Guatemala - Travel with Lindsey

In this episode, our guest, Lindsey, shares a glimpse into her life in the picturesque highland city of Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. With breathtaking vistas and two imposing volcanoes, this is no ordinary backdrop for raising a family. Lindsey unpacks her experiences, navigating a dual cultural and dual linguistic world while bringing up her children amidst these stunning surroundings. We discover the peculiarities of the Guatemalan school system, the nuances of traditional cuisine, and the unique family traditions that have become a part of Lindsey's life. 

Mayan culture resonates deeply within the fabric of Guatemalan society, and Lindsey enlightens us on some of the complex layers of this rich heritage. She walks us through the rhythms of her daily life, safety considerations, and practicalities of the cost of living in this fascinating country. Prepare to be captivated by the raw beauty of the natural environment, from the dense jungle interiors, the many volcanoes, lakes and beaches, and gain a deeper understanding of the migration patterns that have shaped the country's demographics. 

Guatemala isn't just an enchanting place to live; it's also a vibrant tourist destination. We also discuss adventure sports, hiking, surfing, yoga and meditation retreats, the music scene, the national instrument, and the gastronomical delights. Join us on this exploration of life, culture, and travel in Guatemala - a journey you won't want to miss.

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GuatemalaCity
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Find Lindsey here:

https://www.virtuallylindsey.com/
https://www.instagram.com/virtuallylindsey/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindseylopezhorwitz/

Map of Guatemala

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:15

Hi, welcome to our podcast. We're Next Travel with Kristin and Carol. I am Kristin and I am Carol, and we're two long-term friends with a passion for travel and adventure.

Speaker 2: 0:27

In each episode, we interview people around the globe to help us decide where to go next. Welcome, lindsay. Thank you for joining us at we're Next podcast, and our stand is we're going to talk about Guatemala and then also just kind of your history, how you became somewhat of a global citizen and where you live, and I'm super excited to learn more about some unique things about Guatemala, so welcome.

Speaker 3: 0:52

That's good, thank you. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 2: 0:54

Yeah, all right. So my understanding is you live there part-time, both US and Guatemala.

Speaker 3: 1:03

How did that happen? Yeah, we toggle back and forth as a family of five. What?

Speaker 3: 1:09

Five I have three kids and my husband is from here, from Guatemala, so I met him down here, we lived here and we're based now in Guatemala currently, and we lived here in Guatemala for 15 years and it was really the pandemic that threw us kind of back up to the US. So we were up until 2020. We were based in Guatemala and would go home, you know, back and forth. Now our current half-half lifestyle is, you know, when the summers or any of the breaks that the kids have from school, we come down here. So we're just about to work, a few weeks shy of wrapping up our summer down here. Yeah, we're on year three of being based back in the US and from Washington state, so that's where we base up there and come down here to. I say we come down here to keep them bi-culture, bilingual, bi, all the things to keep us up to date on everything. Yeah, Wow.

Speaker 1: 2:11

So what year did you first go there? Let's see 15th. So it was 2005? 2006, yeah, 2006. Okay, got it. And you said your husband's from Guatemala. Yep, did you guys meet in the US or are you from here? Or how did you guys meet?

Speaker 3: 2:26

I was from the US and from Washington state. Yeah, Born and raised in Washington state and I did all my schooling and went to college in Washington state and then in college I took a study abroad. That was in Guatemala, and so I spent six months like everything you would think of Guatemala Just jungle, rural monkeys, no power, washing all your clothes by hand all the REI clothes that you buy to go on a trip like travel adventure. I did that for six months. I was studying, I wanted to do bilingual education. That's what I thought I would do.

Speaker 3: 3:02

And so I moved down to Guatemala to do that for six months and after six months I was like I want six months more, so I reapplied and then I moved into the city, which is where we live for 15 years. That is more focused on NGO work and volunteer tourism, and I worked there for a long time. And once I moved to that bigger city, it's a big college. It's the second biggest city in Guatemala. It's called Quetzaltenango on the map, but the local people call it Shaila. Shaila is the Mayan language word for it?

Speaker 2: 3:33

Oh, okay, and but what's the full name of the city?

Speaker 3: 3:37

Quetzaltenango, with a Q or a K, a, q? Yeah, so the local currency is the Quetzal and the national bird is the Quetzal, and so the town is called Quetzaltenango.

Speaker 1: 3:53

I see it right on the map. It's almost like there's Guatemala and then off to the whichever I'll call it the left. I'm looking at a map right now.

Speaker 3: 4:01

Western, yeah, western Highlands. Yeah, how I explain it to people? Yeah, yeah, here locally they call it the like cold area, because it's very, very high, it's like I want to say it's like 8,000 feet high, it's like it's yeah, the elevation is a thing down here You've got to. You have to acclimate, for sure when you first come Really.

Speaker 1: 4:22

What's elevation? What is it?

Speaker 3: 4:24

I think it's like 8,000 feet, oh my gosh. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 4:27

It's more than the land I might be exaggerating.

Speaker 3: 4:30

I should have looked that bit up. Somebody fact check me, okay, and show notes. Yeah, exactly, but yeah, you know, and here they measure in meters, but it's, it's, it's pretty high up, like it's definitely you. You know, if you're walking up a hill you're winded by the time you get to the top. For the first couple of weeks I need 644.

Speaker 1: 4:52

Thank you 7,000.

Speaker 3: 4:54

I only slightly over-saturated. Yeah, yeah, let me close.

Speaker 1: 4:58

That's a lot, though. That's like Colorado right, carol.

Speaker 2: 5:02

Yeah yeah, colorado is 5280 at Denver and everyone has to acclimate here, and so that's like almost on the way to the ski towns.

Speaker 1: 5:10

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 5:10

I have no idea. Oh, my goodness, and yeah, is it the volcano, sorry.

Speaker 3: 5:15

So there is a volcano, there's there's two, right in Kitsultanango. So there's tons of volcanoes in Guatemala. It's very volcanic if that's the case, but right in Kitsultanango there's two. There's one called Santa Maria, which is it's currently dormant, but it did have a big explosion about 100 years ago and it is. It's this, it's like a centerpiece, so you can see it from anywhere in the city, beautiful. And then right next to it is a volcano. It's an ash volcano and it's called Santiago and Santiago is. It goes off every day. It's ash, ash, ash all the time.

Speaker 1: 5:50

So it's like in the air you're working out.

Speaker 3: 5:52

Yeah, Like clouds of ash coming out and it's it's smaller. It's much, much smaller. So Santa Maria is very, very big, but Santiago is small and it has little ash clouds that come out of it consistently. I mean, of course, it's like any volcano, sometimes it's more active than others, but it's not a lava volcano. There is a lava volcano in Guatemala. There's a few, but there's an active one that you can hike up, like your shoes start to melt, like you get kind of that close to it, and that's an antique with Guatemala, yeah. So lots of Guatemala is a lot about active travel, lots of hiking, lots of you know, sort of adventure, backpacking and you can, you get into it and you get kind of rough and tough.

Speaker 1: 6:36

It's very very active Speaking my language. I need to go.

Speaker 3: 6:42

This is how I got sucked in and lived here for 15 years. So, yeah, it's gorgeous, it's called they call it the land of eternal spring. So it's always kind of spring, like temperatures there's right now it's rainy season and there's kind of a dry season that's more sunny, but it's always kind of spring, which is why it's green, it's lush, it's flowers, it's, you know, depending on where you are, if it's humid or if it's a little bit of a drier climate. But back to kind of the original question is in the highlands, that's the cold area of Guatemala, and you know, if you talk to other Guatemalans that like, oh, it's so cold there which it's like a spring night in Washington state, right, it's not that cold.

