I left San Pedro back to Antigua, which i wished i'd stayed longer at when i was there the first time. So this was my redemption. The first thing i did when i got there was go to maybe the one restaurant that I'd rather go to than any other here. i was kicking myself over missing it my first way through. what do they serve you ask? bagels, bagels, and more bagels. haaalleluja. and i didnt even mention the locks! my taste buds were in the clouds let me tell ya. the next day i visited the very busy market in town gift shopping, and aside from making some solid purchases i also got some valuable bargaining experience in. They all expect you to haggle when you're looking at anything, which was new to me. some of them even took it a step further, which i had to help myself from laughing at. when id ask about the price, before i could even have the chance to argue the starting amount, they would say 'its a good price just for you 80 quetzales okay 75.' it was like they were bartering with themselves!
Contrary to the rest of central america that i have thus far experienced, all throughout Guatemala there are little shuttle vans that take you directly to practically anywhere in the country you want. On the surface this is very appealing-fast, convenient, fairly cheap, and you dont worry about anything getting stolen, its just you and a bunch of other tourists. HOWEVER under the surface they are terrible little things. they can be unbelievably crowded, make me carsick like the dickens, and the drivers are obnoxious. So when i left antigua, i decided it was back to the chickenbusses for me. The first one i caught from antigua to guatemala city went flawlessly. the next bus going to rio dulce when i arrived was 20 bucks and fancy. or there was a 6 dollar old one going a half hour later. you all know which one i took. and man did it start well. not only was it full of locals and with a little too little leg room, but we even got a guy on board trying to sell shampoo to us. he had a whole shpeal and everything about how he wasn't here to annoy us or be a bother, he just wanted to share his wonderful shampoo with the masses. from there on things got interesting, good or bad depending on how you look at it. Either way, about an hour and a half into the trip, water and steam started rocketing out of the dashboard. Everyone reacted surprisingly nonchalantly. The bus driver kept driving, someone got up and went to work trying to fix it, and no one dove out the windows, which was maybe the logical course of action. In any case they couldn't fix it and we had to pull over to wait for the next bus to pick us up. And it was there, in the blazing heat leaning against the side of the bus on the shoulder of the highway, that i realized the main reason why i dislike the shuttles so much. they're just too damn easy! theres no adventure in getting door to door service in smooth-running vans with no crazy locals, no doubt that everything will go according to plan. thats not what i want, i'm traveling dammit! Anyways so eventually the next bus came, full, and we all stood for the next few hours until seats opened up for us. a solid day of travel that i will remember forever all thanks to the chicken busses.
here in rio dulce im at a hostel where a friend i made earlier this trip is working now. it was nice seeing a familiar face. The town here is right at the end of the river where it empties into a lake. Yesterday i took a kayak out exploring and before i left my bud was like make sure you get around the corner to take a look at the lake, its huge! i was thinking yeah whatever, ive seen plenty of big lakes its probably nothing special. but wow. when i turned that corner, it was like looking at the ocean. i literally couldnt see the other shore of the lake. granted lake nicaragua is over ten times bigger, but it has mountains around it and you can always see the other side. this was a very strange feeling to me. There is also a castle here where the spanish would fight pirates who used to sail up the river. it was a little hard to imagine.
And one more to add to the highlight reel: today i went to a hot spring waterfall. over 20 ft tall and like an extraordinarily hot shower in the coolest places. It emptied into a cold river that flowed underneath, and you could actually swim under/ behind the falls into little caves that were like natural saunas. saweet.
in two days its april and i have exactly one month left.
yoikes.
gus
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