Siesta King

*** For more pics, see my PBase site.

This beautiful town lulls you into a more relaxed lifestyle, entices you into slowing down your pace, and eases you into a new mindset that realizes the importance of taking time to stop and smell the roses as part of your daily routine.

Taipei is a friendly city, but, in Antigua, people take more time for each other, and the friendliness is more ... genuine. No one is racing anywhere; friends and family greet each other in the street and spend time laughing together; workers take siesta; and everyone takes a moment to sit and absorb the spring sunshine. I like it.

I thought I’d perfected the art of siesta, as I managed to doze off just after lunch; I wish I hadn’t extended my snooze so long, though: I woke up at midnight, which isn’t the best time to be wide awake, refreshed and hungry in a town with a 1.00 am curfew and a guest house that locks the door at 12.00. I missed my pub quiz and salsa night! But there’s salsa every night here, so I still have plenty of opportunities to show these Latin American women just how white English guys interpret one of their dance styles. I accidentally extended my siesta yesterday, too, which was surprising, because I seemed to have adjusted my body clock really well when I arrived, sleeping at 1.00 am and rising at 8.30. Not sure where I went wrong, but it’s clear the laid-back life here has something to do swith my new ability to sleep at any time. Except when I’ve just woken at midnight after an eleven-hour stint of shut-eye.

So, I’m tapping away at my keyboard in the hope that my eyes will soon get heavy again and I can get closer to my goal of learning to be asleep well before midnight and up just after dawn. I head to the AWARE animal rescue centre on Monday, and I need to have adjusted to a 6.00 am start by then, or I’ll have 170 hungry dogs baying at my tardiness.

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Well, I somehow managed to keep sleeping, and woke up at 5.30 am, which is exactly where I need to be for my 6.00 am starts next week. So I got up, took a reluctant cold shower, dressed, and headed out. My early morning escapade ended at the front door, which was still locked for our safety. I didn’t have the heart to wake the couple who run the guest house, as they would have been up so many times during the night to let in the later revelers, so I sat and read. And read. And read. But 7.15 I did have the heart to wake the couple, so I banged on their door and the wife kindly got up and let me out.

So, this is what early rising is like! The streets were quiet, the light even, and I had a hunger like you couldn’t imagine. Muerto del hambre means ‘I’m dying of hunger’ and was the first Spanish phrase I ever learned, from the non-English speaking grandmother of a girlfriend I had gone to stay with in Apopka, Florida, when I used to live in the Florida Keys. The grandmother chose something she could demonstrate easily, which she did beautifully, rubbing her tummy with acted pain, and later demonstrating how muerto means ‘I’m dying’ – which was acted so well that I considered calling an ambulance before fleeing for overtaxing the kindly old lady.

I’m really enjoying the slow pace, and am way more than rested. I’m not one for a dull, easy life (though I hereby vow to take a little more time to enjoy the simple things in life), so I’m going to make arrangements today to go and start working at the dog rescue … or maybe I’ll hike up the nearby active volcano first; whatever happens, more exciting news to follow. ☺

(This is a stray dog I call Uno; he has lost almost all his teeth and much of his lower jaw, just like Norton, a dog at the Animals Taiwan holding centre. Uno was covered in what looked like tar, so I spent a little time cutting the bigger bits out of his fur with my Swiss army knife) >>>