Guatemala: Lake Atitlan

Anne let me know in 2022 about an author who has written a few books about a Mayan culture that flourished on the banks of the large southern lake in Guatemala called Lago Atitlan.

Photo credit

The author (Martín Prechtel) wrote a book in which he tells the Mayan legend "The disobedience of the daughter of the sun" and then he breaks it down into 5 different interpretations.  His telling of the story is very compelling as are the various interpretations of the legend, laying out some of the philosophical underpinnings of the Mayan worldview.

He documented his life in the village of Santiago Atitlan in another book "Long Life, Honey in the Heart" which has a description of how he kept on dreaming about this place near a lake and was drawn to travel to Guatemala where, when he visited Santiago Atitlan an old man came up to him in the street and asked why he had taken so long to come.   He said that he had been sending him dreams to call him!  The old man was a shaman who adopted him and taught him about the religion and culture of the Tz'utujil Mayans who live in the southern part of the lake (pronounce Tsu-tu-jil - with the "j" sound in the Spanish word "jefe" or the the "g" in Afrikaans "gaan").

 So, when we decided to visit Guatemala to meet Elsa, our Spanish teacher and to visit some of the places that both Nick and Matt had seen, Lake Atitlan was very much on the agenda.

The lake is about 4 hours drive from Guatemala city and about 3 hours from Antigua.  The driver who had brought us to Antigua came through to give us a private ride to the lake.

There are two large towns that are the gateway to the lake, the first is on the north eastern side of the lake called Pana (Panajachel) and the other in the middle of the southern side called San Pedro.  I suspect that most tourists visiting the lake stay in Pana and then make use of the frequent public "lanchas" (boats) that go to the most popular towns on the lake.

Pana dock and first view of the lake

 

The lake is a caldera which formed after major eruptions followed by the subsidence of the land in the middle into what is now a 12 mile long and 6 mile wide lake with a depth of around 380 m (1,049 feet).  The water in the lake doesn't have an outlet to the sea but has formed as rain gradually filled the caldera over tens of thousands of years.

The views of the lake are breathtaking and we caught a lancha from Pano to our first stop, Santa Cruz where we were shown our AirBnb - unfortunately without a view of the lake but with a beautiful garden and plenty of room.

We met Elsa at the dock that evening and then went up to a restaurant at the top of the hill.  Santa Cruz is on a very steep slope and has arguably the best views of the lake of all the towns.  The view from the restaurant above the CECAP building is very beautiful.

We had no electricity or hot water for two days.  Apparently this happens in Santa Cruz and we were quite impressed by our host who brought candles and, once the electricity was restored, worked on the boiler for about an hour to restore hot water.  It turned out that the hot water is provided by gas so if we'd known we could have had a hot shower both nights - settling instead for a cold shower or what we call a cowboy splash (for the less brave).

Our driver had told us that San Juan - a small town just north of San Pedro is one of his favorites because of the street murals.  So we suggested taking a lancha to visit there on the day after we arrived.   The wind had picked up in the afternoon and the lake was quite choppy which made for a bumpy ride.

 San Juan was vibrant.  As we got off the lancha we were overwhelmed by the sights and smells of the town.  Small shops selling purses and sling-bags with beautiful needlework and clothes and scarfs woven from brightly colored threads.  

We stopped at the first restaurant we saw for an early lunch before walking up the main street from the dock which is sheltered by many colorful umbrellas. 

 

The town has some beautiful murals and we spent an hour or so walking and photographing many of them.

 

After this, Elsa pointed out a mirador (lookout) that looked to our uninitiated eyes a really long way away and really high up but we gamely took a tuk-tuk (the little 3 wheeled cabbies imported from China and/or India) which are plentiful in the towns around the lake, to the base of the hike and walked to the top where we enjoyed the scenic views with a band playing traditional music in the background. 

I'm not sure we'd have done this without some urging but we were all pleased we did.

One town over from Santa Cruz is Jaibalito which can be reached via a 30min hike past the luxurious looking Hotel del Mundo.

We took the walk the next day and had lunch at a restaurant on the water with a another spectacular view of the lake.

