11.07. - 12.07.2009 Lago Atitlán

11.07. - 12.07.2009 Lago Atitlán

After a tough week of studies it was time for my first weekend to start. I joined a trip to Lago Atitlán organized by the school.

We left by a private bus and the journey only took about two hours. When we got there the rooms were distributed to the students. At first I was a bit worried that we could not choose ourselves who we wanted to share with, but it turned out that I got a room to myself :)

A few minutes after arrival it was time to take off for those who were going to join the bike trip to some nearby village. I'm really not a fan of cycling, especially not when the route consists of mountainous roads going up and down, up and down... Josué, who's in charge of the tour however, talked me into it. Unfortunately I didn't make it far. We had just about left the village of San Marcos and started to cycle up the first hill when I found myself unable to inhale properly. It shouldn't have been much of a problem since we had really good bikes but I just couldn’t do it. At first I tried to ignore it and went on. I mean come on, I'm really not that unfit. We had to take a break and I felt better. I wanted to go on but then felt like I had to throw up. Eventually I gave up and decided to go back to the hotel, where I lay down on my bed for half an hour or so.

When I got up again the ones who had not joined the bike trip were all gone. I had no idea where they went so I just decided to go down to the lake by myself. It doesn't look like it has a proper path there for there are a lot of private properties along the shore, so I asked a guy and he said that it's possible to walk along the lake for about 10 minutes or so. He had a really Swiss accent and therefore I asked him if he was Swiss. We only talked for a few more sentences but it was somewhat nice to meet a landsman.

I very much enjoyed the walk and the view of the lake and the volcanoes. When I could not walk any further I turned around and took a rest on one of the floats. It was so so nice. For the first time we had warm weather since I got here and I soaked in the sun.

When I got back to the hotel two of the girls asked if I wanted to join them swimming in the lake. The temperature of the water was just perfect. A little cool at first but then refreshing and yet warm.

In the evening we had dinner at the hotel. We were served Pizzas, Spaghetti and a curry. The food was good.

The next morning I woke up at six but enjoyed the peace and quiet in my room. It seemed to be my first proper time off since I got here. Around nine, I joined the others who wanted to go for breakfast and then go swimming.

While we waited for everyone to get ready Josué showed up and the girls cracked in laughter. They asked him if he had gotten their love letters, but he didn’t. They were really disappointed. They said that they got a bit drunk last night and everybody - including the guys - wrote a love note for him and then they passed it through under the door of room no. 3. The plan was good, only that Josué didn’t stay in room no. 3. They were disappointed, because apparently they put a lot of effort into the letter, even drawing little pictures, and I’m sure they would have been very funny to read. They asked who stayed in room no. 3 then and he said no one from the group. I wish I could have seen the look on the face of whoever stayed in that room and found those letters.

Breakfast at a place with sea view was not particularly good but the view was nice. Then one of the girls showed us a nice swimming spot where we could jump off a cliff. It was only three meters or so but two of them were quite scared so I jumped first and it was so cool I had to do it again.

After that we relaxed in the sun and then went back to the hotel to have a shower. Then we went to a restaurant to have lunch and enjoy some drinks.

At 3.30pm we had to meet with the group to board the bus. Unfortunately at some point we had a break down. I was a bit worried that it would take a long time to fix, that someone had to come from far or that it would take hours to get a different bus. After some time the police showed up and Josué had to call the garage to find out what was wrong. It looked like the bus lost a lot of petrol.

Normally it wouldn't have mattered that much but today my friend Katrin from Switzerland arrived in Xela. After I had told her about my plan to go to Guatemala, in order to FINALLY learn proper Spanish and travel for a bit, she wanted to join me. I wanted to travel with her for a long time anyway and was excited about her company. We had agreed to meet in front of the school at 7pm and go to dinner together. The bus was supposed to arrive in Xela at 6pm so I still had some spare time. But I didn't bring my mobile on the trip in order to contact her in case we’d run late.

Fortunately the problem was solved soon. However, we had a total of four break downs before we made it to Xela. We arrived at 7.10pm and I was very excited to welcome Katrin but she was not in sight. I thought that maybe she was running late or that she wrote a message to let me know that she's too tired to go out. So I quickly ran home to inform my family that I'm back and to get my mobile. She had sent me a message asking what time we would meet because apparently she didn't read my last e-mail anymore where I suggested to meet at 7pm. I answered that I'm in Xela now waiting for her in front of the school. I had to wait for nearly half an hour before I got an answer. It turned out that she was reading and didn't hear her phone.

Eventually we met shortly before 8pm. We hugged each other and I welcomed her in Spanish. She was a bit worried about her language skills. Well, I've been in the same situation a week ago. She'll get used to it.

Unfortunately none of the places serving local food were open so we just went somewhere else and ordered Pizza. It was a nice evening. I told her about my first week here and showed her photos from the weekend. It's really nice to have her here :)

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Part of trip: Guatemala

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