10 Years Ago: Antigua, Guatemala: Yogurt and Bread

 

My typical food menu remains the same today as it did 10 years ago, as do my prejudices about food trends that purport to perform miracles of super-health. Fortunately, I'm a person who feels satisfied with the same foods day after day. Maybe that's because my daily food is sexy to me, so I don't lust for paramours. OK, well. There is kettle corn, a long-time lover with which I pass a little time maybe twice a year. 

I rarely have bread. Revisiting this 10-year old post on bread sends me into reveries of delicious memories. 

About that blackberry yogurt in Antigua: While in Quito this past year, I sought jugo de mora, that magical potion that I experienced in Quite decades ago, the memory of which is permanently embedded in my brain, but the closest I could get to it were packets of powdered blackberry drink, which I bought at every opportunity. They were quite good. Sadly, I abandoned my accumulated packets in Lima, Peru, under duress, a story I will likely tell sometime soon. Months later, my regret at their loss remains palpable. 

Monday, May 2, 2016

Antigua, Guatemala: Yogurt and Bread

Generally, I live on a pretty straightforward menu, which consists of some protein, bread, lots of vegetables and fruit. Strong-flavored cheese at times.

No worries, I'm not about to embark on a litany in adoration of the latest trend based on junk-science, whether it be paleo, blood-type, gluten-free-for-everyone, raw food, whole30, or whatever else the shit is out there being hawked by modern-day snake-oil sellers these days. Also, I'm not a foodie, at least not in the sense of being a gourmet.

I'm just offering a preface to get to today's topic: yogurt and bread.

Because although my dietary regimen is pretty boring by most measures, I love the food I eat. And when a particular item on my usual menu surpasses my expectations, I get a little swoony.  Don't even get me started on the wonders of the snappy, sweet, jumbo carrots you can get inside Antigua's cavernous municipal market.

Or how I practically licked the plate at an Italian restaurant in Antigua, where I lapped up the pasta in an Alfredo sauce with such enthusiasm, a dish I hadn't had in maybe a year or more, that the gentleman I was with appeared a little alarmed at just how much I enjoyed that meal. I looked him straight in the eye and smiled without shame.

But anyhoo, on to the main point of this post.

Yogurt. I don't remember if I stumbled on the yogurt at Doña Luisa's little storefront bakery adjacent to the well-known restaurant, or if someone recommended it to me, but Goddamn, that yogurt is good! I tried the blackberry (mora) yogurt first, as a bit of nostalgia from my trip to Ecuador in my youth, where the memory of whipped, frothy blackberry juice I bought there has stuck with me ever since. The texture of Doña Luisa's yogurt is thick and a little granular, so in addition to a delicious flavor, it has a luscious mouth feel.

It's more expensive than any of the other yogurt  I tried in Antigua, but exponentially richer in flavor and feel.

Bread. By pure chance, on a certain day at a certain time on a certain stretch of sidewalk near Central Park in Antigua, I bought a bag of rolls from a woman who sat on said sidewalk. I am rolling my eyes heavenward just thinking of them. Round, kind of flat, with a bit of chewiness, and just a little sweetness. 

Sadly, after I consumed all of the rolls, I couldn't find them anywhere again. Anywhere! I didn't even know what they were called. In describing the rolls to just about everyone I met, someone would offer a name for them, and I'd hie myself to the multitude of bakeries in town and ask about them. I tried a couple that were similar in looks and shape. No!

Eventually, after some goose-chasing leads, I got a couple of new name possibilities from my Spanish teacher: "pan de Patzún" or "pan de maxtate." Bingo. The reason I couldn't find this bread in any of the bakeries is because it isn't sold in any of the bakeries in Antigua (at least not that I found). It is a local bread from the countryside, let's call it a farmer's bread, perhaps considered too rustic by city folk.

With the new intel, I continued to ask around where I might find this bread. A new lead came to me, I think it was from the guy who sells bus tickets to Lake Atitlan in the cafe across from a local supermarket: "If you go over there (pointing to an area outside the supermarket) on Tuesday afternoons at about 3:00, no, maybe 4:00, you'll find a woman who sells this bread." I learned from this gentleman, or perhaps another informant, that the bread is normally sold inside the massive Antiguan municipal market, brought in from the countryside only on the big market days.

Guatemalan bread: Pan de maxtate or pan de Patzún. Antigua, Guatemala. April 2016.

I couldn't find this woman on the designated afternoon, so to the municipal market I went. I asked this vendor, and that vendor, and the other vendor. "Pan de maxtate? Pan de Patzún?" No, no, no. Then someone pointed deeper into the darkness of the market, "Back there." I kept asking. Finally, a woman indicated she knew where I could find this bread, and she led me there. Aha! A woman had baskets of it! The holy grail!

I bought a huge bag of the rolls to hopefully last me the duration of my visit. And it did.

Guatemalan bread: Pan de maxtate or pan de Patzún. Antigua, Guatemala. April 2016.

Guatemalan bread: Pan de maxtate or pan de Patzún. Antigua, Guatemala. April 2016.

Sigh. Mission complete.

