San Pedro Parte Dos

This is our microbus by the way, with dude strapped down stuff:

So during lunch it torrential downpoured, with lightning and thunder. Like 15 minutes after we got to lunch. So we took a leisurely lunch and waited for it to mostly subside. The cobblestone streets with no drainage turn into rivers though- nice afterwards, cause they are streaming downhill and it looks cool, but when they're flooded and you hafta cross them, not so great.

So we took "tuk-tuk"s (named for the puttering sound their engines make) since it was still raining, to our next destinations. These I guess exist in India- tiny three-wheeled cab type things with a convertible canvas roof, with a driver steering with handlebars and 2-3 people crammed in back. See below. These first took us to some thing called San Simon, which was this ridiculous looking idol who was smoking a cigarette, and you could have a shot of beer in front of him, and give him money. He was in this little hut. We saw other San Simon idols, and you basically just give him money and/or say a prayer for something specific. Its a combination of pseudo-Catholic beliefs and traditional Mayan ones- but its not a religion, just a specific traditional, basically pagan, practice. Weird.

One of the tuk-tuks had like a 14 year old driver. Sweet. The rides across the city cost like five quetzales each. Which bothered my dad until I reminded him it was less than a dollar.

Three of us in this thing smaller than a smart car, plus driver.

Then the tuk-tuks took us to another church, decorated for a wedding, with a big plaza with the volcano behind it. Cool. The church had these plaques (just from 2001!) commemorating various massacres related to civil war stuff and riots and protests, and some priests were killed. Man. It was decorated for a wedding inside though which was nice. They had a courtyard which had lime trees (where I finally had a conversation to confirm my suspicion, that limes were called limons and lemons were called limas (at least in Guatemala). But its still a bit confusing. My dad also took an artistic photo of me in front of this giant avocado tree- who knew they were huge? Actually the Steady Shot on his camera was broken so it'd vibrate sometimes when focusing. Once I called the avocado tree a guacamole tree. When I saw the avocado tree and the lime tree, I thought to myself, man, if only there was a tequila tree and a tortilla chip tree, we'd be all set!

The San Simon. You'll see others. He's in there wearing a hat and tie. Ridiculous.

We also went past this market on the way back to our boat, and there was a truck with a whole cow in it. Cept the cow had no skin and was cut in pieces. The two halves of the cow were hanging up in the truck, which a guy threw on his back, with bare hands, one at a time, and hauled into their little store. There was a bucket of legs, stripped of the skin, and a bucket that had other...uh, pieces in it, including I think the neck, leading to the head somewhere under there. And a giant thing looking like a bundled package, tied with twine, that was actually the entire skin folded up like a blanket. WOW.

Half a hanging cow. Note bundle of cowhide.

Cow on back.

Cow on back 2. All in a days work. Unreal.

Bucket of covered head and heck, and something else looking fleshy and bloody.

Bucket of hooves and menacing looking pick.

Mangiest dog of all time. Wet, dirty, cowering in the corner. And blurry.

Then we basically went home and it was time to get dinner. We went to an Italian place of all places- me, my dad, Paul, and Anne, and others took naps or showers. Then we returned and others took naps- I hung out on the porch, read a book, and then finally myself and Brie went and got some wine from a corner liquor store to sit and wait for other people to return from late dinner/napping.

The boat ride back was a bit colder and wetter.

But had a nice breeze and still cool once-in-a-lifetime views.

Paul and I took pictures of each other.

We saw these random fisherman type boats, all docked together, some still out on the lake with people in them, but they were always full of cornhusks. No comprende.

We walked the main drag at night, intending to go to this place called Circus Bar, with live music. I'd say it was a mariachi band, but it wasn't. It was three dudes with classical guitars. And (Brie- "doesn't it sound like there's a drum too, thats amazing how they do that on their guitars!") a bongo drummer slightly hidden from view.

And that is all for this entry. We went home after a couple drinks and slept soundly. Until 5am or so..................