Speaker 1: 7:27

Well, the Washington's rained a lot, so maybe that's the similar.

Speaker 3: 7:30

Yeah, maybe that's why I like it. Maybe that's why I fit in.

Speaker 1: 7:33

Yeah, that's great, though it's funny. I just Googled land of eternal spring and Guatemala. All pops up, oh yeah.

Speaker 3: 7:41

Yeah, they, that is, they've doubled down on that slogan for sure, but it's true it is. When you're here, it is like you know things are, there's birds chirping and things are being born, and it's very much a lens to its name.

Speaker 1: 7:53

So, yeah, and you said it's beautiful. It's a rainy season now, because I remember being Costa Rica. Like you know, 2002, a long time ago, in October was the rainy season, but you're saying the summer is the rainy season, or this again.

Speaker 3: 8:07

Yeah, it's about six months, six months. So it's kind of half and half. And again, you know, as climate patterns are changing like that, sometimes a little short, sometimes a longer. So in October is when it's really wrapping up. November is gorgeous here because it's still spring, but it's everything is still spring. It's super green, it's rainy season is just finishing up, Harvest are happening and but it's these like beautiful backdrop of like clouds and pink skies and you know like it's like the wind's kind of blowing. So it's not, it's not super cold yet. And it does get cold in December and January, like cold. For me, from somebody who's from where, it really gets cold.

Speaker 2: 8:49

Okay, california.

Speaker 3: 8:50

Yeah, so the rainy season starts in about. I think it starts up in April, may, may is when it really gets going. It ends about October.

Speaker 1: 9:01

That's right.

Speaker 2: 9:04

But when it's rainy season or still, is that like it's going to rain but like not all day and yeah plenty of fun day. You know, like non rainy parts of the day, sunny parts.

Speaker 3: 9:15

Totally. Yeah, it's very kind. It like has a schedule and it kind of sticks to it. And the next year is, you know, it's like they have El Nino this year. So like everybody's kind of like looking at weather patterns, this year it's all over the place.

Speaker 3: 9:26

So, but this, this doesn't happen frequently. It's usually like until about one or two PM. You can be, you don't even have to take your umbrella, you can count on it, it's not going to rain, you can go, do all the things you can do outside, you can go to the market and you don't have to worry about it. And then from about two to six, you can kind of count on rain and like it'll do like really heavy downpour and you will.

Speaker 3: 9:48

Very frequently if it starts to rain while you're out you'll see people just kind of huddled under a like an awning waiting out the rain, because it's like they're like oh, it's going to be 20 minutes of this, we'll just wait. You know, like that's kind of the custom, as you wait and you talk to whoever's there and you hang out and then you go okay, have a good day, and everybody kind of moves along. So yeah, it kind of just does its thing and it's like I'm here for a minute and then I'll go, and then usually in the evening again in a let up. Of course that's not every day. Some days there are days that it rains all day. There are days that it you know it won't rain as well, but mostly it does. It kind of keeps to a schedule, which is nice.

Speaker 3: 10:25

So you guys, the other thing that I want just adding on to that is that there's no daylight savings here. It's dark at about 630 all year long, so like those extended days that we're having up there in the US right now, that's, that's part of what you know, our kind of one of those circadian rib rhythms. We, you know, with my family, we always go like oh yeah, I forgot, like when we, you know we'll go home in August and go like, oh my gosh, it's still daytime, because you forget that it's. You know, you don't have that gradual process.

Speaker 1: 10:57

Yeah, oh, my God, that's definitely different. Yeah, for sure. And in California, although sometimes what Hawaii and Arizona, I don't know, I don't think they change either, but definitely with with not changing makes a difference. And then so the best time to travel there if someone was interested in going, it sounds like what is it Like summer time would be January, through a January, february, march, march.

Speaker 3: 11:24

Yeah, I would say so. I would say it depends on what you're going for, true.

Speaker 1: 11:30

That's what I want to talk about. Is unpack that, what does?

Speaker 3: 11:34

that mean. Well, I so, especially the town in Kitsulka Nango, you know there's a lot of long term travel. It's very well known for language schools, yeah, so people will come for months. All over the city there's language schools and you spend five hours a day immersed in a, in a language class, and you do, you can do a homestay and you start to build a community. If you're coming just to, you know you want to do some what we were talking about for adventure travel. You want to hike the mountain and you want to, you know, see some sites and do some of that stuff. Of course, you know March is probably, I would say, the March, or November would be when when I would double down yeah, january, february, though February it's really. It's still. It's really beautiful here and it's still cold and everybody's getting over it.

Speaker 2: 12:21

So to find cold, yeah, yeah, 40 degrees, 50 degrees yeah.

Speaker 3: 12:26

Yeah, I would say, yeah, at night it probably gets down to 45. Okay, and during the day, like so, right now I'm in Antigua, and in Antigua and Guatemala City it's warmer and more humid. It's probably about 70. It's probably about, like it is in California, 70, 75. And then, yeah, it dips down to about 40, 45 in the at night. There's no central heating or cooling systems here, because they're just not needed. It's cold.

Speaker 2: 12:56

It's cold because your house is.

Speaker 3: 13:00

Yeah. And I mean I guess I should caveat on that, because I'm sure you know people who run cold. Brother probably would be like I need a heater indoors and extra blankets. But I think we're pretty even keel people and I'd say like most of the time that we've worked here we didn't have central. I mean, maybe when the kids were little, I think we had an indoor heater, like when they were newborns, you know, it was like we got indoor heaters. Other than that, we've never had any central central heating or cooling.

Speaker 2: 13:27

So the thought of having newborns in a developing country. How was the healthcare there for people if you want to stay there for a while, like it's, or like maybe people that are older, like I don't know if there if I have some emergencies, is it reliable healthcare?

Speaker 3: 13:44

I don't know if I'm allowed to ask this, but do we have reliable healthcare? Are they accessible? Let's judge how good it is.

Speaker 2: 13:54

I also hear a lot of times in these developing countries it's really inexpensive, you know, because they don't have the insurance on top of it. And then you go hear people like getting some surgery done for a couple hundred dollars or an MRI for 50 bucks and things like that. So generally, do you feel pretty comfortable with the access to health care? Do you wait to go home to do your stuff? Or to the US, I should say?

Speaker 3: 14:18

I think it depends as well. Okay, so for me I'm a pretty I looked for something that was a mix, like right in middle ground, between a very kind of Western medical approach and like a naturopathic approach. So I wasn't leaning like I wasn't going to have a home birth. Just like us too, yeah, I was like somewhere in the middle, and so I think for me I found a doctor that I felt really, really comfortable with. I have three kids here, right?

Speaker 1: 14:49

So I found a doctor. How old are your?

Speaker 3: 14:51

kids my oldest is 13 and my youngest is now eight. So they were born yeah, they were born here and I found a birthing center that they listened to me and they I had both a natural birth and a C-section and I felt comfortable doing both those things and I felt comfortable in the procedure and I felt like I was supported during and after. Again, I didn't know, you don't know what you don't know, and so going into it.

