San Marcos

I have to catch up on yesterday and today in this blog. 

Yesterday, Liz and I went to Ixchimbe ruins, which is near this town called Tecpan.  A lot of the day was spent driving there, but the ruins were pretty extensive.  They had been excavated so that we could see the outline of the entire city.  The main buildings weren't as high as Zaculue but the grounds were larger.  It was a really nice day for the trip and our driver was super nice.  We had lunch at a nice restaurant near the highway, and headed back to Panajachel where we stopped at Liz's new favorite restaurant in town, which serves the vegetarian cuisine that she craves. 

Today, we got up early so that we could fit in a couple of activities before Liz leaves for home.  We ended up starting a bit late though because we ran out of cash and it's rather hard to find a working ATM.  We are afraid to use the ones open all night long because there is a lot of card number theft here and they looked somewhat compromised in the way they were beeping all the time.   After we got the cash situation settled, we hit the Nature Preserve, which was very awesome.  There were some nice hikes to take to a waterfall with some cool suspension bridges.  Also, there was an enclosure with monkeys and coatis.  The family of coatis were in a caged area, but we were surprised to see the baby coatis could fit right through the fence and came right up to see us. 

In the afternoon, we hit the public ferries for a ride to San Marcos, which is a tiny hippie village on the side of Lake Atitlan.  We didn't have more than an hour to spend there, but it's super small so 15 minutes is enough to walk the whole town.  We stopped at a little restaurant called Valerie's, where we met the owner, heard her story, and enjoyed veggie meatball subs.  It was a good place to stop but a complete hole in the wall restaurant, since she just got started with it a month ago. 

Tonight, I said goodbye to Liz as she heads home and I finish off my Guatemala adventure.  Tomorrow, I plan to hit some of the other pueblos on the side of the Lake before going to Guatemala City, and then taking an overnight bus to Flores so I can see Tikal on Thursday and Friday.