Good People of Guatemala 1/20/9

I believe the story Wood tells here is one of the first, personal and welcoming interactions they had on their journey south of the border. He can probably add more later, but I know that their time at Lake Atitlan was particularly good and heartwarming. From Woody:

"so indeed, we are in guatemala....we arrived last night, in the dark (not on purpose), to a city called solola. i tell you xxxxxx, god's hand has placed us here. indeed, traveling in guatemala, or anywhere, at night is not advisable. basically, the roads we traveled were not the same roads on the gps, therefore, the mileage was not the same either. we arrived in solola not knowing where we could stay. it is an old city, reminding me of a european city--cobbled, narrow streets, lots of people. the buildings are not european, of course. we checked 3 hotels. none of them had a courtyard for our bikes and we cannot leave them on the streets. at the fourth hotel we found laura, the matriarch of a wonderful family. alejandro, her grandson, speaks english pretty well. freddy, her son, is a machinist. both are motorcycle enthusiasts. we spent our first night eating and sharing stories from the road. i knew the moment i met laura that we had landed somewhere special. today we woke up to see lake atitlan, which is perhaps 1000 meters below the city. flanked by 3 volcanoes, it is incredible. people say that it is the most beautiful lake in the world. around the lake there are several cities, some of which have schools where one can spend a week working on spanish. we are going to look into this. we spent the day with freddy (the father), and benjamin (his younger son), traveling down to the lake to swim, fishing with freddy's friend (which we are going to eat in a few minutes). it was good. tell mom that the people of guatemala are wonderful; they say that yes, it can be dangerous, but it is not like what we perceive it to be. freddy, actually freddy's dad, (whom i saw running today!) is building a house. "

-- luludilly