Cultural anomalies: Standing in line for a Starbucks latte I realize I can use my credit card for my small purchase, anytime, anywhere for anything now without any fee. Auto flush toilets and plenty of toilet paper is readily available. CNN on flat screen TVs are highly visible at every gate.

Should I listen to the news and catch up on my world? Why is the President's popularity news? Can't the news be what he is doing without any bias so I can decide for myself without influences?

Travelers are filling the seats at my gate now with just one hour until I board for Seattle. These travelers have a look different to what I have grown accustomed to in Guatemala. Here they have electronics, food of the fast kind, suitcases not backpacks and costales. What I notice most is the new clothes everyone seems to be wearing, not the second hand or old maya clothing. And people speak English all around me.

I see a young couple resting sweetly against each other. My heart pulls my mind to thinking of my loved ones. I am so close to being with them. A reunion grips my mind as I will grip and hold them for real, real soon.

I walk off the plane, through the familiar SEA airport, out of the secure areas and there is Jeff. My backpack is waiting too!! I am home in my comfortable cottage and throw myself on my bed. What an adventure I have enjoyed! What a great place to come back to! The sun sets over Puget Sound.

I have no problem waking 10 minutes before my alarm even with only 4 hours sleep. But the sleep came easy and was peaceful. In just 15 minutes my bags are by the door and I wait for Hector. He arrives in just minutes. The family doesn't wake and I'm glad for we said our farewells last night and I don't want to cry again. It is 4:35 a.m. and I leave through the large wooden doors one last time vowing never to forget my DeLeon family in La Antigua, Guatemala.

The ride to the airport is easy and I chat with Hector, more to keep him occupied and awake, than for the conversation. So I tell him a few things about my travels and my journey home. He is of little response but manages a couple questions now and then. I tip him generously for the very early morning ride.

The check-in like is long but moves quickly and efficiently. Now my wait at the gate at 5:00. Boarding and walking the jet way I pass the last few Guatemaltecos and in my heart I say aloud goodbye and in my soul I think thank you to them for more than they might care to know or understand. We are on the tarmac. I have left Guatemalan soil and within moments the land that I have come to know is invisible obscured in totality by clouds. My last hope is that it is never this easy to forget Guatemala.

Daylight at 5:00 and I can't sleep for trying. 6:30 I hear the first lancha so I spring out of bed and descend the many stairs taking a last look at every view that sweeps around from northeast to northwest, drop my key at the front desk still closed and sit on the dock. Waiting for the next lancha/boat is just long enough to appreciate the early morning tranquility but not too long to make me anxious. The 20 minute ride to Pana I take in similarly. I walk to an open agency, and wait two hours for the shuttle. I take my last 2 1/2 hour shuttle ride back to Antigua, and spend my last playtime with Angela, and walk my last walk around town for my last purchases of gifts and necessities.

It's time to pack. It takes quite a bit of time to reorganize to ensure I have important documents and essentials should my backpack and I be separated for any length longer than the travel day, and my precious painting is safely with me in a carry on. At last I am packed, showered, and ready!

I've invited my family to dinner at a restaurant of their choice. Now if only they can get away from the hotel. They can't. The other guests return too late. We order Dominoes Pizza, which they love. We watch a little television, eat, then say goodbye expressing how much we have grown to care for each other. And then Brenda and Angel give me a gift to remember them by which means so much to me that they would spend their hard earned money on me. I didn't think I would be this emotional, but I'm blathering. I can't feel otherwise. This wonderful family that has treated me like one of their own for seven weeks. I will miss the DeLeon family.

I awaken by light and the urge to pee. Back in my bed I imagine I will be home soon. I get up and plant myself for the day with the essentials: My journal, book, sunscreen, coffee, water, camera, towel, granola bar. I take a chair on the best patio next to the best spot for swimming and spend hours until I retreat for a refreshing shower and rest in my room until time for dinner which is delightful talking with travelers from all over the world, getting travel tips like: If you do get sick check into a comfortable place with a private bathroom; Like: don't fly Emirates Airline because they fly over airspace that if an emergency landing is imminent I (a Jew) could be in a hostile country. Besides travel tips I get more recommended reads and films to add to my list. Alex and Vicky send over a glass of wine. We all wish each other safe travels. After dinner I settle my bill and decide to pick up the cost of the hot tub, only $35. I say good nights and good byes. I leave in the morning.

The weather is calm and so am I. I roll around in bed for an hour reading and finishing "Angela's Ashes." Terrific. I must get the next in the series. Dressed for walking I go up following the footpath to Santa Cruz but I want to walk the other direction to Jaibalito. Back down I go to ask which path to take. While at the office/café I also reserve for dinner tonight.

