Santa Cruz La Laguna

I spent two beautiful days in Santa Cruz La Laguna at La Iguana Perdita. It´s a hotel/hostel with a mix of dorms, private rooms, shared and private bathrooms. It´s right on the lake, which is great, because if I'd had to make it up the hill to the village in order to get there, I probably would have turned right around and back onto the next Launcha.

When I reserved, I was able to get a private room, but no private bathroom. What I didn´t find out until I arrived was that the room was a cabana with no electricity, and the bathroom was outside and across the walkway. It made me think of Cortes . . . and all the places I chose NOT to live because I was unwilling to go outside at night to pee. Oh well. I do miss home.

Other than that little glitch, which I managed just fine with, the place is lovely!!! Dinner is a set-meal, served family style, and most of the guests (and some of the locals too) gather together to eat. After dinner a group of us sat outside around a fire pit. It was beautiful. The gardens and greenery were spectacular, the food was pretty good and the people were lovely.

Our first morning there my roommate, Rita, and I walked up into the village (it´s about a 30+ minute walk up a STEEP grade) to the top of the village, but it was beautiful and totally worth it. We passed a little place about 2 thirds of the way up advertising local food, which excited us both, but we didn´t want to ruin our dinner, so we had popsicles in the village instead. Really, there isn´t much in Santa Cruz except the local village and the hotels. This little cantina was a surprise. Santa Cruz is not a bustling town - but rather an outdoors kind of place for tourists. There are beautiful hikes to be taken in any direction . . . to other villages, to a waterfall, through the forest . . . but no stores or restaurants really.

I was there for Christmas eve, and after a not-so-traditional dinner of tacos, we had another lovely evening by the fire pit. This time a few local kids were there and they got playing with my hoops. It was a riot. They had a blast. I finally toddered off to bed around 11:30, which turned out to be a bit of a strategic error, as the fireworks around the lake started at midnight. They were spectacular. I hopped back out of bed to catch the tail end of them.

The next morning, Rita convinced me to do the hike uphill a second time. She desperately wanted to try that little cantina for authentic guatemalan food. The Iguana has pretty good food, made by local chicas, but it´s really more gringo food. The guests tend to be back-packers who are tired of local food and want a taste of home . . . at least that was the explanation. So up the hill we went. We weren´t terribly optimistic, however, as it was Christmas morning. And not surprisingly, there were no menu signs on the gate - no authentic food for us. Mind you, the walk up and back made us pretty grateful for the food we did eat back at the Iguana.

Shortly after brunch, I packed myself up and headed for the launcha to San Pedro . . .


*Special Note: For the record, Guatemalans LOVE their fireworks . . . and firecracker things . . . black caps . . . whatever they´re called. Whatever they are, they make a lot of noise. The the kids throw them at the pavement and they sound like a gunshot. They go off here all the time. Feliz Navidad!!!