For the last 15 years or so I have been completely, totally, utterly loyal to the plain black Land's End swimsuit. In fact, I was loyal for so long I forgot why and for reasons I can explain (pretty blues and greens and some online shopping at work in those last days of school after final exams and a dynamic sale) but that now don't seem quite good enough, I went ahead and bought a bathing suit from Old Navy for this trip. I threw it in my bag when Chris and I headed to the lake for the Fourth of July, but we only stayed the day and it rained, so I wore it for the first time here in Guatemala. As of today, we have been in Panajachel for two weeks; two days ago the stitching on one of the straps came loose. Curses to the Old Navy swimsuit, I said as I shook my fist at the heavens. First errand of the day: find someone to fix my swimsuit. Well, easier said than done and not even really easier said since my Spanish doesn't include navigating a trip to the tailor. We tried a place in Pana where we had seen a man in the back of a store with a sewing machine but he wasn't there on Sunday. We were told to check back tomorrow. Florinda told Chris that there were seamstresses behind the market, but when we walked up there we couldn't find them so we decided we would have to bench the goal for another day.
We were lucky to arrive at the dock just in time to board a boat bound for San Pedro, a town at the base of one of the three volcanoes and known for its large population of expats. Sunday seems to be market day just about everywhere and San Pedro is no exception. We arrived in time to walk through the streets crowded with carts and tables and people who just spread their wares on the ground. Something different about our trip to the town of San Pedro and the market there is that no one asked us to buy anything. We wandered around a bit and tried to visit the church; it was closed, but we did see a nun entering the rectory and she was in habit. The Rough Guide really let us down on San Pedro because it was not clear to us that the nature reserve there was only the volcanic trail. It's quite far outside of town and we took a tuk-tuk up there to check it out but were not prepared to climb the volcano (bad shoes, no water, I'm carrying my broken bathing suit around. You know, stuff like that). The entrance to the reserve is well above the lake and we stayed for a time taking in the view and then decided to walk back to town, which ended up being lovely. It was quiet but for the constant soundtrack of roosters that accompanies us everywhere we go. I guess I should say it was traffic quiet. We passed few cars along the way but did see a lot of chickens that re-defined free range for us. Coffee grows wild here, like grapevine in Michigan and like mulberry trees drop their fruit onto Oak Park sidewalks every summer, here there are wild avocados and limes litter the path. We picked avocados straight off of the trees on our walk and tucked them into our bags for later.
The second time through town, we happened upon an open doorway and inside was a man, a boy, a sewing machine and a picture of a woman breastfeeding on the wall. There was nothing else in the dark shop with cinder block walls. Chris asked the man if he would fix my swimsuit and he did, on the spot and for a dollar. Better than new: still and all, I'll be resuming my relationship with Land's End.
We've been told again and again that the rains were coming and today they came in full force. We were probably two-thirds of the way back to town when the big tentative drops began and we were at the edge of town when a gentle rain started and we were within sight of the lake when the torrent hit. We ran from doorway to doorway hoping for refuge but so many places were closed on Sunday. Just at the water's edge we found an open bar and ducked in just before the wind began to whip the rain in every direction. The joint we stumbled into was owned by a Brit, and another Brit was running a restaurant of sorts out of the first Brit's front yard. The sum total of his restaurant was an industrial-size grill and a lot of coolers, but he served us up his vegetarian plate (think a plate full of side dishes at a backyard barbecue) and we had some beers while we waited out the storm, a pleasant enough way to do so.
We had taken a wrong turn at the top of town and while the bar we sat in was next to a boat launch it was not the one we needed to be at so we took a tuk-tuk to the other. A new thing we experienced was a man jumping into our tuk-tuk and joining us for the ride. I don't know who he was or where he was going, but he did help direct our driver to our destination.
We were lucky again that there was a boat ready to leave and we didn't have to wait at all. By my estimation the boat was already full but the captain didn't agree, so on we climbed. Because of the rain, a large sheet of dirty, opaque plastic was draped over the passengers which was really creepy to be under. That was creepy, what was startling was when the captain pulled away from the dock and then threw the boat in reverse and slammed into the rocks on shore. A man from a nearby restaurant came down to shove the boat back into the water. This was perhaps not the best experience for a man who was deciding quite literally to test the waters again after the whole kayaking thing, but it wasn't Chris who was concerned. There was an entire party of Australians on the boat with us who made rather a lot of blather about it. In any case, we arrived home intact and picked up some vegetarian tamales in the street for our supper.
Our friends Katy and Jessica join us here tomorrow and so I'm sure this adventure will take yet another turn...
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