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Published: December 2nd 2007
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Gentle Reader,
While this blog both begins and ends with a descent down a volcano, I can assure you that this is not in fact some smart-alec attempt at a literary device, but the precise chronological order in which things occurred.
Natalie left us up Volcan Pacaya last week (not literally you understand, but in the blog). Unfortunately the slightly dodgy tour company that we'd chosen had neglected to inform all 15 or so of the people on the trip to bring a light for the descent. Nat had the presence of mind to bring the head torch, which meant we had two lights between about 15 of us (including the Guide). Thankfully (and despite the pitch black, sharp volcanic rocks, lava and fearsome Great White Sharks) for once I escaped without injury. This was a complete bonus, as my feet are both still lacerated from Semuc Champey (which is basically a tourist attraction built around the premise that it's nice to Jump Off High Stuff into Water in Scenic Surroundings).
Having had a hectic few days, we were quite glad to retreat to Lago de Atitlan. It's an obscenely beautiful lake, at considerable altitude, and to top
Me on the lancha to San Marcos
boat buses travel from village to village across the lake. They bump your bum but are very convenient and quite cheap. it off it's surrounded by three huge volcanoes (foreshadowing people, foreshadowing). Aldous Huxley basically wet himself trying to describe this place, and it's easy to see why. To top it all off they make some of the best coffee and chocolate in the world here, as it all grows on the fertile sides of the volcanoes.
Our first stop was San Marcos la Laguna, which is basically the Greenfields at Glastonbury in permanent form (with better weather). There are yoga retreats a plenty here (as well as a load more new age mumbo jumbo nonsensical rubbish), no real roads to speak of, and there's a big emphasis on recycling and sustainable living. In fact the hotel we stayed at (called Aaculaax) was well worth the trip alone. Despite being one of the cheaper places we've been to so far, it was just incredible. It's made mostly from recycled glass from wine & beer bottles, as well as driftwood and the like. The whole hotel is practically carved from the mountain behind it, and our room had a mountain-side for one of the walls. This was quite an amazing sight, and the place is well worth a trip (despite the
Lago de Atitlan
Guatemala seems to be getting prettier and prettier with each new place we go to! fact that we had nightly visits from local scorpions and spiders!)
Not much more to add about San Marcos really, because we basically just got down to doing practically nothing while we were there, other than going for an altitude dive in the lake. This was relatively uneventful (as there's nothing to see really), other than a small mishap involving Nat's air tank which I won't mention in case my worried mother in law is reading this!
We then moved on to San Pedro, which is a much bigger lakeside town, and could perhaps be described as Traveller Hell. Basically you can't move for draw string trousers and dreads. It's quite cheap though, so we're still here. How's that for sell out? We did manage a trip to a Mayan market while we've been here though, a town called Solola where Spanish is definitely the 2nd language, and the people still wear traditional costumes. I think we were about the only gringos there, which made a nice change, though I did get a bit tired of being shunted out of the way by 80 year old women with bananas on their heads.
Our last act at Atitlan
Crazy glass lampshade
at Aaculaax, the wicked ecohotel we stayed in. Highly recommend this place to anyone visiting San Marcos today was to feed Natalie's new found passion for volcanoes. We hiked up the nearest of the 3 in the vicinity, Volcan San Pedro, which is over 3000 metres high. This was a 6 hour slog (there and back), and definitely the hardest hike I've ever done, but it was well worth the pain. The view from the top was just incredible. The trip down was marred quite considerably by the fact that Nat got a migraine, meaning she could hardly see her way down the steep mountain-side, so it took a fair while longer to descend than it should have normally. Thankfully this was as bad as it got though, as there's been some talk of bandits in them there hills, and I wouldn't have fancied the chances of our guide to fend them off as he looked about 12. Hendrix, if you come here I don't recommend climbing this volcano, the fact that you'd have to come down it without a bike would make you cry - it's basically 3 hours of amazing descent that would be perfect for riding if you could get a decent bike here!
We're back to Antigua tomorrow to do some hard
core Spanish lessons, and hopefully some mountain biking before we leave for Nicaragua.
Adios mis amigos
Si x
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