Out & about

Renee and Cyp

Last week we played host (as best we could) to Renee and Cyprien, our longtime friends from Vancouver who came down for a week-long visit. Given the timeframe, we hit the tried-and-true tourist trail of Antigua (which you may recall from a previous post) and Panajachel on lake Atitlán.

I realized once they arrived how much I'd missed social interaction in English these last two and a half months. I can stumble by in Spanish, but there is always an underlying stress in conversations where you feel like you're hanging on by your fingernails. Plus, the scope of conversation is somewhat limited. So the company was very welcome.

Antigua was lovely as usual, although unusually hot. Cyp and Renee went off to view a local volcano (you can read Renee's blog entry all about it), while I enjoyed a minor eruption of my own in Antigua after eating a beef tostada. If you get a chance, do check out their photos of the volcano: it's quite impressive how close to the red splurting hole they got.

Panajachel is an old tourist town located on the edge of lake Atitlán. It was a big hippie hangout in the 60s and 70s until some nasty civil war incidents suggested that it wasn't just Haight & Ashbury with palm trees. Tourism dropped off for a while until the civil war ended in the 90s. Now it has a touristy seaside resort feel to it, and people constantly approach you selling you things in the street. There is a hint of desperation in Atitlán tourism that is not there in posh Antigua.

I've posted the shots I took during the week (try the funky slideshow!), as has Cyp. I've included some below as a sample.