October 26, 2006

17:51—First official day off since I arrived (almost a month ago!). In a fit of motivation, I actually achieved the three goals I set out for myself: to improve my fast-fading tan, get a massage, and write something for my blog. I’m all about setting achievable goals.

So, I slept in a little, had my regular breakfast of fresh-squeezed orange juice, fruit salad and crepes with sugar and lemon—didn’t think I’d be getting such kick-ass crepes in Guatemala, eh?—then headed down to the dock to read and bake for a while. Ended my session when the two Canadian boys who’re working the bar, painting the new hostel and doing various odd jobs came down for a swim midday, which was fortunate since I seem to have lost more pigment than I wanted to believe and have come up a nice shade of pinky red. Sometime after beer o’clock I managed to track down the hostel phone and call Amanda, the masseuse who lives up the hill with her boyfriend. They’re here so he can focus on writing his PhD thesis on the psychology of spirituality, or the spirituality of psychology, I can never remember which one. She does massage and various other new-agey things. As Jonathan, Canadian Boy #1 says, they’re a pretty psychedelic couple. He’s been taken with them ever since Rick showed him how he could strip off a papaya stem to use as a pipe. Anyway, since we are in Guatemala, Amanda could see me right away. It’s a brisk 20-minute hike up the hill to their place, which is perched on the edge of the mountain and has a ridiculous view of the lake from any room in the house thanks to an entire wall of bay windows and sliding doors, and would probably cost well over a million to buy if this were North America. I got a wicked massage—only my fourth one ever, which is a sin, really, and so I will make regular pilgrimages of contrition to her house over the coming weeks until the kinks in my shoulders have melted away—and half walked, half ran, half skipped back down the mountain (I know that makes three halves but that’s how invigorated I was) and beat the afternoon rain by five minutes. Sweet.

I’m now perched in my hammock on my balcony outside my room, but I think I’m going to have to move because there’s a kick-ass electrical storm going on outside and I need to check it out.