We have been in Antigua for almost two weeks now! No matter how little we try, we just can´t leave. Go figure, eh? The place we found to stay is fascinating!

We are in a small guesthouse called Los Amigos, and in the guesthouse is a bar/restaurant called El Chillout. It´s run by an ex-rich Guatemalan capitalist who threw it all away for love of anarchy and weed. His name is Tops. His beautiful chef is named Simona. She comes from Italy and has lived here for fifteen years. They´re beautiful people, and half the reason we´ve stayed for so long.

Almost every night we stay up drinking and chatting with Tops about his theories of the future. He believes that the world economy will collapse for the better in 2012. He points at the proof of the failing US economy and the Mayan calendar, which calls the year 2012 the end of the age of greed. Of course after the collapse, all will be horrible and depressing, but from the broken rubble of the collapse of our world anarchy will rise gloriously.

So this is what we´ve been doing. Seriously. That´s it. I know, it doesn´t sound like much, but we´re having a really good time. We´re relaxing during the day, just reading or practicing music. And of course, I was sick.

Here´s what happened, because I know some of my family was concerned. While in Mexico I picked up a few extra travellers in my belly, probably worms. In my diary, I lovingly referred to them as Perry the Parasite and Friends. Thanks to them, I lost a lot of weight! I look almost as I did in high school!

However, they did cause me constant discomfort and pain, so I had to kill them. I took some meds from the local pharmacist, but before I took them I tried to find information on the internet concerning what I was about to put in my body. We found no information, except that they are not approved by the FDA. But I figured that much more harmful things than worm killers have actually been approved by the FDA, so what the hell.

Now I am just fine. We´ve decided to stop eating meat here, because of their complete disregard for refridgeration. And of course we have never drank the water, except for brushing our teeth. But we´ve stopped that too. Now we buy three or four litres of bottled water every day. It´s so cheap - only $1.50 Canadian! But sometimes they try to charge us $2, so we leave and go somewhere else.

They only try to rip us off because we´re tourists. That happens a lot. Sometimes when they over charge us and we accept, we can see them smiling gleefully.

But like I was saying, Tops is half our reason for staying here. We jammed with some people at the bar on our first night here, and after that he kept asking us to perform some night. We eventually accepted, and we made fliers which we handed out in the street! We called ourselves "The Collective" because we invited anyone with an instrument or two hands to beat a table with to join us.

It was really neat! The first night, a group of 10 people came. They brought a guitar, a mini guitar, a djembe, and what I think is called a quatrain, which is a mini guitar with only four strings. And of course, Tops has a million shakers. So we took turns playing songs and trying to play with each other. We played gypsy and folk songs, and they played rock songs.

Later in the evening, the owners children showed up and started playing! They are between the ages of 8 and 11, I guess. But they have phenomenal rhythm! They started playing the djembe and water jugs with perfect rhythm and polyrhythm. They entertained us until they had to go to bed.

Last Wednesday, Tops invited us to a party in the hills. A friend of his, an ex-pat from the states named Frank, throws a party every Wednesday at his beautiful house set high in the hills surrounding Antigua. To get there, we had to pile in the back of a covered pickup truck with 11 other people, 3 boxes of beer, and 2 bags of ice. I had to squat awkwardly with a woman sitting between my legs squishing my banjo, and George got the pleasant seat against the ice.

They provided beer and tequila, and delicious homemade stew. And afterwards we all filed into the little Mayan-style sauna, some people naked and some of us not, and sweated and talked until it was time to go.

George and I also brought our instruments, as did another fiddler, and we jammed a bit. I impressed them all with my spoon playing abilities.

Oh, I almost forgot! On one of our first days here, we found a Korean restaurant! This delicious bit of nostalgia set us on a few days of pleasant adventures. While happily sucking up Ramen noodles and savouring the Bulgogi, another customer walked into the restaurant. Until that point, we were the only ones there.

But we started talking to him, and soon discovered that he was also Canadian! So we joined him as he ate his supper and we chatted about our travels and where we´re all going. Then another Canadian friend he met at his hostel walked in and joined us. The first guy is named Brent, and he is from Calgary. I really liked him. He reminds me of some good friends like Birkley, and Mark from Vancouver. The second guy is named Jeff, and he is from Strathmore.

That´s right, Strathmore! For those who don´t know, I´ve got cousins there. So I asked him if he knew the Grocholski family, and he did! He said he doesn´t know Ian personally, but that he definately knows of him, or maybe knows him a little bit. I can´t remember. But he told me lots of juicy gossip from Strathmore that I don´t think I can repeat in civilized conversation.

I´ll leave it at that.

The next day, Brent stopped by our hotel and we talked for a few hours, and decided to go out for drinks that night. We went to a nice place playing Andean music. And there we all decided to go to Canadian thanksgiving dinner together!

We had found an ad earlier that told us about a Canadian Thanksgiving Dinner being held at Earth Lodge, a beautiful hotel high in the hills. We all made our reservations and met the next day. We found a pick-up waiting for us that took us up the scenic road to Earth Lodge. He dropped us off at a point, and we had to walk through the bush about 200 metres to the hotel.

It consisted of a few treehouses and a few dorm houses all nestled in the trees and overlooking the valley surrounded by volcanoes. Dinner was served in the open-air dining room. It was a traditional thanksgiving dinner, with all the fixings! We even got homemade pumpkin pie! There were 55 people, but only 6 Canadians. There were many Americans however, who thought that it would be a good substitute for their own thanksgiving.

It was a pleasant evening of drinking, over-eating and good people. On the ride home, we packed about 12 people into the pick-up truck. We were all content and happy from the evenings events, and we all sat in silence for almost the entire moonlit drive, absorbed in the stars and the forest and the cool night air on our faces.

When we were almost in town, the Americans asked us why we didn´t sing our national anthem, since it was Canadian Thanksgiving Day. Well, we had never heard of such a thing. But they felt it appropriate, and we thought it funny, so the six of us gave a glorious rendition of "Oh, Canada".

Now, George and I have less than two weeks to reach Costa Rica. I don´t know if I ever mentioned this, but George´s family will be in San Jose, Costa Rica on November first for a butterfly conference. So we are going to meet them there and spend some time with them. But we´ve been having such a lovely time here, that we just can´t leave!

So I think on Tuesday, we are going to finally say goodbye to this beautiful city. On Monday we will also finally go to the active volcano. We are going to book the trip tomorrow. It only costs $10 Canadian per person! Now I´m going to jam some more, and listen to the headliner band at El Chillout. I can´t remember their name, but they´re Guatemalan, and they play alternative rock. It´s pretty good!

Hasta luego, family and friends! And Happy Belated Thanksgiving!