Rebellion of the Tuc Tucs

Now that we´ve had a week an a half or so to settle in, I now slightly consider San Pedro La Laguna our home. We now know where we can get all of our desired food items, where to get the best coffee, and how to drive a hard bargain with the street vendors (kind of... I´m still working on this one). We´ve also had a couple of adventures in the past few days that I think are interesting enough to write about.

On Saturday, we went with our housemate, Sarah, on an adventure to find the town of San Antonio, where a ton of ceramics are made and then shipped to Antigua and other towns to sell to tourists. To get there, we first took a boat across the lake to a town called Panajachel- ´Pana´to everyone around here. Then we asked at least five people where we could find a truck to San Antonio. Eventually, we found a cop who pointed to a red pickup truck (picop, pronounced ´pee-cope´in Spanish) and told us to hop on. For 5 quetzales, about 70 cents, we got a 25-minute ride to San Antonio in the back of the pickup. San Antonio is a small town, and there were some pretty gorgeous textiles and ceramics.

On the way back, the REAL adventure started. It began to rain, and the pickup driver put a giant piece of plastic over the back of the truck, so the 10 passengers couldn´t see what was happening outside. All of a sudden, the truck stopped, and the other passengers began to speak in their Mayan language (that´s the trouble with learning Spanish around the lake- most folks here speak a Mayan language as their first language, and Spanish as their second.). Anyhow, we didn´t know what was going on, but a kind woman on the truck translated to us in Spanish that there was some sort of fight going on. Later, I found out that Andrew was thinking there was some sort of conflict between rebel groups and that we were going to be kidnapped. Fortunately for us, we soon found out that it WAS a rebellion, but of a different sort. Apparently the drivers of the Tuc Tucs (which are little red taxis here) were angry that the pickups were taking their business by driving folks from the center of town all the way to San Antonio for 5 quetzales, so they had blocked off the road. There must have been 25 or so drivers with their Tuc Tucs blocking the trucks from passing through. Therefore, we had to get out and walk the remaining 15 minutes back to Panajachel. When we got out of the truck, all the Tuc Tuc drivers were trying to convince us to take their Tuc Tuc to town. I told them that we were walking instead, and they responded by yelling ´Oh no! Ah! Ay!´, etc. We made it back to Panajachel, quite wet at that point, and soothed ourselves with some pupusas and a giant Gallo.

There have been other adventures in the past week, such as our horse ride up the side of the volcano guided by a thirteen year-old, discovering that a jug of Carlo Rossi costs about $20 here, and finding adorable dogs and pretending they´re our own,

but the Rebellion of the Tuc Tucs was my favorite. Andrew will write more about my other favorite event, Guatemala´s Independence Day celebration, soon.

Also, if you´d like to see more pictures, we´ve been uploading them to:
here.

Hasta luego!
-L