So long, San Marcos

Okay, not quite yet, but soon. This is the kind of place one needs to mentally and emotionally prepare oneself to depart... (this is me trying to do exactly that).

I am two days shy of having spent exactly three weeks here in San Marcos. I could begin to say just how much I haven´t done while I have been here, but in fact, that´s been the best part. I am so used to always having something I must do--tomorrow, tonight, right now--that not doing anything feels strange and almost makes me feel guilty... Buuuuut, not really :)

I moved out of the pyramids Saturday, four days ago. Although I was thoroughly enjoying myself there, I decided it was time for a change. I am happy with that decision, as my days have been freed up and I have had the opportunity to spend some quality time with many different people who have been passing through. It all started Saturday night at the one bar in town referred to as Rick´s. Rick, the owner and a former Indiana resident, has great plans for this place in the coming future. It has only been open for a few months, and it shows (music comes straight from a laptop computer, the outer edges of this place look like a construction zone, and since it´s rainy season the rooftop is a massive blue tarp held up by bamboo), but that certainly doesn´t interfere with the experience. The best part? This man makes wicked pies. We´re talking pies the size of a large pizza with a shortbread-like crust, an amazingly rich layer of real melted chocolate, and then anything from a layer of peanut butter goodness or strawberries and cream (made with Bicardi coconut rum, of course). Anyways, Saturday night I hung out at Rick´s with three extremely nice Brits, a friendly German guy Thomas, a recently married couple from Portland (who graduated from OSU a year before me) and two other gals (one Aussie, Nikki, and one Irish, Lorna) who had arrived in San Marcos about the same time as myself. We had ourselves a great time and when we got back to our hotel around 2am, we made a great plan to get up for the sunrise at 5:30am. Want to guess what happened with that?

Sunday the Portland couple left early, and I enjoyed a nice breakfast with the three Brits, Thomas, Nikki and Lorna before heading off to Panajachel. Pana is a larger lake town that´s center is lined with shops full of beautiful everything-Guatemalan-you-can-imagine. I needed to get out of San Marcos for a bit as well as do some shopping. I ran into my British friends a few times while there because they were heading off to another part of the country. It´s amazing how often you see the same people all over, no matter where you are. It´s a small world, but have come to the conclusion that it´s an even smaller traveling world. A woman here recently ran into a guy in San Marcos one night whom she had met and traveled with five years ago in Borneo, but only after having met him several months prior to that in an entirely different part of Asia.

Although my days have been somewhat repetitive and quite uneventful, everyday is so different because everyday new people walk right into your life. The moment your friends of 36 hours leave, more friends come right in. As I have said before, while traveling alone, you are never really alone. And truthfully, part of the reason I haven´t been up to much of anything outside of San Marcos is because I just enjoy hanging out with all of these incredible people all of the time!

However, to give myself a little credit, this week is ¨busy¨week for me. Monday I gave acupuncture a go. There are three Americans here who are running a clinic on Mondays and Fridays for travelers and locals alike, charging Q25 for the travelers and Q5 for the locals (mind you, $1 is Q7.3, so we´re talking about $3 for a 20 minute acupuncture treatment!). I went just for the hell of it, just for the experience, and it was so fascinating. I am not sure that my body feels any different because I didn´t go for any one specific issue, but I would definitely give it a go again! Now, obviously we missed the sunrise on Sunday morning, but a whole new group of five made up for that today bright and early, and it was well worth it. Then, the rest of the day was for relaxation, welcoming some new folks (a mother/daughter duo from Alabama/Toronto, and a guy from Colorado) and saying goodbye to Thomas, the German :( Tonight is live blues music at a local restaurant. Tomorrow Nikki and I are heading toward the lake town of Santiago, where I am on a mission to find some place where old people congregate on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. And yes, that´s all I know about this place that I am in search of in Santiago. Whatever it is, I can´t wait! Thursday is designated to the famous market in Chichicastenango (Chichi), which is the largest market in Guatemala and a definite tourist attraction for that reason. I seriously need to get my shopping face on, as I have purchased next to nothing so far. Thursday night is a theme party at Rick´s, and apparently one of ¨party dresses and heels¨ or something of the like. Who really knows... you never know what you´re going to find here. I am just hoping for more pie. Friday is my last full day in San Marcos (tear), and the plan is to make an early morning kayaking trip with Nikki and Rebecca (my other Aussie friend who arrived on Sunday), then for a hike to a neighboring village. No worries, this is safe in a group so long as you don´t carry anything on you. Saturday I plan to move on to Santa Cruz, still on the lake, for a barbecue and cross-dressing party that occur at a hostel called La Iguana de Perdida; supposedly this is a good time and Santa Cruz is supposed to be a nice place, so why not?

Next, the plan is to head back toward Xela early Sunday morning just in time for the Independence Day celebrations (Independence Day is September 15th), or toward Antigua where I have not yet visited. This all depends on whether I can change my flight from October 10th to a later date; this entire experience is all too wonderful for me to want to give up just yet. If I don´t change my flight, I will likely have just enough time to do the minimum of what I´d still really like to do. But, there´s so much to see and I really, truly enjoy taking it nice and slow and easy.

Sorry about putting you through reading one massive paragraph detailing my plans for the next week. But I guess if I am not writing what I have been doing, I may as well write what I (think) I will be doing. Writing as infrequently as I do really makes these entries lack substance, so maybe one of these days I´ll get my act together... riiiiight. But seriously, this place, San Marcos, if amazing. I have met so many people who came here with the intention of staying a few days, or a week, and now years later are still here and don´t plan to leave anytime soon. It´s something that I can´t really explain, but somewhere that I will always remember in my heart.

Until later, ciao!