Guatemala, bottom to top! Day 2 & 3

Day 2:
Panajachel, Guatemala

We woke up this morning at 8:00. Our first day to sleep in! Our beds were so hard that we didn't sleep much but it felt good to just lay there and be. We got ready for the day and went to the free breakfast buffet at the hotel. It was typical Guatemalan style with a couple of attempts at American style. There was an omelet chef but his ingredients were sauteed onions, sauteed tomatoes, sliced american cheese cut into little strips, and ham. I suspect that the ham was actually balogne but who knows... And the wierdest thing, they had green and red salsa on the side but it was steaming HOT. Not spicey, just hot. They had fruit, which is always good, and frijoles, fried bananas, queso (white pourous stuff that is NOT cheese), corn flakes and granola (not our granola)





I still can't eat anything associated with a Guatemalan breakfast because of my last bout with food poisoning, in fact just looking at it makes me feel seriously nauseated. Especially the queso. I wish it wasn't so.

Then we hit the road to make our reservations for tomorrow (shuttle to Cabon) and to get on a boat. There's a big market in Chichicastenango but we wanted to stay far away from that. It's only w days a week and tomorrow is one of those days - it will be REALLY crowded. We wanted to go to the little island in the middle of the lake (it's a big lake) but we were told that it is private. :( Of course a guy on the street latched onto us right away and wanted to arrange our transportation. He wanted us to do a boat tour with 2 stops, Santiago and San Pedro for 350Q. We just about did it and then I felt like it was too expensive so we were going to go back to the hotel and ask them. Of course the guy came running back and said we could go just to San Pedro for 25Q per person, each way. That's 100 Q total instead of 350 Q per person. That's a big difference!



It was a beautiful boat ride for 30 minutes and then we were at San Pedro. We were immediately approached by a tour guide but didn't know what we wanted to do. First we asked about renting scooters. He gave us a motorcycle but it was too scary.


This is the motorcycle. You shift by lifting up a jagged metal bar with your foot. We were in flip-flops and swimsuits... Ouch! I rode up and down the street but Kylee refused to get on with me :) Smart girl.

Then we tried bikes. We rented them for 2 hours...but 5 minutes down the street, Kylee was done. And by done I mean turned around and heading back to the guy that rented them to us. It WAS hot and the streets were really steep. We got half our money back ($6.50 US) So then we decided to do a horse ride to the beach. 1 hour to the beach, 1 hour at the beach, and 1 hour back. $225Q. (less than $20 apiece) We waited, then we followed a little boy through town and around many corners to rural San Pedro






This is where we started out trip.


I thought this Spanish school in the middle of nowhere was pretty cool. Can you imagine showing up to your first day of classes here?

Amazingly, they put us on 2 very pretty horses. Kylee was in heaven. Our trip to the beach was a really cool trail. We went on back roads for the first part and then up and down trails through the mountains. It was so pretty, and totally inaccessible by car. Plus, our horses were good, they would canter and run so it was fun.


Kylee's horse was faster than mine. If a car came by, he would chase it. Mine wanted to be in the middle of the road all the time so I had to talk him into moving to the side and not getting run over.


This is why you think twice about swimming in the lake. It is a laundry, bathroom, and trash can. But it's also big and very inviting so what the heck.

The "beach" was funny. They said it was the best beach around, beautiful black sand on a stretch of the lake. Well, it was and it wasn't. The black sand was coarse and the beach was dirty and a little bit crowded.



Plus, we stuck out like a white thumb. But we were hot and it was sunny so we headed to the water. As we got closer, it was so WINDY that suddenly we weren't so quick to get in the water.




It was chilly and we were missing our towels and beach chairs and sunbrella's! Luckily we had our books so we planted it in the sand and read for an hour. We had a great ride back and were really glad we had done it. We both felt like we sunblocked really well but as we waited for our return boat to Panajachel we realized we were fried. Shoulders, necks, tops of legs...ouch!




