Out of the darkness and into the light...

The last 24 hours have been the darkest, most terrifying, and most unexplainable hours of my life. It is the closest thing to hell I can imagine, but before you freak out and jump on plane and come take me home, let me show you my view right now:

So yeah. Hell has passed and I'm in some sort of paradise. I'm not sure how such contrast can exist just a short distance from each other. Let me explain...

Yesterday we said goodbye to our Antigua friends and hopped on a bus to a three hour ride to Panajachel on Lake Atitlan. While driving, Beth and I studied Spanish and practiced words and tried not to pass out and die from car sickness on the curvy, mountanious roads. 

Once in Panajachel, we were dropped off on a boat dock to catch a boat to San Pedro after recommendations from a friend. Our shuttle driver gave us his card and insists that we call him if we had any problems at all. Then, some nice folks helped load my beastly backpack into the boat. We climbed in next to several natives and one little dog and set off for our ten mile trip to San Pedro.

As we sped across the water, I was absolutely in awe of the view. The water was perfect blue green. And in the distance huge volcanos rose into the clouds. The sun occasionally peaked through clouds making it a pretty breathtaking view.

When we arrived at San Pedro the others again helped to get our bags safetly to shore. We had the name of a hostel and mentioned it to a guy who led us there. Right away, Beth and I had bad feelings about the place, but after looking at thousands of reviews and seeing that it was 4.5/5 stars, we figured it was fine.

We were kind of wrong. We dropped off our things and were immediately irked by the names above each room and how tiny and rundown the rooms were. We happened to get the last room for $4. It was called the brothel. Why did we not leave then and find another place? Good question. We pushed our worries from our mind and headed out to the town. 

 

San Pedro has such sweet, friendly, caring people. The women are absolutely beautiful and wear very traditional dress and are often carrying large baskets of goods on their heads. Vendors line the streets selling everything from fruit and bread to clothes and jewelry. On sweet older lady named Catalina was selling bread outside of our hostel and we talked to her quite a bit and bought a delicious cinnimon roll. She tried to get us to buy more but we said maybe later. 

After buying a cinnimon roll we headed to a cute little coffee shop where our friend Juan was working. Juan is pretty great. Awesome sense of humor and face expressions and was willing to sit and talk to us for two hours while we learned all about our lives-- in Spanish and English, but mostly by using google translate. Juan made beautiful hearts in our coffee and laughed and joked with us like we were old friends. Funny how even though we speak different languages we can still connect as friends. 

Outside, little tuk-tuks with teenage guy drivers sat there watching us. We mentioned to Juan how guys there are so much more obvious about liking girls or thinking they're attractive and he laughed and made a face mocking them. Such a fellow. 

(Note, the following is missing probably 90% of details. If you want to know, feel free to ask. Moral of the story, listen to those bad vibes you get from people or places. We were totally fine in the end and it may just have been a sick mind game, but it was too real to us nonetheless.)

We stayed with Juan until we were so tired we could hardly think, just because we were not looking forward to going back to the hostel. We got back and the dark hallway lined with tiny rooms with sick names was silent. We got ready for bed and went on Facebook, blogging and talking to friends, not really looking forward to sleeping because we didn't feel like it was the safest place. Finally though, tiredness got the best of us and we laid our blankets and sarongs on the bed...but we couldn't sleep. Darkness weighed on us so deep, and fear like nothing I've ever felt in my life. We'd start to fall asleep and moments later be woken by nightmares. We finally resolved to stay up all night...We packed our bags against the door and sat up, doing anything to try to stay awake and distract ourselves from the mind game and taunting look of the prostitute painted on the wall. We couldn't understand why we felt that way, and then the thought came up that..maybe this sick, dark place with tiny rooms actually was a brothel in the past. We spent the next several hours researching its history, not surprised to learn it was new a year ago and "hasn't been used for seven years." Of course, we don't know. We'll never know, but somehow, the darkness we felt was too real.

We finally fell asleep around 6, and were up at seven. We packed everything and went hostel searching. At a stop for a delicious 12q fruit smoothie we asked the sweet lady if she owned a hotel. It just so happened that there was an amazing $6 a night hostel right next door. We asked to see the rooms, and after being led up and down stairs out in the open, right on the lake shore, basically on the roof, we immediately said yes. Best decision ever.

I think I died and went to heaven...especially after last night.

The rest of the day was wonderful. People beyond amazing, met new friends, explored the beautiful city, are traditional Guatemalan breakfast (I was overly excited to get cheese.)

 drank homemade fruit smoothies, and bought way too much 10q baked goods from the precious ladies on the steet. :)

Tomorrow we have a horse tour of the mountains at 10, plans to swim in the beautiful lake after that, and move to our next destination Thursday morning. Such an adventure. :))