Speaker 3: 15:23

I don't have anything to compare it to, I guess is the point, but I felt that it was, that I was supported, I felt comfortable, I had the option to go home and I decided to do it here. I loved being pregnant here, because you walk so much and the society supports pregnancy and women in a way that I just loved and in the same, with the newborn stage and breastfeeding, it was just like society supports it in a way. That is, I was able to kind of still be in my role of having a job and going out and doing things I need to do, but also I could take care of my kid and have my kid with me and I really, really loved that phase of life and doing it here. I felt that I skipped over a lot of the stress that I see my girlfriends going through in the US of having to make decisions and how expensive child care is and, yeah, I just feel really fortunate that I had that experience here because it definitely made me a happier mom.

Speaker 1: 16:29

Can you unpack that a little bit more in terms of you saying how did they support you making tough decisions? Did you stay home raising your kids, were you able to? Did they provide that opportunity there being in Guatemala raising them, versus here in the US?

Speaker 3: 16:47

Well, okay, so also, we owned a business so for 13 years.

Speaker 3: 16:51

Just last year we sold this business, so we had a cafe and event venue and so here in the US, here in Guatemala, here in Guatemala, okay, got it.

Speaker 3: 17:00

So it was in the center of Kitzel Tainango, and I will go back and forth and saying Shayla because that's what the people here do call it, shayla, but it is not that on the map so I was able to both be the owner of a business and have kids and show up in both of those roles. I didn't, of course, I didn't need to ask for time off or ask for, you know, those sorts of things. I was able to set that up, yeah, but I was able to fully be in both of those roles in a way that I don't think I would have been in the US. The expectation of me was like, of course, you're dedicating your time to yourself and your child and your family in this phase and you know, as we know now, it's not even the first three months that are the hardest part. You know, you get into like six months in a year and you're expected to show back up in society and you're supposed to 16 year old boys and I was.

Speaker 3: 17:59

I just never felt like I was second guest or judged, if I was like I need to be with my family. You know, I'm not sure that you know this. This is important right now. Everybody went, of course, you know, like that's, that's what you, that's what you should, that's where their priority should be.

Speaker 3: 18:14

And I, you know, I very clearly remember this moment of being like what are my non-negotiables? Okay, like I need to be home at this time, or, you know, we would, we it? We had lunch at home together every day as a family, like that's something that is. You know, it's not, dinner is not the big meal, lunch is the big meal. And so you go home and you have lunch and you check in at midday and like that, those sorts of things that are just so centering, you know, and so grounding, as you're kind of getting into the to the grims and your kids are growing up and you're trying to figure it all out and you're trying to be all the things. I just felt like there was an allowance to to also be fully be a mother, which in the US it feels like it's like, yes, fully be a mother, but also do all the work and get old things done and you know do your do your job and then go home and do all these other things.

Speaker 1: 19:01

Yeah, do it all 100%, 100% work. I completely understand, yeah, and so I curious. At lunchtime you said do do they go to school, do they get off an extra longer lunch so they can come home, or how was that during when they were in school?

Speaker 3: 19:17

School starts at seven and it ends at about one one 30. And so they come home and you have lunch between one 32 and then they do. They would do homework or whatever housework and things in the afternoons.

Speaker 2: 19:34

I know that's going to chores, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 19:39

Yeah, so that would that would be the afternoon and I will say the kids they went to, they moved home as far as school, or to the US it's, I will. I kind of go back and forth of referring to what's how much it depends in the moment.

Speaker 2: 19:53

Right, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3: 19:55

Once we move back to the US, they thought school is they still, to this day, think it is so easy? After being here, they thought school here was just like, so it required so much more of them to be able to. They had to learn more. They had to try harder. They like the expectation was was because, it was because, of Guatemala.

Speaker 1: 20:17

I'm confused which one was easier.

Speaker 3: 20:20

US was easier than in Guatemala.

Speaker 1: 20:22

Got it. That is surprising. Classes, yeah, that's. Hmm, what did they say were the difference? Because the school day is even shorter. It starts earlier, but then it's shorter, so they just pack it in which I I mean, I'm going through that with my son right now, so bored and then, yeah, he finished summer school in a day, got 86%. Now to put you.

Speaker 3: 20:49

That's. That's that's what they said. It was like I can just do all the, I just have to mark all these things off. Like they were able to really learn the system really fast and go like, oh, this is so easy, all I have to do is is read this and then turn this in and I'm done. As opposed to here, it was like they had to. There was still level of, like absorption and retention that they had to keep Not required of. The other thing I should know in this that might be a factor for other people is that when we were down here, we did Montessori, so like that was also a big shift. So and that's what they do while they're here in the summer, that's what they do is they pop back into that Montessori school and that.

Speaker 2: 21:29

So that's the switch, would it was, was different from and maybe they had to do so they thought it was easy yeah is it all in Spanish, or do they have bilingual schools?

Speaker 3: 21:38

It is a bilingual school, but it's it's. It's bilingual to check the boxes, so they have English classes, but they it's mostly in Spanish. Most of the day is in Spanish.

Speaker 3: 21:47

Most of the schools down here have English, have an English teacher. Almost all the kids in schools. Most of the schools here, I would also say, are private. There is a public school system. Typically, like the rural schools implement the public schools curriculum in the public school system. But in the bigger cities, like the like we're talking about, almost all of the schools are private and most people that that I know do you pay for school. You pay to send your kids school. There's a scale, there's like a whole range of schools that you can choose from there. You know there's a lot of Catholic schools and there's a lot. There's all sorts of different types of schools. But now I forgot. The question is, or why started going off on this, bilingual, yeah, so, so most of the schools are bilingual because English is built into the curriculum and it's also built into the public school curriculum as well as the local my language. So, my goodness, in kids all to mango, it's key chase, so they have a class for key chase as well.

Speaker 1: 22:47

I can question. I'm just curious because you said so when you were so down there private Montessori. When you came back here, did you do private Montessori as well, or did it do do public school?

Speaker 3: 22:59

with the public.

Speaker 1: 23:01

Okay, yeah, because my kids were first through eighth grade, and then what school, and it was easier, the same thing.

Speaker 3: 23:07

I looked into it and realized just how lucky we were to be able to afford school down in Guatemala. Because it was, it was, yeah, we had a little bit of sticker shock.

Speaker 2: 23:17

And then how do you manage that now, because you spend like half time but you just do the summers down there and they go to American school. They, you come to America or USA. She say North America, united States of America, for the summers. How do you manage that?

Speaker 3: 23:31

Currently the last two years we have done. We've done the US school year and then we've come down here for the US school summer. I'm looking to extend that out more. Like I'd love to spend four months here and see how much I can kind of get away. The kids are getting older. It's getting a little bit harder to to pull them away from school and sports and friends and things. But they have school and sports and friends and friends and things in both. So I'm, I'm. I will say it's taken me years and years and years to kind of like etch out these balance of time with kids. Something is kind of always sacrificed, but we were getting there little by little. But the the thing that makes it work, particularly for Guatemala, is that their school year runs January to November, where our school year in the US runs or August to what may, so they're still in their school year here while we're on summer. So when we get here the slide into school.

Speaker 3: 24:31

yeah, it's like a summer camp for them.

Speaker 1: 24:33

But, yeah.

Speaker 2: 24:34

I'm like. Do they like that, Like oh wait a minute, so they don't have time off.

Speaker 1: 24:38

Well, I was going to ask, and then we'll get to the country because I have lots of questions of that. But I was curious. Yeah, because if the school system is better in Guatemala which I don't know about, because I would say US seems like it would be better, but that I guess the US would have more advantages, but that Guatemala's classes sound harder, it just seems kind of interesting. But then when they go, they come back down there to Guatemala.