Straightened out on the various footpaths I take the higher of the two and find my way to the Jaibalito dock where I wait for the next boat headed toward San Pedro. It arrives. I hop aboard and get off at San Marcos. I walk up footpaths then streets that wind their way up the side of the mountain. I take a few other streets and find my way back to the footpaths, to a restaurant on the shore. After a quiet brunch and much appreciated two cups of coffee with milk I walk the footpaths a bit more. San Marcos is quiet but is is mid-week. I just don't think it is as great as Casa Del Mundo, my little heaven on earth for a few days.

I catch a boat back and ask at the office to book my room for an extra night. Out to the patios. I immediately dive in for a swim. I hand over my journal to Alex and he writes up recommended films and books by Israelis and American Jews. I figure it's just R & R and visiting with other guests the rest of the day until its time to shower and get down to dinner... but Levi from Edmonton decides we should jump from the balcony (they did it yesterday) and swim over to the next dock of a private residence to read the sign over the gate on the dock that we can't quite make out with my binoculars.

It takes nothing to convince me to go for a swim when it's this hot. I climb up on the rail and the tile is so hot to the bottom of my feet I can't wait and I jump way out to be sure I miss any boulders and rocks I can clearly see under the balcony. Levi dives. More brave than I. And now we're swimming across the cove. Halfway there I see a dead fish floating out in front of me. I say, "Hey Levi, catch," and throw it his way. What I didn't realize at that moment but find out just a few minutes later is that Levi is having difficulty. He can't regulate his breathing. He is too excited and becomes anxious. He has used too much energy up too soon. He is scared. I know how this can happen in open water swimming.

He calls me to come over and help him. I swim over and do my best to boost his confidence and tell him to just tread water or float to rest. He wants to swim over to the rocky cliff and hold on there but I tell him he better not because the waves could make it dangerous by smashing against him up on those rocks. I think we should swim back but he decides we are closer to the little private dock and that's where he's going. I go along and we rest there. Now I say to come into the water and we'll swim back together, slowly, get in, head above water, real easy.

He gets in but is afraid then climbs back up on the dock. He decides he is going to wait for a boat to go by and wave it down. So I wait with him. About 20 minutes. Now here comes one so I see a whistle hanging on the dock and I tell him to blow it to make sure the boat sees us. Waving, pointing our intended directed, using the whistle, the boat slows but continues and looks like it is passing us. The attendant looks up to the house and a man yells down, "What're ya doin'?" I don't have my hearing aids in of course and can't hear much of what transpires. Levi is yelling back. I'm yelling to the boat attendant to stop, that Levi needs a ride to Casa del Mundo. The boat turns and approaches the dock. Levi is on. I yell, "Lo siento (I'm sorry)" to the man above, dive in, and swim straight back.

I'm back on the patio just a minute behind Levi and apologizing for the dead fish and for telling him to blow the whistle that I think alerted the man in the private home to our intrusion. Hahahahaha. We laugh now.

Clouds come in. Everyone leaves the patios and now I do too. After a shower I read and write and write because Jeff encourages me with compliments and the Russian Israeli couple reminds me I can write more than a travel log. I'm interrupted welcoming another traveler, Kovi, another Jew from Australia, another doctor traveling. And meeting a new traveler means exchanging where we've been, why we're here, and where we're going next.

It's time for dinner. After I change back to my swim suit and descend to the hot tub. Earlier Alex, Vicky and I reserved it for the night. The hot tub is wood heated in a wood stove that sits in the pool and was started at 3:00 to be ready for tonight. Alex and Vicky and the two Canadian couples and I sit in the rain and the lightening and visit. I drink a glass of wine and bottle of water. I am relaxed. We laugh about the day's swim.

The climb to my room up the stone stairs, stairs, stairs, stairs is exhausting. Ah, bed.

I wake to a cool breeze off the lake, a lancha motoring by, kayakers out in the cove, and a uninterrupted blue sky all in view out my bedroom window. I slip on my swim suit, attire for the day, and spend it reading on a chair on one of the patios in the sun with an occasional dive, swim, and float in the cool clear blue water.

The wind on the water kicks up at about 2:30 so I climb, climb, climb stairs to my new room #9 small efficient clean. I read on the common balcony and am joined by new guests, 2 young couples both from Canada. One couple is Jewish from Ontario. The other couple is from Edmonton. They tell me they don't know where to buy pot and had hoped they would have been approached by now. I tell them they should get hooked up, as American tourists, find some other American tourists at the hostels, especially Jungle Party when they get back in Antigua. Just a thought.

