More from San Pedro:

Chillin' at Nick's Place

Wine with Dinner, El Jardin

Flowers and more flowers

Photos, from the top, Saturday morning after the rain on the balcony at El Gran Sueno.

The bridge to happiness at Hotel Sak'cari

http://www.hotelsakcari.com/

Pammy gettin some rays and some zzzzz's in front of the room.

I don't know where I'm gonna go when the volcano blows

Photos from top:

San Pedro the volcano

San Pedro La Laguna downtown

Bloggers view from room 7


There is a mystical magical place in the western highlands of Guatemala called Lake Atitlan.

After an idyllic six days exploring and enjoying all that is Guatemala's second city we booked a shuttle with a local tour operator (that I'd traveled with before) for a direct run from the fabulous Flora Inn in Quetzaltenango to a reserved hotel in San Pedro La Laguna. Using a shuttle is a fine option (they pick you up at your hotel and deliver you to your next destination for a very reasonable fee) especially if you're traveling with a lot of stuff and somehow the almost manageable pile of equipaje we brought with us had grown to slightly less than container size after the artisans market, La Democracia market, Minerva market, Las Flores market, etc. Desafortunadamente our shuttle operator (the now and forever despised monte verde tours) starts this leg of our adventure by shipping us to Panajachal not San Pedro which now lies 5 or 6 miles across choppy water to our southwest.

To compound our woes the perennially unsettled Santiaguito volcano chooses to blow its top the night before our departure and now, in the dry season, we're not only in the wrong town with a ton of crap its also raining cats and dogs (most of them strays but we'll get to them later). The bloody details are too depressing for further elucidation but after much drama we wind up with our own private launch hurtling across Atitlan to a very dark San Pedro La Laguna. Our captain and mate schlep our luggage and us (por una propina, senor) up the candle lit streets of San Pedro to our reserved room at Mansion del Lago. Desafortunademente we are a little late and our phoned in, unsecured (because they don't take cc's) reservation has been sold to another lucky traveler. Did I mention it was raining? The apologetic proprietor of La Mansion goes out of his way to find us another room and even carts our crap down the dark street and up three flights of winding steps, in the rain, to El Hotel Gran Sueno. Clean, decent, friendly, with good candles and pillows stuffed with coffee beans, its not my great dream but at this point its much better than any of our other options and the gracious Guatemalan hosts treat us better than grumpy gringos deserve. Finally, food, cervezas, and fitful sleep.

Saturday morning I awake to electricity, sunshine, wonderful coffee with warm cinnamon buns and just like that all is forgiven and the romance is on again. I leave El Gran Sueno to pursue another while Pam snuggles happily under the covers. Birds sing, flowers bloom, trees have oranges and bananas hanging within reach and El Hotel Amencer Sak'Kari has a double facing the lake for $32/ nite. It's a great spot, not far from the Santiago docks managed by Dan, a 2006 North Carolina transplant. With complimentary kayaks, cable tv, wi-fi, and picture windows lakefront, its within easy walking distance of everything. Dan gives me the key to room #7 at 8:00am and after delivering coffee and cinnamon buns to get her going Pam and I are piling our stuff into a tuk-tuk and three wheeling our way to our next home.

Over the next few days we do a lot of walking and gawking. While it isn't Alexandria Bay, San Pedro has its fair share of touristy shops, art galleries, a busy native community of 12,000 or so, lots of bars and restaurants, and quite a few gringo hipsters who arrived in the sixties and seventies and outlasted the civil war. The vibe is muy tranquilo and we revisit places I'd seen two years ago, happily eating and drinking our way from one end of town to the other. Saturday in preparation for a rockin evening Pam and I grab naps and join the scene about 9:30. We have a bite at a cute waterfront joint called, Ya Hummus, (we opt for a tasty vegetarian pizza), and listen to the sounds of a Brazilian trio who finish their last set about the time our pizza disappears. We hit the main drag to follow the music elsewhere and promptly at 11:00 the sidewalks roll up and we are high and dry. Dan fills me in the next morning, seems like along with such fine cultural exports as McDonalds and Burger King, the good old USA has sent an army of evangelicals to save the mayan population from the catholicism the Spaniards foisted upon them 500 years ago. The new mayor has seen the light and in agreement with your mother, who knows nothing good happens after 11:00pm, he has enacted a curfew. The judiciary are in agreement with the bar and restaurant owners, that the mayor's actions are illegal but hey, we're in Guatemala and sometimes you have to follow a higher law. While Dan feels that they will eventually get things back to normal the PNC (national police) are parked at party central at 11:00pm making sure we all get home safely.

