On Wednesday I got scheduled to go a few hours outside of town to the small lakeside village of Santa Clara La Laguna and help set up a clinic there. I woke up early from the hotel Barcelo which was just luxury accommodations with strong water pressure and working plumbing, something I now appreciate. I headed out to the lake in one of the Hilux’s in the fleet with Johanna who heads the community development program. It was a pretty easy ride. We drove through very tight mountain highways and through dusty, bustling and industrial towns. One town, Chimaltenango (Chimal. Ha, bet you saw that one coming!) sold almost nothing but trucks. Pickup trucks. Guatemalans, or Chapines as they call themselves, would bring them back from the States and sell them here. Lots of Patrols and LandCruisers. We dodged swerving chicken buses. They are old school buses from the States painted in extravagant colors and lettering stating where they were coming from and headed to. Bus assistants rode on top where the giant roof racks were and moved around crates of fruit, luggage and of course, chickens at 80 mph standing straight up. And these buses stop for no one. I mean, if one is not quick enough to board at the rolling stop, he keeps on going. I even saw an old man dragged as his son held on tightly before he lost him and he hit the pavement hard and rolled. After a few hours we arrived at Santa Clara La Laguna. There, we set up a clinic to receive patients. It was minimalistic. An observation table. A desk. A scale. A few bandages. But, it work
ed. The building was in the process of being renovated and repainted and looked infinitely better than it was. The paint was crumbling on the outside. The ground was now concrete where it had been dirt. And natural light where there had been a ceiling. I was helping set up the clinic with a young doctor from Guatemala named Daniel and he was very excited about the new clinic, as simple as it was. The next day he would be receiving his first patients. After the clinic was set up, Daniel and I decided to look for a hotel on the lake itself down in the town of San Juan La Laguna or San Pedro La Laguna, a town known for its hippie and gringo population. The lake was absolutely immense and grand and perfectly quiet, complemented by the three enormous volcanoes that rose up to meet the lake on its flanks. Thick clouds appeared to be brushed into the sky with quick strokes of pink and orange. The road to the lake was winding and long but worth it. These volcanoes rise about 10000 feet and disappear into the sky. We drove around and poked into a few hotels but, none had a view and they were very small rooms. We had a list of three hotels and the last one, Chi-ya, no one we asked had ever heard of it. We drove around the town looking for the hotel and asked for directions but, every one we asked pointed in a different direction. About ten minutes later we happened upon a small sign hidden in the trees on the side of the road that said Hotel Chi-Ya. Th entrance was a steep cobblestone driveway that led down the side of the mountain. The driveway ended in a wreck of stones, dirt and tools and sitting on a large stone chiseling the rocks was a middle-aged gringo pounding away. He didn’t even look up. We greeted him and asked if he had any rooms available we could see. He said he did and showed us down some old stone steps that disappeared into the foliage down the mountain. The steps opened up to a huge teak-built cabin with a panoramic view of the purple afternoon sky and towering volcanoes. We could not believe our find. And for only 175 a night! Then, we thought we would ask if he meant USD or Q. He said Q. We celebrated some more. Then we sat out on the deck and enjoyed the cool evening and the quiet. The next day Daniel and I went to the clinic and he saw and did general consults on patients. There were almost exclusively women coming to the consultations. The men, most likely, were off working and had little time to venture to a clinic. The men we did see were all ready pretty sick and bedridden. I left around midday to head back to Guate with Johanna and the ride back was less than uneventful. We were both tired and ready to get back to Guate and get some rest.
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