The Day That Everything Went Wrong
Trip Start
Jul 01, 2005
1
8
26
Trip End
Aug 28, 2005
San Pedro, Guatemala
Sunday, July 17, 2005
Mood/ I just had the best day of my life, I'm burnt, I'm hungry, my ass cheeks are sore and theres a tired smile on my face
....and then the wooden shoe broke!
So the four of use were all ready to set off to Panajachel Lake Atitlan (the volcano lake, created by a water volcano). The van the picked us up was about 45 minutes late and we left the city fairly late. It was a fun but long ride, about 3 hours, but as we neared the lake we drove right through the mountains and volcanos that surround this lake. We passed tall waterfalls and had an upper view of the lake and its surrounding cities...I've seen a lot of nice things, but never like this
02 - In a Tuk Tuk
. It had a just the right amount of Central American greenery to it. Anyways they ended up dropping us off really late at the cafe we were supposed to meet at, so we were had to madly run through the streets looking for a tuk tuk to take us (A motorcyle with a cover that cat sit about 3 people in the back) well we needed to fit four so I ended up sitting on Tyler's lap with my head banging against the thankfully soft cover roof of this motorcycle thingy...it was hilarious because Denise, the best spanish speaker amoung all of us was speaking so fast, just spitting out the words!! HAHAHA we called it Panic Spanish, and have now shortened it to Spanic. Well we stuffed ourselves on this motorcyle taxi thingy and ran down the dock just in time to catch the last boat to San Pedro. (There are a bunch of small cities that surround the lake area and to get to one city from another you have to take a small motor boat that they shove 20 people shoulder to shoulder on to) It was the time of my life watching the lights go farther and farther away, each set of lights representing a little town. The back drop was all green mountains and volcanos further back. It took about an hour and Amira and I were split of onto a different boat than Denise and Tyler. I remember thinking on the tuktuk when all of us were laughing at how we might miss our boat and never get to our hotel that "I love it when things go wrong!" because that is when you hve the best of times!
As the Sun Rose
In San Pedro
Well it raining, were off the boat, no one is sea sick and we have no idea where to go! We ask for directions from a travel agency to our hostel, and he draws us this map that seems fairly simple. Apparently he didn't mention that dirt road and goat paths in this city. So we ended up in the dark with Tylers forhead flashlight looking for this hotel with a man on bicycle trying to lead us. We didn't want his help, knowing this guy can lead us anywhere, but dammit he kept following us. So we went back out onto the main road and tried again. This was when ran into to kids who started to walk with us because they wanted to know where we were from. Lucky us, we asked them to take us to this damn hostel and they did! It was through all these hidden streets and dirt paths that we never would have found by ourselves. Tyler gave them 10Qs and finally after not eating all day and frantically trying to get to this damn place we arrived. It was worth every single ordeal that we had to go to. The place was right by the shore of the lake, backing off with a dock for kayaking and what not. Our rooms faced the lake and had view the stretched down to the mountains and volcanos on the other side! It was set, were were waking up at 5 am to watch the sunrise.
We were starving so we hiked down another dirt road and found a bar/restaurant called the Buddha
At Crossroads Cafe
. Had dinner, I HAD PHO!! it obviously wasn't authentic, but I was craving pho! We came back and we were all pooped, but the place was a thousand times nicer than I ever thought it would be, so all was good. Stayed up talking to Amira for while and ended up having a hard time sleeping because the bed was crooked. But who cares, this was my first backpacking like experience and I loved every moment of it.Anyways, times running short, I'm back in Panajachel, and I gotta get back....
OHHH i can't wait to tell you about the sunrise!
