Day 26 - 28 (Lima, Peru)

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Travel Quote - All journeys have secret destinations of which the travel is unaware. Martin Buber.

We have reached our final destination - Antigua, Guatemala. Again, the town is so picturesque like so many of the others that we have come across. We got there quiet late but not too late to take a visit to the first Irish bar I've seen on this trip - Reillys! Disgrace of an Irish bar with no draft beer or Guinness. Not trying the bottled stuff again either - made that mistake once in San Ignacio and was rotten. Music was great though and needless to say we stayed there until they kicked us out.

The next day we made our way to the Mayan village, San Jorge, where we stayed with a local family for 2 days. Luckily I was staying with Emily who has lots of Spanish so I was able to improve on my pigeon Spanish! En route we took in the Chichicastenango market (say it fast 10 times!). Huge place with absolutely everything and we did some shopping for our family. The family were lovely, though I couldn't talk to them too much, but I did try! We tried our hand and tortilla making and went to the local dance. Not as fun as the one in Lake Titicaca I have to say! Cant say I was any good at making tortillas but I did improve by the end of our stay!

Luckily managed to get some sleep despite the roosters, fireworks, dogs..... Just as well as we had a busy day ahead. We went to another local market (on the back of a truck!) and this place was loco (ie crazy) - people everywhere and pushing into you. You could hear babies shrieking when they got pushed against their mothers too tightly. Was glad to get out of there but turns out not without 40k (about 4 eur) being nicked from my pocket. Luckily it was all I had in my pocket.

Took the chicken bus to get the boat to Lake Atilan. Not sure why they are called chicken buses but I was almost too chicken to get on after seeing them fly along the mountain roads! Basically the drivers get paid by the number of journeys they manage to complete in a day so needless to say they go pretty fast! The town at the edge of Lake Atilan is lovely. We spent a happy few hours there shopping, eating ice cream and having a few beers! We all wish we were staying here for the night. Went over to Lake Atilan and wandered around looking at more local markets. The highlights was our visit to Maximo, the local God. Its strange here that they are still Catholic but also have other Gods that they worship. Maximo is given money, alcohol and cigarettes in return for favours. What is most bizarre is that they put the cigarette in his mouth and also pour in alcohol. He is a wooden statue! That night, after more tortilla making we went to a hippy bar and watched a band. Was a really nice end to our trip to San Jorge.

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