Fool me once. Sunday night, well, really, sunday afternoon, Pam and I have a few beers while walking the hot dusty streets, then a little wine with dinner, (at the very cute and very french El Jardin )then we adjourn to The Barrio, a bar directly across the street from our hotel (some of our best planning to date) for the 8:00 Pub Quiz. Being the trivial folks we are we raise the hackles of the locals by coming in third with only two on our team. Was I a little drunk or did I really think Mark David Chapman tried to kill Ronnie Reagan. If we'd had some sober voices on our team we might have gotten first. Our prize is more beer, just what the doctor ordered. The locals were truly very friendly and were happy to share their answers about life in San Pedro as fast as I could slur them. You can have Coral Gables and West Palm Beach the citrus looks pretty good here. We find a poster advertising a house for rent for $150/ month and next winter starts to look more interesting.

San Pedro's most annoying residents (well, it's actually a toss-up with the 4'6" high pressure sales ladies, "Quieres pan?" "algo para tu esposa?") are the four legged mutts who have, perhaps under the tutelage of Bob Dylan, been allowed to run free and breed like rabbits.  While some are kept as pets (you can see the result of that on the rooftop next to Pam in the Gran Sueno pic) most are unneutered and struggling for survival on the streets.  It's not unusual to have two or three erupt into a territorial pissing contest with bared teeth, snarls, and an explosion of 40 pound projectiles hurtling past ankles and knees as the vanquished mongrel is driven away from the delicious garbage at the root of the trouble.  Maybe the evangelicals can turn their attention to this next.

Una Noche de Paris y la proxima a Arabia

Pics:

El Sabor Latino (I couldn't get the four players behind the front seven)

Poster advertising The grand tropical festival of love for the first time in Xela, I bet it was a ball.

Xela is a hopping town, the second largest city in Guatemala, it's full of young guatemaltecos and foreign students from Europe and North America. There are dozens of bars, nightclubs, and restaurants competing for your quetzales.

Wednesday night we went to The Royal Paris (say pah-reees) where we had a delicious dinner followed by the beautiful trova stylings of Fernando Juarez. Senor Juarez has a rich romantic voice and equally impressive spanish guitar technique. Accompanied by a bongo player and a percussionist he had us hooked after the first note or two.

Thursday we wandered around el centro after dinner looking for a dance club that the kids had taken me to on my last visit. We were unsuccessful but gave in to one of the ever present touts who encourage you to choose their venue with pleas of "pase adelante". El Arabe is 1/2 a block off the square and has an interior decorated with minarets and middle eastern wall hangings. Music "InVivo" was provided by a hot eleven piece outfit called "El Sabor Latino".

Two horns, keyboards, three percussionists, bass guitar, and five singers-dancers-mc's out front.
High energy does not to begin to describe it.  The crowd were salsaing their fanny's off and we had front row seats to take it all in for the price of a few brewskis. We arrived a few minutes before the band started and were approached by two Gallo Girls
to take a chance at picking a key and opening a prize box onstage. My first try was a bust, but as we happened to be drinking the proper brand they discretely told me "try this key, senor" and SURPRISE, it worked! Lots of laughs and a new Gallo T-shirt to add to Pam's wardrobe.

Reading, writing, weaving, eating

Monday morning we take the short walk up the hill to TRAMA Textiles, a co-operative of mayan weavers who work to see that their members are treated fairly in the marketplace. They operate a retail shop and a school where Pam is going to try her hand at the backstrap loom.

They sign her up and within minutes she is hard at work designing and weaving a scarf. The threads are thin and it takes lots of time and concentration to weave them into cloth.

While the mayan ladies are adept from years of practice it still requires hours and hours to produce the many things they wear and sell.

There is a spanish language school in the same facility and I sign up for enough classes to keep Pam company while she works on her project.

After school we walk to La Democracia market so Pam can get an eyefull of Guatemalan commerce. So many stalls selling so many items it truly boggles the mind. Competition is cutthroat. Within five minutes its possible to shop five different vendors offering essentially the same products. You can purchase almost anything you need from toiletries to clothing to food and behind the stalls are storefronts with major appliances, electronics, furniture, bicycles, etc. and then between the storefronts are passageways into the interior courtyards where there are more stalls with more stuff. It takes up nine blocks and you really could shop till you dropped.

