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After San Pedro, I parted from the British and Irish friends I had made. 2 were heading on to Costa Rica, another 2 to Cuba, and the last went to Antigua for work and Spanish school.
I arrived in Santa Cruz La Laguna on a Thursday. Santa Cruz was immediately appealing to me. I believe it has the most spectacular view of the lake and the volcanoes. La Iguana Perdida is set just off the water, meters from the boat dock. The pueblo (village) of Santa Cruz itself is set on the hill, a very steep walk from the shore. That weekend there was a hurricane warning for Guatemala. I liked Santa Cruz a lot instantly, and was in no hurry to leave, and I decided it would be an ok place to wait out the hurricane - which never did arrive. In the meantime I fell even more in love with Santa Cruz and the people at La Iguana as well as in the village. I studied Spanish for another week, then got set up volunteering in the hostel/hotel. By volunteering I was able to stay and eat for free. I also found volunteer work teaching English classes in the pueblo. The first week I taught 3 classes to children in grades 5 and 6. They were pretty shy, and it took some persuading to get them to talk. I also taught one class to some of the chicas that work in the clinic. For the next 2 weeks the children were out of school because there was an election and the school building was needed. Why it had to be closed for 2 weeks nobody could tell me, but thats the way it was. Since the children were out of school, I ended up continuing only with the lessons for 4 girls, aged 17 to 38.
The girls were very interested in learning English which made it a lot easier and more enjoyable than teaching bratty children who didn't really care to learn.
I stayed in Santa Cruz for a month and a half and enjoyed y time there immensely. The setting was gorgeous, the atmosphere was pretty relaxed and the cross-dressing parties every Saturday night were very fun and entertaining. By teaching English up in the village and dealing with the chicas that worked in the kitchen every day, I was able to get to know the locals of Santa Cruz quite well and managed to practice and improve my Spanish quite a bit. It's still far from perfect, but I am able to communicate quite well now without having to think about every single word before speaking. I made some very good friends in Santa Cruz and definitely plan on returning, but a month and a half in one place was quite long, and a few of the travellers I had made good friends with were leaving, so I decided to go along with them.
previous travel blog entry
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