Last night I kept waking up to the howls of dog-packs. This morning there was a shower-water deficit so I had to go talk to Cristobal [how do you make accents over “o’s”?], the hotel guy. I wasn’t sufficiently awake: “I give water cold, but coffee? Boat change time?”
At the hotel restaurant I ordered the breakfast Maria had told me about: blue corn pancakes with macadamia syrup. A cigarette-smoking, flat-butted, grey-ponytailed Santa passed by, nodding a subdued greeting (it warn’t no ho ho ho) and stepped into the proprietor’s office a few feet away. Behind the closed door I heard their two voices in conversation and then a loud crack — unmistakably a gun — followed by an “oh shit” … and then silence.
Out stepped Santa followed by the proprietor, both wide-eyed and shaking. Apparently a firearms demonstration had gone awry. I saw where the bullet had lodged in the stone wall. The owner and I agreed it was fortunate that Santa hadn’t been facing 90 degrees to the left, lodging the bullet in me instead.
Guillermo (the captain of our lancha, an open 8-seat motorboat with a thin plastic roof and no life preservers) met us at the hotel and we took off across the lake at high speed. M commented that the ride rivaled one of my father’s outback Jeep adventures in West Virginia. The only thing that would make the experience more thrilling, she said, was if Boop himself were at the helm.
The waves felt like concrete blocks as they smacked into the elevated bow where Guillermo’s son rode shotgun. At first I thought the reason for his rapt attention was his love of the water, but later realized he was probably making sure we didn’t run over a fishing boat. [Photo by M]
We passed several lakeside villages and, from the surrounding ridges down to the shore, more evidence of mudslides. Up the steep slopes to the very top, wherever there was a blank spot between rocks and trees, were patches of crops.
We reached La Casa del Mundo. It’s perched on a rocky outcropping jutting into the lake, and is accessed only by boat and then a million treacherous stone steps. I was glad we had only small backbacks stuffed with our three days’ worth of junk rather than suitcases; even then I was gasping for breath halfway up the slope.
This hotel is spectacular, with its 270-degree view (that’s three times 90, EP) of lake and craters and sky: the most beautiful place I’ve ever stayed, and also homey and simple. Our airy room seems to levitate above the lake 100 feet below, which is amazing if a little unnerving.
Once we got settled we took a little hike along a steep trail further up the mountain to the aldea of Jaibalito just a few hundred meters away. The trail dropped us into a narrow dirt road at the back of the town. One little boy was curled up in a ball, head against the stucco of his house, sobbing, but stopped abruptly at the sight of us strangers. We passed a small cluster of women and children and bright huipiles and cortes drying on a clothesline between the small houses, and then the trail headed back up the hill. When it got too steep we veered down a wash toward the lake and came upon yet more of Hurricane Stan’s havoc. [Photo by M]
After an outstanding family-style dinner with about twenty people from North America and Europe, we watched a lightning storm and, back in our room, found another araí±a. It was having its dinner above M’s bed. [Photos by M]
