Lake Attitilan

First three day weekend, came up in August and after multiple trips to Antigua we decided that we would venture a bit further away to Lake Attitilan. The directions seemed pretty simple, go the same way to Antigua, but don't take the turn, continue straight. As we have discovered straight is a misconception here, but what the heck we went anyway. All went well until we hit traffic in Chiteltenango, where we sat and crawled for half hour through the small town. Seemed they thought it was a good idea to build an overpass in the middle of the town, instead of taking a sensible approach and putting in a small loop around the town. While sitting in traffic, we watched a variety of big motorcycles pass us on the side. BMW's, Triumphs, Yamaha's and even a Goldwing. We figured it was a holiday weekend in Guatemala City and everyone was heading to the lake. After our traffic jam, the road opened up to a two lane divided highway. As we told you before, Guatemalan's seem to be hung up on keeping those lanes separated.

The road was well maintained, fairly new and as stated two lanes divided. Why the speed limit was 60 kph (35mph) is anyone's guess. Of course no one is going 60 kph. Guatemala is a land of mountains and the road towards Lake Attitilan rolled up and down over the mountains. Our little Hyundai Getz's 3 cylinder engine might get good gas mileage, but lacks power. So there was a lot of shifting involved. On the downhills we managed to get into fifth gear. The road rumbled through the mountains and farmland. Apparently contour plowing is not well known here in Guatemala, but the corn was easily ten  feet high.

The quality of the road increased as the up and down nature of the road was enhanced by the input of some serious curves. This was a top quality motorcycle road and I look forward to experiencing it with a proper vehicle. Friends of ours told us that halfway to the Lake is a famous place to stop for breakfast or lunch. They couldn't recall the name, but they said you will know it when you approach it. Well, there are three or four of those places, all with big parking lots and apparently good deals on food. We stopped at none of them and continued on our way to the Lake. This road is often closed due to “deslaves” or washouts. We soon discovered that two lanes in both directions became a desvio or detour, where there were only two lanes as the side of the mountain was occupying the other side of the road. For the remainder of the road it changed from two lanes to one lane to two lanes, but all in all it was fine.

There are three possible ways to get to the Lake, roads that diverge off the main road and head through smaller towns. We found none of them and continued on the Pan American Highway towards our destination. Other friends of ours told us to look for the small signs to Panachatel, the main town on the Lake. We found a major sign at a minor intersection that took us down towards the Lake and I do mean down. Twenty kilometers of downhill through the town of Solola. Again, the idea of bypassing a town is beyond anyones imagination and we slowly traveled through the town, being stopped by a local parade. Finally the lake was in front of us and we drove through Panachatel looking for the dock for the boat that take us to the town of Santa Cruz where we rented a small house for us and the dogs. Once we drove to the end of the town without any luck, we figured we missed it. So we stopped and asked a policeman “Donde esta el barcadero para Santa Cruz”, where is the dock for Santa Cruz? He told us to continue on and ask the next policeman. Eventually we found the dock and a secure place to park to the car.

Now the dogs have never been on a boat before and they are not particularly found of water. So instead of trying to take them on the public boat we negotiated for a private boat. A bit of wrangling got us what I hoped was a fair price for a boat with “a big motor” that was really fast . El Capitan asks if he can take on two more passengers. We are willing as long as they stay away from the pooches. They board the boat and one guy brings along lumber to repair something. The only way to Santa Cruz is by boat and that is how everything is brought in.

The boat does indeed have a big motor and is quite fast. These are long boats, about 35 feet, with 70 horsepower engines that cause them to plane as they travel towards their destination. They are made of thick fiberglass that seem to be fairly indestructible, at least we hoped it was. The dogs took the boat trip in good stride and we safely disembarked in Santa Cruz. We asked where the hotel was, that was associated with the house we rented. In addition we made arrangements with Capitan Ramos to pick us up on Monday. The people at the hotel were really nice and they sent a boy to take us to our accommodation. It was a walk along the edge of the lake along a path that was, shall we say, rough. There were bridges that were built out of planks and some places where the lake's edge was reinforced with rocks that were surrounded by chain link. Ten minutes later we found our house.

This is the house we stayed at

            As you can see it was right on the lake and the narrow area in front is a continuation of the path along the lake. The house was a bit funky in design and it had many keys to the many doors. When you lied in the bed, you looked out on the lake, when you sat in the living room, you looked out on the lake, when you worked in the kitchen, you looked out on the lake. Of course the steep sides of the mountain and the narrow trail made taking the dogs for a walk a bit of an adventure.

