Sitting still is not my strong suit. So my first day in San Marcos la Laguna was challenging. It´s one of the string-of-pearl towns situated around Lago de Atitlan, and is decidely the most chill. Day two I started to get the hang of it and day three (today) I´d say I´ve got it down as well as I ever will. Today: woke up at 6, went for a quick run and then attended yoga at the local meditation center, met some cool hippies (said lovingly) who are participating in the month-long meditation course offered there. Puts my three days of stillness to shame... Then had delicious breakfast at the place where I´m staying: http://www.aaculaax.com/ which is a total steal (I´m paying $12 per night for my own room - everything is handcrafted and mostly recycled - windows made of bits of multicolored bottles, etc). This afternoon I think I´ll get an Indian head massage.
Travelling by yourself puts you in observation mode. Some things I´ve noticed in the past couple of days:
- Beautiful birds. I am basically at the edge of the jungle. I keep trying to take photos of them, but the little buggers don´t stay put long. One type I´ve seen around has a highlighter yellow (of the two highlighter yellows, I mean the old-school version) body and a black top and head. Right by my room is a plant whose flowers must be very sweet as there is a gang of hummingbirds that frequent. One came within about a foot of me.
- An awesome quote. See photo excerpt below from book I´m reading(Bluebeard, Kurt Vonnegut - nice call Juli and Conor). So true, I laughed out loud.
- Stuff is heavy. I was able to offload some things I wasn´t using to a man selling blankets. And a white t-shirt to one of my yoga friends who needed it.
- This is the first time in a long time that I´ve really had time... How long a day feels when you don´t have to do anything. How hard it is to stay up until 10 when it gets dark at 7. Yesterday I had two conversations about the Mayan calendar. The first guy who mentioned it, Juan is an expert in Mayan culture and history and he described it this way: "The calendar we use now is all about 'there is never enough time', in the mayan calendar time is time but time is not time" wha?...I´m excited to learn more about mayan culture when I visit some ruins.
- In the absense of friends, interactions with strangers become really important. I´ve met such nice people.
For anyone who might be interested in a Central American rendevouz, here´s my intended itinerary:
Sunday June 21 - head to Quetzaltenango (aka Xela) for a week of Spanish School
Sunday June 28 - head to Antigua. I plan to take in a lot of the surrounding sites based there. Sometime during that week I plan to head to Copan (ruins actually in Honduras).
Sunday July 5 - head to El Salvador to learn to surf!!! http://www.surfeldorado.com/
that´s about all I got planned for now.
Date not set - head to Nicaragua
Date not set - head to Costa RicaAugust 4 - Meet Nic in Costa Rica
Augus 14 - end of trip, fly out of San Jose.
ciao!
-fi
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