 

We had booked a different AirBnb in San Pedro for the remainder of our stay and moved there on the Monday after Elsa had gone back home.  It was lovely to meet her in Guatemala.  I felt a little bad because she had to patiently work with our clumsy Spanish all weekend.  She said it was no problem but it must be tiring having to rephrase things and to speak slowly and steadily for so many hours.  She is an excellent teacher and has a gift for forcing the use of Spanish in conversation.

San Pedro was a completely different experience from Santa Cruz - it was like moving from a tranquil home in the country to a busy tourist town.  Our AirBnb was right on the water not more than a block from the main street above the town's main dock.

That meant we were surrounded by restaurants and noise from the early evening till fairly late and then joining the bustle of tourists every morning when we went out exploring.

We felt a little disappointed by San Pedro for a couple of days - the shops in the streets surrounding the docks alternate between restaurant, travel agency + laundry + massage parlor and small grocer.  I'm not sure why the travel agencies included a laundry and a massage parlor but I suppose that is the trifecta that is the sweet spot of a tourist town?

We walked all the way up to the main church of the town on the first day and returned a little shell-shocked from the bustle.  The vendors trying to attract you into restaurants and rides or guided tours are generally not very pushy but you do have to say no a few times when you get asked repeatedly.

One thing that struck us about San Pedro is that many of the signs advertising services are in Hebrew and there are a number of Israeli-themed restaurants.  We discovered later that Guatemala has had a long history of working with Israel and that in 2010 a number of Israelis started to set up businesses in San Pedro.  Now there is a thriving community which includes a religious center.  Someone said that a number of Israelis come here to unwind after serving in the military between May and September.

The town has a reputation for being friendly to backpackers and there were certainly a number of distinctively clothed people each with a backpack on their back and front walking in the streets on any given day. 

Our AirBnb was fairly expensive by the standards of the lake and we realized that any booking for 3 or more people (perhaps for 2 rooms?) automatically brings the prices from pretty affordable to pretty high.  An apartment for a couple with one room is generally around $46 - $59 per night whereas two-roomed apartments/houses are around $100 or more per night.

We really enjoyed an Israeli restaurant a few buildings from our apartment and went back there several evenings in a row to get shawarmas, falafel and hummus dishes.

We visited the Tsu'tujil museum where a guide showed us a 10min film taken in the mid 1950s showing some of the older traditional clothes and ceremonies involving a drum player and a flutist.  The flutist was walking in the front with a drum on his back and the drummer behind him beating the rhythm.  A poster in the museum said that not many people still practice the Mayan religion which is probably in large part due to an increasingly westernized cultural eroding long-held traditions. 

Our next trip was to San Marcos La Laguna - right across the lake from San Pedro on the northern shore we visited a group of Mayan altars which demonstrate that the traditions are still alive. 

In some parts younger Mayans are rekindling interest in the traditions of their ancestors which may be a positive movement.  From the descriptions of the world-view and how to relate to nature and the world in his books, Martin Prechtel painted a landscape which I found very appealing and healthy.

San Marcos La Laguna is the hippie town of the lake.  It is very small and the front area near the dock is festooned with posters advertising holistic experiences with various natural elements.
Further back are houses of locals and the shops selling weaving and as with the other towns, beautiful crafts are plentiful.

The view of the two prominent volcanos from this town are spectacular as well.  It is a little closer to San Pedro than Santa Cruz so the volcanos are more prominent - in fact there is a hike between the two towns that is popular although it is recommended that you hike in a group and don't bring things that might attract the attention of people looking to relieve you of them.

Another feature is a wooden deck in the nature reserve that can be used for cliff jumping into the lake.  The lake is perhaps a little less polluted here and large groups of people were crowding on the deck to leap what looked like at least 20ft into the lake below.

We took another lancha the next day to Pana and then a Tuk tuk to a nearby town Santa Catarina Palopó which has a number of buildings painted with Mayan symbols and patterns.  The church there has a portrait of a priest who was from the USA and who lived in the town of Santiago Atitlan (the biggest town on the lake).  He was killed during a massacre that occurred following protests against the Guatemalan army.  

