1/23/2015 San Marcos La Laguna, Lake Atitlan

I took care of the laundry today. It involves walking down the path to the Holistic Center and Laundromat and paying a woman 50Q/$6.54. Magically, 8 hours later I had a bag of clean, folded laundry. The whole process was transcendental. I was utterly calm. I found myself in another realm and was able to eat an entire pizza for lunch. I gazed upon it for aeons in a moment. The pizza spoke to me. It claimed to be the best pizza in San Marcos. The pizza told me that it came from the restaurant next door with the brick oven. The pizza expressed its regret that it’s bottom wasn’t crispy and thusly may not in fact be the best. I acknowledged the pizza’s sadness and enveloped it with my great joy to the last bite.
My nirvana was broken later when I passed Happy Tacos, which claimed to have the best cup of fairly traded, locally grown, organic coffee made with glacially produced, cosmically purified, volcanically heated, water in a crystalline French press. I realized with horror that I would not have the chance to taste that nectar of the gods. It was indeed a bummer.
All was not lost. I undertook a pilgrimage to banish my negativity. At the summit of my journey, a couple dozen steps up a mountain, was the biblical city on a hill. Literally, it was an outhouse, but it represented all that I needed. I really had to pee. I came back down the hill a new man. No coffee could give me such elation.
Tomorrow we will leave this place for Antigua. I am growing quite fond of San Marcos despite what I’ve written about it. When it gets dark, the Night Jasmine releases its fragrance and it truly is like a dream. The flyers for cheap long term housing are quite tempting. Someday, I hope Jill and I come back and look a little more deeply at San Marcos and the other towns around this iconic lake. The food here is really excellent, especially the pizza.