Speaker 3: 25:01

Then you do put them in school, so they go from seven to one, so they're in year-round school, sort of yeah, my kids are in year-round school and I don't know that easier is better, so they felt like their experience was the US school was easier. I think that, as with anything, there are things that are better about the US school system and there are things that are not as good about the US school system, and there are things are better about the Guatemalan school system and there are things that are not so good, and I think that that's kind of across the table. If we were talking about health care, if we would talk about even politics.

Speaker 2: 25:39

Yeah, so then everything else is from the FONS, right.

Speaker 3: 25:42

So I don't know that I would choose the word better. They said it was easier. Easier is what they said. I was their experience. I never went through it, so I have to take their word away. Ok.

Speaker 1: 25:52

Yeah, so OK, I was going to say do you speak English at home, or what is it Spanish?

Speaker 3: 25:58

Spanish. Yeah, we speak Spanish at home. That's our family language. My husband and I met speaking Spanish and because the kids until my son was in fifth grade when we moved back up to the US. So we speak Spanish at home. The kids speak English now to each other, but they're all bilingual and they all have a different kind of balance of bilingualism, because my oldest two did their first few years of primary school down here in Guatemala, but my youngest started kindergarten in the US, so her first written language and reading language was English, whereas the older two, their first written language and reading language, was in Spanish.

Speaker 3: 26:37

I mean, I don't know the right or wrong way to do this. There's books, but what seemed to apply in real time was just me trying to stay disciplined of speaking to them in English, whereas our family language is Spanish, continually making sure that OK, so right now they're in English school year round that they get the balance to remember how to read and write in Spanish as well. So we just try and be intentional about it. It's not, you know, it's far from perfect. It's just as good as we can keep up with it all the time.

Speaker 3: 27:11

All of our movies are watched in one language with subtitles in the other language, and that's a split. We are split as a family as to what we prefer, like because one falls nicer on your brain. You know, this is like I want to really enjoy this Like. For me, if I want to really enjoy a movie and get to the plot line, it's still in English. It's not going to be the same if we're watching it in Spanish, even though I've spent, you know, 15 years speaking the language. But we just kind of flip a coin and be like OK, today we're watching it in this language.

Speaker 2: 27:40

So, ok, nice, that's great, all right, so should we talk about like, let's talk about the food, because I'd love to know a little bit more about the variety of foods there and what's available and what you like.

Speaker 1: 27:55

Yeah, and so different parts of the country that have very different tastes. Because I wondered also just in general, in Guatemala, because there's, you said, the mountains, and then also there's the coastline and ocean, I don't know. I'm thinking there's surf there, there's lots going on, so fish and other things. You know all of the differences for sure.

Speaker 3: 28:16

Yeah, and most people assume that it's very similar to Mexican food because Guatemala is right under Mexico but it's also border with Belize, which is like a totally different culture. So each pocket of Guatemala has kind of their take on how to do spices and they do what are called recados, and those recados are it has the texture kind of like a mole I don't know if you've ever had a Mexican mole and so they use the spices like a lot of pepatoria, a lot of the chilies, but they're not spicy chilies, they're spicy, like Indian spices would be spicy. So they use those, they grind those up and they make these sauces that they then put a meat or a chicken into. And each region kind of specializes in one of these recados. So one might be a bright, bright green, because it has more cilantro in it and has more of that kind of flavor. Or one might be like a brown color and it's more earthy flavors and it's a lot heavier on nuts and the seeds that are in it. So that's like the traditional kind of the meals and each area, yes, does have their own ricotta and then they do a lot of also. So we have like tortillas that you you know, yeah, everybody has different tortillas because they all use the corn as one of the base of the diet still, but they also make what are called tamalitos.

Speaker 3: 29:55

So Mexican tamales is where people usually kind of think of tamales as being from Mexico, but they make with an everyday dinner. So you sit down to have a meal, a lunch or a dinner, and you would have tortillas, but you would also have these little tamales which they're about. They're tiny, they're probably about the size of I don't know of like no, no, no, maybe two of your fingers, and that's what you would use to eat eggs or beans or whatever you're going to eat. You would have tamalitos and they're not the dry texture like they are in the Mexican tamales. It's like it's a staple, it's like having maybe, you know, in Europe you might have some bread or something to go with your meal. It would be like that, or maybe your garlic bread that you would serve or something. It's like that. They eat it, but they eat it with every meal tamalitos and tortillas. So that's pretty typical and they do a lot of tacos, a lot of street food, a lot of you can get hot dogs on the corner, that sort of stuff.

Speaker 3: 31:00

So definitely a lot of different types of street foods and then for celebrations they do what are called paches, which are they're wrapped up in banana leaves and they have some that are made from potato and some that are made from rice. So they're like tamales in the sense of that they're wrapped up in the leaves and they have the same shape and you kind of eat them the same way and they have a little bit of sauce and meat in the middle of them, but they have the texture of potato or of rice. So they're a different texture and it's very, very traditional. On at Christmas you have your potato. They're called paches, p-a-c-h-e-e-paches. So you have your potato paches and at New Year's you have your rice paches and that's how you eat them and the whole family. At midnight the whole family eats those and celebrates, and that's a part of the traditions here and that is countrywide, as far as I know Do you make them, or do you buy them, or can you make them?

Speaker 1: 32:04

Yeah, you make them.

Speaker 3: 32:05

Yeah, it's kind of hard to make, or everyone makes them together. Yes, so yeah, I mean you buy like 10 pounds of potatoes and you wash all the banana leaves and you cook everything together and you make the sauce and yeah. Then you get them all together and you make them inside the leaves and then they're in this big giant pot and you boil the pot and it takes like a whole day to do it.

Speaker 1: 32:31

Fun. And is it like all the family? Do you have a lot of your family come? I'm assuming yours is in Washington, his is in Guatemala, but I'm assuming is it big where everyone cousins, aunts, uncles do you have a big family in.

Speaker 3: 32:45

Guatemala. So your idea is correct is like this the whole family does get together. My situation in particular is not the norm Because I'm an only child and my husband, his siblings, don't have any kids, so my kids have no cousins. My kids are the only grandchildren on both sides of the family. But so we're not. We don't hate the typical picture but, yes, our whole small, very small family does get together for all of these holidays and makes them and does that. We just make less. But the other thing that you do with Paches and Tamales is that you give them away, so you go to people's houses and you trade them and you share them. You say Merry Christmas, you say Happy New Year.

Speaker 2: 33:32

You say, you know, even if it's somebody's.

Speaker 3: 33:34

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 33:35

Absolutely that's a good idea. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 33:38

We still make Christmas cookies every year. I was determined that we all we still gave Christmas cookies. There were little things that I was like we're doing this still. We still did Thanksgiving every year here. Little things that we, yeah, we still did. But, yeah, that was a part of it. So, yes, the whole family neighborhood. It is very much like what you're imagining. Our case is just a little different. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 34:01

And then what are, because I have more questions about culture and family, you know, just the people and communities. But on the food, to finish that too, what are typical, like a? You know, typical breakfast, lunch, dinners. The time of those I don't know because what you said, the lunch was the long and the bigger kind of dinner or so. What does that look like in traditional foods that?

Speaker 3: 34:27

Yeah, so typically for breakfast you'll have like oatmeal, you know, mosh, they call it here which is, I think, kind of, let's say, interchangeable, kind of globally. So you'll you have that and, you know, maybe some yogurt, some fruit and not too heavy. A lot of people who are working like laborously, like building things or working you're doing something that requires movement they will have like a snack break mid morning and they have what are called atoles, which is like you can do. They make one out of corn atole masa, which is like it's like having a, maybe a protein drink, you know, and there's not a lot of protein in it, but maybe having like a you know kind of that would be what, the equivalent maybe that we do in the US, but they will have an atole like mid morning. They call it the refraction, and kids at school as well have a refa. You send the refa, the refraction, mid morning for them to have a snack. I usually send like. They also have like a soy-based atole, which is because soy is one of the big things that they produce down here along with corn.

