Losing days in San Pedro

It appears that my experience in San Pedro is not uncommon.  I came with the intention to stay 2 days, and I stayed 5.  Others come for a day, stay for a month, come for a month, stay for a year . . . and many just don´t leave.

It´s not for everyone.  It´s not a pretty city, particularly, but it has its own charm. The streets are cobblestone, but one walks through a mixture of those streets and alleys and cut-throughs to make it around town.  Although I learned my way around fairly quickly, I never did actually figure out the layout of the town, as it´s really NOT linear.  I couldn´t tell you, for the life of me, where north is.

I found San Pedro fascinating in some ways.  There are a lot of ex-pats (from all over) that have settled here, short or long term, and you can meet many of them just wandering down the ¨"Gringo Path" . . . the strip where all those restaurants are.  Once they have a little bit of spanish, basically enough to serve the occasional Guatemalan that comes in, they can get a job there - as most of the customers are english speaking travelers or other ex-pat residents.  There´s also a significant Israeli population, which I hadn´t expected.  Signs everywhere are in spanish, english and hebrew.

It is full of restaurants, vendors, spanish schools, more spanish schools, little tiendas, bars, net cafes . . . and did I mention spanish schools?  The party scene is definitely strong, and I have a new appreciation for how easy it is to drink regularly here.  Happy hours range from the usual 4 - 6 to 9am - midnight.  And happy hour means alcohol is almost cheaper than water.  Imagine 2 Cuba Libres for 2 dollars.  Seriously.  So I confess I indulged,  but for those that know me, that means that over my 5 days, I had less than 10 drinks.  A power drunk, I know. 

I also caught the expected cold shortly after my arrival, so I was forced to slow down, take siestas and do a lot of nothing.  Although rather resentful of the stuffy nose, I felt renewed justification in the pounds of vitamin c, echinacea and other health remedies that I brought with me.  I also recognized that it was an inevitable result of leaving Vancouver tired, and traveling for over 24 hours to get here.  Not so terrible really.

I moved after a few days into a room at the front of the hotel, facing the lake, and really enjoyed my two nights there.  I got to indulge in a king size bed, with many pillows, a view of the lake and the grand gardens, and the most amazing smell of the flowers as I came and went.  One bush of lilacs (I think that´s what they were) was particularly potent in the evening, and I stopped each night under it, just to inhale for a while. 
I also spent some quality time reading in a hammock chair surrounded by the flowers, facing the lake.  Rough life.

The cold, and enforced rest, provided me with some reflection time.   I found myself feeling a real dis-ease, and struggling with the question of "why am I here?" Not the existential question, but, why Guatemala?  Why am I traveling? What is that I want out of this trip?  How long am I staying?  Do I want to learn spanish first, or go to the meditation centre first?  What happens if I run out of money before I´m ready to leave?  . . . . and so on, and so on.  It´s a powerful weapon sometimes, the mind, and amazing the damage it can inflict when I´m not paying attention.

So, as I indulged my screaming mind, I wandered the town, looked at cheap places to live and tried to decide where I wanted to be.  I learned a fair bit, I think.  Among other things, I learned that a fridge is not a standard piece of equipment in a kitchen . . . one often needs to buy it oneself and bring it with, even in short-term rentals.  I gather that a lot of folks just don´t use it.  Eating out is so cheap, they do that, or they buy at the market the day of and prepare as needed. 

I also re-connected with my privileged existence as a Canadian, who takes clean water and hot water for granted.  Both things are commodities here.  Agua Pura is everywhere . . .but you pay for it.  I may complain about the taste of tap water in Canadian cities, and the chlorine . . . but there´s no risk of parasites or SERIOUS illness from our water, and a hot shower is fairly standard back home.  Here the hot water tap is generally disabled, and one gets cold water that comes through this electric heater thing before it lands, low pressure and luke warm on your head.  (If you´re lucky . ..  many don´t even have that).

I also have a new appreciation for how we handle garbage and recycling, as insufficient as our environmental awareness is at home . . . it´s almost an unknown here. Recycling is VERY minimal - most things can´t be recycled, and garbage and litter are everywhere.  I was having the most wonderful breakfast on the beach one morning, only to find myself suddenly inhaling smoke and slowly getting covered in ash from a garbage fire on the beach.  Nothing like a little burning plastic to enhance the eating experience. 

The highlights of my time in San Pedro were really La Piscina, the friends I made there, and the gardens at my hotel. Oh, and the lake.  The last three days I was in San Pedro, the lake was SO choppy.  The waves were crashing and roaring, it was really like being back on the ocean.  I found it so soothing to my spirit, and it also served to keep me in San Pedro that extra couple of days, as I just didn´t think the boat across to San Marcos was such a good idea with the water that rough

One of my new friends, Guyta, is another Canadian from Quebec, in San Pedro studying spanish.  I´m not sure how well my spanish is progressing, but I´ve discovered I´m far more conversant in french than I give myself credit for.  I´m starting to think I´m going to return home with my french vastly improved and my spanish not so much, as I keep connecting with Francophones.  oh well.  Guyta is lovely, and I´ve been enjoying her company a lot.  She challenges me to use what little spanish I have, and when that fails, we fall into Frenglish.  I´m enjoying it a lot.  We´ve decided to spend New Years together in San Marcos;  since I´m heading there a day ahead of her, I´ll scope us a place to stay, and meet her at the dock there on Thursday afternoon.

Next top, San Marcos La Laguna.