Space Gravy

I’m going to Flashback to Thanksgiving dinner for a minute…..

We decided to go to an expat owned restaurant in San Pedro for Thanksgiving Dinner. We showed up, grabbed a table and waited for the food to be served up. Before long, the owners had laid out a huge table with turkey, stuffing, potatoes, salad, and all the trimmings.

I got in line right away and ended up behind some British guy. We were chatting when the servers asked him what kind of gravy he wanted. I swear to god, I thought he said: “I’ll have the spicy gravy!” I found out later that that’s not what he said. But with the British accent, I totally misunderstood him.

I was all about getting some spicy gravy, so I had the server pour a liberal dose all over my turkey and potatoes. I went back to the table, cleaned my plate, and then went back for seconds like a good gluttonous American. For round two, I poured even more of the “spicy gravy” all over my food.

After slamming two huge plates of food, I was done! In addition to the meal, I had also consumed a liter of weak Guatemalan beer, a glass of wine, and a sip of mescal. So now I was stuffed; my stomach felt like it was going to explode.

After my epic food binge, I was sitting around the table with the group that I’ve been travelling with when they started commenting on the “Space Gravy” and how strong it was.

“Wait a tic! What’s Space Gravy?!”

“It’s gravy made with Marijauna.”

“Ohhhh sh****t!”

And that’s when I realized that the Brit in front of me hadn’t been asking for “Spicy Gravy”; he’d been asking for “Space Gravy”!

I’ve been a pretty straight laced guy my entire life. I’ve never had any kind of drug. Ever. So I now realized that I had consumed an unknown if fairly sizable amount of marijuana on top of a significant amount of alcohol.

We left the restaurant soon after, and I don’t remember much from there on out. I know I got a tuk-tuk back to my hotel. I know that I freaked out a little bit and woke up a few of the people that I was travelling with to ask them what the hell was happening to me. I know that Allison, one of the people that I was riding with, walked me around the streets of San Pedro for a while to calm me down.

I’m a little jumpy around explosions that I’m not expecting. I wasn’t in a lot of combat in Afghanistan, but I had RPG’s land within 20 feet of my truck one time, and I had machine gun bullets bouncing off the side and whizzing overhead a few times. However, the real kicker was that every day I would hear the sound of IED’s going off and immediately have to get on the radio and try and find out if any of our Marines had been hit. Eventually, I just got a little jumpy. Most of my Marines and peers had it much worse. But it still left an impression on me. Definitely some interesting memories. The sound of a distant explosion or the smell of burning trash immediately takes my mind back to Afghanistan.

The entire time we had been in San Pedro, kids were randomly setting off firecrackers. So now I’m walking down the street, high as a kite, and loud explosions start going off. The first few made me jump and cuss. But when another went off I immediately remembered when two of our Marines had been hit by an IED. We had them in the LZ waiting for the medevac bird, but they weren’t breathing and they didn’t have a pulse. After the bird picked them up we got a call back that one had died en route to Camp Leatherneck and the other was a alive but would probably be dead soon. I shed a few tears over that when it happened in real life. But after that firecracker went off, I was a bawling wreck.

I don’t remember much else after that. I know at one point I was sitting on a bench crying my eyes out when I realized that there was a Guatemalan lady standing in front of me asking if I was okay. At some point Allison took me back to my room and I fell asleep on my bed.

I woke up the next morning still high and with some serious pain in my chest. I pretty much felt like crap all day and didn’t really come down until that evening. I’ve still got some pain in my chest. I went to see a doctor yesterday and he said that my blood pressure was really high (150/100) due to all of the Marijuana in my system and that it would dissipate after a few days.

So, all in all, this was a rather scary episode for me. Unknowingly ingesting a serious quantity of Marijuana, having a pretty serious panic attack, and then dealing with what feels like the onset of a heart attack for the last few days.

I think I hate San Pedro now. I was hit by a rouge boat and almost killed, my computer decided to throw itself of a table and die, and my gravy was laced up with more weed than a Rastafarian garden. Ugh….I need a vacation from my vacation.

Anyways, back to the present.

We left San Pedro and blasted up a really knarly road back to the Guatemalan Autopista....



Saw lots of Motorcycles….




And had a really fun time utilizing the passing lane…….

And now I’m in Antigua. Don’t really know where I’m going to go tomorrow. Thinking about heading up to Semuc Chempey.