San Pedro

Across the lake from us is the city of San Pedro.  While San Marcos, where we live, has a reputation of being sleepy and full of hippies, San Pedro has a reputation for being a party town.  It’s larger, with a population of 13,000 compared to 2,200 in San Marcos.  The town is largely broken up into two sections – the more touristy lakefront and the more authentic local area up the hill.  The touristy area is papered with fliers for cheap hostels and bars offering tequila shots for 8Q (roughly US$1.)  Party town.

The boat, which you can see below, takes about 20 minutes from our place.  A few views of San Pedro from the water…
Party towns aren’t usually our scene, but we do take the boat over to San Pedro once a week on Sundays for the fantastic BBQ at one of the bar/restaurants.  It’s a place called La Piscina (which means The Pool), and they do indeed have a pool.  Each Sunday for four hours they put on a very popular BBQ where you can load up on the kind of meat you can’t get anywhere else around here.  John’s favorite is the massive fliet mignon wrapped in bacon, but they also serve ribs, tuna steaks, Pittsburgh steaks, chicken and burgers.  The portions are enormous and include three heaping sides (things like roasted veggies, potato salad, mac and cheese, eggplant parmesan, baked beans etc) and a chunk of cornbread for 60Q (less than US$8.)  It’s an absurd amount of food and it’s all excellent.  Even though I don’t eat the meat, the sides are enough fill me up and satisfy any comfort food cravings I might have.  We both look forward to it every weekend.

The red taxi above on the right is called a tuk tuk.  It’s essentially a motorcycle with a backseat and soft cover.  We sometimes take these home from San Marcos when it’s dark or rainy.  They look small, but you can fit three adults in the back seat, and I’ve seen locals pack two or three more in the front with the driver.

Up the hill from the party side of town is the local market, which runs every day.

Produce here is great.  With the climate we are able to get things like beets, strawberries, tomatoes, watermelon, zucchini, radishes, papaya, cabbage and pineapples all at the same time.  It messes with my head to eat beets and strawberries at the same time, but the seasons simply don’t work the same here.  Of course if you need shoes and clothes you can shop here as well.Or head to a stand from some fresh juice.  Usually we get the pineapple, but John is on a kick of fresh squeezed orange these days.  You can’t go wrong, really.  The locals like a drink made of rice and chocolate, but I haven’t tried it yet.Most of the streets around here are small little alleyways, tucked between shops and houses.  There are coffee plants growing all over the place, which explains why the coffee is so fresh and good around here.  Most places in Central and South America export the good coffee and serve instant instead.  Around the lake there are loads of small producers that pick, roast and sell their beans locally and inexpensively.  It’s sooo much better than the instant stuff.The dock below takes you to another town, Santiago.  You can see how the rising water level has washed away what used to be the dock and the shops that once lined it.  This view is from the rooftop of La Piscina, which is just barely sticking up out of the lake water these days.  Hopefully they won’t get washed out like so many other businesses before them.

I’m working on getting some photos of San Marcos soon, but it’s tricky to photograph because it’s so small and compact.  Hopefully I’ll have something to share soon.