Barefooted White Men and Tattooed White Women

Friday, April 08, 2011—San Pedro La Laguna

San Pedro is a hippie hangout:

http://www.travbuddy.com/travel-blogs/2177/Wall-to-Wall-Hippies-59

http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/3778e/196fee/

http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/erikandtalor/1/1205358120/tpod.html

http://www.vidasanpedro.blogspot.com/

http://teknomadics.com/2011/03/a-day-in-san-pedro-guatemala/

 I’ve been to a lot of hippie havens, but most of them have been places that had hung onto backpacker tourism after the height of the hippie craze and still had a few hang-on hippies.  And to be honest, San Pedro should probably only be called a backpacker hangout.  But many of those backpackers seem to have settled here and to not be traveling anymore, and they LOOK like hippies.  There are barefoot white men (with pitifully dirty feet) and tattooed white women (with tattoos going down their legs below their skirts, down their arms below their sleeves, and up their necks above their blouses).  There are people so dirty all over with hair thick with dirt that one wonders how long it has been since they bathed.  And the town is full of the typical hippie-type businesses—massage parlours, yoga places, vegetarian restaurants, bakeries, bars, etc. 

If someone had a guaranteed income of maybe $20 per day, it would be easy to stay here.  The weather is great, and the lake is beautiful.  It’s possible to get a dormitory bed for $3-6 per night, and a group of people could probably rent their own apartment for that amount.  Meals can be found for anywhere from $1 to $6.  And drinking is cheap:  a liter bottle of beer costs $3 and a cuba libre costs $1.25.  The Pacific beaches are a short bus trip away for those who want to go surfing occasionally.  Most of the people hanging out here, however, just seem to want to drink and party.

After writing the above, I went to lunch.  I found a nice looking place with a good special offer—garlic chicken with potato salad, marinated vegetables, soup, and tortillas for $2.60.  One other person was there when I arrived.  Within 10 minutes at least 6 older men who were American or Canadian showed up at various times to eat.  All seemed to be men living here. They were talking Guatemalan politics and seemed to be acquaintances. Then afterwards, when I stopped at a juice stand there was a woman from Canada there who is living here.  Apparently, people with limited incomes are doing what I had said could easily be done in the above paragraph.  The woman has rented a house and plans to stay until she is tired of being here.  She said she needs to find a better house before the rainy season, because the one she has will not be warm enough; she has some friends who will share with her.

Visiting here is fine, but I cannot imagine living here full-time—at least not alone.  There is no service like Netflix.  All the networks on TV are in Spanish.  There's no international news channel (except for the Spanish version of CNN).  The village is small enough that it would drive me stir-crazy.  And the village is loud at night with music from bars and restaurants.  What would anyone do with the entire day?  I’ve enjoyed it, but I’ve spent most of this second day inside my room reading.  That would get old in a hurry.

I met a young Swedish couple at lunch.  There were no empty tables, and I was finishing my lunch.  Therefore, I offered them my table.  We visited until their food arrived.  They have been traveling for 6 months in South and Central America.  They have only a short period of time left before they return home.  They told me of their experiences and of their plans to return again to the region—especially South America.  I asked what they were looking forward to eating when they get home, and they said they were keeping a list.  She mentioned chocolate, and he mentioned boiled potatoes.

I moved to another hotel this morning.  I have a great view of the lake and a volcano just across a narrow stretch of the lake.  It has wifi, but the wifi is a bit slow.  Still, I’ve enjoyed the surroundings better.

It has been cloudy most of the day.  And rain arrived briefly around 16:00.  Since tomorrow is a travel day, I am hoping the clouds will have disappeared and that all will be bright and sunny again.

Ate dinner at The Clover, a very nice restaurant I had seen last night.  I wasn’t very hungry, so I ordered broccoli soup.  It was rich and creamy with lots of grated cheese and came with a thick slice of homemade whole wheat bread.  The restaurant was having a special of two cuba libres for 16Q ($1.20), so I ordered two of those as my drink.  They were well made with about 45% of the glass being filled with rum and the rest with Coke and a slice of lime.

One last note about San Pedro.  The local people have been won over by evangelical Christians.  Many buildings in town have painted signs on them saying such things (in Spanish) as:  Jesus is my fortress.  While walking the streets of town at night, there seems to be a competition sometimes between the local people singing religious songs in groups and the bars playing their music.  The local First Baptist Church is the biggest and grandest church in the city.