Town and Country.

All around the world, Coke is it.

Santo Tomas de Castilla, Guatemala – Lacy mist hangs over the hills as the sun rises in hazy oranges.

Pelicans flock around small fishing boats, their shovels at the ready.

Walking into town, we are faced by green hills, crowned in white, towering over brightly painted, low-slung buildings that could, from a distance, appear to be flowers painted into the foliage. The greasy air, however, smells of fry oil.

As we wind through town and into the country, we’re regularly greeted by the more Italian-than-Spanish “Buon Dia,” and a tour from the ship rumbles by in a trolley. They wave, later expressing surprise we had ventured out on foot. Why wouldn’t we?

Perro, in peril.

Taxi horns punch the air, seeking fares as motorcycle after motorcycle rattles past; on one, a toddler stands between her parents. Catch-all shops, still barred at this hour, keep us from 1980s-vintage casino kiosks, while young women make tortillas over steel drums set alongside the road. It’s breakfast time in Guatemala.

Walking through the narrow, labyrinthine aisles of the local market, we fold ourselves into booths whose windows are dressed with second-hand clothes, vegetables, sausage links and other fresh cuts of meat. Not a square inch is wasted, as roosters peck under woven baskets underfoot. The air is ripe, but it doesn’t make me hungry.

It was an experience, however, for which I had a thirst: it has been nice to get out from the cruise crowd and its affliction with trinkets and Bubba mugs of rum.

It was a good morning.