An article describes the events against the backdrop of political upheaval in Guatemala in the 1980s when the Guatemalan army established a base in the town because of armed guerrilla activities.  The history of US covert intervention in Guatemala in the 1950s and the subsequent CIA operation (called operation PBSuccess) to overthrow the elected president are documented and seem to draw a direct line to this and other incidents including the 36 year long war between the insurgents who arose in response to the US backed military and the dictatorship that followed PBsuccess.  In the 1980s both the army and guerillas committed atrocities against the Mayan people including this massacre which appears to have been triggered by drunken soldiers beating civilians one night  and the garrison being confronted by a peaceful protest.  Since this event, the army has been denied access to the town of Santiago Atitlan.

We found reading too much about the lake depressing and some of our experience of this beautiful area was tempered by descriptions of the contamination of the waters of the lake and how plans to remediate are hampered by conflicts of interest and a history of racism towards indigenous people.  They have been washing in the lake for thousands of years and they feel that they have been blamed with less regard for how agriculture and the massive boom of tourism has contributed.

Our last 2 days at the lake were so tranquil - we decided not to visit Santiago despite a keen interest in the setting of the books we had read about it, opting instead for quite walks and relaxing on the banks of this exquisite location.

The manager at the Israeli restaurant brought us a tequilla each time we ate there and toasted with us our great adventure in Atitlan. 

We found a coffee shop called Tornado's Coffee run by a family and where we saw the most amazing latte art.  It became our morning ritual to have coffee and breakfast there.  

 

At the end of our stay the two waitresses presented us with a hand crafted gift that was quite touching. 

Sunset from Santa Cruz

I am really glad that we stopped here - such a beautiful place and so welcoming. 

Guatemala: Antigua

Matt and Nick both came to Guatemala at different times in the past to enroll in a Spanish language school in the city of Quetzaltenango (or Xela - pronounced sheh-lah) and Anne and I have been taking classes with the teacher that Matt studied with when he was in Xela.  She is a great teacher and very knowledgeable and we have come to know her very well (and visa versa) from topics that have come up during our interactions.

So it was that we decided that we would like to come to Guatemala to see some of the places that Matt and Nick had visited and to meet our teacher.

The flight to Guatemala City from Mexico City started with a bit of a glitch because the hiking poles that Anne had brought with her were confiscated by airport security because they seemed dangerous.  While Anne and I sadly accepted this denial, Nick came up and charmed the stern supervisor into keeping them for us, getting a voucher to present when we return for them! This was quite astonishing.  I doubt that there are many countries where security agents would make such an arrangement with a passenger on their way out of the country so it was a nice surprise to be treated this way.  

For a megacity, the international terminal was relatively calm at the time we flew out which was also a surprise.  I suppose it is also a testament to the fact that a small percentage of the inhabitants of that city are regularly using the airport.  We are planning to fly to a beach town in a few weeks so we might have a different experience in the domestic terminal.

We saw an active volcano when we were about to land in Mexico City and again when we were about to land in Guatemala.  There are 23 Holocene Volcanoes (that have erupted in the current geological epoch) of which 3 have erupted within the last 2 years.  One of these is Volcán de Fuego (volcano of fire) which is in the city of Antigua and erupts every few years - the most recent having started in September 2021 and is ongoing with ash and smoke being ejected many times a day.  In September 2018 the volcano erupted much more violently causing 159 deaths and 256 missing persons.

Antigua was chosen as the capital of Guatemala by the Spanish conquerors and was established in 1527 under Volcán de Fuego and was destroyed by an eruption from another nearby volcano in September 1541 (you probably want to plan your trip to Antigua to not be in the month of September) and rebuilt on its present site which is 8km away (5mi).  A great deal of construction was undertaken over the next 200 years as it remained the seat of government and the city had expanded to 60 000 people by the late 1700s.  Three major earthquakes wracked the city in the 1700s, each one dealing considerable damage to the beautiful buildings of the Catholic Church and government.  

The earlier quake in 1717 was explained as divine punishment and followed a big eruption of Volcán de Fuego but the buildings were repaired and life continued until in 1773 the city was destroyed by an earthquake and a decision was made to move the capital to a valley in which Guatemala City now stands, about an hour's drive away.