San Pedro

We got to the first town, San Pedro I think it was, which was where lots of weavers were, including a co-op. I'm not sure if co-op is really a technical term but it was just a cooperative of weavers. Before we even got out of the boat there was a lady trying to sell us her woven stuff, with her presumably son who was like 7 selling stuff too, like little woven useless trinkets, and all he would do is follow us all the way up the path from the boat to the co-op, saying "cinco, ciiiiinco, para ciiiiiinco, ciiinco" wanting to sell them for 5 quetzales (8 is a dollar). His mother told me "esta es mi trabajo" (this is my work) and was going lower and lower in price for these things that probably took a day or two to weave. She was selling them for like 20 quetzales. (Divide by 8...basically $2.50).

So we went in the co-op, watched some dude who was like 14 using a big wooden loom and weaving pretty fast (I really wish it was easier to post videos, cause I have a lot of them- maybe some other time) and then we saw a room piled with woven stuff. Thats where I bought some pretty things for my pretty girl. They were a little more expensive than the lady outside :) But they showed us with a bowl of water how the colors of their stuff wouldn't run when it got wet like the cheap stuff did. Sold.

From the steps of the small church.

So of course, back in the street I find out that the hawker lady speaks enough English to call me a liar for saying I didn't wanna buy her things and then buying from inside the co-op instead. "So now you buy from me!" Damn! And again with the little kid "para ciiiiiinco" looking all sad and stuff. So then we went and saw a church overlooking the lake.

From the steps of the church.

Traditional garb apparently.

We walked further into the town and got into the touristy street, and stopped for lunch. Ate some tasty food with steak, guacamole, refried black beans, tortillas, rice, my first BEER, and my new favorite thing, fried plantains. And then the second half of our day began. Up until that point it was sunny and warm. It started POURING after lunch, and we ventured out on what felt like an entirely different day at that point.

YUM. No seriously. And some cheese too that was like feta...

Moza. Bock beer, better than the Gallo and Cabro.

Our table of peeps. Soccer on tv!

Lake Atitlan

So we arrived in Panajachel, some town on Lake Atitlan, surrounded by three volcanos. Sweeeeeeet. We had a nice little hotel too, with only like 8 rooms, check it out:

(Anne bought a giant quilt, which inspired my dad)

The narrow walkway from the street to our hotel, lined with flowers:

It had cool flowers and fruit trees and lots of plants and growing things and bright colors. And most people were happy for more normal-ish showers with pressure and heat, and bigger comfortable beds. Oh yeah, and for each person, including the hotel for a night, the bus ride there and back for the weekend, and a half-day intermittent boat ride from town to town around the lake, the weekend was I think under $40 a person. I forget what we paid- might have actually been a lot less than that. We didn't linger long here though cause it was time for our boat ride.

Lake Atitlan:

These were papayas. Massive. Not sure I've ever actually eaten a papaya.

Our room was up there with that balcony, a nice place at night to sit in some chairs and chill out, which we did do, while waiting for other people at dinner or taking naps.

So we walked down the street to the water, where they were having a swim across the lake (8 kilometers (~5 miles) according to someone down at the event. I don't believe them that it was that far. But whatever. They were having a big party in a small-ish park right there by the water. We got in our little blue fiberglass boat and headed off.

Some town in the distance, Brie and Luke hanging out (which they did much of later on after we left, apparently- they were hospital buddies)

A random wall with little patios and walkways that belonged to someone's house. Kinda sweet.

One of three volcanos.

Pulling away from the dock and the party.

We started seeing the towns across the lake, the volcanos surrounding us, etc. It was nice and sunny and warm and splashy and breezy. Until the typical afternoon weather rolled in and deluged us later. Our first stop was a hot spring of sorts, which was really a tall tall stone wall at the edge of the lake, going right down into the water, and from underneath it seeped hot water. Hot. It mixed with the chilly lake water and also rose to the surface, so there were spots on top of the water as warm as a hot tub, and little swirling pools of warm water around near the wall, and hot bits of water coming out that kept us nice and warm. We lingered quite a bit, while talking to an older man and woman- the woman's family owned the brewery we lived near, and the man was her friend, an Italian from Venice who moved to Guatemala then Cabo san Luca, ten years ago, and never looked back. Except when he said he thought he was losing his Italian because of the Spanish he was learning. We talked about that a bit. Then back in the boat, time for some tourism.