At the common dinner table I sit across from a couple from Baltimore. Every traveler wants to know what the other travelers have seen, have done, what is recommended, what isn't worth their time. Mostly I hear admiration for making the most of my time unemployed, making an adventure solo, seeing as much as I have, and for hiking the remote locations I have. I am overwhelmed at the compliments. Am I really that different than any other 49 year old woman in my situation?

This morning I catch a boat to the private dock at La Casa del Mundo. This place is unbelievable! A maze of rockery jutting up from the lake. Construction since 1990s is still underway and three men arrive on foot carrying rocks on their backs, add them to a pile, and go away for more. Yet this is a full service hotel and I'm only paying Q250/$32 a night. It feels like heaven on earth, or the Mediterranean, or the San Juan Islands in a heat wave. I spend the rest of the day sunbathing and reading, gazing at the volcanoes and the lake and boats passing. That's it, nothing more, like a vacation!

Dinner here is at 6:30 and served community style. Its only 5:00 but I can smell cooking. More reading. I sit for dinner facing the lake and the sunset. I meet Alex and Vicky, Russian emigrants to Israel, and Jim and Ron from Spokane, WA. After dinner I stand out on the terrace stargazing, admiring the half moon in the clear night sky. The view from my room #4 is the same and I sit inside and watch the moon set down behind the mountain that sets out the other end of this cove while I talk to my adoring Jeff.

Today I am exploring the pueblos around the lake. I get to the dock and wait for the next public lancha to Santiago Atitlan. I read my guide book and map out the walk from the dock there up to the square, church, and Parque de Paz (Peace Park). I also map out a couple museums in San Pedro on the path between the two docks. For some reason, maybe prior experience, I wonder if my best laid plans will actually transpire.

I hop on the boat with a few local young women friends. They appear to be off for a day of enjoyment. The ride crossing the lake is a slow one. Other boats pass us. Luck has it I'm on an older boat. The girls are taking pictures of each other so I get my camera out and ask one to take a couple pictures of me. We arrive. There I head up the dock and main street, then wander out of the tourist area up the hilly streets, paths, walkways. As the walkway narrows it becomes a dirt path. I pass doorways and some just draped with curtains. I pass yards with corn growing, hogs rooting, children playing. Soon I am headed down to the lake shore. I'm lost!

I retrace my steps. I'm finding a more populated area now. People here dress very typically mayan here except the adolescent and young men. Suddenly in front of me walking quickly is a man in the most decorative costume I could imagine. It crosses my mind that he is headed somewhere important, perhaps to perform, and must be late. I step in right behind him and follow. We walk through the market and end up in the town square where a fair is going on to celebrate the anniversary of either the church or its pastor.

Here are more people in similar costumes, 4 ferris wheels and other games and rides. I climb the steps to the church and sit watching the community below me. A man turns the crank for a ride as the small children in the seats go round and round. Vendors sell cotton candy, chocolate dipped strawberries, and ice cream. It sounds like something you might see in the US but the method by which these things take place is very different. I might be scared to put my grandson on one of these decrepit looking rides.

The drum beat begins. Costumed boys are instructed by the man I followed here. A crowd gathers. The man slaps one of the boys masks. He is not happy that the boy is not paying attention. They are performing a folk dance. Men watch and whisper gossip. An old woman sits barefoot and rests. A young couple and their child leaves the church to go down to the fair. I should find my way to the dock now so I still have time to visit San Pedro.

I leave this square I happened upon through a different route than I arrived. So yes, I get lost, disoriented really. I go too far down streets that become narrow, now just a walkway, now just a path through a small field. I think I am too far east. I make my way back up the paths to a main street. Here I ask a young boy for the direction back to the dock. A woman comes over looking very concerned that I have addressed this boy. She points west. Boy did I get turned around. She walks along with me directing me to continue. Now she points left down the hill. I see the tourist area from where I walked up from the dock earlier. I think her very much for her help.

I get a phone call. The hotel where I've reserved a room for the rest of my time seems to have made a mistake. They thought I was coming the following week and don't have a room. To accommodate me I'll get a larger room with private bath. I tell the manager I'm concerned about the cost and expect to only pay for the room I thought I reserved. He agrees. Nice.

Now I'm on a small boat very full of passengers headed to San Pedro. Thirty five people make the boat ride low and slow. The clouds come down from the hills. Wisps are laying low in the valley crevices falling down the volcano into the lake where rain pelts the surface. Like a dance, the rain moves from cove to cove now reaching out to the lake and over our boat. It starts to rain hard. Those people on top and out in front on the boat scramble down under the cover. We're all inside. I move back to allow more seat space for one or two of those huddled under a piece of plastic.

