Ephemerica

First off, an update on my illness. I was wrong before; my last tests came back negative for infection. The doctor was stumped, and prescribed for me antibiotics against ulcer-causing bacteria as a last resort. I started feeling better after starting the antibiotic regimen, but I think I was on the mend anyway, so the jury is still out on what I actually had. Anyway, we ended up staying an extra week in Xela after we finished our language classes, which allowed us some time to actually see Xela. The week ended in excitement, as Xela’s football team was playing in a two-game series for the national championship. We went to a bar with some of our language school friends to watch the first game that was in Xela (the tickets for the game sold out the previous day). Xela lost that game 0-1, but came storming back to win their away game in San Marcos 4-1 to take the national championship. I think it was the first time they had won the championship in several years, so it was quite the big deal.

Since I was feeling better (finally!), we hit the bikes again after a 3-week hiatus. We had planned on easing back into riding, but our first day had WAY more climbing than we had anticipated, and we ended up spending over 7 hours on the bike. It was long and tiring, but our legs made it through and we finished our ride before the rains started, so it could have been worse. We stayed in the town of Solola, which overlooks Lake Atitlan. The next day we bussed down to the lake to visit the town of Panajachel. The lake is surrounded by three volcanoes, and is supposed to be quite beautiful, but we couldn’t see much through the fog and clouds surrounding the lake. The town of Panajachel is pretty small, and seems to consist mostly of restaurants and small stores/stalls where gringos can buy Guatemalan handicrafts. As we were walking along the shore of the lake, we were approached by a woman selling colorfully woven tableclothes who made us an offer we couldn’t refuse We happened to run into our friend Chris from language school in Panajachel, which was a fun surprise.

We spent the next two days riding on to Antigua. The first day the rains came early, unfortunately. We managed to avoid the worst of the rain by pulling off the road and sitting under a tarp at a roadside fruit stand, which gave us a chance to put on warmer clothes. We started off again thinking we had let the worst of the rain pass, but the rain kept getting worse and worse as we rode on. By the time we made it to Tecpan (where we planned on staying the night), we were both soaked and cold and ready for a hot shower. Well, we didn’t get one, but still managed to (mostly) warm up and dry out before we rode the rest of the way to Antigua.

Antigua is another cute colonial town that does a very good job of catering to tourists, and was so similar to San Cristobal in Mexico that Cindy kept forgetting that we were actually in Guatemala Antigua is populated by a lot of language schools, and we considered attending classes here, but decided that Xela might be a better experience as it wasn’t QUITE so overrun with foreigners. After having visited both cities now, I think we made the right decision. However, we did eat the best Asian food that we’ve had so far on our trip in Antigua, so perhaps I shouldn’t be so quick to bite the hand that feeds us. And we took advantage of our last chance in Guatemala to eat at Pollo Campero, a KFC-like chain here that is quite tasty! Before we left, we checked out some of the sights in town. Unfortunately, a lot of the older colonial structures in the town are still in ruins after a devastating earthquake in 1773, so there wasn’t a lot to actually see. On our next to last day in Antigua, we ran into our friend Emily (also from language school), another great surprise. It almost made me break into a chorus of “It’s a small world”…

Since we spent an extra week in Xela, we decided to bus from Antigua to Copan Ruinas in Honduras to make up the time. Unfortunately, because of our bikes and bags, we couldn’t take one of the standard shuttle buses, so we had to hire a private bus. The good news is that we didn’t have to leave at 4AM like the normal shuttle, but the bad news is that it was really expensive. Anyway, it’s on to the next country for us!

Posted by Matthew on June 2nd, 2007 | Filed under: Guatemala