We learned some hard lessons in Antigua about booking places to stay.  We arrived at the place we had reserved at about 7pm in the dark.  Our driver, someone Nick had been in contact with since he visited here a few years ago, unloaded our stuff and we knocked on the door only to be told that it was private residence and not a vacation rental.  It turns out that some of the sites that you use for booking places don't take the same amount of care to confirm the reservation that you'll find with AirBnb.  Booking.com must have had this property listed, but its owner left and didn't remove it from the listings.

We had to scramble to find a hotel and the first one we stopped at wanted to charge us $250 for 2 rooms which is what you'd pay for a pair of rooms in the US at a 2 star hotel.  Our driver recommended a different hotel which was around $86 per night per room - still expensive by Guatemalan standards but we really had no choice.

We were able to find an alternate AirBnb that night and moved in the next day.  Some AirBnb hosts are terrible and there is a limit that AirBnb will do to help you get a refund - even if the owner has exaggerated their listing for the apartment (a cosy apartment turned out to be an apartment which had a kitchen that was open to the winter air and a neighbor who was doing some demolition work on the shared wall).

We realized that you have to carefully read the reviews of the apartments before booking them, make sure you have heard back from them (and/or that you can call their mobile phone) and preferably get one that has instant booking (which means they have a key you can access with a code when you get there).

Once we had settled in we walked around the town.  

It is very quaint with a lot of small shops like those you find in Mexico city selling daily needs and snacks but also plenty of shops selling local crafts and art.  

Or hotel was typical of many of the buildings - a big two door entrance into a central courtyard with a large house of rooms.  I suspect originally housed wealthy families and officials and are now hotels, hostels and restaurants - of which there are plenty.

Our Spanish has improved during the few weeks here.  I had a conversation with someone on the roof of our hotel the morning after we arrived.   I asked in Spanish which volcano was Volcán de Fuego and the person asked me where I was from, after pointing out both Volcán de Agua and Volcán de Fuego to me.

  After I told him he said in Spanish that he was from Santa Cruz, California... he had a chuckle at my tortured Spanish when he could speak perfect English - but the rest of the conversation continued in Spanish...  I told him that I could order coffee, breakfast, lunch and dinner to which he replied - "well at least you won't die of hunger!"

Speaking of which, the restaurants in Antigua were very worthwhile - we ate at a vegan restaurant called "Once Once" - which is a play on words - "once" is the number 11 in English but the English name works just as well. 

We found a great Indian restaurant, a Greek restaurant and a number of other more traditionally Central American restaurants.

The city has a main street with an arch that attracts a lot of tourists for photographs with the big Volcán de Agua as a backdrop. 

This volcano was named for an eruption that was essentially a mudslide that destroyed Antigua in 1541.  Many of the tourists are from Guatemala as well.  Nick said that local families in Guatemala City will save up for weekend outings to Antigua.

Along this street and again in one of the churches that was all but destroyed by the last major earthquake we saw some wooden platforms with Christian figures on them depicting the events around the crucifixion of Jesus. 

In April the city has a huge festival during which these platforms are carried through the streets to celebrate Easter.

There is an opportunity to hike up to Volcán de Fuego - the hike is typically a 2 day hike for which you can rent equipment.  The town of Antigua is at 1500m elevation (5000ft) and the hike goes up a mountain ridge near Fuego which is at 3976m.  The temperatures up there at night can get to -15C even though the weather all year round is pretty temperate in the city below.  Due to the elevation the summits are often socked in by clouds but you have an incredible view of the lava flow on Fuego from the ridge at night and then an opportunity to hike up Fuego as far as is possible in the morning.  The hike takes 3-6 hours to the base camp and then a couple of  hours up Fuego in the morning before hiking back down.

Visitors are warned to acclimatize before attempting this hike and we realized pretty quickly with Nick coming down with something and with the forecast showing multiple overcast days in a row that we should consider coming back here another time with the intention of doing the hike rather than trying to fit it in on this trip.

 We spent two nights in an AirBnb with great views of both Volcán de Agua and Volcán de Fuego.  Anne points out that I can't keep saying this, but this would be a great little town to live in - were it not for the prospect of what the next September might bring.

