This is taking way longer than I expected. How dare real life events interfere with my blogging?
If you're still interested, here we go.
In the morning, as we were waiting for Ginny, we had time to play with the German Shepherds. One of them had found a rock, and she decided it was the perfect size for playing fetch. She and her friend had discovered a good game. If the rock was thrown, she would chase it, and the friend would hang back and let her pick it up, then run along next to her, gnawing at her neck as if she wanted the rock. Clearly they were sisters. Once they realized we were up for playing, the dog with the rock would inch forward towards us, drop the rock, and back away, keeping her eyes on the rock. The belief was palpable in her eyes. If she stared at the rock long enough, it would levitate and fling itself across the yard. It was our moral duty not to disappoint them. Unfortunately, despite my father the baseball lover’s attempt to teach his female children to throw, neither Cary nor I have anything remotely resembling aim. We throw like men, not girls, but somehow in the opposite direction of where we intended. Those dogs followed that rock into the puddle, headfirst into a wall, and even into a pile of other rocks. They were very dedicated.
When Ginny got there, we walked down to the dock on Lake Atitlan. While there are many professional-looking boats, the only acceptable way to get across the water to San Pedro is in these blue motorboats that look like recycled bathtubs. You hand the man 25Q, toss your bags in the front, and climb onto the bench seats. In case you’re wondering, I downsized from my gigantic duffel to an overnight backpack, which is good, cause my duffel probably would have sunk it. The thirteen year old at the wheel revs the motor and you take off like a drag racer. The lake is wide, deep, and choppy, and the only acceptable speed is full out. I spent the whole time clinging to the side of the boat, torn between laughing with exhilaration (I LOVE going fast over water—jet skis, ski boats, you name it) and mentally running through my list of irreplaceable items that would be lost when one of our huge BOOOMs coming over the other side of a wake wave inevitably shattered the bottom of our noble vessel. We’d waited to the afternoon to cross, and the clouds were obscuring most of our view, but slowly San Pedro appeared out of the mist, its concentration of buildings looking almost like a coral reef rising directly from the water and crawling up the side of the volcano. Ginny pointed out our hotel, to our left, white and square, jutting out over the lake like a cruise ship. Improvably, we docked at the newly built wooden pier, and embarked on San Pedro.
My first experience of San Pedro was that Ginny knew the banana bread lady. She will tell you she is not the most social person ever, but, honestly, if the lady selling banana bread on the dock squeals “Hola!” and throws her arm around your neck because she is happy to see you again, you may have corned the market on social. Banana bread is huge in San Pedro. Multiple little ladies in their Mayan gear sit on corners, all using the same catchphrase: “Pan de banana, banana bread!” They’re like the baseball stadium vendors of Guatemala. It is amazing to me how you can say the same thing so many times with exactly the same inflection, especially when it’s so cheerful. We had some banana bread on our climb up Indian Nose (see below) and it singlehandedly saved my life, so I remember it fondly.
Ginny tells me San Pedro is immensely popular with expatriates. Apparently backpackers have a habit of falling in love with place and simply staying, the most enterprising of them opening hostels or restaurants. The place has an organic feel; there is one main road and it creeps and crawls through town so much so that I was tempted to trail a ball of yarn behind me so I could find my way back out through the labyrinth. At one point we turned and walked through a three-foot tunnel created by two walls. When I asked Ginny if this was the main road, she was like, um, duh. To get to the hotel, the road turned into a path that went directly past a pasture with a rusting lawnmower and two emaciated horses. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it, but my parents went to visit her a few months before us, and it was greatly entertaining to imagine them having the same experience as us. My parents are wonderful people but they think Hampton Inn is roughing it. I would have paid money to see my boat-phobic mother survive the trip across the lake, and the image of my parents carrying their bags down that path by the horses makes me giggle.
Hotel Mikaso was by far my favorite place we stayed. Multiple stories, with an open air courtyard filled with climbing birds of paradise, it is a treasure trove of balconies and patios, all of which look out to the lake. Due to some environmental concerns, the lake’s water level has risen this year, and it laps at the base of the building, so again you feel like you’re on the cruise ship the hotel resembles. We took lots of time to just sit on the lounge chairs, and for the first time the trip felt like a tropical vacation.
That night we went out. In our first stop, an American style sports bar, we showed up just in time to see the Celtics lose, whoops. Then we headed to a restaurant, and got serenaded by two traveling minstrels—their title, not ours. Thin, hippy-ish, and English, they were clearly two crazy lovebirds working out a dream. He was very talented; she was, um, mediocre. Even super-positive music-lover Ginny, who instantly became their number one fan, had to admit, “She’s dead weight.” Lol. At that restaurant we made friends with an American, who was taking a summer-long sabbatical before entering business school. Cary was appropriately supportive but later admitted his proposed school was pretty second-tier. Another point against him: that story about his crazy day yesterday where he went kayaking and got hideously lost because he did some mushrooms that were stronger than he’d expected. (Cary: “He would be going into a joint MBA/JD degree.”) He was nice though. And later I got to touch his chest! He had a nice six-pack, even if I only got to see it because he was trying to prove he’d been shot in the chest while fighting off a mugger in Boston (MA was an unexpected theme of this trip). I may not be a city ER OT, but I think a gunshot wound sustained at close quarters should end up being larger than a freckle. At the time, I pretended to believe him—it’s been a long time between six packs for me.
After that bar, we went to another one. I should mention at this point that we were drinking (UVA student, Vandy student—of COURSE we were drinking) and, in the spirit of full discretion, my sisters can drink me under the table. Somehow the Savage family genetic predisposition to high tolerance skipped me entirely. I get wasted every time I visit home, since my parents go through a bottle and a half a night and I get tipsy after half a glass. Cary and Ginny have good, strong livers. I’m a lightweight. And through the power of poor decision making, I was matching them drink for drink.
So take it with a grain of salt when I tell you that at this bar were three of the hottest men I have EVER seen. I will say that Cary and Ginny have confirmed my impression—they were so beautiful we moseyed over and charmed our way into their dart game (and no, not because we are good at darts—see rock discussion above). To make them even sexier—they were BRITISH. With British accents. Swoon. One of them, whose name I can’t spell, not only looked like a movie star but was half Welsh and half Italian. So unfair, right? Anyway, he made up the rules to this dart game on the spot but was too drunk to keep them straight; the fact that I ended up NOT losing is a testimony to the flexibility of his rules. But who needs short-term memory when you’re that gorgeous??
We finally got kicked out of the bar, and made our way back to the hotel. And the next morning (which was a good four hours later) Cary and I got up and attempted to hike. Stay tuned for the next installment, in which our heroine fights an epic battle between her dignity and her lungs.
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