Vivir en el momento: San Marcos

Once a month the volunteers at NPH are given a half day on a Friday to take as they see fit. To most of us, it means getting to leave for our vacations just a little bit earlier than normal. I took my “mitad dia” this past weekend and I set out for San Marcos with Samantha, Maria, Corinna, and Christina for a nice relaxing weekend at Lake Atitlan. While I had seen the lake before, this was my first time SPENDING time there and I was ridiculously excited at the prospect of lying on the rocks, sunbathing, and swimming in the quaint little village, known for meditation, yoga, massages, and relaxation.

We arrived on Friday afternoon/night and headed to an adorable little restaurant owned by a friend of Sam’s, Alexis, and called “Las Mañanitas” or, the little mornings. We hung out at the restaurant for happy hour and then set out to find a hotel for the weekend. We arrived at “Paco Real” and inquired about rooms. The owner told us “of course we have rooms!” But only for those people who had made a reservation….oh well, I’ll just put in you in the house instead. So instead of us cramming into a small little space meant for 2 people, we were given a full size house - for the same price – 80Q a night (aka about $9.50.) SWEET. The house was pretty wonderful and the perfect size for all of us. We went out for the night, enjoyed ourselves at Las Mañanitas, and came back to get some rest before our beach adventure the next day.

Unfortunately, I never got the relaxing beach vacation I had been dreaming of :(. Instead, I woke up with the worst stomach pains and the biggest urge to vomit…which I proceeded to do for the next 6 hours :(. Not quite what I had been looking forward to. The girls went to the beach and I lied in bed. All day. I got up around 2 with little energy, but proceeded to feel better after awhile. Then, we went out to the restaurant at our hotel where I got some Jamaica Tea (aka Hibiscus tea – absolutely delicious) and some nachos. In hindsight, the nachos weren’t such a good idea, but hey – I hadn’t eaten all day. After that, we went to a community dinner that was meant to raise money and awareness for efforts to clean up the lake. There was also an all female band there playing music - random, but very nice :).

Sam and I decided to come back a little early and arrived at our hostel around 9:30 to get some shut eye. Unfortunately, the hombre who worked at the hotel was nowhere to be found as we sat screaming “ALGUIEN ESTA ALLA?” (is anyone there??) through the window. When no one answered our pleas, we decided to take matters into our own hands…and climbed through the rather large windows.

Making my way into our hotel…

Sam making her way into the Paco Real…

Then there was Sunday. Oh dear, Sunday. One of the other volunteers, Maria, told us about a hike she had been on when “she was our age.” In her mid-forties, Maria is the oldest volunteer at NPHG, but probably still the spunkiest and most optimistic. The path was SUPPOSED TO lead us from San Marcos, the town we stayed in, to Santa Cruz, 4 towns over. We began the 3 hour hike around 9 am and made it to the first town in roughly 30 minutes. Not bad. To get to the next town seemed to be taking FOREVER. In fact, we walked from Tzununa (the first town) for another hour and seemed to be getting nowhere fast. Somehow, we ended up on a dirt path, in the middle of someone’s corn fields, on the side of a mountain. How we got there? I still have no clue, but for one reason or another, we continued to trudge along. After another 30 minutes we found ourselves at a rock ravine with nowhere to go but down. After all that time, we finally realized that the official path through the four towns had been closed, much to our dismay. We turned around and headed back to Tzununa to take the lancha (small boat) across the lake to Panajachel for some shopping. After the absolutely ridiculous morning/afternoon/weekend in general, we ended with a nice trip to the sweet mercado in Pana, arriving back at the house around 6 pm. Not quite the weekend I expected, although I’m looking forward to my next trip to the lake, and actually ENJOYING the lake :).