December 17-23, 2017
Dead On Arrival
As I left Antigua, alone in my 15-passenger van, I was feeling pretty good. I had the recognition that all of this was out of my hands, and what would be would be. At least I was moving. I cozied up on a row of seats to read and nap, and about 2 hours later, I started checking my map, as I figured we were getting close. We were approaching the nearest town before Panajachel (referred to just as “pana”, which is the main transit point for traveling on the Lake), and according to what I saw on Google Maps, we should have turned off to head towards the town of Santa Cruz, where I’d be staying, and where we’d all agreed was where I’d be dropped off since the boats didn’t run past 7-7:30pm (once it’s dark out).
As we were moving through that town, I checked with the driver, who said that we’d be going to Panajachel directly instead. I was frustrated, repeating what we’d agreed upon before I got in the van – how we were already 2 hours late, there were no boats to be had, and we’d agreed to drop me off in Santa Cruz. He told me it wasn’t even possible to drive to Santa Cruz (questionable, considering there are cars there), and that we’d “solucionar” (figure things out) once we got to the agency office in Pana. We arrived there around 8:30, and I started arguing with the blank-faced woman behind the desk of the agency, which mind you, was a different agency from which I booked in Antigua.
Again, my Spanish isn’t at a level of fluency yet to be really confident arguing, but I felt like I was getting my point across nonetheless. The woman at the desk said there was nothing to do but hire a private boat, which would cost 200 Quetzales (~$27, normally would cost 10 Quetzales) since it was so late, or wait until tomorrow. She accepted no responsibility for the fact that I was late because of them, and she offered to have me talk to the manager. I went through the same full story again with this guy, and he told me that the other agency I’d booked with, Lanquin, had asked them to do a favor and pick me up at 5pm (not 4pm I’d booked), and drop me here. They weren’t in the wrong here, so I pushed to talk to the owner(s) of Lanquin who Violeta had spoken to earlier. Nobody was picking up, but then 30 minutes later I get a call from the woman owner. She thinks nothing is wrong, and I’m furious, and she says she won’t pay for the private boat, nor the extra night I’d have to stay in Pana.
At this point, an hour after arriving, I called it quits. The owner of the Pana agency had come to see me – he was super friendly and warm – and told me my best option was just to stay a night in Pana and take the first lancha (public boat) to Santa Cruz in the morning. He even led me to a hostel nearby, which for a little more than I’d already pre-paid at the hostel in Santa Cruz, I got a private room.
Reaching Paradise
Despite the poor end to the evening, I was able to get up early and make it on the lancha early to arrive at the La Iguana Perdida, where I’d be staying the week in Santa Cruz, by 8am for breakfast.
Lake Atitlan was formed by the remnants of a super-volcano eruption 80,000+ years ago. Basically, it was an ENORMOUS volcano that had an eruption so big, with so much lava spewed out, that the internal infrastructure was too weak to support the sides, and it collapsed into the caldera that now holds the lake. Apparently, the eruption was so big that it spread ash as far as Florida and Ecuador. The lake itself is about 50 square miles of surface and reaches depths of over 1,000 feet. It’s one of Guatemala’s main tourist attractions, and is dotted around the edges by several towns with different personalities ranging from mega-party, to new-age hippie, to relaxed and everything in between.
I stayed in the town of Santa Cruz, which is the first town going counterclockwise from Panajachel. It took about 20 minutes by boat to reach the dock, from which you can walk directly up to the hostel, which has incredible lakeside views. The hostel was probably my favorite so far, with astounding views from the common and dining areas, lots of hammocks and couches, cozy dorms, a temazcal (Mayan sauna), family-style dinners and plenty of space for me to practice yoga. They also are home to the only SCUBA center on the lake, which is unique because at over 5,000 ft of elevation, you can do high-altitude dives, which present interesting challenges. After my conversations with my Cenote group, I’d considered doing my Advanced PADI certification here in Atitlan, as the prices were rather low (mostly because the lake is very cold, and there’s not much wildlife). However, after my debacle arriving to the lake, I decided I didn’t want to spend 3 of my 4.5 days diving here.
My goal was pure relaxation, and I succeeded with flying colors. I spent my days alternating between reading, looking out at the lake, practicing yoga, eating, and chatting with fascinating people. There were a couple of options for hiking some of the volcanoes that surround the lake, but after Acatenango, I wasn’t itching to go up another.
