Days 20&21: The Wild West

The next day was pretty much a write off as recovery was a must after the hectic night prior. A breakfast of waffles and a coffee was followed by pizzas later on in the evening. I spent most of the day relaxing by the pool and writing. We chucked Ip Man on Netflix and all got an early night.

We woke early and refreshed on our last day by the lake, grabbed a coffee and hailed a tuc tuc to take us to town. The three of us in the back of a tuc tuc is quite a sight, and we drew a fair few looks of amusement as we hooked up the tunes to the Bluetooth and whizzzed about town. Our driver barely spoke English, but was shouting “Jamaica, Jamaica” as we drove. He recommended us a place for lunch, which we discovered was right next door to a reggae bar called 420 (not cliche at all).

As we sat in the smoking area overlooking the lake, feeling tranquil, we noticed a commotion at the dock below. A boat full of hombres rolled up, and as half departed, the other half began smashing bottles, pulled machetes and attacked them. The scuffle lasted a couple of minutes, when the attacking party sped off in the boat, whooping and hollering in their victory. What sparked this we don’t know, and we mused as to whether it was a single disagreement or town rivalries. As we sat and watched, more men from the town showed up at the docks. Many wore cowboy hats and carried weapons. Two more boats showed up with reinforcements, one of them military manned by 5 guys with shotguns and ak47s. The mob that had gathered, along with the military guys set off in the direction that the attacking boat had departed, disappearing from sight round a bend in the lake. They reappeared an hour later, and we were none the wiser about what had happened, which was probably for the best. It was crazy to see this tranquil spot ignite in an instant, with the Wild West that bubbled underneath flowing over. Suddenly all the checkpoints and guns were making sense.

We moved onto another bar down the road, with the intention of spending the rest of our cash before we left the next day. We played pool with a couple of locals, I played terribly, but Henry and and David were on form, and we kept taking their money. As we played, in a completely random turn of events, two of our crew from Bacalar rolled in. The architect and journo. We had failed to cross paths in Antigua, and had no idea we were both in Lake Atitlan at the same time. It was great to catch up, exchange stories and muchos jokes were had.

We were pretty borracho by this point, and Henry requested all our remaining cash to buy margueritas. This meant no tuc tuc home, and David and I set out on the half an hour walk. It was eerily quiet, with narrow streets tucked between tall structures and barbed wire fences. There we’re junctions left and right, and the lack of street lighting meant we were guessing and hoping we were headed in the right direction. As we turned down one street, we heard the rumblings of a growl to the right of us. As the sounds grew more threatening, we saw a pair bright yellow eyes appear in the darkness. Then another pair. Then another. In total, six hungry looking dogs circled around us. We’d definitely taken a wrong turn. Why do I always end up in beef with dogs in hectic countries? We held our nerve, growled back and stamped our feet aggressively as we slowly backed away, turning in the other direction when we were back at the junction. As we headed back off we bounced along on an adrenaline high, hearts pounding and buzzed from the encounter. The rest of the journey home was incidental, chatting to a couple locals and sending any other dogs we encountered packing. When we reached home, we were up fairly late, dropping the tunes on our last night in this paradise turned warzone.