Installment #4

A warm welcome from Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala. The sun was rising as we watched the captain navigate the ship into port. We didn’t dock at a resort or marina but in a commercial area. Of course, the Guatemalan government set up a nice tourist shopping area where we docked, but most people headed out on tours for the day. We headed to Lake Atitlan, a two and a half hour drive through the countryside. What an interesting drive—We drove through such diverse terrain: mountains, pineapple fields, sugar cane fields, rubber trees, and volcanoes. The drive was surprising—the roads were great! Guatemala is proud of their main roads: smooth, new and large. The rest of the drive was an expected sight with tin and wooden shacks (houses) lining the roads, small towns with fruit stalls lining the streets, and minivans with passengers hanging out the sides driving down the roads. We stopped in one town to walk by the fruit stands. One poor guy got lost (we still don’t know how) and we waited a while for the guide to find him. When he walked on using his cane and moving slow, not a word was spoken. I guess the rest of us had to struggle with our own sense of our inevitable aging.

Once we arrived at Lake Atitlan, we pushed our way through the hoards of vendors, young and old, begging for us to buy their goods. We climbed onto a rickety tourist boat and headed an hour across the lake to a resort. We had a great lunch, listening to music, watching the lake and being amused by another set of vendors hanging at the gates begging people to buy! We were a bit disappointed—we were supposed to spend time in the village but didn’t have time and the vendors were so aggressive it would have been scary to go too far. We made the three and a half hour trip back to the port and warily climbed aboard the cruise ship!

Sir and I are off to dinner tonight. Daughter 1 and Daughter 2 are making their way around the boat. We will meet up to go to bed and get up on the morning to head to Nicaragua!