Family dinner was something that I really loved here too. Every day there’d be a different meal on a chalkboard to sign up for, including a veggie option, with a soup, a main with sides and salad, and a dessert. Pretty much everyone would opt-in to this, and so there’d be about 20-30 people sitting down to dinner in the “restaurant” area each night at 7pm. Each night was different, mostly because of people coming and going, and mixing up places at the tables.
Dinner was where I met Jake and Devon, from the Bay, who I made a really deep connection with as well. Not only did we have the same name, for which there’s a word in Spanish tocayo, but we had a lot of great conversation around spirituality, life in the U.S. and of course, many travel stories. I also met an octogenarian woman who came in wearing a bright green, glittering Santa hat. She explained that she knew the owners of the hostel and had been coming down to Santa Cruz and Iguana for the last 20 years. She had plenty of great stories, but most notably, I found out that she’d been producing New Orleans Jazzfest since it started. I couldn’t help but laugh, just at how unassuming she was and realizing that everybody has something to teach you.
My second day I decided to go out in search of ice cream with new friends Tiffany and Pilar, who were on a shorter vacation together from LA. We hopped on an afternoon lancha and cruised a few towns over to San Marcos, which is the hippie-new age-yoga haven. Once you get off the boat you can smell the incense. We had a lovely afternoon and ultimately weren’t able to find ice cream, but did find some tasty treats anyway. I won the day with a caramel-topped nut brownie from Circles Cafe – they had a beautiful garden patio and actually have rooms as well. While meandering around the town, checking out the many juice and natural foods shops, I literally bumped into two friends of mine from Hridaya! It was a great reminder of how small the world really is, and just a great moment to be back together, even if just for a few moments, to rekindle the energy that we all had there. Benjamin and Lara were hanging out in Atitlan for a few days, but would also be heading to South America soon and renting a van to travel around. I hoped I’d see them again! After we got back, we fired up the Mayan sauna by building a fire in what looked like a stone igloo. It got nice and hot, and Tiffany, Pilar, Jake, Devon and I had a really nice pre-dinner chat asking around some deeply personal questions, which always bring you closer together. Apparently, also, spending an hour a day in a sauna can have the same positive health effects as an hour of exercise. That’s definitely a factoid I’ll be holding onto!
Jake, Devon and I ended up spending the next day together and headed to the Cerro Tzankujil nature reserve by San Marcos. It was a surprisingly well-run park, with had some Mayan burial ruins and vistas, but more importantly, lots of swimming access to the lake and even a jumping platform probably about 30 feet off the water. Having not had the cajones to jump in yet, I was excited for this opportunity, and we had a great time jumping a few rounds and then hanging on a secluded area with rocks half-submerged for optimal relaxation. Part-way through that time relaxing on the rocks, an Australian girl swam up looking for the jumping platform and we ended up chatting with her for a while. Vivien was just moving back to Australia after a long time traveling and was going to be working on a remote island called Thursday Island (no joke) as a midwife. I decided I should take down her name for when I’m bumming through Australia. Jake, Devon and I left the park and sought out some tasty lunch, after which I left them to go back to Santa Cruz, as they had switched hostels to San Marcos.
I had made a point of trying to really develop some of my habits while at Iguana, and it certainly helped that they actively had no wifi. I once tried to go across the street to a restaurant to get something to eat and use the wifi, but after ordering a 15 Q (~$2) juice and asking for the password, the server told me I’d need to spend at least 50 Q to get the password. I couldn’t believe it and walked out. It was probably a sign that I didn’t really need to be using it to begin with. One of the other things I’d wanted to do was get up for sunrise a couple of times. I even convinced a few others to join me, and seeing the sun come over the surrounding volcanoes, especially because you could see the erupting ash from Volcan Fuego this far away, was truly stunning. Plus, the lake at this hour is supremely peaceful, without any of the noisy lanchas moving about, and the water is almost completely still.
I really felt like Iguana Perdida was a place I could spend a long time at. The food was good, the views amazing, and the place had lots of cool people coming through all the time. I decided to start keeping a list of places I’d consider volunteering at. Hostels often have “volunteers” who work a few hours a day in exchange for some combination of room and board. It’s a great way to save money and get immersed in a place that you already enjoy. After 5 days on the stunning Lake Atitlan, though, it was time to move on yet again.