Speaker 3: 35:43

Well, I mean, everything is a little more processed now, but originally it would be. You know, they would grind up the beans and that would be what you would cook to kind of make this thick, thick drink, and at lunch is your big meal. So that's when you have what we would have at dinner. We have that at lunch here. So it's like, yeah, you're, if you're a meat eater, you would have your kind of main meat portion. You should always the tamalitos or the tortillas, usually a salad, and Do you have a lot of chili peppers in the food?

Speaker 3: 36:16

Does it like pretty spicy? It's not like Mexico in that sense. So, yes, there are a lot of chili peppers and you can get things spicy and there are some of the going back to the kind of regional group, some of the regions have their, their ricanos that are spicy or very spicy. But my experience moving back to the US and meeting many more Mexicans, I realized like Mexican, mexico is known for being everything being like super spicy and they always want it more and more spicy. And that hasn't been my experience in Guatemala. So, like my father-in-law, when we sit down to eat, he will get little chilies that he picks from his garden and eat them with it. So like he just likes it spicy. And, yes, you can get sauce. There's always a. There's always a spice like a hot sauce in the middle of the table, whenever you go to a restaurant.

Speaker 3: 37:02

So, yes, it's a part of the culture, but it hasn't been my experience. So there's like always, everything's really spicy.

Speaker 1: 37:07

You know it's making me laugh is I have the map up of Guatemala and I have it panned out a little bit with Mexico. I didn't see it was Mexico but you know it was just. Of course I knew it's Mexico. But I see on the upper part there's a place and I didn't even know but it's obviously. It's called Tabasco. Yes, there's a Tabasco in Mexico, an actual region. Yeah, and it's right above Guatemala, so you got to have some spice there, right?

Speaker 3: 37:35

So yeah, and we do share. Like here in Guatemala, there are quite. The chilis do grow Like you go to the market and there's a whole section for chilis and there's a lot of like homemade chilis and especially, like you know, in the middle of the table, like jalapenos. All that stuff is is widely available, but the food itself isn't made spicy. You go to a typical Guatemala restaurant and they're not saying like, oh, this is super spicy. It's, it's even, if you know, chinese restaurant. It's like things don't come just automatically spicy or spice on the schedule. It's like it's an, it's an add on. Yeah, so, oh. And then for dinner, you it's pretty common to have like eggs and beans for dinner, like eggs and beans yeah, they for dinner.

Speaker 3: 38:20

Very frequently eat eggs.

Speaker 1: 38:21

Right With rice, I'm assuming is there rice involved in the meal?

Speaker 3: 38:25

We eat rice a lot at lunch, okay, yeah, so like maybe potatoes, or or if you're going to get something that's meat based, like it would just be smaller, a smaller portion, or maybe go out for tacos and get like like just a few tacos for dinner, that would that's pretty common as well. Or like they do. You know, there's like there's some infusion, even from further south, like papusas or a, a, a Salvadorian thing, and so you can go out and get something like that for dinner as well.

Speaker 2: 38:58

So are there a lot of people that migrate from other countries there?

Speaker 3: 39:03

Yeah, El Salvadorians. Yeah, you know, guatemala is mostly like a passing through country because it's the bottleneck right For going up through Mexico and getting that. So, yeah, you meet a lot of people from El Salvador, honduras, nicaragua.

Speaker 2: 39:17

Oh nice.

Speaker 3: 39:18

Mostly people that are passing through.

Speaker 2: 39:20

And they all most of those are Spanish speaking countries as well.

Speaker 3: 39:23

All of those are Spanish speaking countries, yeah, and they're down down to down through Panama, but you don't really meet that many people. Panama, costa Rica there's a little bit more, times are really really rough Honduras, el Salvador, Nicaragua, it's. It's pretty rough down there. So those people are, those people are figuring out what to do.

Speaker 1: 39:43

I was just looking at that structure. It looks like it kind of goes up into Mexico. There's a big yeah.

Speaker 3: 39:51

That whole north part, too, is really interesting. There's this huge Mayan temple and land up there that's called Tikal and you can go and it's like I mean, it is like a college campus, it's the size, it's huge. You walk out, there's various pyramids. There's a hike that you do in the morning it's like 5am and you go watch the sunrise from atop of one of those pyramids. Oh wow.

Speaker 2: 40:17

And what town is that I'm looking at it.

Speaker 3: 40:19

Tikal.

Speaker 1: 40:20

T-I-K-A-L. Yeah, t-i-k-a-l.

Speaker 2: 40:22

Oh, okay, see that. Okay, so it's like a place.

Speaker 3: 40:26

Oh yeah, the Mayan culture is so prevalent here. For many, many years it was kind of people were trying to not show up and they weren't so proud it was looked down upon. If we're being perfectly honest, guatemala was in a civil war for 30 years and it wasn't until the mid-90s that they came out of this civil war and post-civil war. People were just kind of trying to figure out I mean well, a lot of things, but also their identity within it.

Speaker 3: 40:58

And just within the last, I would say, 10 to 15 years has this, the pride behind being Mayan, wearing the Mayan clothing, speaking the Mayan language, it being taught in schools again, finding teachers who are creating Mayan curriculum, learning culture, learning history. There has been a movement and there has been just louder voices within the community about bringing that to the forefront again. Because when you go to the marketplace here today, you see people in full Mayan garb and they for a while that was looked on as there was quite a bit of racism and I would say till today there's still quite a bit of racism, but that has been a big time. But now, more and more, you see pride behind it and there's artists who sing in their Mayan language and there's the voices that are coming out more and more around that and making it, so they can find pride within that so ancient, oh wow.

Speaker 1: 42:08

Yeah, it's really I'm looking at. It's very, it's very jungly. Looks for the oh yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 42:17

That whole northern area is very hot and very jungly. Yeah, lots of monkeys, lots of giant bugs.

Speaker 2: 42:23

Oh, okay, yeah.

Speaker 3: 42:24

Yeah, because it's really lush like thick green mosquitoes, like yeah, and your bug spray? Yeah, bring your bug spray for sure.

Speaker 2: 42:36

And it's interesting I don't see a lot of towns right on the coast, or they're just not a lot of like beach touristy.

Speaker 3: 42:43

Okay, so the Indian beach belongs to Belize. That whole eastern coastline is gorgeous and Belize is a long, skinny country, so it's really easy to kind of toggle back and forth between Belize and Guatemala. Now the west coast Guatemala got the short stick as far as beaches go, because the Mexican beaches that go down that way are gorgeous. That's how I originally came down. We bopped down through. I mean I was like a backpacker in my early 20s, right. So we just came down through all those beaches. Beach towns in Mexico like that lead up into Guatemala. But once you get to Guatemala it is black sand. It's very volcanic, like minerally harsh. The shoreline is also super harsh and so it hits really really, really hard Like it's. We almost can't swim in it. There's like a couple of pockets for very experienced surfers. You really have to kind of know what you're doing and it's hard to get to, Like you have to rent a car, kind of, to get there.

Speaker 3: 43:46

So the surfers that go, they're like determined right. Then, once you hit El Salvador, again, gorgeous beaches, hammock, life surfer days. Like it goes it just there's the dip in Guatemala, we have here mountains. I mean, oh so, okay. So, while you're searching things, search Samook, champa, s-e-m-u-c-c-h-a-n, p-e-y.

