San Lucas to Antigua

San Lucas is a dusty, sleepy town but would be a marvel in itself if not overshadowed by San Pedro, Santiago, and the other Lake side communities. It has bustling street markets, VERY cheap hotels (we stayed for 30 quezales) and an incredible horizon. We stayed only one night, cooking in our hotel room. The hotel turned off the power at around 9, so we missed out on a warm shower and internet.

Rigel exploring unmarked roadside caves

The climb out of Lago de Atitlan is no laughing matter.  To go inland is to climb almost a km at grades ranging from 6 to 15%.  The grade chart comparing the climb up to the lake with the climb inland makes a sick joke of the ride we hitch hiked to avoid. We started out lazily at 10, and spent 4 hours climbing 15km with as much time spent breaking between efforts and cranking the pedal to carry us up hill. It wasn't all bad though as the views along the climb were breathtakingly magical. Also, near the bottom of the climb, we explored a shallow, carved cave house unmarked and guarded with barb wire.  The caves were likely recently made by road crews - but who knows.

View from Agua Escondido

At the top of the climb we celebrated with some food and then began a steep 11% grade descent.  Erin's brakes were still in questionable shape so the ride was stressful as well as painful on hands tightly gripping brake leavers. At the bottom we faced the other side of a valley side and quailed. Just then, a kind fellow with a large truck offered us a ride and scooted us up the hill in short order.  Along the road, we passed a washed out bridge that required the truck to ford the water. Later we spoke with someone that said cycling that section of road required unloading their bikes and carrying the bags and bikes across the water separately due to the depth of it.

Fording a river in our hitched ride

For a lot of the truck ride we didn't really know where we were or when we'd be dropped off.  Eventually we were dropped off at the top of the eastern descent into Antigua.  The descent was perilous in the extreme with numerous emergency escape lanes carved off the side of it. Erin's brakes cut out again and she struggled to come to a stop.  Rigel performed a strange feat of repair given the strangeness of the problem, this time in the dark.  The brakes now had real stopping power, but the range of motion required on the brake leavers was obviously much to long.

Arriving at night to the cobblestone streets of Antigua

Antigua is a tourist trap.  The whole town aims to create a rural impression while providing all the north american urban necessities like staples and sushi that you would never find elsewhere along the coast.  The streets are left cobble in a mockery of latin america - and as a tortuous test for any cyclist attempting transport in the tourist clogged streets.  There are at least a dozen hostels, all charging 80 - 140 quezales or more for a double room.  We won't talk about what the hotels can charge.

Erin picking her way across the incredibly jagged week old earth on Pacaya's lava field

 We planned another volcano hike as Rigel had been hoping for a while to recreate and refine previous success at Vulcan Pacaya be not only dipping a stick into molten, flowing lava, this time with the stick wet and able to withstand the heat without burning through and while pressing rocks picked up along our journey into the molten rock. Unfortunately, though the volcano erupted only a short week ago, the only surfaces to see were more like the inside of a furnace in the quickly cooling crust rather than an active lava tube. Testing these cracks, the rock was certainly hot, but not liquid.  The hike wasn't long at about an hour and a far cry from the grueling San Pedro hike.  It cost a modest 110 quezales each which isn't bad considering the transportation to the site and, again, including a guide. The smoking ruin that was the lava field and volcanic crater is certainly an incredible thing to witness.

The smoking lava field and crater of Vulcan Pacaya