When Old Friends Come to Visit...
I’ve been back in Guate for two weeks now, but both weeks
seemed to pass in the flash of an eye, leaving me today, for the first time,
with a chance to catch my breath and reflect on them.
There’s a reason I felt so occupied the first two weeks; I
had a lot going on. Two days after
returning to Guatemala, my dear friend G-Money (of college marching band and
Peru adventure fame) arrived to visit.
Unfortunately, her arrival coincided perfectly with my return to
work. While I scrambled to get my
classroom ready for the arrival of my new students, G-Money spent her first two
days in the country relaxing and exploring the area around my
neighborhood. She mastered ordering
coffee in Spanish, visited the grocery store 3 days running (with different
people each time), and explored Cayalá.
On Saturday morning, my first day off, our adventure really
began. We set off before dawn to make it
to Lake Atitlan as early as possible.
The trip was perfect from the start. We flew through Guatemala City with almost
zero traffic to slow us down. We made
good time, passing through Chimaltenango (everyone’s least favorite town
because of the bottleneck in traffic that it creates) just 45 minutes after
leaving my house. Just as we were
starting to crave breakfast, we arrived in Tecpan to the wonderful surprise
that one of my favorite restaurants was open and serving up fresh coffee and
hot tortillas.
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| Breakfast at Kappe Paulino's |
As we snaked down through Solalá and saw our first glimpses of the lake, it was clear we had been gifted with a gorgeous day. A bright blue sky illuminated the volcanoes beautifully with not a rain cloud in sight.
At the dock, a boat worker told us his public lancha was
leaving in three minutes, and he was true to his word. Even though there were only 4 of us on the
boat (which could have held 20 people easily), we pushed off in three minutes
and were in Santa Cruz in no time.
We enjoyed a leisurely, beautiful walk to our hotel, where
we dropped off our bags (we were much too early to check in) and then decided
on a stroll to explore the town of Santa Cruz proper, up the hill.
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| View on the walk to the hotel |
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| The view from Santa Cruz |
There, we discovered that the board game Ticket to Ride was available
for our use, so we spent an hour before lunch playing the game with, again, a
great view of the lake. (I love Ticket
to Ride, and G-Money and I used to play it in college. Finding it in Guatemala was an unexpected
treat).
Lunch was delicious, and after it, we were shown to our room—a
cabin high on the hill overlook the lake.
Now, we’d been warned that our room was pretty far up the hill, but I
didn’t really know what that meant. 181
steps later, I was breathing a bit heavily and working to keep up with Carlos,
who was showing us the way. Still, the
view was worth it, and a little bun-burning workout never hurt anyone.
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| About the halfway point on the climb up/down |
Next on the agenda was some time relaxing on the hotel patio. I promptly took a nap in a hammock enjoying
the cool breeze, the shade, and the view (until my eyes closed).
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| The perfect spot for some serious relaxation |
After that, we decided to see a bit more of the lake villages. We took a public boat over to the village of
San Juan, which has become a town of trade cooperatives. We learned about the existence of the women’s
weaving co-op, the coffee co-op, the artesan’s co-op. We stopped at a few stalls, and the women
were eager to tell us about their use of natural dies or to demonstrate how
they craft the patterns on their looms.
After buying a pair of earrings made with flower petals, we strolled
through town enjoying some of the murals.
Then, we took a tuk tuk to the neighboring town of San Pedro.
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| One of the murals in San Juan |
San Pedro is a tourist’s town, and we walked the strip with me pointing out all of the restaurants I’ve been to. (I’ve only been to San Pedro once, for a three day weekend, but apparently I ate my way through the town).
Then it was back to Santa Cruz for the evening. We dined family style at Iguana Perdida, a
hostel nearby our hotel. Dinner
conversation was interesting and the food was delicious. We fell into bed early and slept
soundly.
Sunday morning, we enjoyed a yoga class (again, like all
things over the weekend, with a great view of the lake), followed by a
leisurely breakfast. Full and happy, we
showered (again, leisurely), and checked out around noon. We made our way back to Antigua, where we
dropped G-Money off at her hotel, took a walk around, ate a mid-afternoon meal
(lupper, if you will), and then I took to my car and braved traffic back into
the city.
G-Money spent the next day and a half in Antigua on her own
while I went back to work, welcoming my new students and beginning a new school
year. While I wish she could have stayed
much longer and that I could have taken time off to spend more time with her, I’m
so grateful for the time we did have. It
was amazing to see an old friend (and it had been so long since we’d traveled
together, I had forgotten what an AWESOME travel companion she is! Can you believe that?!). I’m really lucky to have her for a friend,
and that she was able to make a visit to Guate work. Next up: my visit to her in Asia! Next summer.
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