We found a fixer…

Up until we moved to LA and the housing market collapsed around us Fritz and I had been buying, fixing and selling houses.  While I wouldn’t call us “house flippers” as we lived in each of them for a while before moving on to the next project, it was definitely how we made money and something that we loved doing.

We got to San Pedro on Monday, a day later than we had expected because after yet another wrong turn we found ourselves back in Panajachel, our first stop in Guatemala, circle completed.  Rather than try to figure out how to get to San Pedro that day we returned to a hotel that we knew would take our dogs and settled in for the night.  The next morning, armed with directions from the schools in San Pedro we set off, yes there were a couple of wrong turns along the way but undeterred we arrived at San Pedro right around 11:30 AM. 

Our first stop was the San Pedro Spanish School, unfortunately our huge truck would never make it down the tuk tuk only sized street but the school’s Director Ramon quickly came to meet us.  He took us to a little two story apartment that we decided was a definite no go, first it was down a kind of scary walking alley, second the bathroom was outside (not a huge deal) and third there was a high school looking down on the yard (and therefore the bathroom). 

 

He didn’t have the keys for the second place but had called someone to meet us there.  The second place was located down the same little alley but when Rafael (the gardener/handyman) showed up he suggested we go the other way down a nice little path which made us both feel better.  I think that for both of us the second house was love at first sight, two bedrooms, an open concept living kitchen area, a fully functioning bathroom and a great yard.  The yard was what sealed it for us, a safe fenced in place for the dogs with a view of the lake, as long as you didn’t mind the two flooded out buildings in front of the house which didn’t bother us at all.

Not knowing how much this palace would cost us and having another appointment at another language school with bungalows, we arranged to meet Ramon in an hour and went to Corazon Maya a few blocks away.  The school was charming and the woman who met us was very nice, the bungalows were fine, but compared to the little house we had just left it would have been a huge step down. 

 

We walked back to the San Pedro Spanish School talking about how much we would be willing to spend, the bungalows were $40US a week and the house was so much better, but the bungalows were all ready and the little house needed a huge clean-up, a stove, some major yard work and there wasn’t currently water or electricity.  At the school we explained our concerns to Ramon and asked him the price, after a few calls (we aren’t sure who he called as we later found out it was his house) he came back and told us it would be $1000 Quetzals for three weeks, a quick math problem and we figured it was $42 US a week, roughly the same as the bungalows, done, we had a home for the next three weeks!