To get to San Marcos, we had to hike through the villages of Jaibalito and Tsununa. Like Santa Cruz, Jaibalito is cut off from the roads with the only access either by boat or overland, and the overland route is just a dirt goat path that runs around the side of the mountain.
However, it tends to run fairly high on the mountain, so we got some great views of the lake and the towns as left and entered them.
It was a great morning for hiking, cool and slightly overcast but not rainy or foggy. We hiked through Jaibalito, looking down at the roofs of some nice resorts, and on to Tsununa.
The going was a little difficult at times as we had to climb through some ravines, but the path is obviously well traveled, so there were always steps...and after our volcano hike, it was a piece of cake.
The only problem we had, which wasn't really a problem, was one section of the trail where dogs were guarding their property, and they were threatening us. We know that Belize dogs are used to being stoned and will turn tail and run if you so much as bend down to pick up a rock, and we correctly guessed that Guatemalan dogs would be the same. One particularly persistent dog who kept trying to sneak around behind us actually had to be hit by a stone before he yelped and gave up, but the others kept their distance, and once we were past that part of the trail, it was easy hiking on into Tsununa where we were on roads fit for vehicles.
It took us about 2.5 hours to get to San Marcos, where we wandered through the town. We found a local place for lunch, where Tom had roasted chicken with an onion sauce and rice and veggies, and I had chicken pepian (a pumpkin seed sauce) with rice and veggies. We both had liquados, and were joined at lunch by the owner's very cute dog Jessie and her tomcat, who started the lunch on my lap but who was displaced after trying to snag the chicken off my plate with his hand.
After I moved him to a seat on the bench, he sat staring at me, licking his chops, and looking insulted until I gave him a small piece of chicken. The owner's other dog also showed up and jumped up and put her paws on the table to better see what we had, and one very persistent white hen kept wandering through and giving us the eye on her way to the kitchen, where she was obviously getting her pick of snacks. It was just like home!
When we finished lunch we wandered down to the lakeside and got the lancha back to Santa Cruz.
It was interesting to try to follow the trail we had hiked from the water, and we were surprised at how high up the mountainside we had been at points on the hike.
It started pouring shortly after we got back, so we spent the rest of the afternoon on our porch reading, catching up on email, and watching the rain on the lake. We had a tasty dinner of spaghetti with bolognese sauce for dinner, and went to bed early with the rain still drumming on the roof.
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