travel blog - san pedro and slacking

we took a boat from pana to san pedro
with the customary flock of rip-off artists trying to get us there
for double the price
(oh wait, sorry!
they´re poor uneducated primitive people living on the edge of subsistence)
and cursing us when we don´t fall for the gambit
as it stands
foreigners pay a least triple what a local pays
even AFTER haggling
which i suppose is fair in a way for the locals
the trick is finding what the bottom foreigner price is
and many of the locals are happy to enlighten the naive traveller
if you can speak a few words in spanish
by now,
my numbers were getting better
and i learned how to say ¨how much?¨ properly
so life was good
arriving in san pedro to the smell of fermenting coffee beans
was not the most pleasant event of the day
but was more than compensated by the fact
that after visiting about a dozen hotels
which were either full or too expensive
(only one was too expensive, the rest were full)
we found hotel paraiso...
the place where sarah had stayed at 3 years ago
very cool
and santos, the owner
was a nice cheery guy
after being show to our basic concrete cell like rooms
which were just fine for the price of 15Q
i noticed
slung between a palm tree
and one of the building posts
was a bright blue
slack line
yeah!
of all places
a half finished hotel
(which sarah tells me is in exactly the same state it was
three years ago, gravel pile and all)
in the dusty back warrens of san pedro
i´d even talked about slack lines earlier with mikayla
when i attempted my first hammock experience ever
at finca ixobel
(crappy hammocks there,
unless you like scripting a mr. bean-ish skit
in which case they were perfect)
anyways,
we tried it out
it was low
but it was tight
and a new star talent was discovered
in less than an hour
erin was sitting on the slack line
standing on it
and by the evening
she was walking and turning around
after standing up on the slack line from a sitting position
amazing!!!
we went for a swim between slacking
walking our way through dusty dirt paths
to dive off a floating dock
into a really refreshing and clean part
of this massive lake
lago atitlan
which is surround by ancient forest covered volcanos
the water was a deep green
and very refreshing
it was also extremely hard to float in
compared to most wet thingies
(ie. pools, oceans, other lakes)
which meant that normal people like me
had to keep moving to stay afloat
tho weird people like sarah
could sleep laying down in the water
(she was the only one tho)
after a refreshing swim
using fishing buoys as markers
we walked back to our hotel
had a supper in a restaurant with an amazing view
of the lake
and the forest fire on the mountain top way across the water
after that,
sarah had a treat for us
having booked these thermal baths
and leading us through the darkness of the night
and a rabbit warren of connecting paths
some cobbled, most dusty dirt
we arrived stumbling in the darkness
(ok, i stumbled a lot
but i´m sure the others must have too...
i just didn´t notice because
i was too busy looking at the ground
which i couldn´t see in the darkness anyways)
to the candle-lit baths
apparently the way the thermal baths work is like this
water is pumped into black hoses
that are placed under the sun all day
and then pumped into a covered bathtub
so which is amazingly warm
we spent a couple hours there
all 5 of us just fitting in one of the baths
(i guess it was the largest one)
taking the occasional dip in the cold pool
which was refreshingly cold
and good enough for a single dip for most warm blooded mammals
before a return to the hot pool was desired
that night,
upon returning to the hotel
we met the owners of the slack line
a trio who had just got the line for christmas
and were still figuring stuff out...
they sure had it rigged up nice tho!
and i have a feeling
call it an educated guess that
erin will join the ranks
of slackers in edmonton
when she returns from central america!