Adventures in Guatemala, Part VIII: Lake Atitlan
Monday, December 12, 2011, it came time to leave Quetzaltenango and head to Lake Atitlan. We had had such an amazing experience in the previous few days that we were sad to leave, and we tried to hang on to the feelings we had felt.
We bid good-bye to the lady who had taken such good care of us all week at the Casa San Bartolomé bed and breakfast. Linette even gave her a Book of Mormon as we left.
Neal and Stephanie were kind enough to have a seat for the picture so they wouldn't tower over her.
And with a wave, we headed out.
We dropped by the "Xelapan" bakery for one last round of tasty pastries on our way out of town. While in the central park, I saw this cool nativity display that went for 30 feet or so.
We stopped at a gas station where we saw these moms with their little kids dressed up for the Virgin of Guadalupe Day, or something like that.
Fortunately, these prices are in Quetzals rather than dollars.
Still, though, that's about a hundred bucks (at about $5/gallon) to fill up the tank.
Once again, it was fun seeing all the people carrying stuff on their heads and/or babies on their backs.
Everywhere we went, we saw volcanoes.
There had been a big landslide the day before, requiring President Uchtdorf to take an alternate route back to Guatemala City. It appeared that the strategy was to dig dirt from the uphill side of the road and throw it down the other side until it filled up enough to pour some new asphalt.
We had to wait briefly because only one direction could go past the landslide area at a time. So I jumped out and took a picture of our car (and the chicken bus in the background).
Because of the timing of the dedication, we were only going to have one day at the lake, so I was a little worried about being able to do everything we wanted to do in that short time. I sort of wished we had a few days to sit and relax and enjoy ourselves there. But we made a valiant attempt to "do it all!"
Finally, we got close enough to see Lake Atitlan. I took a few pictures out the window on the way towards the lake, most of which were rubbish because we were moving too fast. (I have a friend from Australia at work, and our new favorite word is now "rubbish".) But I happened to catch this shot as we drove by, and I love how it includes the lake, volcanoes, a shady tree, and a young Mayan gal in a traditional outfit.
Here is the town of Panajachel (pan-ah-hah-chel), at the north end of Lake Atitlan.
We rented a 2-bedroom house at the Hotel Buenaventura, near Panajachel, so we went there and checked in.
We checked out the place really quickly, and wished that we could be there for more than just one night, especially since we were planning to be out for most of the day exploring the lake.
I thought it was funny that they used soda bottles embedded in cement as "translucent lighting" into the bathroom.
Everything was so beautiful there. (Especially that middle part...;)
Once we were settled, we walked up the stone driveway to the nearby nature reserve to do some zip lines.
Here we are posing for the dorky hat picture.
We had to hike way up a canyon, across suspension bridges and through thick jungle. The guide said that the vines grow 15cm per day. (As my Grandpa Wilson used to quote, "What the jungle will reclaim, it first sends the vine.")
We also saw a monkey. In a tree. Eating a banana. Seeing a monkey in the wild was one of the goals on my "list" for the trip, so it was great to check that one off.
One of the suspension bridges crossed in front of a beautiful waterfall.
Here are some steps sticking straight out of the rock.
Finally it was time to zoom down the zip lines!
I was blown away by the view as I sailed down the first zip line. On one side was the waterfall...
...and on the other side was a panoramic vista of Lake Atitlan and its surrounding volcanoes.
Woo-hoo!!!
There were 8 zip lines and it took an hour or so to go down all of them. We used a glove with a thick leather pad to slow down at the end of the run.
There was also an awkward obstacle course at the end.
Another couple and their two daughters were part of our group, too. The guy was there with his family for 6 weeks and had been learning Spanish from a personal tutor. We asked what he did for a living that allowed him to go to Guatemala for 6 weeks. He said that he had worked for Microsoft for 13 years about 13 years ago. So he basically could do whatever he wanted for the rest of his life. (He helps run a small company now, but said that they sort of liked it when he left on vacation).
Survivors.
The zip lines were every bit as fun as we had hoped. After that, we went back to our hotel and hired a boat for a "three hour tour" to a couple of villages on Lake Atitlan. There isn't really a road to get to some of the villages, so transport is by boat (or by foot trail).
Neal and Linette had both been looking forward to getting fried bananas (platanos), and hadn't come across any all week, so we had the chefs at the hotel whip some up for us, even though they were technically closed. They made them to go, and they were ready just in time to take them on the boat with us.
So yummy!
The four of us got our own private tour of the lake.
It was a gorgeous day.
At the first village, Neal and I each got cool Guatemalan shirts.
Pretty much everyone we met was in traditional clothing. These folks were still living traditional lives and making their clothes and things to sell by hand.
This lady shows how the weaving is done, sitting on one end to keep pressure on the fabric as it is weaved.
These young gals were just adorable, with a little whining lilt to their voices. Each was trying to sell Linette the same sort of thing, so she gathered four of them together and told them that she would buy two shawls from each of them. (A fifth one showed up, too, so she bought from her as well).
Off to the next village!
At this village, the sales people were pretty aggressive, which wasn't too fun. This little boy followed Neal around the entire 40 minutes we were in town, saying "Diez!" every 4 seconds, trying to get Neal to buy a little doll for a dollar.
On the other hand, look at the little girls in their deep blue outfits. This color of blue appeared to be the hallmark of this village.
The sun was starting to set at this point, so we hopped back in the boat to head back to Panajachel.
We got mobbed by vendors in Panajachel, too. It is a tourist town, and I think we were the only tourists in the whole city that evening! Fortunately, Neal said he could "shop with the best of them."
Linette felt bad because we were fresh out of cash by this point, so she was really no use to these vendors.
I escaped the vendors to take a couple of pictures as the sun went down. Plus, I was all out of cash, and we were tired of borrowing from Neal!
Finally we found a restaurant right on the lake (though some kids followed us to our table and wouldn't go away until we finally bought something from them).
Stephanie got this sunset picture by turning on her flash.
We bought some pens from this boy. Within about 60 seconds, he could wrap a pen in thread with one of our kids' names spelled on it.
The menu had almost everything on it, including "filet mignon". Sadly, this is how that particular choice turned out. Ugh.
We also had some trouble getting our credit cards and passports back in a timely manner. Linette finally said "¡Ya no!" and marched downstairs to see what was going on. The credit card processing involves an old lady calling somewhere and reading the digits by hand, so it took a while.
Finally we rode a "tuk-tuk" back to our hotel.
It is basically a motorcycle that seats two passengers reasonably, or four if one gets real chummy with the driver, as shown here. It barely made it up one of the hills.
We had the guy drop us off at the entrance to our hotel (mostly because we didn't think it could handle the cobblestone driveway), and then had to almost feel our way down the pitch black driveway to get back to our house.
One of the reasons we had picked this place was so we could sit in the hot tub at night and look at the lake. But alas, the hot tub only works during the day, because they need the electricity at night for the lights. Doh!
So we just sat by the lake for a few minutes, where we saw a guy snorkeling with a flashlight. A guy in an accompanying boat said that he was night fishing.
That night we got to enjoy our rented house for a couple of hours before going to sleep. Here we are playing a round of "Hand and Foot" (thus the foot on the table). The girls had beaten the boys soundly the night before. But we pulled into the lead on round two this time.
It was interesting to me that visiting Lake Atitlan was the thing I was most excited about before the trip, but although the zip lines and boat ride were great, nothing could hold a candle to the spiritual and emotional connections we had been making through the rest of the week.
Still, though, it was a grand adventure in its own right.
Tune in for the final installment in Episode IX: The Long Road Home, in which we make a desperate race for the capitol.
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