If there's one thing in life that makes me nervous, it's being in the middle of large bodies of water. Yesterday, I indulged in that fear.
We left Monday morning at 8:30 with our guides Michael and Jorge and an American couple from Chicago, Howard and Melissa. Remember Volcan Pacaya, that we'd climbed Sunday? Turns out that Howard had dropped to one knee on the crater and proposed just two days earlier. She said yes. Fireworks erupted.
Michael dropped us off with mountain bikes, helmets, gloves and water bottles in late morning, and we biked down some incredible mountainside scenery for the next four hours to the lakeside town of Panajachel. Good clean, active fun.
From Panajachel we took a rickety little boat (I don't like rickety little boats) to our hotel for the evening, Casa del Mundo.
This place was something else. Set right on the mountain face (part cliffs, part very steep hill), this hotel in the middle of nowhere offers some absolutely breathtaking views of Lake Atitlan and the four volcanoes that encircle it. With spectacular ambiance and authentic decor, we were treated to a sumptuous feast of a meal. Had I known of the next day's activities, I would have called it the last supper.
Tuesday morning, I got my first real good look at a kayak: a small, flimsy, colorful plastic implement of water torture.
I should have known things would't go exactly my way when I found out you had to wear a "skirt" in these things. First, you contort your lower body to get your legs into the tiny opening and sit inside the kayak. Then, you stretch the rubber skirt around the opening to prevent any water from splashing inside. Very sexy.
As soon as Michael gave me a shove out into the water, I realized that this would be a lot more challenging than I'd thought.
The problem was the wind. It was exceptionally strong, coming and going in strong gusts. As the lake is surrounded by volcanoes and miscellaneous hills, it created strange crosswinds that would change wind direction from one moment to the next, or from one place to the other. This also created some very interesting and unusual wave patterns.
So I launched out into the lake, and made instant discovery number one: any tiny movement of your hip will have a major impact on your kayak! Shift a tiny bit to the right and the kayak will lean right, hard! Heck, even a small twitch of my left butt cheek would probably be enough to get this thing to lean. Very nerve wracking.
As I floated around, learning to use my paddle, to adjust my body to the waves and wind, keeping my butt cheeks firmly motionless throughout, I made the great kayak discovery number two: do not ever get sideways to the waves! If they come towards you, fine. From behind, fine. But have them come from the side and you'll be moved around so much that capsizing is just a matter of time.
Pascal was in a tandem kayak with Jorge, and it took him all of 30 seconds to find this out. They flipped their kayak almost immediately and had to swim back to shore to start over again. You may think this is normal, but our guide Michael had just told us over breakfast that he'd never had a single person in any group his agency has done flip over. So Pascal was the first.
When all of us were in the water, we headed downwind towards our destination. This is where I made another kayak discovery: left to its own devices, the wind will push you to be sideways to it, which also means being sideways to the waves. Like I said, this is not good. So keeping the kayak going in the right direction was a constant battle (my back is definitely feeling it today.)
As we paddled further, I heard some noise behind me. Risking a movement in my buttocks, I chanced a glance backwards. Michael was shouting at Pascal and Jorge, who were paddling full steam ahead towards the cliffs. Seems like the wind got them crossways and they couldn't steer back towards our destination.
A little ways later, I had my own wind issues. I got turned around crossways to the wind (of course) and for the life of me couldn't get the bloody kayak turned back downwind, no matter how much I cursed at the stubborn thing. Michael came over and told me to accelerate as fast as I could while going in the wrong direction and then use a combination of turning strokes and anchors to swing it around. It eventually worked, but it wasn't easy going.
When it happened again, a larger wave than usual caught me off guard as I had my paddle in as an anchor. I flipped. With my body fully underwater, I tried to push myself out of the kayak. But of course I'd forgotten about my skirt, which effectively held me in place. If it's possible to curse underwater, I believe I did so. Then I reached forward to the strap that held the skirt in place and pulled it off. Then, still underwater, I wedged myself out (the longer your legs are, the more awkward this is) and swam up alongside my kayak, bobbing and splashing in the wind. More creative profanity followed.
With my kayak full of water, I had to swim and drag it to the shore (rocks). If you ever want to get a great full-body workout, doing this in choppy water while clothed and with shoes on is great aerobic exercise. On shore we emptied the kayak of water, I got back in, and off we went again for more punishment.
Despite a number of close calls, I made it to our destination without flipping again. Pascal and Jorge weren't so lucky. Just 10 feet from the rocks they flipped again--I guess they were in a hurry to get out!
Once on land, we climbed up the rocks for some relaxing cliff jumping. I say relaxing because, frankly, as scary as it is jumping from God knows how many feet up into the ocean, I'll take that any day over kayaking in ridiculousy choppy water.
My first jump went fairly well. On my second jump, I was angled slightly backwards when I hit the water 40 feet below. I swear it felt like someone had taken a hammer to my right testicle. If I wasn't awake before, I certainly was now, and I swam back to the beach to recover.
That essentially ended the kayaking portion of the trip. From there, we hiked through the mountains for several hours to return to Casa del Mundo, and then made our way back to Antigua for another night's rest.
In 5 minutes we're off for another little trip, so I have to run.
Cheers!
Gabriel
