Lago de Atitlan, Guatemala: Volcanoes Part II

Lago de Atitlan is a huge lake about 2 hours from Antigua, unless you choose to arrive by chicken bus (see earlier post). The best thing about this lake is that it is positively surrounded by volcanoes. There are several little villages around the lake, all are accessible by bus and by boat. After arriving in Panajachel, the most touristy of all the villages, I got a private room (woo!) with a full sized bed (woo!), took a hot shower (woo!), and took stock of my surroundings. There are a lot of handicrap stalls here. A lot. There are also a lot of travel agencies. A lot. Anyway, I took this time to plan out the rest of my trip and to buy appropriate bus tickets and such. Then I did a lot of nothing, and it was nice.

I headed over to another one of the villages, San Pedro la Laguna, the next day. While wandering around looking for some kind of lodging, I ran into Lola and James, the Aussie/Argentinian couple living in London that I went to Chichen Itza with. Weird! Went and met up with them for lunch, then booked a trip for the next morning to climb la Nariz del Indio (Indian Nose). In the picture below, the Indian's face is looking up, eyebrow is on the left hand side. See it? Maybe? Anyway, on top of his "nose" is a great place to watch the sunrise.

Unfortunately, watching a sunrise from a vista means you have to hike up while it's still dark. I hate hiking in the dark. My night balance is awful. I spend the whole time stumbling around, in a cold sweat, in near anxiety attack mode, trying to not fall off the mountain. Every time. Why did I do this again, I asked myself... And then we got to the top and I remembered:



Funny thing, about my tour. They never picked me up. I made a reservation the previous day with an agency in town to do the hike the next morning (330 am), transportation by chicken bus, since I was alone and this was the cheapest method. So I head down to the agency at 320, early, and dutifully packed like the boyscout I never was, and I waited. And I waited. And everything was quiet. Except for the stumbling drunk wandering the streets at 345 in the morning who decided I wanted to be his friend. As he stumbles past the curb I'm sitting on, he stops, and we have the following conversation in slurred, raspy spanish:

"Are you Italian?" ...Silence
"Why are you Italian?" ...Silence
"Why are you alone?" ...Silence, he comes and sits next to me, to which I reply "Don't touch me, I don't want to talk to you."
"Of course I wouldn't touch you, of course, are you Italian? I have a sore throat. Why don't you talk to me? Am I 'creepy'"?
At which point I got up and started pounding on the tour agency's door. No answer. I didn't feel threatened, he was already nearly incapacitated, I could have easily put him down. Luckily, a shuttle for the same tour from another company drove by and I hopped a ride with them. Disaster averted. I even got my money back from the delinquent agency. Somewhat annoying, but c'est la vie.