A Note On Budget
It’s been pretty interesting for me to live on a tight budget ($1,000 per month) these last few months. Largely because I’ve never really committed myself to a budget, but have been more of the mind of “sock away as much as possible from my paycheck, and then try to live off the rest”. Personal finance golden rule – spend less than you earn. That led me to be able to afford this trip to begin with, but now that I’m in it, I needed to be much more aware of what I was spending.
I’ve been using an app called Toshl, which I highly recommend. It isn’t as “fancy” as something like Mint, which tries to put all of your accounts in one place, but the manual nature of entering expenses, to me, adds a needed bit of friction to stay on top of things. You can track by category and tag, and also set a monthly budget, after which it will tell you “You’re X% of the way through the month and have spent $Y, meaning you can only afford to spend $Z per day for the rest of the month”.
Probably the most useful feature when I was comparing my options, was that it allows you to enter expenses in any currency and have it converted at that day-of rate back into your ‘home” currency. This is essential for travel, and super helpful to get a sense for what things are costing in between countries.
It also carries over / subtracts any surplus / deficit from prior months, which for me is super helpful to see where I stand on a broader basis. I’m fast forwarding into the future a bit here, but you can see that November and February were under budget, while December and January were a bit over. March was pretty much spot-on, despite half the time spent in Brazil, which is rather expensive. We’ll see how things go now in New Zealand and Australia, which are much closer to U.S. prices.
I’d highly recommend using the app even for your own budget at home, especially because it doesn’t require you to link all of your accounts and try to figure out when you’ve transferred something between accounts, or paid for a group and got reimbursed on Venmo. You just enter what it is you paid, tag it, and that’s it.
Returning To Guatemala City
I left Iguana Perdida on December 23rd to make my way up to Guatemala City (about 4 hours ride, depending) for my flight to meet Sarah in Nicaragua the following day.
The easiest option would have been to take a shuttle van for about $25, but I opted to try out one of the famed chicken buses, which would only cost me about $4. I got back to Panajachel around 10 for what I’d hoped was an 11am bus direct to Guatemala City. There are apparently others that make more stops / transfer along the way, but I wasn’t trying to be that bold. The “direct” one makes a quick stop in Antigua and then continues on. That last leg, although it only took me an hour on the way to Antigua, could take double or triple that with pre-Christmas traffic.
When trying to find this bus, I asked multiple people, and as usual got multiple answers. But, eventually, I found the place where the bus would depart and spoke with an ayudante from another bus. He told me the bus should be leaving at 11:30, meaning I’d hopefully get to my hostel in Guatemala City around 4 if things went well.
Being in the chicken bus was a pretty hilarious and mostly painless experience. Since we were the first stop, I didn’t have trouble finding a seat, opting for the back so that I’d be close to my backpack. Shortly after, as people started piling in (from the back door mind you), it was determined that my bag was too big and would go on the roof. After I assured myself that it was, in fact, up there, I moved closer to the middle of the bus because the reggaeton started blaring and I was seated directly under a speaker.
I sat down and started talking to a girl, who had heard me say that I’d done the Acatenango trek while I was chatting with some Penn State bros in the back. We got to conversing about where we’d been, where we were going etc., and it turned out that she had also been at Hridaya for Module 1, but just a month before me! What a coincidence! Further, she told me she was heading back to Australia in a month to start a new gig on Thursday Island. I was shocked, because I had just met that other girl who was doing the same! Then, maybe 5 seconds later we both realized that we had already met each other in the Lake a couple days prior. We had a great laugh and ended up chatting all the way back to Antigua, where she headed off. I just really couldn’t believe the synchronicity of the situation, and it felt really good inside to connect with someone from Hridaya (again) and chat about how we’d been developing our habits and such. We both learned a lot from each other, and I still hope to see Vivien again in Australia in a few months.
I spent my afternoon in Guatemala City catching up on the internet at my hostel, and then went out for a super tasty veggie burger and beer for dinner. The main square was all decked out in a snow theme for Christmas, skating rink included, which was a really funny sight to see. I went back to the hostel and packed up for my early wakeup and flight.
The only funny part of my airport experience leaving Guatemala was that I did see the immigration agent manually enter my entrance date into the system, because I had made that overland crossing the couple weeks before without being noted ;).
Photos
