Heavenly threads, from thine to mine

Last night, when we had no where to go, a man invited us to his house and told us to cook ourselves a meal from his cupboards. We sat on the veranda in well-apportioned rocking chairs, watching the flick-flick of pink lightning silhouetting the volcanoes across the lake.

Just when you think life couldn't get any sweeter, she gives you a meal and a veranda.

Tonight we walk up the hill to look for rice and beans. The afternoon rain has just started and my trousers are instantly sodden. They flap against my legs and I look down at rapids of brown water gurgling over my feet as I walk. We search for half an hour, wandering slowly in the rain, before we finally concede there to be no hot food in this town.

The last time I saw Nick was in the final months of high school. It seems hard to believe that was nine years ago.

Our reunion is spontaneous. As if we'd expect anything else.

He is drawn to Lake Atitlan in the same way we all are. The spirit of the lake wraps her wispy whirlpools around the hearts of those she desires, seducing them into her volcano-ringed embrace. Once landed, she holds tight, captivates them with her beauty and her mystery.

And so I find him, just two days in to Guatemala and already captured in a volunteer exchange in Santa Cruz, on the opposite side of the lake to the farm.

He speaks and I realise I had forgotten his voice. He moves and I realise I had forgotten his height. At six foot six he easily wraps me up and I feel instantly calm in his presence.

A strange experience, meeting someone again. Often I leave these reunions slightly disappointed, for the person I am and the person I meet are rarely linked by anything more than aging photographs. I tend now to avoid such meetings, to skirt around the dull awareness of being so very far away from my childhood that even stories regaled of past skirmishes are not enough.

But this time dives deep. Instead of creeping around stories of the past to try and forge new links, we get to know each other as we are now, two nomads bumping together on the seas of self-discovery. Rarely do I meet anyone with whom I instantly connect so profoundly.

From the beginning the world seems eager to encourage. It turns into one of those elongated moments in which our surroundings seem somehow constructed solely for our personal pleasure.

Hence the veranda.

Tonight, in lieu of rice and beans, we buy a pile of tortilla chips and elotitos, stuffing plastic packets into our pockets until we find ourselves a den in which to consume. We bless our food with smiles, thanking the world for delivering us nourishment of such vibrant colours.

At some point, the rain clears.

On our way back from town we stop at the top of the hill to look over the lake. Rain still falls blurrily at the edges. The view here is different again and we look across the surface at the Santiago bay.

Just behind Volcan San Pedro, across the bay from Santiago Atitlan, lies the farm. The sky above it is tinted pink with the sunset, reflecting from behind the mountains. Sausage-shaped clouds part in blues and greys, revealing the mouth of the bay and the path to my home. It looks like a painting of Heaven.