This necklace sunburn stayed for our entire trip. No matter what we did witht he sunblock...it was always there! One of the Guatemalan tour guides told us that was the only safe jewelry to wear. :)

We got back to Panajachel hungry as usual...showered and dressed then went out to eat. Oh man, we tried a restaurant by the lake and really wanted a plate of nachos. Nachos are pretty common, but they always use a liquid cheese. It's weird. Anyway, we explained that we wanted nachos with chicken and beans and salsa and guacamole and everything. We thought he had the right idea, but what we got was a few chips, fried chicken, a spoonfull of beans, that nasty rectangle of queso, and guacamole. ugh. Two whole plates of it! So, we ate the chips with the quacamole, picked at the chicken and that was it. Wouldn't have been so bad but then they charged us 200Q!! ($25) Outrageous, but what can you do. Still hungry, we went shopping. We are collecting bracelets so we got one in San Pedro and one in Panajachel. Then we looked at tennis shoes but no one has Kylee's size (10) There is so much street food that we experimented. A taco here, some fried corn there...it was fun!


Everyone has told Kylee not to eat the street food so she is really paranoid. I ate more than she did. At one place we ordered a chicken quesadilla on a flour tortilla. The lady gave us a flour tortilla, smeared it with sour cream and hot sauce, a little liquid cheese, and then stuck a big old leg of chicken in it - on the bone. In my broken spanish I asked her to cut the meat off the bone so she cut it off and then stuck the bone back in it! Oh well, it was still pretty yummy. The meat was really good.

Kylee and I get "talked at" a lot when we are out. The guatemalan boys like my tall almost-blonde-again daughter. This time, one guy was following us and saying stuff then I heard him say "hey, I have good ganja, really, good stuff. Ganja for you" I couldn't believe he was offering us pot while I was with my daughter! I turned around and said "hey, su esta diece ses! Su es muy joven, sheesh!" which I hope meant "hey, she is 16 years old! She is very young so back off!" He left real quick. It was funny. The boys around here are short so they are always shocked to hear how young Kylee is. In fact, our horse guide was could not believe that she was a teenager. He assumed we were just friends travelling together. When I told him she was sixteen he didn't believe me. Finally he said I am one year older but she is muy muy alto! (very very tall) It was funny. When his dad was getting the horses saddled up for us he had to adjust the straps longer because he didn't usually get such "muy grande chicas." Love it.

Anyway, it was such a beautiful night that when we got back to the hotel we grabbed our books and our headlamps and went out to the hammocks overlooking the lake. I'm sure we looked like dorky Americans. It was perfect.


Me at 6:00am waiting for the shuttle to come pick us up. We were sad to leave Jardin de la Lago. :(


Day 3
Lanquin

We were in the bus all day today! It was supposed to be 6-7 hours but it was 10. We hit traffic and got a flat tire.


This is us in the "bus." It's really just a van. We were the last ones in so we didn't even get to sit by each other. No A/C but the windows are usually open and there's a good breeze.

It wasn't as bad as we thought it was going to be but man was it long. I do enjoy driving through Guatemala though. It is so cool and just really pretty. The little towns are usually dirty and squallid but they are in some fantastic scenery. The people are so different. I love how the women ALWAYS have their children with them. Whether they're working, or shopping or walking through town, they are always with their babies. Alot of times they are strapped on, even the big ones. I don't know how they do it. I think that their lifestyle really emphasized the family unit. It's not about the parents working, it's about the family working.




There's a child in there. They're walking home from a restaurant where she works. Ouch.

Anyway, we arrived in Lanquin at 4pm and checked into El Recreo. No hot water, lots of bugs. We reserved a room in El Retiro (the OTHER hotel) for tomorrow night and they are on opposite sides of town. Opposite sides of the hilly, muddy, long town. In fact if it were on a map it would look like: El Recreo, mud hill mud hill, Town, mud hill mud hill, El Retiro.


Now picture little smashed frogs with their guts on the road. Gross.

El Retiro is prettier but they are both impossible to make reservations at. I think they have something against telephones. They are really really rural, kind of like cabins next to each other.



We took a picture of the bathroom feeling sorry for ourselves that it wasn't the Ritz-Carlton. Little did we know that soon we would look at that picture longing to have one that we didn't have to share with 20 other people. And hot water?...only as a distant memory!


This is dinner. It is a "grilled cheese sandwich" Not quite what we expected, but when you're hungry, it works.


We ordered a Mango shake but didn't realize that it would be WARM! It didn't taste bad, but it was REALLY creamy.


This is Kylee tucked in for the night...it wasn't cold, but she was afraid of mosquito's!

Tomorrow we are white water rafting on the Cahabon River. We are very excited! The next day we are touring some caves and going to Semuc Champey. Woo hoo!