avoiding bandits, meeting friends

On the road down into San Pedro La Laguna, Lago Atitlán, I encountered a broken down chicken bus blocking the carriageway. A man optimistically waved me through, so I pulled forward, only to find that the gap was pretty much not Suburban-sized. Trying to reverse back up the hairpin, I only slid further forward, and when the bus to my right itself slipped off the rocks holding it, 6 inches toward me, I just gave up and breathing in, slithered the ´Burban through the gap. I am starting to get pretty proud of my ability to navigate the beast. Which probably means I am due a crash. Actually, I did have a pranglet in Santa Cruz, as I left, in the parking lot. I had to do some crazy N-point turns to get out the gate, and the rear windows were all muddy. I tried to do it on intuition but misjudged the length of the car by about 2 inches. I made a two-inch dent in a Toyota truck's bull bars. Needless to say the Suburban was unscathed, yet again. Unfortunately the owner was standing right there: fortunately, they were two super-nice guys from Guatemala city, and although they started off a bit upset (reasonably enough!) when I was contrite, they were very friendly. I ended up giving them 100 quetzales to get the bar knocked back into place. Actually I have the best conversations with people through car-related events (just to counter those people who thought that by travelling by car I wouldn't meet people!).

Since there was two chicken-buses-worth of passengers milling about in the road, a good hour's walk in the sun to the nearest town, I offered lifts to one group, 8 schoolteachers from San Pedro. They were very helpful with directions, and interesting to chat to. Although I generally feel guilty driving such a huge car, I do really enjoy all the conversations with the people I give rides to.

Lago Atitlán is pretty. I had never really thought before how much volcanoes add to the beauty of a place. I think because they are a bit like the mountains in children's books -- conical, wooded, with tops shrouded in clouds. The place I stayed was odd. It resembled nothing so much as the greenfields area in Glastonbury. Lots of nice places to hang out run by hippies, with reggae music, fruit smoothies, good organic coffee and fresh bread, all that sort of thing. After spending a few hours one afternoon chilling out in one place, reading a book on Central America, I came out onto the footpath and was actually surprised to see Guatemalans there. Still, the local people seem to generally like the hippies. There are lots of friendly women and kids selling cakes and ice-creams and handcrafts, and they are super good-natured, even when you never buy anything. I have found that from the Maya: when you politely, with a smile, decline whatever they are offering, they smile back and move on. Intimidation seems not to be a part of their culture. It makes for a pleasant atmosphere.

I think every one of the four days that I spent in San Pedro, I met at least one person who I knew from previous encounters on the gringo trail. It's surreal. It's so nice to see people you thought maybe you'd never see again, and find out what they've been up to. So there was no shortage of friends to hang out with, and rooms were just a few dollars a night. I can understand why people stay there a while! However, I still began to feel after a few days that it was time to move on. I heard so many warnings about bandits on various roads around San Pedro that I was almost disappointed when I got all the back to the Carretera Interamericana without meeting a single one. Perhaps they don't work Sundays.

Antigua is really one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen. Every corner seems is a photograph waiting to be taken. Bright sunshine and clear blue skies frame time-faded or brightly-painted colonial houses, and lilac and bougainvillea trees fill the courtyards of crumbling ruins of convents, churches and monasteries. The colourful Maya handcraft and produce markets crowd the cobbled streets. And always the green slopes of one of the three volcanoes surrounding the city visible beyond. It is very touristy, with a lot of rich Guatemalans and El Salvadorean tourists as well as gringos, but really they don't spoil the picturesqueness. It is so expensive I am only staying one day, but it is definitely somewhere I would love to return to, with money. It is slightly less good for a solo traveller than other places, because it isn't really possibly to "lose yourself" in the city.

But I have bought a map of El Salvador, and will cross the border tomorrow. It has been a very rapid two-week tour of Guatemala, but I have done pretty well at seeing a diverse range of places. I don't even know what to expect of El Salvador, which is quite exciting in a way!