lago atitlan

Back from Lake Atitlan! As anticipated, I really didn't want to leave. If my travel partner (we'll call him S) hadn't needed to work tomorrow, I totally would've stayed for another day . . . or three.

Getting there was a bit of an adventure. We got to the Xela bus terminal (and when I say 'terminal', I actually mean a street lined with so many buses that it's impossible to breathe) a little after 9. Unfortunately, there was no bus service to either Panajchel or San Pedro (both towns on the lake) until at least 10. S didn't want to wait, so we hopped on a bus headed to Guate. After an hour or so, we got off at some small town, where the turn off is to go to the lake.

Unfortunately, there was very little traffic on the road. We thought we might just need to wait until the bus from Xela arrived, but then a microbus pulled up. They weren't going to San Pedro, but they insisted that if we went with them to Santa Clara, we'd be able to catch a bus there to San Pedro. So we hopped into this microbus. (A microbus is actually just a van. Larger than a minivan, but possibly not as wide as a full-size conversion van.) I counted, I think, 24 people in this microbus, including ourselves. I was lucky enough to have a seat, albeit with a little child halfway on my lap, whereas S was sitting on a overturned bucket that was functioning as additional seating. We were both in better straights than the several people who were simply standing.

When we arrived in Santa Clara, we realized we may not have made an entirely excellent choice. Santa Clara was very tiny, and there was very little traffic. We asked a guy who said to take a pickup truck, but we didn't see any. I was starting to feel like we were stuck in that (I think it's Archimedes') paradox, where every time, you go half way, and thus never actually reach your destination. Anyway, after wandering around for awhile, we at last found a pickup headed to San Marcos, by way of San Pablo. (Not our intended destination, but we figured it would work.)

We hop in the back of this pickup truck, and somewhere around 25 people jump in with us. There's nothing like holding hands with a bunch of strangers because you're all trying to get a handhold so as to not fall down. There was a guy selling pigs (you know, live ones) nearby, and one of the indigenous women, at the very last minute, decided to buy a pig. The guy throws the pick in a burlap sack, ties it up, and tosses it in the back of the pickup right in the middle of all the people.

The pig was freaking out. (I mean, it was in a bag, duh!) It kept running into people's legs, and they'd kick it away. It was squealing and snorting. I felt so bad for the pig. “Oh, the poor coche!” I kept exclaiming. (Side note: while “coche” is car in most Spanish-speaking countries, it's pig in Guatemala. “Carro” is car.) S is like, “it's just a pig. What do you think they're going to do with it when they get home?” S's mother's family were butchers and he and I have very different views regarding animals.

Anyway, the truck ride was certainly interesting. It was going down incredibly windy mountain roads to get to the lake. Think Pike's Peak-like roads. Except really narrow, no guard rails, and no visibility. When chicken buses come around blind curves (and the pickup in places) they just honk to warn other cars to stay out of the way. So, not only are we going down my favorite type of road, but I am standing in the back of a pickup truck with a squealing pig, a little kid literally grabbing my leg, another kid leaning against me, and lots of random people grasping my hand on the handrail. One of my “if you could only see me now moments.”

Not to mention that I was the only gringo in sight for literally 100% of this trip.

We finally made it to San Marcos, by way of San Pablo. San Marcos was beautiful. We wandered all the way down to the dock, where we found that we could catch a lancha (boat) to Jaibalito, where we were staying, every 20 minutes. Thus, we decided to have lunch. There's a lot of gringos in San Marcos, as it sort of has a yoga/meditation/wellness type vibe or focus. Walking through the town is cool. Once you leave the main road, you're just walking through these little garden paths. We ended up wandering to this wood-burning oven pizza place that was sort of off of the beaten path – and completely empty. We were the only ones there, so we got to claim a table on adorable second-story patio. The pizza was pretty decent, and the Gallo and water were quite nice after the journey.

From San Marcos, we caught a lancha to Jaibalito, the town in which our hotel was located. In fact, the hotel has its own dock, so the dropped us right off there. The hotel is basically built into a cliff. It's a bit of steep climb up stone stairs to get to the office and cafe. There's only 16 rooms, and they're spread out all over, across various paths that lead up and down and left and right. Along those paths, there's also all of these patios and places to sit, all of which have stunning views of the lake.

The view from our room was stunning. Because of the angle of the rooms built into the cliffs, when laying on the bed, you look straight out this window onto the lake and there's nothing – NOTHING – blocking your view. And, because of where Jaibalito is located, you have a perfect view of both volcanoes. From the room. Frickin' awesome.

We mostly just hung out at the hotel and admired the lake for the rest of the day. At 6:30 there was a “family style” dinner where we ate with the other guests. Turned out there were only 4 other people in the hotel that night. 2 American girls, one of whom had just spent 3 months in Antigua, an American guy who'd been working for an NGO in Guate City for 4 years, and his Guatemalan girlfriend. (I think S was glad he wasn't the only Guatemalan, as he had been positive the hotel would be full of gringos and that he'd be the only Guatemalan). It ended up being like a four-course meal, and was really amazing. Afterwards, we just hung out on the porch of the cafe in a hammock, listening to latin music and looking at the lights of all the pueblos around the lake. (There are, I believe, 10 different towns scattered around the lake. Some of them, like Jaibalito, are only reachable by boat. In addition, there appear to be scattered private residences around.)

As a side note, the shower in the hotel was far and away the absolute best shower I've had in Guatemala. The hotel uses fancy solar power to heat their water, and boy was it hot. And it had amazing water pressure. Did I mention I didn't want to leave the hotel?

This (Sunday) morning, we had breakfast at the hotel and caught a lancha to Panajchel, which my guidebook refers to as “Gringotenango” (place of the Gringos – in one or more of the Mayan languages). In Pana we caught a tuk tuk (oh, I really should have a picture of those. They're three-wheeled motorbikes with a back seat, basically. They're the same thing as CNGs in Bangladesh) to a nature reserve. The nature reserve was pretty gorgeous, although I wish I'd done the zip line. S wasn't that thrilled about zip-lining, and he's done it quite a few times before. I, of course, am hesitant to zip line because I'm scared of heights. But, I figured they just push you off and you can't do anything about it, so it's work out for me.

Anyway, instead, we just walked around the nature trails, which were gorgeous. We went to a beautiful waterfall, and walked over a gazillion swinging bridges made from rope and wood (and, admittedly, wire, although that doesn't make you feel much better about the pieces of rotting wood). We followed a path that took us back to the lake, to a nice secluded area without any boat traffic.

After the nature reserve, we had some really yummy Italian food back in Pana, and then spent the afternoon souvenir shopping (since I'm leaving in 6 days!). We missed the last direct bus to Xela, so S decided we should hop on a bus to Solala. From there, we got on a ridiculously full chicken bus to some other unknown destination. On that chicken bus, we were standing (/falling) for the majority of the time, although I eventually got a seat next to a breast-feeding mother, who had no particular shyness about breastfeeding in public.

From wherever we were, we got a third and final chicken bus to Xela, which was even more full. I spent a lot of time sitting with about ¼ of my butt on a seat that already had two full-grown men on it (remember, these are school buses, so the seats are made for two children), with my knees wedged across the aisle to keep from falling as we went around all the curvy mountain roads. Eventually, I actually got a (real) seat, although with S also trying to cram on the other side of me. I actually passed out. I woke up when the other guy next to me needed to get off, and decided that I must've gotten pretty comfortable in Guatemala to actually fall asleep on a chicken bus.

And that was pretty much the trip. I was tired when we got back to Xela, so I took a taxi (that cost more than all of the day's chicken bus rides combined) home.