Konichiwa, Pedro-San!

Buenas!
Folks round these parts will quite often use just that word when greeting each other on the street. Makes it easier than having to think about what time of day it is. Kinda nice, I reckon... so if you want to sound like a local, just say "buenas" to strangers. Somehow I don't think that'd work so well back in Canada, but if I ever walk past you on the street and just say "good" to ya, you'll know where I'm comin from. With that out of the way...

Another nifty point that I forgot to mention about Antigua. One evening, while sitting on the roof of my hostel drinking hot chocolate that a nice British girl made for me, I happened to look towards the North and see 'ol faithful (the Big Dipper). I looked around in the sky and my gaze ended up venturing South... where, lo and behold, the Southern Cross shined proudly. It's a pretty unmistakeable constellation for me ever since I spent 8 months in Australia. But I never imagined that you'd be able to see both of them at the same time. I couldn't help but just smile at the sky and shake my head... simple pleasures, y'know?

Anyhow, back to the story. Is this a story? Doesn't feel like it while you're living it, but I guess once it passes from personal experience into the realm of memories, and then is called forth either for yourself or for the amusement of others, a story it becomes. That's kinda cool. And a story teller is more interesting to listen to than a bank teller, especially during a recession. No? No takers?

On the 6 or so hour bus ride from Antigua to San Pedro, I had the pleasure of meeting a nice Irish fella and his french-canadian girlfriend. He owns a restaurant in San Pedro, and told me I oughtta stop by sometime since they (obviously) have the best food in town. As I would later find out, that wasn't an exaggeration. But anyhow, on the bus, the 3 of us were lovin the music cuz a gringo had his iPod plugged in and was playin Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Sublime... a really nice change from the usual shuttle music - 80's-Cyndi-Lauper-type stuff, or 90's-Mexican-anything-as-long-as-there's-an-accordian kinda stuff. So like I say, a nice change. But since not all good things can last, by the time we were descending into San Pedro, the music had regressed into more soulful-feel-good-India.Arie crap, and Paul (the Irish guy) was just dyin. I had my head out the window, so I wasn't bothered as much.

I had figured on stayin in San Pedro for a couple days, check it out, and then head out to Quetzaltenango (Xela, to the locals) to take some Spanish lessons. Well, like I said, San Pedro is full of people who accidentally stayed for 2 months. It just has a way of doing that to ya. Someone informed me that it's possible to take Spanish lessons in San Pedro, and it costs less then Xela. For a traveler, that's about all you need to hear! So I looked around, found a school, and signed up.

Had a great time taking classes there. The first day, I met my teacher, a nice Mayan lady named Magdelena. She actually speaks Tz'utujil primarily, then Spanish, then a bit of English. Which ended up workin out well, because she had a lot of knowledge about Mayan culture that she shared. Our first conversation we talked for about half an hour in Spanish, then she looked at me and asked "why are you here?" which I took as a complement! It seemed the Spanish that I learned in Costa Rica was coming back to me better than I thought it would! But I still had (still have) a long way to go, to be sure.

Our classes together were great. It was basically a 3-hour chat session, her telling me some cool stuff about Guatemala, the Mayans, and correcting all the little mistakes I made every time I got a little over-confident. But we were always laughing, smiling, and having a good time. Actually, she got me with a really good one on my second-last class there.

We had spent the morning talking about past relationships (she's divorced, a single mom) and I had just finished telling her all about Shauna. *For those who don't know the Shauna story, basically I met her 3 weeks before heading to Australia, we dated, I left, ended things, she came down 2 months later, it didn't work out, kinda ended a bit messy, and I haven't seen or heard from her since. That is an admittedly BRIEF overview, but it serves the purposes of the current story.* I was saying to Magda that I really had no hard feelings, and would actually like to get in touch with her sometime and just see what she's been up to, how she's doing, all that. Every few months I'll even search her on facebook, but I've never found her. So Magda asks "well, don't you have her e-mail still?" I realized I probably did, somewhere! I kinda laughed, and said I should look for it, and send her a message. Tell her about my travels, about Guatemala and all that. Well Magda's eyes light up and she goes "Yeah! Then you can send her a message, convince her to come to Guatemala... and then end things a week later when she does!" Haha yep, it was a shtinger, but I had to admire how quick she was on the gun with that one.

Around the time I started my lessons, I met a couple girls from New Zealand that were staying in my hostel. One day we decided to go cliff jumping at another small town on Lake Atitlan, San Marcos. The way to get around the lake is on these 20 footer lanchas (boats) that zip from town to town every half hour or so. This lancha hauled us across to the land of the hippies.

