Finding myself (or who I don't wanna be) in Lake Atitlan and dancing in Antigua

After 7 weeks in Mexico, I finally entered a new country!! I took a shuttle to San Pedro, by Lake Atitlan in Guatemala. A beautiful place to relax, loved by alternative long term stayers who want to find themselves, learning spanish, meditating, doing yoga and eating organic food, that sort of thing. I only spent 2 days there and kept mostly to myself, but I did have some interesting experiences:

I hiked a volcano, that felt more like a normal mountain, but with cool jungle and a beautiful view from the top. It was supposed to take 2,5 hours, but it took me almost 4, and nearly killed me! I thought I was pretty fit. It was just me and my small funny guide, which meant a lot of quality local chatting. It pleased me that his spanish was worse than mine sometimes - around the lake, they all speak tribal languages, each town seems to have their own.

The next morning I went swimming in the lake, beautiful!! That's where I had my most interesting/scary conversation so far on this trip: 

I met a fellow swimmer on the shore, a nice english 47 year old lady. She was a yoga teacher and staying in San Pedro for a few months, writing a book. Typical lake person. I got confirmed that she was on the alternative side when I told her I'd just finished med school: "Hospitals are just so barbaric, I think!" Thank you very much, ma'am, that's gonna be my work place in a couple of months. 

Then it got worse: I had noticed that she had an open wound in her face, I just guessed she'd swam into a rock or something. But now she told me that it had started off really small last year, and it had just kept growing. And haha, those silly doctors actually diagnosed it as skin cancer and wanted to cut it out! She would rather jump in front of a train; It would leave a terrible scar, and it would just be a temporary solution, since cancer is all about toxins circulating in your blood. No, her method was better: It was all about cleansing your whole system, she used strict diet, yoga, herbs and aloe vera. And it was healing, she could feel it! She was even taking photos of it as proof and was planning to write a book about it. Then I asked if it had actually become smaller. "Oh, no, it's bigger than ever! But that's because the toxins need to come out.". I didn't try too hard to convince her otherwise, just said that I couldn't be happier if this worked, but hoped that she would at least consider other options if it didn't heal soon. "Oh, no, that won't not necessary, it will all be gone in a month, maybe less." And the best part? Her boyfriend was a doctor.

After this disturbing talk I went to Antigua for a week. It's my second time in this city and I LOVE it. I thought I'd might get bored after a few days, since I didn't have spanish school or volunteer work like most people, and I did most of the sightseeing/touristy stuff on my last visit. But I enjoyed every minute! I just felt really at home. The first day we went to the circus, lots of entertainment for 1 dollar! The staff consisted of around 10 people, one guy seemed to do most of the acts. The only animals were dogs and a monkey we never actually saw performing, he was just hangig out behind the tent. Other highlights were creepy smurfs that scared the kids and a 12 year old chubby boy in a see-through shirt that could juggle with his feet. The rest of the week was spent walking around, eating great food, going to the market, hanging out on the rooftop terrace in the hostel, waiting for the volcano to erupt, which it did, several times! And of course dancing salsa!! Had private lessons every day, my teacher, Andres was really good, tiny and adorable. The social dancing in the evenings were also great fun, these guys can really dance!