How to Stay Cool in Guatemala
Posted on March 8, 2010 - Filed Under Guatemala, Simple Life | 4 Comments
It’s hot right now around here. And by hot, I mean HOT. It’s 40° C in our main room and a balmy 28.6° in the bathroom (a good reason to have a concrete roof on your house!). In light of this body melting heat, I thought I’d share a few of our favorite ways to cool off.
1. Shower. Or, if there’s no water, which frequently happens, drop small children into the pila and pour the water over them, then let them throw guacales of water at you.
2. Soak your shirt. Take that sucker off, run it under the cool tap water, wring it out and put it back on. Repeat every five minutes, when the shirt dries.
3. Drape a cool cloth around your neck. Twisting a couple of ice cubes into the middle where it hangs against your neck will keep it moist longer.
4. Eat ice cream, Popsicles or ice cubes. Enough said.
5. Keep a jug of water in the fridge. For best results, don’t eat all morning, then chug it. Your belly will turn into a temp cooling facility.
6. Sleep on a damp towel. I take a nap every afternoon so I can work until 3 am (when, by the way, it is FREEZING!), but with the intense heat, it’s really hard to sleep. So I take a towel off the line that was washed in the morning and is still quite damp, lay that on the bed and pillow and sleep on it. Works wonders!
7. Put your feet in ice water. Only one part of your body needs to be cold in order for the rest of it to cool off. My mom used to say that if you put cold compresses on areas where the blood ran close to the skin (inside the elbows, back of the knees, jugular, etc.) then it would cool your whole body. No clue if that’s medically sound, but hey, it seems to work!
8. Get lots of fans. We’re constantly fighting over fans in our house. We have a broken one that is hung from the ceiling but does little good because we have a tin roof, so it’s just pushing hot air down, and a regular one which i usually commandeer because “my computer is overheating!”
9. Lie on the floor. If you come into our house any given day, you’re likely to find children and adults alike sprawled on the cool tile floor. Those tiles almost never warm up, so they are the perfect place to relax. You know, apart from the back breaking hardness. The boys even nap on the floor from time to time.
10. Hang out outside. If you have a tin roof like we do, then being outdoors in the shade is cooler than being inside. Which is why we have been eating and even working out in the breezeway lately!
And, once you’ve cooled down, don’t forget to stock up on blankets, hats and sweaters because it only lasts til 6pm and then the cold sets in!
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4 Responses to “How to Stay Cool in Guatemala”
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Isn´t your Guatemalan family in law having a fit seeing you sleep on a wet towel, putting your feet in ice cold water and soaking your shirt? They are probably worried that you´ll catch your death of a cold like that!! My son got bronchitis and I have a cold because of these extreme differences in temperature, I think. Sweaty all day, freezing at night. Febrero loco y Marzo otro poco!
Fortunately, my in-laws don’t come to my house (apart from my brother-in-law who could care less) . . . but if they knew, I’m sure they would be quite worried! Either that or glad that I’d be out of the picture soon. ha.
Hardest part of living in the middle east, is that the heat is dry. I like humid heat! Drink lots, sweat clean. My skin is so healthy in humidity
My favorite cool down is to soak my hair. I don’t like the weight of a wet cloth on me, but the hair is already there, so I use it.
Supposedly it’s humid here . . . though I don’t really feel it. Around 80% is the norm. I like to stick my head under the tap, too. I just did that about 10 min. ago though and it’s already dry!