San Marcos La Laguna, Solola — December 30, 2024

I left San Marcos from the small dock on the north shore, the lake flat against the grass and a blue-and-white lancha tied to a post by the reeds. A leaning tree framed the volcano across the water, its cone soft under a partly cloudy sky. The boat pulled away and the wake churned a pale line behind us, the far shore reduced to faint smudges of village at the foot of the ridge. Inside the covered lancha, the dark blue frame cropped the world into a moving postcard. Another boat passed close, a single figure standing at its bow, two peaks behind him under heavy cloud. At the next dock I stepped onto weathered planks, pilings dark with old waterlines. A swimmer was out past the moored boat, just a head and a slow arm. Later I walked back to a longer pier where a white lancha with a red stripe was easing in, kayaks pulled up on the shore beside it. I stood for a while and watched the boats arrive and leave. The lake did most of the talking that day.