Speaker 1: 44:13

P-C-H-A-N-P-Y. I see that here, okay.

Speaker 3: 44:17

I'm bringing it in. Yeah, that's on.

Speaker 1: 44:19

Oh, it looks like it's on. Oh, my goodness so it looks like it's on a river, are you kind of?

Speaker 3: 44:24

yeah, rio, it's a series of natural pools. Wow, the picture that popped up. I was like it actually looks like that. It actually looks like that.

Speaker 1: 44:33

You know what's funny? Someone just told me in Arizona there's a place called uh Havasupai. I have a soup pie P-A-I. It reminds me of that. It's exactly like that Um, desert-y, but then this teal aqua pools with they have waterfalls. I haven't looked at the pictures yet, but I'm getting these are.

Speaker 3: 44:55

these are more shallow pools that you can kind of go in and and swim around and but um yeah Havasupai. Uh yeah, so that's a whole area of the country called Coban. It's also kind of in the Northern area and then the kind of I think it's kind of the crown jewel is the is Lake Atitlan, a-t-i-t-l-a-n, and that's like that's where you go and you accidentally stay for three months because it's like little town after little town after little town, um, all sorts of cute cafes and gorgeous Airbnb's and uh the shopping.

Speaker 3: 45:31

You can like install there and uh and and stay awhile. I think the first time I went we went for like a weekend and I ended up staying like three weeks, but it's pretty magical.

Speaker 1: 45:42

I'm trying to look at, oh here, okay, lake Atitlan. Yeah, I'm not picking it up right now, oh, it's beautiful. Well, the the photo I have here. Let's take it the one. It's just this pier, this little janky pier, and just flat water, uh, with a boat, and just volcanoes.

Speaker 2: 46:02

It's also looks like a little like Tahoe with like the mountains all around it.

Speaker 3: 46:06

It's enormous. I mean, the lake is like to get across it. It takes you about an hour to kind of go in a boat to go to walk across it or to boat across it to get to all the little towns. There's tons of little tiny towns.

Speaker 1: 46:19

Um I was just looking it up. I was going to ask you about that yeah.

Speaker 3: 46:24

It's full of culture and full of I mean, it's the now it's. It's got a lot of tourism as well, so there's all sorts of food and fusion there. Yeah, it's, it's pretty magical.

Speaker 1: 46:36

It says eco tours hiking to the top of uh Atitlan volcano. Uh, we have as well. It was interesting because when I was looking, I'm always looking at lakes because I do a lot of wake surfing. I was just in Tahoe, yesterday, that's, I literally drove just this morning from an event. But I look at the blue and the, and there's another really big one, lagodis is a ball.

Speaker 3: 47:01

Yeah, that's over near, uh, that's in near real, say kind of near Belize, uh-huh, it's not as popular of a lake. Okay, Definitely it's hot over there, not, uh, it's very hot and humid. Uh, not a lot of places to stay. Uh, lots of palm trees.

Speaker 1: 47:19

It looks like the one I was looking at before looked more mountainous and volcanoes and kind of Canada reminded me, I don't know why. And then this one looks more tropical, like the Caribbean, or so If yeah, yeah, it's way closer to the Caribbean.

Speaker 3: 47:33

The other interesting thing about that area of Guatemala is that, because you have Belize right there, there's a whole section of Guatemala that has a subculture that are called the Garifunda, and there it's a whole. So there's the, you know, there's the Mayan population and there's the Latino population. It's not Latino, it's the Latino population, and they have the Garifunda population over there as well, which is a part of their history.

Speaker 2: 47:57

Okay, it's one question. I know we're getting close to the end of our hour here. What about the safety? Is there anything to take into consideration? As you know tourists or if you're gonna live there, you know, is it super safe or you know, you just got to proceed with caution in certain areas. Any advice there?

Speaker 3: 48:14

Yeah. So there's pockets where I think you're, you're super safe, like right now. I'm an antique, what's very touristy. You see a mix of people everywhere. It's set up for tourism. You can speak English in most of the places. You can pay with dollars in most of the places. Okay, you know, it's very much set up and the tourism police here is very, very active. They've set it up in a way that is like you can, we, you know no problem walking down the street with my phone, my computer, all of stuff.

Speaker 3: 48:43

I anywhere in Guatemala I wouldn't walk alone by myself at night, but I don't know that I would do that. And just anywhere in the US as well. There's certain pockets though that I would say like kind of over there where we're talking about in Isabel, and real do'll say there's not a lot of tourism. You know, as you're coming down here, when you get more rural in those areas, it's just not set up In a way for somebody who maybe doesn't know the culture, it doesn't know the language and can't pick up on those social cues of when Something's not going so well. So I think it's about kind of knowing who you are, knowing what you come with and Knowing how you can navigate those situations. Most of the people that I know that have gotten into problems have been either. You know, maybe we went out at night and Didn't, they didn't take an Uber home. They decided to, you know, just just walk it, and it was like that created an opportunity or something.

Speaker 3: 49:36

Well, probably or just you know Walking through downtown at 2 am After you had a couple drinks is maybe not your best choice right.

Speaker 3: 49:47

Just about knowing who you are really where you're going through. So I notice I do. I make different choices of how I Move about with my schedules, especially with the kids down here, but I don't ever feel unsafe, even if I'm trying right now. I just I've traveled by myself to get here. It's about three hours from from kids all to mango.

Speaker 3: 50:08

You know that you are, also I'm someone from the United States who's traveling around and so I I recognize that you know this isn't my country. I I'm going to set myself up in a way that I'm kind of respecting and navigating that and then I'm probably gonna stand out and Especially when I was, you know, when I was pregnant, I really stood out. So I know I'm gonna this, I know I'm gonna stand out, so I'm going to also, you know, make the right choices to to keep myself safe. So I mean, it's, it's the. The time we live in is probably as safe as like lots of pockets of New York, where we live in the US and Washington is like it's very rural and like not. I Definitely don't worry about the same things as I do. I work here, but I live in a very urban area that has lots of the various economic brackets, and so, yeah, there's a different way I'm moving about, just knowing about that.

Speaker 3: 51:00

So I don't know if that answered the question.

Speaker 2: 51:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Versus like Japan, like, yeah, maybe yours, yeah, maybe a person the table and no one's gonna be considered stealing it, no matter where you are.

Speaker 3: 51:13

I definitely think that, like I have thought, I've had different waves of thinking about my safety over the 15 years that I've been here, but I've also got to know the people better, and I've gotten to know social cues and situations better. I just really understood the layers of the culture here, and so I think that that that is kind of what Nice brings. That answer now.

Speaker 2: 51:32

Okay, well, I'd love to go to the rapid fire questions. But, kristen, do you have any other burning questions?

Speaker 1: 51:37

No, I was just looking at the very Lee side because it kind of goes and sort of like I kept trying its pan out because it's just this little Spot where there is beaches and just was kind of seeing it looked. It looks pretty undeveloped. It's very undeveloped. Yeah, I mean it didn't look bad. I didn't. You know, like Livingston, I'm a punta or the board, yeah, yeah, yes, and then I'm a teak Bay, tk Bay or so there's just a whole bunch up there and there's some reserves up there. But it looks, yeah, there's like nothing in that the buildings there looks super old or yeah, it's just it's really not maintained. That's not, you know, very, very rustic.