We've had some great food at the little restaurants that dot the streets near el centro. On the 100 yard walk up the hill to school from our hotel there are at least eight. Down the hill in the blocks around the parque are dozens more. We tried a guatemalan style pizza with very thin crisp crust topped with tomato sauce, tuna, anchovies, onions, cheese, olive oil, and herbs. Very tasty. The restaurant directly across the street from our hotel does baguette sandwiches, crepes, asados, and other goodies. We've tried baguettes grilled with beef, cheese and onions that somehow aren't much like a cheesesteak but are equally delicious, another was stuffed with grilled eggplant, carrots, cabbage, cheese, and a savory sauce, also highly recommended. We tried a small local chain called Albamar at the recommendation of my teacher. Pam ordered a chicken and rice soup/stew which arrived still boiling in a VERY large ceramic bowl with side dishes of garnishes including queso, cilantro, and onions, and a shaker of cayenne if you needed more heat. The mayan restaurant at the top of our street, Utz H'ua, served up two Quetzaltecan specialties for lunch yesterday, Pollo Jocom, and Pollo Pepian, both chicken dishes with different sauces accompanied by soup, rice and a salad, the big noonday meal with cervezas for about $10/two. I think I'll probably find those ten pounds I left here two years ago!

Boots on the ground

Three days late we are outta jersey and living large in first class winging our way to Houston. A foot stamping, pushy gringo, who was having a fit at the kiosks on thursday (as if Continental could control the weather) is in the back of the plane showing much less attitude than before. Too bad! Pass the hot towels, please!

The pilot says we're fighting a 145mph wind on the nose so we arrive with just enough time to dash from gate to gate and board our next flight. It's still freezing in Houston so we do the runway de-ice after boarding, an experience somewhat akin to having a padre bless the plane before take-off, neither of which build confidence in yours truly.

Guatemala looks the same as we circle La Aurora airport dropping below the mountain tops and settling gently onto the runway. The rush of warm air as we exit the plane is a welcome change from the nasty weather of northeast Pennsylvania. Immigration and customs are a snap. One of Pam's bags has gone elsewhere but she has enough clothes for a day or two so its taxi time. My first choice in first class busses to Xela, Linea Dorada, no longer runs on saturdays, so we grab another taxi and head way across the city to Alamo Autobus. Older funkier greyhoundish looking rigs, without the sweet pilot's uniforms and a few quetzales cheaper but they get the job done and we arrive in Xela after an eighteen hour day covering 3000 or so miles.

We've booked a room at The Flora Inn, a few steps from Xela's central parque. Run by a Dutch/Guatemalan couple in her grandfather's converted colonial home, it is very comfortable with lots of hot water and includes breakfast at $35/night. Spotlessly clean, with fresh crisp sheets and fluffy towels each day it makes a great base for exploring the city. Sunday morning's clouds burn off by ten and Pam and I are both a little sunburned by afternoon, the thinness of the atmosphere at 7700 feet above sea level, I suppose. The first sunday of each month there is a nice handicraft market on the central square and we make good use of our fresh supply of quetzales (acquired from one of several ATM choices surrounding the parque).

When we've had our fill of hard bargaining mayan ladies we hit the food fair taking place a few steps away at Casa No'j, another nice old colonial structure with a large central courtyard complete with fountain. They are billed as a contemporary art space but none is in evidence today, only mayan ladies in traditional grab selling traditional goodies at reasonable prices. The Voices of the Highlands, seven sharply dressed marimbists with fourteen flying hands perform on two beautiful hand carved marimbas accompanied by bass and drums as we sit in the sun munching goodies.

Two years have passed and given the choice of beaches in the DR or the highlands of Guatemala my wife has graciously opted for the latter. Due to conditions beyond their control we received a robo-call from the ringmaster of our circus, Continental Airlines, informing us that our flight had been cancelled and insructing us to call their 800 number to re-book. Simple enough except that their 800 number kept telling us that due to the weather they couldn't take our call. Is Joseph Heller their CEO? The wonderful little gnomes of travelocity, residing somewhere in the far east, were very helpful and after 90 minutes or so of long periods on hold followed by profuse apologies we were succesfully rebooked for thursday.

Thursday dawns, we check out of the very nice Country Inn and Suites of Elizabeth NJ and shuttle off to the airport. The self serve kiosk at Continental departures will only check us through to Houston, an attendant appears, and after much dialog with his cellphone informs us that our Houston/Guatemala leg has been cancelled but wouldn't we like to spend some quality time in the GW Bush airport/resort in Houston? After much civil conversation we are again re-booked for a saturday departure and its back to the Country Inn.

If you're ever stuck in Newark and have a craving for Portuguese food you are in the right place. Valencia's of Elizabeth prepared a lunch that outdid most any I've ever had. We started with a nice green salad, fresh crusty bread and oil, followed by a huge bowl of Arroz con Mariscos, (1/2 a crab, shrimps, scallops, clams and mussels, in a wonderful stew of rice, tomatoes, herbs and spices) for me and grilled beef with black beans for Pam, all washed down with a pitcher of sangria we were stuffed. We had enough leftovers for dinner and enjoyed reliving the experience via the hotel microwave.