Día 9 (7/18/07): Antigua -> Lake Atitlan

Today I had an epiphany, and curiously enough, it wasn't about the terse poststructuralist arguments with references to Humpty Dumpty and Alice I was reading about during breakfast, but rather about why there aren't any amusement parks in Central America. Why would anyone pay an exorbitant rate to go to one when you can simply hop on a chicken bus for about $1 to just about any destination and experience the same nausea and have your derriere airborne for at least half of the several hour long ride. Wilson and I arrived in Lake Atitlan and yes, the ride was fairly miserable mostly because I was trying to sleep, but was plagued by potholes and cobblestone roads encompassing the majority of the narrow steep mountain inclines compounded by rain and manual shift. What's a run on? :) By the time we reached Atitlan, it was pouring gatos y perros. We wandered over to the internet cafe after checking in just so I could wallow in the misery of my MCAT score. We then went to check out the second most beautiful lake in the world where we were incessantly hounded by some man who insisted on selling us a lake tour. After deciding against flinging myself into the lago mas lindo, we went shopping and somehow got talked into buying 2 flutes. However, we didn't do this before we bargained the price for both to less than the cost of one. After dinner, it started to pour again so Wilson and I just sat under some random covered area of the sidewalk serenading passerbys with remarkably raucous melodies on our flutes. Nearing 10 o'clock, the rain wasn't letting up so we made a mad dash for the internet cafe. Mid-use of my flashdrive, the power went out and I nearly soiled my pants at the though of losing our only copy of over 1 GB of photos, but all was swell. Back at the hostel, Wilson and I played card games till 1am. In fewer words, we didn't do much.