Note the steepness of the road. It just kept on going up

            We settled right in and decided to go back to the dock and walk to the town of Santa Cruz. We started up the road to Santa Cruz and began to have second thoughts, as you can see in the picture. Instead we hailed a tuk tuk and for about a buck and a quarter we sat in the tuk tuk as the driver groaned up to the town. Between the groaning up hill and the extreme use of brakes on the downhills, the repair costs on the tuk tuks must be quite high. Upon disembarking at the top of the hill we found that town of Santa Cruz had nothing to offer beyond a hill top view of the lake. So after buying some beers we found another tuk tuk that returned us to the dock, where we walked back to the house to enjoy the tranquility of the lake.

One of the Volcanoes

            Lake Attitilan is a collapsed caldera, something like Crater Lake in the US. It is surrounded by mountains and more volcanoes, none of which are currently active. It has great views and there is virtually no one on the lake except for the ferry traffic. The Lake is virtually vacant.

Dinner and drinks were at the hotel next door. As an unimpressive meal as we have ever had. Back to the house, some reading and early to bed. The next morning back to the hotel for a buffet breakfast that was way more satisfying then the dinner and much cheaper to boot. We had heard of an artesian town on the lake and we decided to go find it. We asked at the hotel associated with the house and they told us the town was called Santiago. To get there you had to take the boat back to Pana and then go to a different dock to take another boat to Santiago.

We wondered the area around the “playa publica” or public beach. It had a lot of restaurants and stalls selling local tourist goods. Eventually we found the boat to Santiago. The shill for the boat asked for 30 quetzales, but we knew the price was 25 and told him so. It took about 15 minutes for the boat to get enough passengers to leave. While we were waiting we saw about ten other teachers from the school who were going on a tour of the lake.

            The town of Santiago is located between the two big volcanoes. It has a well deserved reputation as an art village. In addition to the usual tourist items, they had some high quality handicrafts for sale. Some of the art shops had unique art by “real”artists, as opposed to the typical items that are sold everywhere. In one shop the artist was telling the story of one of his paintings, in Spanish of course. It was a really nice large painting, that Diane liked more then me, so I asked the price “en dolares?”, “Si”. A mere 1200 dollars, so we passed on it. What was interesting was he had half the shop with more traditional paintings and half the shop with abstract art based on the traditional art. Next time we go back we will take some additional money and have a more realistic viewing.

            We walked through the entire town, managed to purchase a very nice handmade “runner’ and passed up some other textiles. My bargaining skills, finally honed in the Middle East, still hold me in good stead, that and the fact that I rarely ever really need anything. The boat ride back to Pana had many Guatemalans in their Sunday best. As we rocketed across the lake, with the water splashing over the bow, we were entertained by a family with 3 little girls all dressed in pink. The entertainment came to a dead standstill when the boat stopped dead in the water in the middle of the lake. There was a lot of looking around, to either to determine the problem or look for another boat. Turned out we had just run out of gas and Captain just had to switch tanks. With much relief we skimmed our way into the dock in Pana.

            We spent some time wandering around Pana, bought a flashlight, some rum and coke…all the essentials. We needed the flashlight as we were having dinner at a hotel about a ten minute walk from the house and since the sun sets at around 6:30, having some light to illuminate the path seemed like a good idea. On the way back to the Santa Cruz dock we stopped and had a liquado. A liquado is basically a fruit smoothy made “con aqua, con leche o con yogurt.” (water, milk or yougurt). They are a wonderful way to get your daily allotment of fruit and if you take it “sin azucar”, without sugar, it is even more healthy. We lucked out as the place we stopped at had some of the best liquados we have ever had in a crazy variety of flavors.

            The boat back to Santa Cruz began to fill up. They usually leave with about 15 people on it. Apparently we must have hit the end of church or something, as this boat had 30+ people on it, not including the bags of grain. We finally took off and the Capitan pushed the throttle onto full. Well there was no way that this boat was going to plane. It pushed itself through the water and the ten minute trip probably took 25. Of course, like most things in the developing world, this boat did have life jackets, three of them for the thirty people. So we were not displeased when the Capitan decided to take the boat closer to shore. Upon closer observation the shore consisted of a steep mountain dropping down into the lake. If the boat sunk, it would take all of your ability simply to hold on to any plant life that was near the water. It was way too steep to climb up. None the less we safely made it back to Santa Cruz. We walked back to the house and took  the dogs out for their semi daily constitutional. .

