What to say about this weekend except...holy crap. The week started with some St. Patty's day fun and good news about acceptance into my Graduate program! :) Then it came to a close with some celebratory dancing on the bar at La Sala and a departure to San Pedro, Lake Atitlan on Saturday. As usual, I was in charge of booking the reservations for the weekend and that came with a decent amount of stress...I almost lost all hope that we would not have a hostel for the night since most places only booked for 2 nights. Just before settling for a shitty hostel, I tried my luck one last time at Hostel Fe (the best lakeside party hostel in San Pedro) and to my surprise, scored us rooms!!! *happy dance*
Most scary movies begin with a big group of 20-somethings smiling and laughing as they depart on an exciting adventure, unaware of the dangers that lie ahead...the start of our weekend was no different. We were excited to have arrived on this beautiful lake taking a boat across to the little village where we would be spending the night. A local walked us through the narrow pathways of San Pedro to our hostel, and he also told us that later on he could take us on a kayak tour to San Marcos where there is some cliff jumping. It sounded like some harmless, inexpensive fun but when we asked one of the hostel employees if that guy was legitimate, he told us that he was charging us too much and is probably a local drug addict trying to make money off tourists. He also said would have had one hell of a time kayaking across the lake because apparently winds pick up and it would have been a miserable journey. Thank goodness for the nice (and sexy) hostel guy because we settled for a Q10 boat shuttle to San Marcos and set off before the druggie guy could come back and pester us. Once in San Marcos, we asked around about how to get to the cliffs and this adorable 11 year old local boy who was selling chocolate volunteered to take us there. He was the cutest little thing and was so proud to be showing us around..we all took pictures with him and gave him tips/bought chocolate from him. When we were cliff jumping he stood at the top waving to us saying "amiga! amiga! hola!" Then he came and stood near the water and splashed some at me...it was adorable. Cliff jumping was so awesome...the platform was about 10 meters high and instead of taking my moms advice and letting someone else jump first, I stripped off my clothes, threw caution to the wind, ran off the platform past my friends who were paying no attention to me and I shouted "what are you all waiting for?!" I think they were all pondering the height of the fall and debating whether or not they wanted to go/who was gonna go first...I'm not too sure because I just flew right off without second guessing it and then pestered them to follow me in because woah that was fun! The rest of the day was nice...hanging out, drinking, jumping off the dock at the hostel, still not realizing that a scary movie was happening...Well, a friend did get a giant bruise when a stupid horse that couldn't steer smashed her leg into a parked truck while horseback riding, but we all just assumed that was some unforunate event. Little did we know....
That night, we were all drinking and having a good time at our hostel bar...I retired to my bed around 130 because the bar closed and I couldn't be bothered walking to the other bar or to the "after party" which turned out to be a bonfire in the woods somewhere...sketchyyyy. However, my friends did and I was awoken at 3am by pounding on the door, my friend crying, and a mans voice. My first thought was HOLY SHIT, some creepy guy followed my friend home and she needs to get inside NOW. Turns out, it was a police officer and my crying friend...reaction remains HOLY SHIT. What had happened was, she was walking home and started being chased by a pack of stray dogs...they bit her in various places and once they stopped following her, she was lost and didn't know how to get home. Then, she offered a man money to help her find her way home, but instead he took it and ran. Thankfully, a police officer (the non-corrupt kind..because lord help us all if he was corrupt) found her and took her home. She had bite marks/bruises on her leg and another bite with broken skin on her buttcheek. It was probably the scariest moment because she was crying so hysterically that it took me a while to get the whole story. The hostel manager (yet again, the sexy one) was really kind and gave her some medicine to put on it, offered her a joint and/or valium to calm down (PS San Pedro is like, the pothead capital of Lake Atitlan and lets face it, the valium is just because its available over the counter in Guatemala)...She accepted no drugs and we all went to bed shortly after.
The next day, we all woke up, had some breakfast and hung out on the deck of the hostel. Myself and a few other friends rented some kayaks and went out for a paddle. We found these houses that had been partially flooded and we were able to kayak through them. It was hilarious because two of my friends are these super tall Dutch guys and watching them duck through the houses, legs up to their chest, talking and cursing in Dutch while they attempted to maneuver their kayak was priceless. Later that day, a couple friends decided they wanted to stay an extra night and after a little pondering I said, screw it why not? We are having fun here, its beautiful, last night was kinda scary, lets try to redeem ourselves and play it safer tonight by hanging at the hostel bar. So, some friends departed back to the main land for the shuttle and we stayed behind. A few hours later, the next tragedy occured. I checked my phone and saw that I had a message from one of my friends who was supposed to be heading back home. She said that our other friend had been in a paragliding accident and she was at the hospital. HOLY SHIT #2. The message included that she was doing alright but she had a bad landing and had some back/neck pain and was getting x-rays. She said that they had met these really nice english speaking people who were helping them out, letting them use their phone and finding them a place to stay for the night. Thank god for the kindness of strangers, because lord only knows what could have happened if they were left to their own devices. We couldn't get a boat over to them because it was too late so we had to stay the night in San Pedro and meet up with them the next day. Despite the horror that happened, we knew they were together in a hotel and doing well, so we were able to carry on with our night a little less worried. The night was a lot of fun watching my friends drunkenly say/do stupid things and even though I was still having fun, I felt better being fairly sober so I could make sure no more tragedies happened....we had enough for one weekend!
Meeting up with our friends the next day was a wonderful reunion of happiness because everyone was alive and well and we were all ready to go back home to Antigua! Definitely an adventure to say the least, and definitely glad to be home!
This coming weekend is my last weekend in Guatemala and I am getting extremely sad about it...I am planning one last weekend getaway and it is something I have wanted to do since arriving so I cannot wait to finally get there! The waterfalls, caving and tubing adventures of Semuc Champay commence on Friday! :) Stay tuned!
