Whats in San Pedro?

Well, truth be told....not a lot.

Its a sleepy little village on the shores of Lake Atitlan in Guatemala.
In the big picture, Guatemala is the country just south of Mexico. It is a small, very mountainous, tropical area with a large population of indigenouse peoples (Mayan).

Lake Atitlan is a large aincient volcano caldera that has filled with water. It is located roughly in the center of the south west quadrant of the country. Which is in the middle of the mountan chain that runst through the country (The same one that starts as the Rockies in Canada and runs all the way down through North central and south america to end at Tierra Del Fuego).
Since the lake is up in the mountains, it means that the climate here is a very mild version of tropical, so it really doesnt get that uncomfortably hot. Its also protected and lower than the mountain plateaus so it doesnt get uncomfortably cold either (They too had snow here this week up on the plateau!).

The lake its self is about 8km x 15km in size, and there are about a dozen or more villages on its shores. The largest town (Panahachel) is quit touristy and is the best connected to the countries highway system. Santiago is the next largest town and is not very touristy (though it is legendary for its Easter celebrations). Then San Pedro is probably the next largest and has a significant tourist presence, but its a very "laid back" sort of a place and thats why Im here. The other villages around the lake are much smaller and most transport between the smaller villages is by launch on the lake.

Thats the basics of where I am. Ill do another post on the township soon but here are some pictures in the mean time :)

Now back to thinking about what Im going to do here to try to cover my costs....

And Here I Am!

I am now successfully at my destination in Guatemala.

The journey south was not too bad. In fact the drive down from Vancouver to Setac airport was probably the worst bit... The fog was insanely thick! Its been an interesting winter in Vancouver, with record snow falls (and duration of snow on the ground), followed by more than a week of dense ground fog... but thats all behind me now.

The flight from Setac was at 6am and dropped me in Huston around mid day after a lovely flight past the local volcanoes and over the snow covered Sierras etc.
Then there was a six hour stopover in the airport in Texas while I waited for a connecting flight - not fun, but not a problem.
Then the flight to Guatemala city took another few hours and I arrived there at 11pm or so.
At this point I had to break out the rusty Spanish again and try to figure out how to get to Lake Attitlan... I got a cheap (but not too cheap) hotel for the night and a taxi to the bus in the morning.
Then it was about a four hour ride on the local "chicken bus" through the city and then the mountains of the countryside to get to Panahachel which is a big touristy town on the lake.
Then it was a twenty minute boat ride across the lake to San Pedro... my destination for the present.

After that, I set about finding a couple of friends that I know here and after a couple of hours of chats etc., it was time for me to get some sleep - Id actually been awake for more or less two days straight when I got into Guatemala and I still needed to catch up on sleep.

Now to figure out what the heck Im going to do with myself down here...
Hmmm Traditionally, this is a difficult thing for me to solve!


I´ll get right on it!

All Aboard!

So, the time has come!
The house has been emptied, the carpets have been cleaned, and the storage container has been filled and bolted closed.
Travel health insurance has been purchased and the credit card company has been informed that future transactions will be from Guatemala.

It will take me about a day to travel down to Guatemala (long stop-over in Huston) and then a few days to settle into San Pedro before I start posting from my new home. But Im actually guessing that my posts will become quite boring quite quickly since its not a very exciting location and Im not planning to be doing a lot... I guess we will wait and see on that one though.

Thus far, the Gods seem to be smiling its true...
Whats not clear is if they are smiling because Im making good choices,
OR, They are smiling because I am just about to make a huge mistake and fall flat on my face ... Then the Gods smiles will give way to howls of laughter... Guess we will wait and see on that one too! :))))

Is this train bound for glory? or is this train bound for a train wreck!... who knows? but lets go find out :)

The Last Days of Chez Moi!

Well, I managed to finally sell my marine aquarium.
It was a big job to get it out of here and it took me three hours to shovel the snow off my front stairs and another two hours to break the system down and put all the fish and coral and rock into buckets etc.
But its done and gone now...

And with it has gone the last big obstacle keeping me here!
So, I have now officially booked a ticket to fly to Guatemala on 21st Jan!

That leaves me with just two weeks to get my stuff all packed up and out of my house. This should be plenty, but its a bit harder for me since I dont have a car to move stuff, and there is still so much snow on the streets that even if I did have a car it would be useless... Im going to have to trust the weather to bring more rain and less snow over the next week or so ... Then I can move the furniture items that I need to just before I leave.
I have found homes for my bed, couch, and lounge chair with friends, so there is now room in my storage container for the rest of the stuff that I still have...
Honestly, I just got tired of advertising and selling all my accumulated crap... but I find I cant just throw it out either - Its not junk, it just needs to find a home... oh well, Im done with that now :)))

The snow has also stopped me moving packed boxes into the storage container that I built in my back yard... So for the present, packed boxes are just piling up in my basement suite... waiting for that rain to clear the way - I'll shovel it if I have to, but hopefully the weather will do it for me.


But the clock is now ticking!
There is a definite "End date" to my time here in Vancouver before I "start anew" in Guatemala...


- Sunshine, mangoes and avocados.... Mmmmm

Record Snows

Ive been more or less stuck at home for the last three weeks!
There has been heavy snow either falling from the sky or completely covering the streets for more than three weeks straight. Vancouver has not had this much snow in over fifty years according to the records.
This of course has meant that riding my motorbike has not been possible, and I dont have any other vehicle, so Ive been having to make do with public transport and walking - Walking works for basic food supplies but visiting friends and getting other stuff done has been very trying.

There has been so much snow that people have just given up shoveling their side walks so the snow has just built up and walking the 2km to the local shopping centre is a real workout on the slippery/uneven/knee-deep/wet ground.
On my walks, I constantly stop to lend a hand in getting someone or others car un-bogged, and there is the constant sound of people shoveling their front paths and driveways. Two days ago I had people coming around to buy my aquarium and I had to shovel my front steps so they could get in and out. It took me three hours to do just the steps. And I was using a regular shovel too (not a big snow shovel) because the snow is so wet and heavy. I havent had blisters on my hands from shoveling for years :))

On the couple of occasions when I have taken public transport into town, I have had to walk several Km more than expected because the buses keep getting stuck (wheels just spin) on hilly sections of streets. And while walking around among other shoppers in town (while trying to stay upright on the slippery pavement or cross the streets through the snow banks, or jumping over massive slurry puddles), the background conversation of people was always about the snow, and easily the most common word I heard was "Ridiculous!"... Its all been quite stressful for the poor little denizens of Vancouver :)))

But help has arrived... In the form of rain!
Yes, I dont think people here in Vancouver have ever felt so happy to see it raining as over the last few days. Normally there is far too much rain and grey skies for peoples liking here, but just now it is very welcome indeed. Over the past couple of days we have had over a 100mm of rain and it has so far got rid of about half the accumulated snow...
that still leaves about half a metre of it at my place, but at least it is reducing, not increasing...

But I think it will get colder again in a day or so Oh well :))