May 30, 2012

Atitlan Adventures

Wow. We are so glad that leg of the trip is over. We were very excited for the little casa we had rented but circumstances not in our control turned a luxurious romantic getaway into a little piece of hell in the middle of heaven on earth. It wasn't all bad, but every time we went back to our casa tragedy struck. As I mentioned before as I was finishing up my last post a bat was swooping in at my head, which was a little disconcerting but more amusing than anything else. We decided to turn in for the night and did what we thought was a thorough inspection of the room and bed to make sure there weren't any unwanted visitors. Then the power went out so we sat in bed chatting for a bit about our plans for the next day. As we were lying there I could feel something next to my right ear. Thinking it was a flying bug I swatted it and half a second later jumped up shrieking at the top of my lungs.

This "friend" decided he wanted to bunk with us and when I tried to swat him away he stung me.
Creepy, eh? I told Jon I thought a scorpion had stung me and he told me I was maybe a little crazy. As I mentioned before the power was out so we couldn't turn on any lights. So I stood in the room paralyzed with fear, grasping my finger which was throbbing, while Jon searched through the bed to find the culprit with the light of his laptop. He found a small spider and thought maybe I had been bit by that? But I assured him it was something much larger. Soon we found him and Jon yelled, "Oh crap. You WERE stung by a scorpion." 

So we sprayed him generously with bug spray and woke up the landlords pleading for flashlights. We did a much more extensive search of the bed and I slept with one eye open the rest of the night. We were out in a remote village that you can only reach by boat and the last one leaves at 7:30 pm so there was no going anywhere. Luckily scorpions in that area aren't poisonous to humans, they just hurt for a few days. 

We woke up in the morning and headed out to visit some of the little villages on the lake. We took a public bus to San Pedro and this time the water was calm and beautiful and I wasn't fearing for my life because of the choppiness of the water. We walked around San Pedro for awhile and took some of these photos.
A church turned hospital

A picture of the town park and church

How granola do I look? It just got worse...

That is one good looking man next to a statue of Jesus

Jon wanted me to pretend like I was getting baptized here too. I thought it might be a little sacrilegious.

 After San Pedro we hopped in the back of a truck to go to the next town called San Juan. While we were there we picked up two cute paintings. It was a very enjoyable exchange and his wife gave us some homemade bracelets as a thank you for buying the paintings. I'm thinking of redecorating my kitchen in a central america theme.  
A school band was playing as we walked by

Here we are in the little restaurant where we ate lunch


We ate lunch at a little restaurant. When we walked in, no one was in there. Within moments of ordering, though, it was full of locals coming to eat lunch. It was delicious! You can't go wrong at a local hangout. We had homemade corn tortillas and guacamole. I had the grilled chicken and Jon had grilled steak. We played a "game" with the locals. Every time we looked at them they would just giggle like crazy. 

After we were done with lunch there were some rain clouds looming and we were a little afraid of being stranded in the jungle during a large storm so we headed back to our casa. As soon as we were there Jon started having allergies like crazy so we hiked up to Santa Cruz, the little village a few miles away from where we were staying, and found a little pharmacy and got some antihistamine for Jon. We also went into a little house and bought homemade tortillas from a woman for our dinner which we made back at the house. 


This was our little out door cooking area. It's also where I was attacked by a large moth and the bat...

When we were in Santa Cruz Jon's allergies were almost gone, but as soon as we got back to the casa it flared right back up. Soon he was having a little trouble breathing and he was wheezing, but just our luck we were stranded in a remote part of Guatemala and it was past when all the boats leave and the power went out again. Luckily we had kept the flashlights from the night before. So we watched a movie and got ready for bed and counted the hours before we could leave and be  done with this leg of our journey. When we woke up the water still wasn't back on so we left sans shower. Washed our faces and teeth from purified water in a jug and headed to Xela. (Pronounced Shayla) Now we are here and showered and there will be more to come on this adventure. 


1 comment:

  1. The first post with all the incredibly beautiful pictures of Guatemala made me really jealous of you guys. I'm not gonna lie - this post made me not quite so jealous. Glad you survived the scorpion!

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