The Dude Abides

For the past week, I’ve been really digging life, man.

We’ve been staying in San Marcos La Laguna. Which is this little town off of Lake Atitlan. To contextualize this, here is a friendly little map to describe the area.

For a whole week, I didn’t wear shoes. My days would consist of eating really fantastic food, swimming, and answering emails. It was the kind of blissful living that you know can’t go on, but you enjoy it so much that you don’t want to think about it ending. It was also the kind of blissful living that makes you forget to blog. So please accept my most sincere apologies for not doing this.

While we were in San Marcos, my Dad and I were at a pizza night at one of the hostels. We had become friends with the guy who was running the place, an Older English gentleman by the name of Stewart. Anyways, there was this little two-man band playing by the name of ‘The Lone Om-Ers’, a reference to one of the guy’s yoga careers. They were amazing. Paul and Eric played covers of songs by Flight Of The Conchords and Neil Young.

To make a long story short, we had a great conversation just before they started playing, about permaculture and urban farming. Both of them were really knowledgeable about that kind of thing. Coming from a hippie neighbourhood (and let’s face it, part of the world), urban farming is very much of interest to me. The insane concept that it’s possible to grow and produce all the food you need has had me interested since I was a kid. Just the idea of sustainable farming and crop rotation is fascinating. Knowing how to replenish the soil with key vitamins and minerals just by rotating cabbage and soybeans? That’s a real education.

It’ll be a few years until I’ll even have the option of buying land, let alone wanting to. But someday I’m going to be self-sufficient for food. That’ll be a good day.

Our conversation with Eric and Paul also got me thinking about cooking, something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently anyways, seeing as I love it so much. I really like challenging myself to do crazy things, like going off HFCS for 6 months, or asking out girls who I’m pretty sure will say no to me. I think I have a plan for another one.

For one month, I am going to make my own food. I can only eat the food I have personally made. Now this sounds super easy. So to make it more fun, for that month, I can only make food from scratch. This means I can make pizza dough with flour, but I can’t top the pizza with cheese or sauce that I haven’t made myself. I want to do it during a month on the calendar, not just a thirty-day period. So I’ll have to do it in February, seeing as I’m going to be pretty busy with travel until then. So there. Goals. I tend to collect those.

I’m going to go charge my laptop, eat Falafel, and enjoy the pleasant climate before being plunged back into 4° weather (39.2° for the dinosaurs).


-A

Food, Bliss.

So we’re still at this hostel in Antigua. Every day is full of really fascinating aspects of the city. To the south, there is this gigantic dormant volcano looming over the town. It’s a big surprise when you turn a corner, and there’s this gigantic mountain that you’d forgotten about. It’s massive, but it just adds to the beauty of this area.

The food is fantastic here. We’ve eaten at a few places so far, and we’re kind of impartial to them, but outside of the downtown core there are a some little bar/restaurants where ex-pats hang out and get drunk. The food is really cheap and really good there, a decent meal that fills me up costs about 25Q which is around $4.30 US. And if it fills me up it’ll fill you up, because my teenage appetite is monstrous. I’m so busy eating and wandering around that I’m having trouble writing and posting. I’m trying though.

Something I’ve been thinking about lately is that food is a pretty big part of my life. I don’t think foodie is really the right term to describe my devotion. I’m more of a food-ist. Or food-ish. It’s another one of those things I consider to be my zen. Along with longboarding, dishwashing, and hanging out in airports. I love buying the food, carrying it home in my red backpack, quietly chopping the veggies and putting together the meal. Eating it isn’t even the best part. Just the process. Over time I’ve gotten pretty okay at it. I have a few recipes that I can rely on consistently. Most importantly, my Chili. I’ve been a vegetarian my whole life, so everything I make is always meat-less. If I can’t prepare my own food, or even choose what I’m eating, it makes me really unhappy for some reason. At summer camps especially, I always had trouble because you couldn’t make your own food, or even choose what you would eat that day. Making my own food is a big part of my life, and Chili is my zen. At least here I can choose what I eat. And the meals are simple.

Another day in Antigua, then to Lake Atitlan for two weeks (hopefully). More posts on the way for sure.

Thanks for reading,

-A