5 Years Ago: A Thought Experiment: Full-Time Tenting

Five years ago, I contemplated a life as a full-time tenter. 

There's no downside to envisioning different futures in one's head. 

I decided not to hike down that particular trail, and in fact, I don't even have a tent at the moment, and I have a different car. My new-to-me-car is a Prius, and there are plenty of folks who trick theirs out for camping, but a Prius isn't as camper-friendly to me as my 2012 Prius V was. I'm currently playing around in my head with what kind of camping I want to do in future. 

I spent the major part of the previous two years on a Pan-American road trip, either by car or by bus. 

The most tedious part of long-term travel is the route-planning. Living as a full-time tenter means constant route-planning: Where am I going? How am I going to get there? Where will I stay on the way? How long will it take me (in actual time, not Google directions time) to get from each day's start time to my desired arrival time? Where will I stay when I get there? What necessary services are along the way, such as groceries and gas? Are there vacancies at my desired destinations or waystations? Are there floods or fires that have closed roads or that might close roads (both were a factor in fall 2024 as I headed to the west coast and northward)? Bus trips through Latin America are no different: Which bus goes to my desired destination? None? Ok, so let's figure out which zigzagging bus trips I need to take to eventually get to my desired destination. 

Yes. The thought experiment on being a full-time tenter was a good one. It helped me make a decision: That will be a road not taken. 

Monday, May 3, 2021

Rootless and Portable: A Thought Experiment: Fulltimer Tenting

 

My Oliver Lee State Park campsite, outside Alamogordo, New Mexico. September 2012.

I've flirted with the idea of becoming a full-timer for more than 10 years, always in a modest arrangement. A smallish camper or, more recently, ChezP.

In the past five years, I've gone on innumerable video tours of folks living out of their cars. I've imagined how I might make it work for me at some future point. Over time, I concluded that full-timing out of my car was not a good fit for me. Too cramped.

But in the past year, I toyed with the possibility of full-timing in a tent (with ChezP as my back-up when inclement weather dictates). 

A tent is roomier. Living in a tent also frees up one's vehicle for transportation.  

What's out there to inform full-time tentfolk on the practicalities?

The resources I seek address my specific vision of tenting full time for up to a year: 

• Relocation every three to four weeks for new scenery, geographic interests, special events, or proximity to an expensive tourist destination
• Although wifi welcome, I don't envision tenting full time as a digital nomad who requires daily, robust internet access, as this would seriously restrict my freedom of movement
  
• Mild climate is a requisite
• I don't want to tent for three or more weeks in places where fear of bears (or mountain lions!) are going to keep me awake, like here (oh my!)
  

Below are some sources that give me actionable intel on:

• Practical realities of living full-time in a tent (power, water, location, weather, food, etc.)
• Gear (tents, kitchens, power, furniture)
  
• How to stay warm or cool; how to stay dry
• How to mitigate invasions from water, insects and other small critters, and wind

 Living in a Tent Full Time? - TMWE S4E22

 

On Wikihow: How to Live in a Tent (With Pictures). There are useful relevant how-to articles on the page, as well, along with references. Simple, clear, very practical. 

From One Crazy House: 15 Tent Hacks to Make Your Tent the Comfiest Place on Earth. (Note: Manage your expectations, of course, but there are some good hacks here that were new to me.)

From Mossy Oak: Camping in the Rain: 7 Tips for Keeping Your Tent Dry

 

Source: ScoutmasterCG

 

 

2026 Word of the Year: Light: Out of Trauma

 

Light, El Rosario Church, San Salvador, El Salvador. August 2025. Photo credit: Mzuriana.

In Spanish, "to give birth" is expressed by "dar luz" - to give light. So beautiful. 

Recently, I listened to an NPR podcast: Hurricane Katrina Had a Silver-Lining for Some: Post-Traumatic Growth. 

Yeah, yeah, there are all of the cliches, such as "what doesn't kill us makes us stronger," and alas, that unfortunate decision to reference another in the podcast title: "every cloud has a silver lining." (There is truth to these and other cliches, but there is no silver lining for all traumas. "Growth" is quite different from silver linings.)

Thus far, I've experienced three discrete, negative, life-changing events. The first pushed me into deep financial poverty, but I knew - I knew - that this would eventually pass. Furthermore, it was an unavoidable consequence of a responsible decision to exit an untenable situation for me and my very young child. The second event was a heartbreak that felt bottomless in its depths, and which prompted a radical new turn on my life's road.

As profound as these events were, neither was what I would call trauma. And did I experience growth following these two events? Absolutely. With time. And with support of others. 

Note: What I call trauma or not-trauma is only for myself. I do not presume to define trauma for anyone else's lived experiences. Furthermore, trauma is not a comparison game; it's not a perverse competition. 

But the third event - not an event, really, a situation, a process, still ongoing - has been trauma. The nature of this trauma is that I do not have the power to make it stop. I do not have the control to undo the damage already done. I don't even know how widely the harm has been disseminated. 

This post, however, is not about the trauma itself. 

It is how the podcast I listened to hit me in a fresh way that told me I can expel the unhelpful brain loops of trauma and create new pathways - dar luz - toward liberation.

(But I'm ready for my epidural, please!)