Speaker 3: 52:22

Yeah there's a lot and you know there are. There are projects in the jungles like oh, and NGOs that have set up projects in those areas. So there are things that you could do, definitely lots of volunteer tourism and which is a big thing here in Guatemala we didn't really talk about, but you can find projects and go and be a volunteer and be a member and give your time to some of those things, and up in there there's, there's quite a few things like that.

Speaker 2: 52:48

Yeah, I'm looking at one of them. There's a hotel and it's called Hotel Salvador Gaviato. 25 dollars a night. Yeah, it's probably really hard to get to.

Speaker 1: 52:57

There's probably not a lot of people so yeah, I was curious cost-wise, like how much does it house cost or like rent cost if someone wanted to go there? How much should they anticipate? Because I know in 2002 I went to Costa Rica. It cost me $2,000 for a month stay, including my airplane to get all the food, all the excursions, everything. Just curious how much you know it would cost to go there.

Speaker 3: 53:23

Yeah, so it varies by city quite a bit. So here in Antigua it's a lot more expensive and usually you pay in dollars. In Guatemala City as well, over in Shayla, we pay, so we have a, we have a place there and we pay about $400 a month for rent and, as a family of five, my budget is and, again, inflation has hit all over the world, so I will say that, like this has gone up recently. But, yeah, what our budget is about, it's about and we live very similarly. I would say that we live in the US. Okay, it's about it's about $2,000 a month, depending, and that includes some travel, and that includes extras and eating out and okay, you know which is wow yeah, how would that translate in Washington for the same lifestyle?

Speaker 1: 54:14

What does that cost?

Speaker 3: 54:16

Yeah, yeah, I Between four and five thousand dollars. Yeah, okay, so like double, more than double. Yeah, and then like going out to eat I maybe this is a rapid-fire question, like no it's not.

Speaker 2: 54:35

Yeah, okay, going out to eat.

Speaker 3: 54:37

Like. We spend between yeah, you can, you can spend like 15 bucks for a family of five, but we spend between 30 and 40, depending on the whole family.

Speaker 2: 54:46

Wow, okay, nice nice.

Speaker 3: 54:49

And at the lake at like that's fun you can get away with. I mean, Airbnb's now are pretty Little more expensive, but still for the US they're like you can get something for a hundred bucks a night. That is for eight people. That's on the lake with a view you know.

Speaker 1: 55:05

How much is that?

Speaker 3: 55:06

For like a hundred bucks a night. Hundred eight, five dollars a night, maybe yeah, corporate retreat Guatemala.

Speaker 2: 55:12

We are, I know, I just yeah.

Speaker 3: 55:14

The lake really, really good for retreat. Yoga, lots of yoga, lots of ceremony, but things like that, lots of Okay that was one question I wanted to ask what.

Speaker 1: 55:26

So I just assumed hiking, backpacking, so yoga retreats, like what's a big thing? I know I love the outdoors and you know, not sure if there's a you know Specific thing, I'm sure what is? There's mountain biking, because there's lots of hills and things, and is there any prevalent, like big sport or things that people like to do our activities outdoors?

Speaker 3: 55:48

What bull? I mean soccer is like the thing right, because we are in Latin America. But so for tourism, hiking, so like, for example, you can do a hike, you can hike from kids off to man, go to the lake, you can take a two-day hike and they camp and have a real guy.

Speaker 3: 56:04

Hiking up volcanoes and out the lake. They do now have more. There's kayaking, there's like the subboards and things of that sort. It's not very much like you can rent a boat and go out for a day, not that sort. There's no like water skiing, for example. Definitely lots of water sports within there. Yoga yeah, lots of yoga retreats, lots of meditation retreat. That's like the self-help kind of traveler of somebody who's looking to to go and carve out some time for oneself, that sort of stuff. But you know, each area is so different because and I'm gonna retract a little bit I said about the beach, because just outside of the city there is one beach that is quite beautiful but it's still not surfy, it's just has a little bit more of a of a tranquil beach. But you know what's that called.

Speaker 3: 56:50

It's called Monte Rico and they're in court. Are I nice?

Speaker 2: 56:57

accent.

Speaker 3: 56:59

Been here for a long time. Yeah, and I married in, so I had to learn how to really communicate.

Speaker 1: 57:07

Oh, it does look pretty.

Speaker 3: 57:09

Beautiful and and some of the projects from here and T went from the city are now investing more out there and making it the tourism a little bit more.

Speaker 1: 57:18

Accessible to get to, I think mm-hmm, looks Hawaii, I see Black some, some black sands from the volcanoes. Yeah, lots of volcanoes.

Speaker 3: 57:29

I mean just around on T. Well, you can see all the volcanoes as well. Like I'm looking at the window right now, I'm literally looking at a volcano.

Speaker 1: 57:36

Which one are you looking at?

Speaker 3: 57:39

I'm gonna say it's obla, but I'm not sure. I don't know.

Speaker 2: 57:49

Wow, oh gosh. This has been so great. Learn so much, and I I definitely I'm gonna spend a month down there, no problem.

Speaker 3: 57:56

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 57:56

I want to learn Spanish. I want yoga retreat. I want to do that hike. Okay, so I'm gonna go to my rabbits by our questions. So what is the popular religion down there?

Speaker 3: 58:15

lots of Catholicism. There's many cathedrals, but I will say there's quite a big evangelical community and also there is a Mormon temple here.

Speaker 2: 58:27

Oh, interesting, okay, Nice, okay. And then, what is your favorite dish?

Speaker 3: 58:34

You know we talked about a lot of things, but if you're like we're going to have this one thing, what would you, there is a plant called chipoline and they put it inside of the masa when they make the tamales and it just has this flavor, that is, it's not even a strong flavor, but it's my favorite because you can't you really can't get it anywhere else, and what?

Speaker 2: 58:57

is it?

Speaker 3: 58:58

It's a. It's a. It's a herb that grows like a like it would be like a, like a spinach, like a leafy green, and they put it inside lots of different things. So what's it called.

Speaker 1: 59:10

What is it called again?

Speaker 3: 59:12

Chipoline, so C-H-I-P-I-L-I-N. One of those eyes has an accent on it.

Speaker 2: 59:20

Okay, and it's a native, that's their herb.

Speaker 3: 59:24

Yeah, so they put it in things.

Speaker 2: 59:27

Okay, we just talked about breakfast. Already very common oatmeal and yogurt. I hear that. Like you know, we hit that around the world.

Speaker 3: 59:34

But I think we didn't just on a food. One thing that we didn't talk about was cacao. That the hot chocolate is a very big part of your. Lots of, lots of, lots of coffee, of course, because coffee is like gross, like crazy here. But lots of lots of cacao, lots of hot chocolate, but like you get, you get it in a bar because it's the actual cacao that's ground and mixed and then you you make it from that. It's there's. No, my kids just turn their nose up at instant hot chocolate.

Speaker 2: 1:00:03

Oh, the soon. What about the orange juice? Do you guys make your own orange?

Speaker 3: 1:00:05

juice. Well, the stand on the corner does.

Speaker 2: 1:00:10

Okay. So you don't you never have like reconcentrated orange juice, no, Okay.

Speaker 3: 1:00:15

I mean you can. You can buy it, it is available here. So I'm sure people do. I mean you shop at the market and then you also there's, there's grocery stores, right, but no, you try as much as you can to get the fresh grease orange juice.

Speaker 2: 1:00:27

I love that. Okay, any, any specific music to the Guatemalan culture.

