various ceramic birds, fired, and then painted in bright colors. The studio and shop doubled as the family garage, with both a car and motorcycle parked inside. The gasoline smell was so strong that we were glad no one lit a match. We weren’t much interested in buying birds (though some in our group seem to have a compulsion to buy something(s) every time we stop!) and we needed to get outside for some fresh air.

Clay birds at the "art school."

Down the street we visited a very pretty little church that had been reconstructed after being completely destroyed in the 1976 earthquake. Though in traditional style, it was quite new. The main feature was a life-sized “dead Jesus in a glass box.” The statue, wrapped in a white shroud but with head and feet exposed, is above the main altar. We were told that on Good Friday the glass box is removed and taken on a long procession throughout Antiqua, which lasts from 3:30 in the afternoon until midnight. It was interesting, however, that this was very similar to the statue we had seen in the shaman’s house in Attitlan.

Note the glass box above the altar.

From there we went on to another barrio, and this turned out to be the Hector Heritage Tour -- our guide’s boyhood home, the church in which he was baptized, the liquor store run by his sister, his grandniece (very cute -- about the same age as Harper, our own granddaughter), his daughter’s home (exterior only), etc.

Hector's neighborhood church.

Hector with his grandniece.

We returned to the hotel a little after 11 a.m. and had time before our 1 p.m. lunch for some more walking around the city. We got into some areas we hadn’t been before, bought some snacks for the evening in a couple bakeries, and visited a few high-end art galleries where we saw some beautiful things, and even bought one small and inexpensive item for our house. On the way back to the hotel we visited a church only a block away that we had not previously noted. It, too, had a life-sized dead Jesus in a glass box (it seems to be a thing around here). This one was only in a loincloth with the crown of thorns still intact, and a good deal of blood and gore around the wounds.

Yet another dead Jesus in a glass casket.

Another of Antigua's many churches.

After lunch at the hotel we boarded the bus for a 90 minute or so drive to the Guatemala City airport. This airport, though small (probably about the size of the Des Moines airport), has more duty-free shops than Heathrow. Several were offering samples of the local rum, and we went from shop to shop, scoring three samples apiece. No one else in our group seemed to know this trick.

The plane was a twin engine turbo-prop seating 48 people. It was smoother and quieter than I would have predicted. Even though it was only a one hour domestic flight, we were served a snack and a small sandwich, along with a soft drink -- even followed by an after dinner mint! This was unexpected, but we were glad we had our bakery pastries anyway, to make a full meal.

Arriving at Flores, an even smaller airport, the most notable feature was the humidity, which felt like Iowa in July to us, but felt quite oppressive to some members of our group from Arizona or California. The bus driver here was much less personable and energetic than the one we left behind, so it took awhile for him to get around to loading our baggage. Because our hotel is out in the jungle and charges exorbitant prices for everything, our guide had us stop at the Guatemalan equivalent of a QuikShop to stock up on water, beer, and snacks. We already had plenty of water (not sure what other group members have been doing with all the free water from previous hotels, as it has been far too much for us to drink) but we got a few 50 cent beers.

The highway to the hotel went from awful (many deep potholes) to terrible (bumpy gravel) but we arrived by 9 p.m., and after waiting longer than usual for our luggage to be delivered, got ready for bed in anticipation of a long day tomorrow.