Our porch is on the right, to the left is the public path

            Our dinner at the hotel turned into an adventure, as we had a tropical downpour for the entire walk. We arrived quite wet, but the warm food went a long way to overcoming our damp spirits. Our flashlight came in handy as we had another wet walk back to the house. Some relaxing reading, a good nights sleep that came accompanied by heavy rains the whole night, allowed us to awake to blue lake that had a mirror like sheen to it.

            Capitan Ramos picked us up and again asked if we could take some additional passengers, to which we agreed. The additional passengers turned out to be two couples from our school who were staying at the other end of the Santa Cruz path. The dogs, now veteran mariners, took the trip in stride, with Izzie sitting up and enjoying the view. The ride back started with a 20 km climb up to the main road, some of which required us to be in first gear. We made excellent time back to Guatemala City, until is took the “straight”road to the right when I should have went straight to the left. We were lost, then we were found, then we were lost again. I asked for directions and we found a road that we thought we knew. The only thing new about that road was it took us someplace we had never been before. I stopped and asked a policeman who had to use his radio to get us directions back to our area. We finally arrived home, safe and sound.

House looking back at Santa Cruz. That is the town on the top of the hill

Another view of the house

This is at the barcadero for Santa Cruz... the sign basically says "Private Property, no pissing or shitting"

           

Driving Senorita Daisy

Those of you that have traveled in different countries around the world know that driving styles vary, as do the individual countries approach to road layout.

For instance, Mongolians were famous for their ability to drive cars as if they were riding the horses. They constantly eased over next to you until you were herded into the next lane. Jordanians drove using the inshallah principle, god willing. If god wills it, so it will be. Not a great attitude to have when you are hurtling through a city. The Greeks feel that passing on the right, at any speed, is de rigor. My Colombian motorcycle friends thought nothing of passing at a high speed on a blind curve. In Africa it was not so much the way people drove, but the animals on the road. Cows, goats, sheep, donkeys and the occasional elephant were things that you needed to look out for.

Having been well versed in the art of international driving, I felt that I was prepared for almost anything here in Guatemala. I learned to drive in NYC, so I understand traffic. Although there is indeed plenty of traffic here, at times, it is nothing unusual. It is also true that Guatemalans have no idea what it means to keep right. They poke along in the left lane or act like speed racer in the right. I was specifically told not to honk my horn at other drivers because “many of them have guns.”  But it is not the drivers that are unique to Guatemala, it is the roads.

Guatemalans seem to have a distinct adversity to allowing two lanes going in the opposite direction to touch. Any ‘almost’ major thoroughfare is a divided road. Divided by concrete barricades, divided by grass medians or divided by overgrown jungle.  So getting to the other side is an adventure, especially when the road on the other side can have a different name then the road you are on. On our first trip to Antigua we managed to get lost and needed to find a “retorno” in order change our direction. It took 8 kms to find one. Of course it just became an opportunity to see more of the countryside, albeit an unexpected one.

Our directions for going to Antigua were to get on such and such road and go straight. Now the area around Guatemala City is rift with volcanoes and steep valleys. There are no straight roads. If you continue down any of the roads they split and your choice is forty five degrees to the left or forty five degrees to the right. And some of those places where the roads go are into “Zonas” that you don’t want to be in. Of course being new to the city, we don’t really know which ones are the bad zones.  Kind of gives new meaning to a thrilling ride.

Having spent some time being lost in the city, I still don’t understand why I can make it home on Avenida Reforma by taking it either north or south. Or that I can leave my house go down to Vista Hermosa and travel in either direction and still get to the airport. There are no good maps, but I am hoping to get a card for my GPS.

Being a fairly tropical country, Guatemalan roads are lined with drainage areas, a good idea in a country that gets heavy rainfall. However, they do not quite have that concept down pat. The drainage ditches are 18 to 24 inches deep and are rectangular in nature. There is no easing off into the road shoulder. Once you put your wheel into one of these troughs, you need a jack to get back out. As a motorcyclist I know that I will have to use extreme caution.

I am sure that we have some exciting riding/driving ahead of us and we look forward to the challenge.