Speaker 3: 1:00:33

Yeah, so the national instrument is is the Marine, but but there's a huge music scene here. We learned got really really close to the music scene when we had our event venue. We would do concerts. There's a really large rock scene, there's a pop scene, there's a hip hop scene. If you just search on Spotify Guatemalan music playlist, you can list some of it and some of these bands are really really good and so they're not people coming through, they're actually Guatemalan.

Speaker 2: 1:00:59

Oh, yeah, they're Guatemalan. Yeah, oh, that's so neat.

Speaker 3: 1:01:02

Okay, yeah, yeah, we should look that up. There's something for everybody. But but the national like the, the, what it's known for, and like the music. If you were to, if your kid was doing a report on Guatemala school, the marimba would be what they would talk about the marimba.

Speaker 2: 1:01:17

Okay, and is that like a?

Speaker 3: 1:01:19

string instrument. No, it's a. It's like a xylophone that's made out of wood, and so it's a. It's a long table that it's pieces of wood that go in, you know. So like the smaller ones make a higher noise and they use sticks with rubber on the end of it to to play like a xylophone.

Speaker 2: 1:01:39

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think of like, like in the streets of New York, someone doing that, yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:01:44

Okay.

Speaker 2: 1:01:44

Gotcha. So yeah, all right, and we talked about surfing not so hot, but that you know, it's possible for the diehards.

Speaker 1: 1:01:51

What's the diehar beach, by the way, that someone like if you're a diehar surfer, you can go here, don't go if you aren't sort of thing.

Speaker 3: 1:02:02

I'm going to use a Guatemalan phrase or Spanish phrase which is tequilo mal, which means I don't know, because.

Speaker 2: 1:02:07

I'm a hardcore surfer.

Speaker 3: 1:02:10

I'll go to El Salvador.

Speaker 2: 1:02:14

There you go. It's close right. Yeah, el Salvador or Mexico, yeah, so just not the Rocky beaches. And then, lastly, is the money. What's what kind of money? I know we can use the US dollar there, but what's the normal?

Speaker 3: 1:02:29

money Only an Antigua, well, maybe a little bit in Guatemala City. The rest of the country uses the Guatemalan Quetzal and it's about there's about eight Quetzales, between seven and quite five and eight Quetzales to a dollar. So it's this really awkward and hard conversion that racks your brain for a few weeks.

Speaker 2: 1:02:48

That is an odd one. Yeah, there's a lot of calculators. Okay, and so what about changing your money? If I've heard some places absolutely just use your credit card with the no exchange fees that people like exchange the money there, some countries are like no buy on the street. You're going to get the best deal. What's the best? What would you advise?

Speaker 3: 1:03:10

So I use my credit card or debit card and, yes, find a bank that doesn't have the international fees, and then I also carry cash, because a lot of places will either charge you extra, the, the, the location will charge you extra, so there'll be there's there's a 5% fee or a 10% fee for using your card, or they don't take cards of a lot of places still won't take cards and manage cash. There's also like so the the ATMs only give you 100 kits, all bills, which are not 100. So, to give you an idea, 75 kits all is about $10. So, like that's kind of kind of like scale it it only get the ATMs only give you 100 bill.

Speaker 2: 1:03:51

Okay, it's all bills here, yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:03:53

But nobody has any change. So, like you, you are always trying to break the hundreds and get changed Like it's, it's, it's bound to happen and just just roll with it. It's a part of it. Start to save your changes. You go along and you carry a lots of, lots of actual change like lots of coins, because the one kits all is a coin, and so you end up having a lot of points as well.

Speaker 2: 1:04:19

Okay, what's what can get for one kits? All Get a lollipop.

Speaker 3: 1:04:23

Yeah, A taco no a taco is probably about yeah, like 5, 10 kits, all is.

Speaker 2: 1:04:31

Okay.

Speaker 3: 1:04:31

Yeah, street foods, street foods about. Yeah, 10, between 10 and 30 kits, all is.

Speaker 2: 1:04:37

Oh, okay, oh, so it's a couple of dollars. Yeah, yeah, one to $2. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:04:42

Yeah, a beer is like. Is is like 20 kits all is a craft beer, still like by bucks. Oh, there's a. There's a whole craft beer industry in Guatemala as well. You can get lots of craft beer down here.

Speaker 2: 1:04:58

Is wine big out there for beach trouble wine friends.

Speaker 3: 1:05:02

It's all imported, so it is wine but it's all important. Lots of Argentinian wine. You can pay and find wine for sure.

Speaker 2: 1:05:11

Okay, but beer is really. Yeah, they make they make their hot chocolate?

Speaker 3: 1:05:15

Yeah, they have. So there's a national beer company that makes their own, like like the Corona would be in Mexico. Gayo is the national beer company here, but then there are like probably I would say maybe 10 craft beer companies as well. Oh, nice, Okay.

Speaker 2: 1:05:33

Yeah, for our beer drinking friends. Okay, cool, all right. Well, thank you so much, lindsay.

Speaker 3: 1:05:38

This has been really awesome, so glad we got to meet up on and on Instagram and thank you so much for really enlightening us to the beauties and the amazing culture of Guatemala, yeah you got it, and the last thing I would say, just to wrap this up, is that it's also a great place to travel and work, which is what I do, because I we met on on Instagram, which I have virtually, lindsay and I do online business solutions for people, and that is why I do that.

Speaker 2: 1:06:08

Let's talk about that. Yeah, how do people find you?

Speaker 3: 1:06:11

Yes, you could find me at virtually Lindsay on Instagram or virtually Lindsaycom LinkedIn and any of those. But I part of the reason that I did start virtually Lindsay was because I wanted to live abroad half the time, or at least part of the time, and it's. Guatemala is an amazing place to live and work and travel Is business consulting Like online, online, online business consulting.

Speaker 3: 1:06:37

Oh, so people that want to start their own online business you kind of give us advice, coaches and creatives, people who have maybe programs or courses, membership areas that they are, that they that they manage and they want to do things more efficient and want to make more money. And that has come to me and I hope that Passive income, yes, yeah, but doing it from here for Guatemala, I mean, you can find great internet, you can, you can. There's tons of cafes, places to work from. It's very conducive to.

Speaker 2: 1:07:10

This time zone is good.

Speaker 3: 1:07:12

What time?

Speaker 2: 1:07:12

zone. Are you in central?

Speaker 3: 1:07:14

I think it's actually mountain. I get mountain and central confused, I have to admit so. But yeah, it's, it's, it's right, it's right in there. It's an hour off of Pacific time zone, okay, yeah, but it's very, very conducive to the that like nomadic digital lifestyle. Oh I highly recommend it for people who want to work for abroad and want to just travel with their computer. I take my computer everywhere and I, you know, I don't have any problems in very plug and play Nice.

Speaker 1: 1:07:44

So they can find you on Instagram with virtually Lindsay.

Speaker 3: 1:07:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:07:51

That's right. Thank you yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:07:53

Fantastic. Okay, thank you guys for having me. This was so much fun. Oh my gosh, it was a blast.

Speaker 1: 1:07:59

Thank you so much for just all of enlightening us with so much. And now, every time I will think Guatemala, I will think volcanoes.

Speaker 3: 1:08:12

That's all that attracts, that's all right?

Speaker 1: 1:08:14

Okay, have a great day. Thank you, bye, bye.

Speaker 2: 1:08:20

Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed the podcast, can you please take a second and do a quick follow of the show and rate us in your podcast app, and if you have a minute, we would really appreciate a review. Following and rating is the best way to support us. If you're on Instagram, let's connect. We're at where next podcast. Thanks again.