San Marco´s

On the 5th of Feb we left Panajachel by launcher boat across the lake to a small village San Marco´s. It is absolutely beautiful here and very peaceful. The main purpose of this town is yoga, spanish classes, meditation and such. It´s a very laid back area with a lot of hippies who have left their homes, learned spanish and moved here. There are a lot of locals of course too and a ton of kids. There are dirt and cobblestone paths around town bordered by bamboo and barbed wire fencing. We share the paths with many stray dogs, kids, and chickens. It amazes me that the dogs don´t chase the chickens but they don´t appear too. They have a small playground where the kids have played with many of the local children. Nojah was a little overwhelmed when he had 12 little boys join him for a game of hacky sack but he played well. Alexyss has no fear and often disappears quickly to play with other kids. What an independent little bug. She can do everything herself, just ask her.

Anyway, it started out very windy and cold the first few days and has warmed up tremendously. We took a 10 minute launcher ride over to San Pedro yesterday and rode horses along the base of San Pedro volcano. Our guide Francisco and his father Moses were Mayan. Lucky for us Francisco spoke excellent english and was able to explain things along the way. The mayan people farm coffee most of the way up the very steep volcanoes, pick the beans by hand and carry them in big gunney sacs back to town daily to sell. It then takes them a week to dry the beans after they have been boiled. Someone has to stay out all day to continue to rake and rotate them. I truly appreciate my job. The kids had a blast on their horses. Nojah´s was Ash, Alexyss´s horses name was muchacha and mine Mujaika. I don´t remember the name of Tobs. It was great fun. Alexyss was in heaven continuing to yell giddi-up, giddi-up and Nojah just had loads of belly laughs while Ash trotted down the trail. The horses were very mellow and great for their first real rides. After we headed back and were walking along a trail in San Marco´s we saw 2 little boys who requested our help getting banana´s. Tob tried to climb the tree without much luck. We assisted in pulling the whole tree over and they gave us a banana for our efforts. It was pretty funny. I have some pics I will share later when I have more time. Lex loved the banana. They are much better fresh off the tree.

We were going to go kayaking today however the kayak places had their closed signs up so the kids swam in the lake for almost 3 hours. It´s been very relaxing here but we are leaving tomorrow to start making our way north. We will head back to Pana by boat and then by bus to Antigua or Guatemala City and then maybe a night bus up north. Not sure of the details yet but something will fall into place. We will update again when we get settled in somewhere.