Jan. 8, 1999
Panajachel, Guatemala
We have arrived in Guatemala, a bit road weary, but otherwise none the worse for the wear. We divided our bus trip down the Pacific Coast of Mexico into four segments: A 24-hour ride got us to our first stop, Mazatlan, where we spent a day to partially recover. Another 24-hour ride got us to another beach resort, Zihuatanejo, where we spent New Year´s Eve and most of the next day.
From there an overnight ride of about 14 hours got us to the less-well-known beach hangout of Zipolite. We spent two nights there, then took another overnighter to the Guatemalan border.
We had planned on being in Zihuatanejo for New Year’s Eve because we thought that of the available options Zihuatanejo would probably be the most entertaining. We got there about 5. p.m., and having just spent 24 hours on the bus we didn’t feel too festive. We lay down to rest right after supper, and managed to wake up just before midnight. We wandered out to the beach in time to see some fireworks off in the distance, probably from the ritzy, and totally fabricated, tourist town of Ixtapa. Other that that it was pretty quiet, though once we got back to our hotel room some revelers in a nearby restaurant did their best to keep us awake until about 1 a.m.
On the second of January we approached Zipolite with some trepidation, not knowing what we would find in the wake of Hurricane Paulina, which struck the area early October of ’97, followed shortly after by Hurricane Rick. The AAA guidebook describes Zipolite as mainly a “hangout for indolent youth.” For years it was little more than a collection of palm-thatched shelters along the rather nice beach where “indolent youth” and others could rent a hammock and a place to hang it for a dollar or two a day.
In recent years a few concrete hotels have shouldered their way onto the front line along the sand, catering to those perhaps a little less youthful. (Unable to entirely hide their heritage, the mattresses in these places often bear some resemblance to hammocks.) Anyway, when we got to Zipolite we were surprised to find things looking more developed than when we were there two years ago, before the storms—more concrete hotels, more thatched shelters, more open-air restaurants.
I think a fair amount of aid money flowed into the area after the storms, which was evidently used not only to regain what was destroyed, but to make some advancements as well.
Indolence comes naturally along the Mexican coast, and not just to youthful tourists. I suspect Paulina and Rick provided both the means and motivation to carry out some renovation and construction projects that otherwise would probably not have been done. Some clouds do indeed have silver linings.
We are now in Panajachel, on the shore of Lake Atitlan, in Guatemala. We are spending a couple of nights here, and plan to move out to the little village of San Antonio this weekend. We are looking forward to seeing my godchildren and our other friends there.
Speaking of progress, I am typing this in a room full of computers, all hooked up to the Internet. Guatemala has come a long way in the last few years.