So This Is Traveling
Trip Start
Aug 26, 2009
1
4
35
Trip End
Apr 27, 2010
San Lucas Tolimán, Sololá, Guatemala
Friday, August 28, 2009
I do wish I had taken pictures of more of the trip from Antigua to San Lucas Tomlimán. It was one of those weird juxtapositions I had in Guatemala. We went from clean, tourist town to a kinda dirty lakeside village. I was happy we weren't staying in the village. Our friend Frank had offered for Dave and I to stay at his lakehouse in the Yacht Club of Lake Atitlan. We obliged :).
Our first couple days were helped by planning with Frank. In Antigua we met with one of his relatives and got to learn about eastern Guatemala from them. We traveled by cramped minibus to Panajachel. I quickly learned cramped is the only way to describe Guatemalan transportation for me. Once we got into Pana, we were told by Frank that we should be able to get a $2 dollar lancha to San Lucas. His lakehouse was going to be a short ride from San Lucas Tomlimán.
We found out in Pana that lanchas are much more expensive for gringos. We bargained a little but on our first serious travel day, and with a short amount of time before all lake traffic ceased because of the evening swells... we sucked it up and paid the tourist price for the lancha, around $10 bucks.
The other half of the adventure was going from San Lucas to the lakehouse. Dave and I probably should have consulted a map before we landed in San Lucas but we knew it was near the town. How near turned out to be a 20 minute tuk-tuk ride through crappy dirt roads. My Spanish was still weak but I definitely heard the 15-yr old boys driving us swear at least a hundred times. But we made it to the lakehouse with just a little bit of stress ;).
It was a great first day of travel. I remember how we celebrated too. As dusk settled, we returned to first world comforts... opened a bottle of red, and watched some Trailer Park Boys.
