A great way to enjoy children is to borrow them and give them back when you're done. So I suggested to Vanessa that we do this the weekend before the storm (not always going to be a chronological blog I´m afraid). We had thought about going to San Marcos, another of the lake Atitlan towns a short boat ride away. So we went to ask Candelaria if we could borrow Juan (9) and Lester (7). This was great for them; they'd only been there once before. Mum asked us to keep hold of them on the boat and we set off.
Most points of departure are from the neighbouring town, San Pedro de la Laguna. It´s bigger and has more commercial activity and tourism than San Juan; it´s also a little more dangerous according to the San Juaneros – there are signs prohibiting the sale of drugs (mainly marijuana I reckon) and more than once a local has whispered in my ear, 'Ganga amigo'. Look forward as if you haven´t heard anything does the trick; same in parts of Barcelona to tell the truth. Anyway, we went in the back of a 4x4 for the 5 minute drive to San Pedro and walk down to the Jetty to catch the boat. You learn fast enough here but like most things you learn by trial and error. Needless to say we paid over the odds to get the boat to San Marcos – 35Quetzales (€3.5). On the way back we paid 20Q as we discovered that local kids go for free.
I think the kids were more interested in my camera than anything else we saw so they received their first digital slr lesson: a) putting your fingers all over the lens not good, b) use the camera strap, c) look through the viewfinder and push this button here. When we arrived at San Marcos it was quite a lush little paradise. There were no roads near the jetty and after passing a few stalls selling the local jade jewellery we entered a little maze of paths that led to different establishments. There was definitely a theme here, 'hippy'. I wondered exactly what Moon study in the Moon Garden was, made me think of the 'Moomintrolls', did they live here? Crystal therapy, Banana Cake, Organic Massage, Astrology, and a few things that were new on the list of Alternative had found a home here. Needless to say that along with this came a few stereotyped dippies wofting by leaving only a scent of incense and unwashed hair. Now don´t get me wrong I enjoy my Yoga from time to time but there´s an awful lot of crap out there too. Needless to say everything was more expensive here as organic hummus and stone baked pizza carried a premium. We bought the kids a coke and wandered through the rest of the town. Spotted a pretty cool and colourful lizard.
Lester loved it all, a very happy soul and the archetypal cheeky monkey. Juan, however, is the more conservative and serious type. When he announced to us that he was bored we were a little surprised, our first challenge, we had not banked on this being in anyway boring. 'Juan what would you like to do, have something to eat maybe?' An indecipherable murmur. 'Ok, well we're hungry so we either eat here or in San Pedro.' Juan´s choice, San Pedro it was, and a tostada was preordered by the little man. This is a fried tortilla about the size of a pita bread with guacamole, salad, refried beans, cheese and sauce. There's a great little stall by the Jetty that sells them for 3Q each (30cents). So, after bribing Juan (seemed to work) we went back on the boat and nattered with a nice local man (who told us that the local kids go free). At San Pedro Juan was impressed with his food and we went for a burger and chips which was our first junk food for a while. Very welcome. As we left the bar Vanessa caught my hand and we danced a few steps of Salsa to the music in the bar. Now I have never managed the swinging hip latin thing before but actually managed to swing in time to a few bars; I put it down to living the local life and getting into the swing of things!
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