a window to life

antigua!
after my a little breakfast I took a walk to explore antigua a bit. it was beautiful, I enjoyed it so much. I was walking through the streets smiling and even laughing, my eyes couldn’t get enough of the colors and impressions of this place.

beautiful women in traditional clothing balancing things on their heads, trees full of flowers, rows of tiny colorful houses, old and astoundingly beautiful houses.

yes, I fell in love with this place and the giant mountains surrounding it. bit in my falling in love I already felt how happy I was to leave this place and what a perfect gift it was to me that we missed our bus to atitlan and I now had 4 hours to explore antigua.

I sat on a plaza in the center, all around me was colorful and full of movement and sounds.
a man asked me if I wanted my shoes polished and I said yes. english students with big signs saying „practice english with me please“ and cat emojis came and spoke to me for a little while.
I continued walking, picked up a flower and gifted it to a stranger.

the people in the streets were selling some beautiful handcrafts. I met matteo who was stitching colorful flowers on pillow cases and other fabrics.
he was very happy to talk and explained me about his work; that one flower would take a long time.
now he was finishing one of his pieces.

I sat with him and spoke to him for a while. he works on his pieces for a week or more and sells them for 20-40$.
after talking to him for a while I couldn’t resist to buy some of his art even though there was no space for it in my backpack.
I asked him if he’d also sell his pieces on free online market please and he answered he wouldn’t have a phone.

I saw mayan women carrying their work on their heads, people selling colorful flutes and little drums. someone on the placa was reading from the bible and loudly telling of the apocalypse that is yet to come.
all of that was so different and new and delightful once again.

it was time to take another bus.
the bus was already packed with people who were going to atitlan and I got to sit in the front next to the driver.
we were missing one person and our driver nicolas spent half an hour driving through antigua looking for her. what a service!
after that we started our journey to the lake.

the nature, the mountains and architecture were unlike anything I’ve seen before and I was very excited and in awe.
after a while I was also very tired from the last few sleepless nights and nicolas showed me that I could put my seat into a sleeping position and invited me to rest.

I woke up as we were driving through even higher mountains and I was very excited. nicolas said he would take a longer route to show us a viewpoint over the lake.

after three hours we reached panajachel from where I took a lancha to reach san marcos.
the lake was bigger than in my imagination and the boat ride less calm. after 45 minutes we arrived to san marcos.

entering san marcos was like walking into a dream. a place out of time. people dressed all in white sitting on the floors of beautiful cafés, the smell of incense all around. yoga mats and books and a lot of alternative clothing and organic food stores. I had reached this crazy little place of the world where I’ve been traveling to for the last 4 months.

somehow I found my hostel. there I met zaza. zaza had been here for a week and immediately took me with her to get money and a sim card.

we walked and spoke and I noticed and felt how different this place was from the places I’ve been to recently and especially from flores.

zaza invited me to cook dinner with her and a friend. we cooked rice and fried vegetables and ate with a view of the lake. the nights here are way colder than where I was in peten.

zaza and me went back to the hostel and there I met a bunch of other lovely people. even though we had planned to go out we ended up sitting together for hours, showing each other our art, talking and sharing cacao with some other beautiful women.

then at 9:30 we left together to find some music. and we found it in a place not far from our home. music, bonfire, dancing under the stars, next to the mountain. I’ve missed dancing so much.

zaza has a lot of energy and excitement and talking to her was funny and sweet. somehow I just happen to meet beautiful female friends very fast and frequently recently.

I went to sleep very happily.