San Marcos isn't actually the land of the hippies, it just happens that there are a fair few of them there. It's a very spiritual, holistic type place; you can feel the different energy as soon as you step of the boat. It's muuuuy tranquilo, quiet, little pathways going between the houses/hotels/healing centers. We did some cliff jumping (about an 8 meter drop, not too high but enough to get the adrenaline flowin) and then checked out the town. Rachel, one of the girls, was really interested in a course on natural medicines. I went and found out a little bit about it, decided it sounded pretty cool, and signed on up. It ran from 2-4 in the afternoon. So for a week, I spent my mornings learning Spanish and my afternoons learning about herbs, making teas, and doin a little meditating. It was a great balance, and I went to bed with a smile every night. Didn't necessarily wake up with one tho...

I'd run into bed bugs once before, in a hostel in Cairns, Australia. That time, after only one night, my back was covered in some of the most itchy bites I've ever experienced. I always had my eye out for a brick wall to rub up against. So you'd think I'd have learned my lesson. But this time, they only got me a few bites per night... enough to be an annoyance, but not a real pain. Plus, I was only paying 4 dollars or so per night, and I'd already payed in advance for 5 nights. So I stayed. But on the 4th night, they got me real good... I woke up scratchin hard at 2:30am, grabbed a flashlight, and spun around fast. There was one of the little buggers sittin on my sheet. So I went to grab it, maybe yell at it, and probably kill it... but as soon as I grabbed it, it exploded with blood all over my fingers. Guess he'd already had his fill. I changed hostels the next morning, but I already looked like I had a skin disease. Maybe a leper... or a leopard... or a leopard with leprosy. Leopardsy?

Let me tell ya, I'm havin a heck of a time trying to remember all the cool stuff that happened in San Pedro. Trying to do this on any sort of timeline is futile, so I'll fire off a list here as things come to me.
- St. Paddy's Day at Paul's restaurant, Paraiso. He taught the kitchen how to make a traditional Irish stew, it was unreal. Started the day with a couple Irish coffees that had clovers floating in them. He also had a live band doing Irish songs, I danced some 2-steppin with a cool girl who had a kind of modified mohawk, had a hell of time pretending to be Irish.
- Climbing Indian Nose. Since Lake Atitlan was formed in the center of a ring of volcanoes, it's sunk down and surrounded by high rock on all sides. One part looks like a giant's face pointing straight up at the sky (yes, family, exactly like the one across the inlet from Grandpa's camp). You can hike it, about 3 hours round trip, and it has a great view of the whole lake from the top.
- Watching the Canucks beat the Blues 3-0. I couldn't believe it when I walked past a bar, and they advertised NHL games, and that night was a Canucks game. And here I was thinking I wouldn't be able to see them play.
- Live music. It's all over the place there, you can pretty well find a band playing in a little bar every night of the week.
- Quieres pan? Pan de banano? Pan de Canelle? Anyone who's been there will undoubtedly know about the bread ladies. There are 4 or 5 of them that sit there all day offering bread to everyone who passes by. And they sure are persistent... if you walk by 8 times, you get yelled at 8 times. The locals call it "Pan de Veneno" - Bread of Venom. It's actually good - I'd buy one every afternoon to eat the next morning for breakfast. Cinnamon is the best, in my opinion.
- Movie nights. A couple of the bars have big screens that they play movies on most nights. I saw Slumdog Millionaire, Juno, The Big Lebowski (hilarious), and a Chris Rock HBO special (also hilarious). There's also a lady who goes to these bars every night with a big tupperware container, selling big slices of the best chocolate cake I've had in a long time. She does really well... San Pedro is a bit of a stoner town!
- The crapload of great people there. Paul, Crystal, Karoline, Rachel, Jo, David, Lindsay, Corinne, Nikki, Mikee, Patrick, Tyler... among many others!
- The awful stink of unprocessed coffee beans in the sun.
- The food at Paraiso. Seriously. I went back there every time I saw that he was doin the Irish stew again.
- Having to leave early every time you wanted to go somewhere, since you would inevitably run into a handful of people that you know, and stop and talk for a few minutes every time. It takes an hour to go 4 blocks.

Honestly, there's more. I know there is. But that's the highlights, the things I can remember at this moment. I'm sure more will jar loose over a couple beer around a campfire somewhere, so hopefully I'll see you there! Until then...

Thanks for reading!