San Pedro Week One

  San Pedro La Laguna, Guatemala
Saturday, November 10, 2007

Volcans Santiago, San Lucas

Itīs been just about one week since I arrived in San Pedro.  Upon my arrival I checked in at the Hotel San Francisco which is a nice place to stay. Clean rooms with shared showers for Q30 a night.  That is about $3.75 a night.  The shared showers are interesting as the shower shares the same space as the toilet but I adjusted to this pretty quickly.  Definitely bring or purchase flip flops.

Hotel San Francisco View

This is an absolutely beautiful area.  The lake and volcanoes are amazing.  Many of the flowers are similar to those in Tucson.  There are quite a few gringos, as the travel books say, but it is also true that if you walk 15-20 minutes away from the lake you can get away from gringo land.

Volcan San Pedro

Iīve had a great relaxing time and have met some interesting people, one man from Tucson who owns a restaurant here and has lived throughout Central America for 12 years.  Iīve also managed to get by with my broken Spanish, all in first person present tense with many missing words.  For example, "El baņo no trabajar" roughly "The bathroom no work".  One difference between here and the U.S is that people are very happy and patient about speaking with you when you donīt really know the language.  The most important phrases to know are ŋHabla Ingles? and ŋCuanto Quetzals? or maybe itīs Quetzales.   

I am very excited to start my Espaņol lessons on Monday.  Iīve chosen the Cooperative Spanish School or, locally known as, Coopertiva.  They have great reviews and I will right my own in time. 

San Pedro is quite the eclectic place.  There is a strong Mayan community here.  It is clear that families are close and even more apparent that women have a close bond.  They are often working, walking, talking, and working together.  The children seem to be perpetualy happy even when they are selling me pan (bread).  In one week Iīve heard, maybe, 3 children crying.  Due to the tourist economy, San Pedro is better off than many villages surrounding Lake Atitlan.  However, not only does this come at a cutlural price, but there continues to be a high level of poverty.  There is also a strong Catholic and Evangelical presence where you can often hear wailing prayers from the Evangelical churches.  The Catholic church is next to the market which I explored the other day.  You can purchase just about any vegetable, grain, bloody chopped up chicken, toys, and watches.  I was one of only a few westerns.  While this is all going on there is a constant influx of people from the U.S, Europe,Israel, and other parts of the world.  There is a rather large bar scene by the lake and plenty of places to get "safe" food and drinks.  Some places show free films, Iīve seen the Big Lebowski and Transformers.  And, of course, there is a waft of marijuana now and again.  This also becomes less so as you travel up the hill. Somehow all these different folks manage to co-exist rather peacefully. 

TukTuks

The racing cars continue to exist here as well, except the streets are narrower, bumpier and there are these little red tuk tuks aka taxis zipping around everywhere honking at you to get out of the way.  If you come visit San Pedro you will figure out quickly that, unless you have a physical reason of some sort, you can walk the whole city and donīt really need a speeding tuk tuk.  You will also build some major cardio and leg muscles as it is UP hill.

San Pedro Street

Hasta Maņana