Budda Bar Me

Here I sit at the Budda Bar, 6pm on a Friday night, relaxing and kickin' back some not so good Guatemalan beer. The sad part is that I am actually getting used to it.

We are in San Pedro. A small town on Lago de Atitlan, just west of Guatemala City. It is like a little slice of heaven. The lake is surrounded on all sides by huge mountains/volcanoes. They jut into the lake with prominence, leaving no guesses to their importance within the horizon. Each morning we wake to a slight chill in the air. Eventually burnt off by the beautiful heat of the sun. Followed by an afternoon to evening dusting to drenching of rain. At least the weather is predictable.

After one afternoon here, we promptly decided to spend a week taking Spanish lessons. A little over a month in Central America and it is clear that I don't know how to speak. I can comprehend an unbelievable amount of speech, but please, have a heart and don't ask me to speak. The idiotesque sounds that my mouth is able to mutter are far from Spanish.

So, 4 hours each morning for the next week, I will be taught by Estella, one on one, under a small thatched hut in the middle of a beautiful garden. A beautiful setting complemented by a super cheap price. Tomorrow I promise to study.

We ended up here in San Pedro after an impromptu decision in Guatemala City to bypass Antigua for the time being and muster on for another 3 hours in a chicken bus. These buses are something to be seen.

You may have actually seen one before as they are simply American school buses, sometimes painted in crazy colors and title things like "Estella" or "Jesus Cristo" but most of the time they are the yellow buses some of us may have experienced once a lifetime ago. We have taken two such buses; one crossing the border from Mexico and one, on this most recent trip. We are two for two on flat tires. This most recent bus handled the flat in an interesting manner, they ignored it. A quick check, yup, still flat, and we were off, with the irregular thumping of a flat tire creating a very noticeable thumping beat. So, I guess one for two on waiting to change a tire. Luckily, we were kicked off this one tire short bus and passed on to two more buses before we hit our destination for the evening, Panachajel.

Panachejel is the largest town on the lake. It turned out to be a little too much for Todd and I after coming from the rural town of Chisec. The vendors were very aggressive. I try not to be rude, but when I am enjoying my first solid meal of the day, pizza none the less, do not put your wares on the table and try to distract me, not accepting no for over 2 minutes. I feel I have found a forceful yet not rude tone of "no, gracias" with a quick aversion of eye contact to make my point. When that fails, I do fall back to a somewhat exasperated "Noooo."

So, I have to say that life is at a very relaxing point. A week in one place is something we have yet to do. Tomorrow laundry, cutting it close with one clean pair of undies left, but hey, that's why we bring an excessive amount of underwear compared to everything else. Back to the beer! Happy Friday!