Day 28 07.08.15
I was awoken at about 4 in the morning when the cockerel started announcing that the morning had come, a cat jumping onto our roof and walking around and then my absolute favourite, several cars parking on the central plaza at about 7 in the morning, honking and waiting for the workers or students to come, hop on and be driven off to the nearby town of Solala. I was told that the women tend to wake up at about 4 or 5 depending when their husbands leave to work to start making their tortillas.
Theresa cooked us some lovely breakfast consisting of scrambled eggs and beans with tortillas on her firewood stove. We were offered coffee or tea, the coffee I was told was very sweet, and the tea, which I had, was very sweet as well. The tea is made up of a corn mixture and topped with boiling water. The locals tend to eat only a small breakfast (seeing as they wake up so early in the morning) and have this tea with a pastry, which is quite dry but sweet that is then dunked into the tea. That also tasted delicious. The people then tend to have lunch between 10:00 and 11:00, where they eat what they have taken with them, usually tortillas and an assortment of snacks, until they return home at about 19:00 at night to eat with the whole family.
It was nice for a change to witness “normality”, especially when Theresa’s kids were arguing with her whether they could get lunch money and Theresa arguing that he could easily take food from home with him instead of spending her well-earned money.
After breakfast we said our big goodbyes and thank you’s and left to our next hotel. I loved how on the road to the hotel you could see several paintings. I am glad I managed to get a photo of these painted telephone masts, which had words painted on them such as “Libertad”, “Amistad”, “Honor” etc. (Liberty, Friendship, Honour). It was just a really great sight and I loved how these objects that people passed everyday were upgraded through art and even receiving a noble message in the process.
Here we checked in and immediately got ready for an incredible boat trip. We got onto the boat and drove for about 45 minutes over the lake to stop at an artisanal village. Here we had a look at how natural textiles were produced in Guatemala. Based on cotton which the women of this collective produced themselves and coloured in only natural colours, for example of the Cochinil the little bug that produces the red colour used for dyeing clothes (Just as we had seen it in Mexico). Most of us went into a real shopping frenzy and could only be stopped by our money running out. We left the store and headed on to a Mayan medicinal herb garden, where we were taught a lot about different herbs and what they can be used for to cure different diseases, be it headaches, bad stomachs or problems for mothers when lactating.
We left this little town and drove to the next destination where we had some lovely lunch in a restaurant overlooking the lake. I had some gratinated eggplant with a tomato sauce and some cheese, which was just lovely. Especially the view at this place was amazing and we spent all our time there, passing on the opportunity of exploring the town. It was a very relaxing 2 hours.
After lunch we drove to a place where you could go and jump off a deck into the lake about 6 metres below you. It was great fun, until it was my time to jump. As you might see from this post there aren’t many pictures in it. That is because as I was filming my jump into the water, and as soon as I hit the surface my camera slipped off my wrist, I couldn’t hold on to it and it sank to the bottom of the lake. Unfortunately the lake at that point was about 7 to 10 metres deep and diving for it proved to be impossible. (Even though two local boys heroically tried, stuffing their ears with leaves to prevent water creeping in.) So I unfortunately lost my camera in the lake, and with that all the photos I had taken of that day. (So thank you Gordon for providing me with this photo of the deck!)
We drove back with the boat to a place to have coffee, which was just so idyllic. The hotel was integrated into the cliff and there was just so many plants everywhere to be found. It was quite enchanting and reminded us of the Lago Maggiore.
The lake was roughening up a bit and so we hopped onto the boat and quickly drove back towards our hotel. Here the group split up and some went to a sunset bar, while the others returned to the hotel and got ready for dinner. We stopped at this incredible place called Circus Bar, where they had amazing food, a great atmosphere and the best part – live music. It was such a lovely evening that resulted in a crazy dancing night with a lot of salsa and other latin dancing – my idea of a perfect night!
