The Fisherman´s Boat
Lake Atitlan
02.08.2006
Lake Atitlan is beautiful, something you just don´t get tired of, but it isn´t always as calm as the postcards advertise. Yesterday, after our visit to Panajachel (the main city directly north of the lake), Atitlan was pretty choppy.
Sarah and I went kayaking for an hour in the lake, and she insisted on jumping out to swim. My concern, of course, was that as soon as she tried to get back in the kayak, she´d tip us (and my camera) over. So I made her swim to the shore, and I paddled to meet her. That was brilliant, especially because the force of the current pushed our kayak out of the water and we struggled for ten or fifteen minutes to get back in. We didn´t have the benefit of a third person to give us a shove.
Sara was psyched to go swimming, but I was quite content in the kayak, thank you. Her swimming was short-lived anyway, since a giant seaweed net freaked her out. I´m more nervous about all the garbage and litter floating in the lake.
Before we returned the kayak, she tried to convince me to row it all the way back to Santiago.
We walked around for an hour more, checked out a bookstore where all of the books were sealed so you couldn´t peruse them. The store sold temporary tattoos, the kind supplied by arts & crafts stores, but these were really cool because they were paintings by Picasso and Diego Rivera.
Afterwards, I mailed out some wet postcards, and we headed back to Santiago. I tried to encourage Sarah to talk to a really cute Guatemalteco, telling her that a boyfriend would be the perfect way to learn Spanish, but she just laughed at me.
The ride back on the boat was pretty rough, since to get back we go against the wind, but I had never felt any of the boats I´d been on before catch that much air. I´m pretty sure Francisco, our pilot had limited visibility, because all of a sudden there was an incredible crunch beneath our boat, and we all turned around to see a man swimming in the lake. His boat was in pieces around him.
I was sure he´d be hurt, but luckily, when we returned, we saw he was safe. Scared as hell, and pissed about his boat (rightfully), but physicall ok. He was out fishing, and his boat was pretty small, but now it had been reduced to a few sticks (that the pilot tried, for some reason, to tie onto the back of our boat. For rescuing).
Sarah and I fished out his hat and were able to return it to him, and he had a couple of other belongings, but there was no repairing the fisherman´s boat.
Then we remarked that it was probably best we hadn´t rowed the kayak all the way back to Santiago.
Posted by aliontas 13:34 Archived in Guatemala Tagged boating
