FEBRUARY, 2005
LAKE ATITLAN, GUATEMALA
February 26 - 28, 2005
Our sorjourn to Lake Atitlan featured the return of Ryan ¨aka Honky¨ Quinn, from Mexico lore, as well as our introduction to his buddy, French Jerome, aka Bizarro Bob Hann, cerca 1994.
We´e had a lot of tough bus rides in central America, bit this one was up there. 5 hours or so in a sardine packed 1971 Blue Bird School bus (apparently sold cheap by the Raleigh/Durham School District), with the final hour being straight down a hair pin turn mountain. Good times. When we arrived at Panahachel, we were told the lanchas to San Pedro were one block away, which turned into a 15 minute walk, which we assiduously try to avoid while carrying packs. Anyhow, it was entertaining.
As for the lancha, it was in part very frightening, but really just a good time. The lancha we were in was maybe lake, but definitely not sea, worthy and as luck would have it, it was getting dark and the Lake was rougher than any sea we had ever been on. For the next half hour we bounced from wave top to wave top, while getting nice steady doucings of Atitlan water, mmm. It definitely felt like an adventure though, and we wouldn´t trade it for the perfectly glass calm waters we had on the way back, 3 days later, which was just sort of boring. When we disembarked we got the standard attempt to charge 25 percent more than the price really was, which we´re become pretty good at laughing at. We could swear we saw the lancha sink on its way back, at about 200 feet off the dock . . . but then again, it was pretty dark!
After a brief bout with the ¨gringo¨ street in town, and its associated hustlers, we met a really nice local who took us to a mellow hotel on the other side of the penninsula. At 7$ a night we couldn´t go wrong. Good local though, as the "other side of the penninsula" was only a 10 minute walk.
A 3 day rave had been going on on the other side of the lake, so we weren´t sure what kind of shape Ryan would be in, but amazingly, he seemed to still be with it, after all, it was his birthday. From there the night turned into, well a birthday night. Let´ just say everyone had a good time. Oh yeah, plus we met Jerome, who is definitely a good time guy, and another reason to make sure we get to France soon.
The next day, or maybe the day after that, we headed over to Santiago, on another corner of the Lake, which by the way is huge! Santiago is mostly known for the huge artisan market which makes its way from the dock up about 3 miles to the top of the town, and its main plaza. This market has really beautiful goods, and they are very affordable. However, it definitely suffers from the hard sell thing. You never know where you will encounter this in Central American markets. Sometimes you are positive you are going to spend an hour being harassed, and everyone is very cool and just lets you shop. Then other times, you literally have to run from people trying to sell you things. Mike gave in and bought a shirt, sucker that he is, but got the price down from 80 Quetzales to 45 (essentially 5$), yeah baby.
As we mentioned, the lancha back was chill, but it was nice to have Ryan and Jerome along for the ride, and to hang with them for another day in Antigua. We definitely loved Guatemala, and to think, we almost blew it off!
