Two days ago my rear brake started to give me some trouble, wasn't anything new but it decides to just stop working every now and then. So we gave it a cleaning and got it working again, but today it failed me again, and this time I was cruising down a hill. Luckily my front brake still works. So we had to stop and give it some attention which ate up some time.
Finally we made the turn onto the road towards Lake Atitlan but not until we stopped for a couple coco frios aka cold coconuts. There were stands set up all along the road selling them. They use a machete to make a hole big enough for a straw then once you are done the water, which doesn't take long because its so tasty, they cut the coconut open and scrape out the meat and serve it to you in a baggie. Delicious!
Then we started the climb up to the lake. It was a big climb we had ahead of us and we were not all that thrilled about it. We arrived in Patulul not long after switching highways and decided that maybe we could try out getting a free ride up the hill on the back of someones truck, so we went to the edge of town, made a sign and about an hour later after many failed attempts, a guy in a truck pulled over. The gas station attendant nearby came over and helped us unload the bikes and load them in the back of the truck. Then we jumped in. It was a short bed so it was a little tight with us, the 10 bags and two bikes but we made it work.
 |
| Back of the truck |
The views were absolutely spectacular going up into the mountains!
 |
| One of the many views |
And I was able to take many photos as I could keep my camera in hand. We passed through many small villages until we arrived in San Lucas, the first of many small cities around the lake. We thought the driver would drop us off there but turned out there were no ferries that left from that dock and he just carried on around more volcanoes, which was very steep in sections until we reached Santiago.
From there we quickly unloaded and made our way down to the docks to catch the last ferry to San Pedro. The docks were super rickety and narrow but they seemed to do the job, sort of. We piled into the boat with the help of Kai, a traveller from Germany who is a language major.
 |
| Front of the ferry aka small boat |
Landing in San Pedro about a half hour later we unloaded onto yet another super rickety dock. From there we rode up the super steep hill to check out some accommodations Kai read about. We ended up staying at Las Joyas del Sol on the top floor with a fantastic view of the lake.
We fell asleep rather quickly as we had one action packed awesome day!
 |
| San Pedro Volcano |
 |
| One of the over-filled truck taxis that makes riding a bike seem much more comfortable. How many people do you think are in there? And some people selling coffee on the side of the road |
No comments:
Post a Comment