Lakes, volcanos, drogas, tranquility and school.
Trip Start
Mar 28, 2006
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Trip End
Ongoing
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San Pedro La Laguna,
Western Highlands,
Guatemala
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Apologises to all the people who e-mailed me thinking I had died over the last few weeks, but I´ve been taking it pretty easy in San Pedro la Laguna, possibly one of the most relaxing places I´ve ever seen.
I havent been keeping a journal the last few weeks, so this is probably going to end up sounding more like the ramblings of a mad man than an interesting travel blog, but here goes:
The first few days in San Pedro were also Brendans last few days before he headed off home, via Europe and Vietnam. Despite the fact we had been fighting abit towards the end of the trip, due mostly to the unbearable sexual tension, I was pretty sad to see him go. As annoying as it was at times for both of us, he managed to make be piss myself laughing each and every day on the trip, which is never a bad thing.
We spent the final few days of the trip drinking, smoking, swimming and kayaking in the lake and basically just flaking out. On Brendans final day, Myself, the two Canadians and Sam the pom went to Chichi market, Brendan had to make his way over the border to Mexico to get a flight back to Mexico City and onto Europe.
I didnt really like the market. It was huge and is meant to be one of the biggest in Central America, but there was just too many people, and I dont really like crowded places for too long a period, plus it had much the same stuff that the market in Antigua had.
Brendan managed however to provide me with some final amusement with some e-mails over the next few days.
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Managed to get himself into all sorts of trouble the poor kid. It took him a load of buses and taxis to get to the next major town, and then to the border. Ive since found out there are direct chicken buses there. He also managed to leave some stuff in the hotel in San Pedro, get robbed in Mexico City and also leave more stuff in Mexico City! Poor kid, but geez I had a few laughs.I started Spanish school the day after Brendan left. Originally I only wanted to do two weeks, but I enjoyed it so much I stayed for a third, and did a family home stay in the third week when Sam the pom finally left to help my Spanish.
The school had an awesome garden on the shores of the lake and was the most tranquil place to study. My teacher was also pretty hot, I thought about having a crack at her everyday, but these traditional mayan types dont drink, dont go out, probably dont have sex before marriage and probably dont like stupid Australians who cant speak spanish at all!
My spanish has improved alot, I can atleast hold some basic conversations now, and managed to successful use it to pick up a girl from Guatemala City. Good work Dario! Oh, by the way, I´m now prancing around Central America calling myself Dario because no one can pronounce Darryl, and Dario is close enough for me!
After my last spanish class yesterday I got pretty depressed. I dont know why. Maybe its because I didnt conquer the teacher, but more likely its because I probably have a little bit of fear of moving on by myself. After Brendan left I had the Canadians and Sam, then a family stay and over the three weeks of study developed a daily routine, which was good after living out of the pack daily for 2 and a half months.
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But its time to move on, and I think it dawned on me that I am actually alone now. You meet people on the road, but its not the same as having someone like Brendan with you, who gets your jokes, likes AFL, knows your friends, etc.I guess this is what the trip was all about, forcing myself to come out of my shell. Getting more confident with people instead of being so introverted, talking in spanish even if what Im saying is wrong, and forcing myself to stop being so shy and held back all the time. So I guess for me, now is when the trip really starts to begin.
I should probably talk abit about San Pedro, rather than the emotional frailties of a rambling idiot. Estupido gringo!
San Pedro is one of the most beautiful and relaxing places Ive ever been. I tied my hammock up to trees along the lake shore most days to study, watched the sunrise over the lake at breakfast time, kayaked, swum and just flaked out.
However, there is also another side to the town where the locals hardly go, which I call Gringolandia. Its the main tourist street with bars, restaurants, cafes and more drug peddlers than you can poke a stick at. The party scene is pretty good here. Chill out places, reggee bars, techo club, live bands, salsa, so whatever your style you can have a good piss up, especially on the weekends when people visit from Guatemala City.
A girl in Guatemala City told us about this lady who is apparently the dealer in the town. We managed to track her down. So funny to go into her house in the middle of town and have a tray full of mushrooms, bags full of weed and huge blocks of cocaine sitting out in the open, but hey, this is Central America, its the norm! Mum and Dad are reading this blog, so wont go into too much detail, but the mushrooms here are slightly different to the ones we have in salad at home!
I managed to make friends with this cool guy in the reggee bar in town.
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He is an orphan from Guatemala City and let Sam and me into the bar early a few nights to watch the soccer, drink and smoke before it opened up. He also let me serve behind the bar some nights whilst he laid in the hammock and smoked a few joints! Pretty bloody funny. I played some aussie hip hop for him the other night, he turned off the reggee and hooked my i-pod up to the bars system, and I blasted skip-hop all night. He ended up loading heaps of it onto the laptop and giving me heaps for latin hip hop and reggee stuff.So San Pedro basically has everything you can want. From hippies and greenies, to coke heads and techno lovers, whatever you want to do, you can do here. I could so easily pack up and move here, but Ive thought that about four or five other places already, and probably will think the same about another 30 more before I go home! I would recommend to anyone visiting Guatemala to come here, but to be prepared to stay longer than you first plan!
Im off to Antigua tomorrow for a few days, then into El Salvador, so I guess the trip really starts now! Time to man up Dario!
(I´ll post the photos of Antigua and San Pedro tomorrow in Antigua, theres a massive storm going now and the net has slowed right down)
