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September 9, 2005
Lago de Atitlán
Today, after breakfast chatting with our favorite Guatemalan so far (our fourteen-year-old waiter Miguel), we caught a boat to San Pedro, a town directly across the lake. On the boat we met an adventurous brother and sister from Japan that were traveling through the area. They had just made their way from Cancun through the Yucatan into the north of Guatemala. With limited English and practically no Spanish they had crossed the Mexican-Guatemalan border at a remote and daring location. The sister explained to me how they were both scared to death as they were the only foreigners, and a boat full of guns was being unloaded into Mexico where they were crossing the river border. Being from Japan they said they were not used to seeing guns, which made it all the more terrifying for them. They are basically headed in the same direction as us and will be leaving from Panama City in a month.
San Pedro was a funky little town. A mix of bohemian type foreigners who lived there and locals gave it an interesting feel. I initially wanted to climb the volcano near the town but when I inquired about a guide they said it was too late in the day. Instead we decided to have drinks at a lakeside restaurant and watched a middle-aged German lady in a tiedied shirt lead her horse and five dogs to the lake for a drink. While our waiter was a local, the cook behind the counter was a dread-locked Europpean.
Our outdated Lonely Planet suggested several hikes to neighboring towns, which sounded like a good backup plan. But when we inquired about the trail to Santiago Atitlan we were informed that it was probably too dangerous for us to walk. A kid that sold us some peanuts and cashews told us that he didn’t walk over to Santiago to sell his goods anymore after he himself had been robbed by Santiaganos.
Instead we headed in the other direction to a town called San Juan. It was a pleasant walk where we were greeted by several friendly locals walking in the opposite direction or farming along the side of the road. However, once we reached San Juan, hoping to continue walking on the road to the town of San Marcos to catch the boat home, we were again informed, this time by policemen on a motorcycle, that it was far too dangerous to walk along the road connecting the towns. This violent undercurrent was surprising to us. These are sleepy little towns that are inhabited by quite a few foreigners and have seen tourism for a long time. That even locals selling nuts get mugged is unsettling. It taught us not to trust our lonely planet guide and to get second opinions from locals and other travelers. In fact, maybe we should ween ourselves off of the ubiquitous Lonely Planet.
So to get to San Marcos, we jumped in one van and changed to the bed of a pickup truck to make our way safely into the town. It actually would have been a few-hours walk and was just as interesting riding in the back of the truck with several Mayan women who were making the same journey. I helped them lift the large packages that they carried on their heads into the back of the truck. One of the ladies, who appeared to be over 70 years old, was carrying a very heavy, steaming hot cauldron full of something on her head in this manner. Don’t know how they do it. Once there we explored little San Marcos a bit, listened to the local school’s marching band practice, got chased by some dogs, skirted past the foreign-owned meditation retreats and then caught a boat back to Panajachel.
Back in town we had some dinner, checked the internet, and then called it a night.
Posted by Peter Mork at September 9, 2005 7:36 PM
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