A lot to catch up on! The rest of Antigua and Lake Atitlan, Guatemala

Hi everyone! So we have safely returned from Guatemala and it has been a crazy week. It’s always a little hectic when you have been gone for a while, so the “catch up” at the clinic and with work has been pretty nuts. In addition, for those of you who don’t know, Eric and I decided to rescue/adopt a dog while we are here in Honduras. The owner of the puppy called us on Monday and essentially said he could no longer “take it” and the puppy needed to go. She is only 6 weeks so it has been interesting- she has ticks and fleas, ringworm in 3 spots, and calluses on her arms and legs from sleeping on cement for the first 6 weeks. But we are in the process of getting her all cleaned up! I’ll have pictures of her in my next post – she is adorable if I do say so myself J And her name is Banana Donut – though we are just calling her ‘Nana

Anywho, back to Guatemala. We had such a wonderful trip. When we last left off, we were nearing the end of our time in Antigua, Guatemala. We spent one more day there, where we did a small hike to see the Cerro de la Cruz (Hill of the cross) which is, well, exactly what the name implies… a hill on a cross. From the top of the hill you have a beautiful view of Antigua, and we could look down and see all the places we had visited over the previous 2 days. To the left and below are some pictures from Cerro de La Cruz.

  

Next we did some souvenir shopping at some local markets. Needless to say, we did not know what we were getting into. The market was CRAZY. I mean, it was just a giant human maze of small little stalls selling every possible thing you have ever imagined. Flowers, fruits and vegetables, fresh meat, bathing products, animal supplies, sunglasses and clothes, shoes, household items, candy, purses and blankets… the list is endless, truly.

After the market, we needed some pizza to liven ourselves up. It was 10 quetzals (the equivalent to about $1.25) for two slices of pizza and a small pepsi. The pizza left a lot to be desired… it was basically soggy bread with melted cheese. But I still managed to enjoy myself!

Before we left Antigua, we saw this (below) guy carrying an unimaginable amount of plastic bottles to recycle them, followed by his daughter who was carrying more. I mean, just look at this picture! I hope he wasn’t walking far, but I had to include it because I am still mystified by how he carried all this.

 

 

Finally, we boarded a shuttle and went to our next destination, Lake Atitlan. The trip there took approximately 2.5 hours, but we were slowed down some by rain and traffic. We went through a lot of neat, small villages, and also got to see people doing traditional farming in the fields. When we got to the Lake, we found a small boat (called a lancha in Spanish) that took us to our hotel… well it took us to our hotel after trying to make us pay 50 times the actual price and making us wait an hour. Thank goodness we can speak a little Spanish now – it came in very useful!

The name of our hotel was Hotel Casa Del Mundo (House of the world). It was built on the side of a dormant volcano and was remarkably beautiful. We did have to climb about 100 stairs to get to our room every night, but we got over it eventually! Rather than one big building with hotel rooms, they had about 15 different little chateau’s. We selected our room because they said it would feel like staying in a tree house. Below are some pictures of our place.

 

Below is a picture of the hotel from a distance – we took this one while going past our hotel on a boat on our way to another town on the lake. Also, here is a picture of the view at sunset – it was beautiful!

 

Ok, enough about our hotel. Needless to say, we liked it… other than the ants that visited us every evening. So after getting settled into our hotel, we went for a short walk the next morning to a neighboring town called Santa Cruz. We had breakfast here, which was a pleasant surprise. We found a cheap little restaurant right on the water that had excellent coffee, smoothies, and waffles.

 

Next, we jumped on a water taxi and went to another town called San Juan. They have beautiful art galleries here of artwork done by local artists. They also do a lot of weaving in this town and sell beautiful sweaters, blankets, purses, etc. We really enjoyed visiting San Juan; the locals were incredibly friendly and the town was clean, organized, and beautiful. Below are two pictures that we took of the locals – one was a group of little boys with a puppy that were VERY excited to have a picture taken of them. The other photo are two gentlemen on a tuk tuk (motorcycle taxi) that also really wanted their picture taken – but then we talked with them for about 15 minutes using only our Spanish! The next picture is of me in one of the weaving stores trying on a traditional sweater/cape garment that the women wear here in the winter months. And finally, we have Eric who was very excited to find the “Erick Café.” However, because the name was misspelled, he held his arm up to block out the “k” on the wall. (sorry for the picture formatting - I don't know why it's doing this!)

 During the next few days we did a lot of things, but mostly we walked around the different towns on the lake and explored the local culture and cuisine. We also just spent some time at our hotel relaxing. Another town we visited was called San Pedro. This is where one of the largest volcano’s on the lake is located, and many people come here to hike it. It’s also one of the biggest towns on the lake, and very popular among young people backpacking around Central America. However, it was slightly more run down then some of the other towns we visited, although still very unique and cool in it’s own way. Below are some pictures of our time walking around this town.

And, just to wrap up the post, a few of Eric’s beautiful “scenery” pictures. These were our views almost anywhere we went!

We have been taking a lot of pictures of all the beautiful flowers we have been seeing both in Honduras and Guatemala. So we will be doing a post (hopefully soon) dedicated to our lovely mothers who so enjoy pictures of flowers J In the mean time, this weekend there is the annual Lionfish Derby, which is a worldwide fishing tournament that is held on the island. They have shut down parts of West End, where we live, and set up stages for music and stands for food. The winner of the fishing tournament gets $30,000! It’s also Independence Day on Sunday, so the clinic is closed on Monday. Apparently there are big parades and parties all weekend. We will be sure to scope them out and post some pictures!