Now I remember I have a few M & Ms and I'm next to a little girl on her daddy's lap. I ask if I can share one with her. She quickly snatches it from my hand, then drops it. I put two more in my hand and ask her what color she would like. She grabs both. Very well! The rain pours down on our little boat and much of it finds its way in streaming down the side onto my shoulder and leg. Unfortunately I'm on the outside edge. By the time we dock at San Pedro the entire left side of my body is wet. My umbrella at the ready I disembark, walk up through the river now running down the street into the lake.

I duck into the first restaurant, an English style pub. What freaks me out is I sit at the bar and NASCAR is on a TV above. I watch the last lap and #9 Kasey Kane from Enumclaw, WA comes in seventh. I ask the man sitting next to me what race it is. He tells me it's the Indy. I respond that my hometown boy just came in seventh. He comes back with, "I'm from Tacoma, Fife High." Crazy. And I have veggie soup listening to Van Morrison, Mustang Sally, and Joe Cocker. I've got to go catch the last boat back to Panajachel and only have time enough to walk up the steep main street, back down another to the west dock. Most stores and vendors are done for the day, but I notice this town is like all the others only on a very steep hillside with picturesque views of the lake, surrounding villages, and still uninhabited steeps and valleys like no other.

Back in Pana I am sitting under a palapa roof in a lakeside restaurant to pass the evening watching the lightening strike between the volcanoes, listening to thunder roar, seeing the clouds change the view every few minutes, and twinkling lights appearing from pueblos afar.

Walking home a young man attempts to scam me I think. He says he needs to make a phone call at his hotel and if I speak English I could go there with him to help him change his money and make the call. He spoke English with an accent, maybe French. He was not a Guate. Not sure what he would have tried, "No, I won't help you."

Somehow I remembered in the middle of the night to take 2 aspirin and drink water. Maybe it helped, but only a little. By the time I feel I can eat something it is 8:30 in the morning and I just ask Brenda to cook me up one pancake. I need a walk. I walk to Parque Central where I get a latte and sit for 2 hours and watch the parade celebrating the founding of the city and the theme is Legends of Antigua. This time to recuperate does me good. I get a bagel sandwich for the ride to Pana then wait for my shuttle. The 2 1/2 hour ride seems long. It is all twists and turns, my stomach turns with every one, up and down narrow mountain roads. Then finally we drive down to the beautiful Lake Atitlan. I easily find a nice room with private bath at a hostel in Pana for the night. I go walk the streets, down to the lake shore, along the shore walk, then sit and read and write with this most beautiful scenery in front of me: A wide expansive blue lake with towering volcanoes rising up from the shores on the other side. As night falls, lights of small pueblos across the shore alight.

I finish packing for the lake then walk to the other side of town to see a museum and Casa Poponoe, but both are closed for renovations. I take a street I have not yet taken and walk back. I come upon several galleries. I've got some time so I stroll into the first owned by an artist and featuring his works and those of other Guatemaltecos. I visit each room and find some great works by the artists, all unique styles. Lastly I see the works of the gallery owner and I am entranced by the movement, grace, gentle mix of color and texture, and happy lightness in a figure or two figures with typical elements of Guatemala depicted as I've never seen here. I can't leave the room. I stand gazing, my eyes moving with the flowing lines in each piece. I move several pieces to the window and by a painful process of elimination, one is left. It's mine. The gallery workers take great pains to take the canvas from the wood brace, roll it, wrap it, wrap it, box it, tape it, wrap it. I hope customs officials don't ask me to open this!

As I stroll through the other galleries I'm afraid I might find something I like better, but I don't. I'm enchanted with my painting! I buy my shuttle ticket to Panajachel on the lake for tomorrow at Jose's agency. I walk to the Bodegona grocery store for my contribution for tonight's potluck at school to celebrate my last day of studies at Escuela Cooperacion. I just can't bring myself to buy disposable again. All they have is styrofoam so I spend a little more and get 20 small plastic plates for Q75/$9.45. I get plastic utensils and cups and a bottle of Tequila.

I'm running late so for the first time and Q10/$1.25, I catch a ride in a tuk-tuk, a small 3-wheeled motorized vehicle steered with handlebars, fully enclosed, the top and sides of vinyl with a front seat for the driver and the back seat for a passenger or I've seen as many as 3 or 4 if some are very small. On Antiguas cobbled streets the ride is very bumpy. At school Ceci and I study and do exercises until break then we hang out and prepare for the party. Not much in the way of food is brought unfortunately. But there is plenty of drink. It becomes too much after a few of us leave for the restaurant across the street and continue. I am EXTREMELY grateful for my friends who sent me home in a taxi.