Us up against the wall staying warm, like a hot tub in winter :)

A bit chillier swimming out here.

Me.

Anne and the volcano. Isn't that like the name of a movie?

Looking back into and above our boat at the same time- where the driver stood and watched, stone cold, for like 45 minutes. Unwavering.

Road Trippin'

So finally, that Friday night, after a bit of studying I think, or maybe a nap, we went back to the school for a traditional Mayan meal. It cost like $4 a head. We neglected to BOOB (bring our own beer) but Fabian brought some weed of course, so that made the night fun (for others- you were thinking for a second there weren't you?). It was fun and pretty tasty, and by candlelight with a small enough group of people at each table that we got to know some people, all of whom we'd be traveling with the next morning. We said our goodnights after meeting Cheryl, Cynthia, Anne, Brie, Paul, and Kelsey, and I think that was the night we walked home with Anne cause she lives across the street from the brewery- and so did we.

So the next morning we packed into a minibus and the more robust backpack-type luggage (namely OUR backpack, with our stuff consolidated cause we knew it'd be tight) ended up on the top rack. Yyyyyyeah sweet- later heard horror story from the five U of Dayton kids (some of whom were from Chicago-ish) that on their bus trip to Xela their shhhstuff got SOAKED soaked SOAKED on top of the bus and everything they had was drenched for the next day until it dried. Thankfully no such mishaps.

But that's what happens on Chicken Buses (so-called by Americans, something else in Spanish unrelated). They are repurposed school buses from the US, belching diesel fumes, garishly painted and personalized, usually with names in script letters in the back window, or a phrase in the front window not unlike many Latino hoopties here in Chicago that say "Margherita" or "Dios es me Padre" or something like that in the top of their windshield. Anyway these buses, made to seat like 40, usually seat more like 80. The windows are tinted and there's a wingman guy who stands in the constantly open bus door, hawking riders, taking fares, and jumping up on the roof of the (yes MOVING) bus to strap down their luggage, then he swings back down the ladder on the back of the bus and into the bus. These buses drive from town to town, and you can get like a 45 minute ride for around a dollar. As long as you're not claustrophobic or careening off a cliff phobic. See these examples:

These things were everywhere. If you look closely, the one in the back had the front of a semi-truck, the International brand ones. I dunno how they did that. But its common. Must be like the BMW of school buses.

The front window also stated the bus's route.

By the way, these buses don't actually have chickens in or on them. Its not like Indiana Jones in India or something. But I did see a lady carrying a giant tray on her head with around 7 LIVE chickens tied down on it in a net. See the ladders and racks though??

So, I digress. But that was information in need of dissemination. Anyway, we piled in the microbus, which is like an oversized minivan, not like a full size van, and seats like 14, or 16, depending on...things. Here's us piled in, a photo from the front seat. Miguel on the left is a maestro and was the fearless leader for the weekend. He was sitting on his backpack basically in the metal footwell next to the sliding door. On the way back he turned around and sat on the warm hump sticking out from under the front seats where the engine was. Then there's Paul, Kelsey, Dayton kids in back, some bald dude, Cynthia, and a creepy guy with sunglasses and a mustache :)

Typical scenery during a drive ANYWHERE. My mom would have loved the cliff-hanging roads. Definitely exhilarating.

The trip was tight but not too hot, and we had mostly fresh air except when following chicken buses up or down some mountain. We were always going up or down, by the way. Flat doesn't exist. I think Anne got kinda car sick but everyone else was okay- but by the end I was ready to get out- starting to get car sick/tired of the density of people and occasional fumes. Brie had to pee like mad, which we found out was like every hour, and the rest stop where people (and kids) tried to sell us stuff had no working potty. Bummer. Then suddenly we arrived after two hours, and all of us newly best friends piled back out. (Uh, cue the next slide please?)

Those kids were persistent. And they could smell Anne's weakness for buying things like sharks smell blood and dogs smell fear. And that's Anne handing money out the door of the van. Oh Anne........

This is what you call a Guatemalan carpool.

Though that dog may look completely flattened and dead, he was as life-ful as most dogs in Guatemala- which is to say comatose and gaunt from malnutrition.