Day 105: The Last Day in San Marcos

Today was quiet. The rain stopped this morning early, but the day only brightened for a little while. The sun came out at about 09.00, and I went down into town and treated myself to a breakfast buffet of fruit, granola, eggs, bread, orange juice and tea. It was very yummy and very touristy.

I returned to the house afterwards, thinking I would go for a walk if the sky cleared up any. But it did not for the entire day. It sprinkled every few hours just enough to keep me from wandering too far from the house. I would not normally mind getting wet, but I do not want to have to deal with wet clothing tomorrow.

For lunch, I descended again, going to a different hotel to eat. I had an actually quite excellent sandwich. Except for this morning at the buffet and Moonfish Cafe, I have really never eaten with anyone. I definitely do not eat at strange times, so I wonder where everyone else goes to eat.

Between lunch and dinner I organized my shuttle back to Antigua. Tomorrow morning I am going to have a bit of a time crunch: I need to drop off my bags early so that I am not lugging them around with me. Then I have to re-climb the hill to drop off the keys to the house with the caretakers. If all goes quickly with them, I can be at the school close to 08.00 to take some photos of everyone; everyone, that is, who is there early for school that morning. Hopefully, I will get a few of the kids.

Then, I have to be down at the travel agency at 08.50 to wait on the shuttle that is coming from San Pedro and should be arriving ‘pronto’ at 09.00. After my previous experience dealing with the travel agency/shuttle deal, I do not want any complications tomorrow.

During one of the moments of ‘sunshine’ today, meaning not entirely overcast, I sat up on the scaffold-balcony and read for a bit. It was very nice to just relax and listen to my surroundings. It is really beautiful here.

Dinner was not the best meal I have eaten here, which was too bad, but I went to what I think is the only other hotel in the town, called Paco Real, and ordered some chicken, rice, and vegetables. It was not bad, the flavors were all good, but the chicken was strangely fatty and a little undercooked. Some new guests came into the hotel while I was sitting there, and I thought about what I would say to someone who had just arrived here, or who was thinking about coming.

I would warn the visitors that San Marcos is a step away from live as it is currently known in the United States or Europe. Maybe less so if a hotel is used for accommodation, but it is impossible to escape from the life here. It is hard for me to compare the lives of those living here in San Marcos to my life in the United States. Separate worlds. Here I sit, leaving tomorrow, typing away on a laptop computer that is an object hardly conceivable to my neighbors. There is a girl, close to my age, who spent all of this afternoon washing clothing by hand on the porch of her house. Every time I walked past or looked over from the balcony, she was still hard at work. And while on one hand it saddens and almost sickens me to realize that these people would not consider themselves ‘unlucky’ or ‘underprivileged’ for there are those in conditions far worse, I am not sure if these people would be completely ready to embrace the materialistic and electricity-based society that I consider ‘modern’ and ‘normal.’

I would also tell visitors that this is a beautiful area of which I have just seen the slightest fragment; that there is a lot to see, hear, taste and learn from the culture. And I would advise bringing rain gear. And bug repellant.

I did have a neat experience at dinner though: I had never had a good look at a firefly before, but during dinner two of them came in thorugh the open window and door and were flyig around the empty restaurant. They are very interesting creatures, and so I spent a while watching their bizarre flight and their light patterns. at one point one came over to the chair opposite me and I got to see up close when the insect lit up. Very cool.

 As I was walking up from dinner in the near darkness of about 6.40 a few drops started coming down. While I was typing the first paragraph above, it started to come down very hard for about 5 or so minutes and then it stopped.

I am currently enjoying the sudden quiet that has filled the air. From about 5.00 onwards, the church has been broadcasting songs, prayers, and speeches from next door. Today carries some significance in that today is a celebration of the emergence of Jesus from the cave, or so I gather from what I have heard. But the focus of the most impressionable of the speeches was a (what sounded like old) man who spoke passionately and desperately in a broken voice almost crying, about the reality of the Lord’s salvation. He proclaimed for a good half hour his position has a portal, a path, for those to be guided to the ‘door that is never shut.’

I have just finished up my packing; I am all ready to go for tomorrow morning. I just went outside though, to fill up my water bottle, and when I turned on the kitchen light, there was a possum about 6 feet away from me on the other side of the counter along the fence line. I had never seen one of these animals before, but it was easily over 2 feet long including long naked tail and a grayish coat with a pink snout. My first thought was that it was a rat, until I saw the shape of the head and the nose, I will have to ask around if possums are even native, either way, the door is closed to the bedroom tonight, so that I do not wake up with a new furry friend to take home with me.

It has been humid all day, and now it is still and sticky. I am going to bed soon, and I hope that I manage to make the night without too many bug bites, and I hope that the two very large spiders on the far wall are comfortable in their currently locations, because although the bed is quite wide, they are no more welcome than the possum.

Chao.