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Published: June 23rd 2009
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San Marcos Walkway
This is one of the nicer, wider, paved walkways that make up the maze. This day, Susan and I took a boat to San Marco looking for some peace and quiet with few gringos. San Marcos is supposed to be a place where you meditate and get massages. We found one of the oddest places I´ve ever been to! To get there, we took a boat from Panajachel. The ride was beautiful and relaxing. Many other Pueblos and mansions dot the coastline. When we arrived, two street urchins hijacked our luggage from the boat asking us where we want to go. Normally, we wouldn´t have accepted their services, but, hey, we were on vacation, and it became very apparent that we had no idea of how to get to the hotel we had picked out from the guide book. ´Aaculaax´we told them. ´Do you know where it is?´ ´Si´, they answered and set off with our luggage.
Now, there were no streets leading up from the docks. Just a maze of very narrow, jungle covered sidewalks and dirt paths with signs pointing to meditation centers, other hotels, and massage businesses. After leading us around in circles through this maze of paths for what seemed like several hours, we arrived at ´Aaculaax´. Since we were
leaving the following morning, we arranged with the urchins to meet us at 8am the next day to carry our bags back, as we were not sure if we would ever find the dock again.
´Aaculaax´ was the perfect, bizarre place to go with the odd little town. The guidebook described it as a ´Hansel and Gretel affair ... a blend of cave work with Gaudi type influence.´ It didn´t disappoint. The place is very quirky, with each room being unique. Unfortunatly, the room situation forced Susan and I to split up. I at the top of the castle with a private bathroom and my own private rooftop patio with an amazing view of the lake, Susan in a hovel down one of the dirt paths without a private bath.
After checking in, the receptionist provided us a map of the area and we set out to get lost. Actually, it wasn´t too bad and we figured our way around fairly quickly. The maze of pathways evenutally opened up into a main street after about a quarter mile or so. We strolled around the town for awhile, picked up some cervasas, and went back to my private roof
Unusual window in my room made from recycled glass
Aaculaax was filled with interesting details like this. balcony to do some reading and relaxing. Later, we found a place to eat that served curry and mojitos! Afterwards, we looked for a bar with cable to try and watch the NBA finals. We had to settle for some local street futbol which was quite entertaining! We finally retired early to get some much needed restful sleep, which was elusive. There were no roosters to be heard, probably due to multiple packs of roaming, barking dogs.
The next day, the urchins, which we found out were brothers, were there right on time. While waiting for Susan to check out, I found out there were missing school to help us. I told them Susan was a teacher and would be very angry when she found out. Sure enough, she scolded them all the way to the dock and then tipped them extra to encourage them to do this again.
While we didn´t get the peace we were looking for, and the town was had many tourists, San Marco was a sweet, odd place and the tourist were mostly of the laid back bohemian type. No roaming droves of mission groups or rowdy college kids. I highly recommend this
place for an unusual and different experience.
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anonymous
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Lago Atitlan!
I liked San Marcos too. My housemate, Sara, and I kayaked one morning from San Pedro to San Marcos. Cute, small town. The kayaking was a challenge on the way back--very choppy waters. We bounced all over the place. I sure do love that lake, though. Gorgeous.