Mexico: Ritual violence

During one of our meals in Mexico city we had a soup called Pozole which has shredded pork and corn in it.  Matt casually asked me if I knew why they used pork - and then told me that the soup is a traditional Aztec soup ritually prepared as offerings to the gods with sacrificed human flesh.  Since pork is the closest you'll get to that taste, it was substituted when human sacrifices were no longer a thing.

I have to admit that this stuck with me for days and when we took a tour of the famous Mesoamerican pyramid near Mexico city a couple of weeks later we were treated to more horrifying detail by a guide who took us around for a small fee.

But first, we had bought the package that included a balloon ride over the pyramids, 

followed by a hot breakfast and a tour of an artisanal craft market before going to the pyramids.

This was our first balloon ride ever and Anne had to bail from the experience because of her stomach bug so we invited Gina, a friend of ours also working in Mexico, to take Anne's place.

The takeoff and fight over the pyramids was so tranquil and peaceful

but the landing was pretty stressful because the comfortable large field we appeared to have been heading towards passed by to our right and we ended up landing in a small cultivated patch of land, much to the disgruntlement of the farmer working on  his crops. 

A second balloon came careering in and almost ended up in a tree and then some telephone lines before an eventful landing.

 

The ground crew managing the landings are impressively adept and quick-minded to steer the balloons in the last minute or so, so that they land snug in the trailer that will take them back to the launching spot several miles away.

 

After breakfast the trip to the artisanal market brought us to where we were shown a traditional drink called pulque (pronounced pull-ke) which has 5% alcohol and has been used as a sacred drink since the time of the Aztecs.  The taste is a little sour but not unpleasant.  Also on show were amazing hand-crafted obsidian masks, mirrors and sharpened implements as well as locally produced silver jewelry.

 

At then end of the tour we were approached by a smooth-talking man who convinced the three of us (out of a busload of tourists) to pay $225 (pesos $11 US) each for a guided tour of the pyramids which was well worth it - excepting that I don't remember as much of it as I wish I did.

A number of times I thought to myself - remember to google this afterwards, only to find that a lot of what he was debunking in his presentation was what was reported in the descriptions from 2018 and earlier that I found.  Of course it is possible that his facts/suppositions are not supported by archaeologists  but I'll mention a few that were mind-blowing to me.

The site was named Teotihuacan by the Aztecs when they arrived and discovered these pyramids built hundreds of years before them and decided that this place was where the gods were - and named the two prominent pyramids the temple of the sun and the temple of the moon.  It is thought to have been created between 250BC and 1BC but the civilization that created it had abandoned it by around 650AD.

There is evidence that the creators of these pyramids had sophisticated math which included two calendars and knowledge of the phases and orientation of the moon which influenced the architecture.  From a platform in the middle of the central square you can see the full moon rise over 13 separate smaller pyramids.  The calendars are embedded in the number of horizontal tiers in the pyramid (91) - 4 of these multiplied = 364 and each combined provide days until planting, days till harvest as well as a combination of 3 of them the time for gestation of an human infant.

The base and height of the pyramids have the ratio of pi and there is a carving in the middle that had a line to delineate the deviation of magnetic north from true north (based on the north star).

But this is where it gets weird and horrifying.  The cultures that existed around this area practiced ritual sacrifice.  There is evidence uncovered in archaeological digs here that society was divided into different groups - warriors, farmers, artists and "those to be sacrificed" where, with permission of the whole community, people were identified at birth or soon after to be sacrificed for religious rituals to ensure that rain would fall and that the people would remain powerful.

The guide said that in these earlier civilizations it is likely that these children were treated as royalty until they were sacrificed.

The lines get blurry here for me - because the Aztecs when they arrived took these practices to the next level.  For them sacrifice appears to have become very regular and was not always volunteered by parents and the community but was inflicted on captives and other members of the community in cruel ways.

Anne had visited the anthropology museum in Mexico city and has seen horrific implements and a table with a cavity in which human hearts had been placed after ritual killings.

Our guide pointed out that there is a difference between cannibalism for the pleasure of eating humans and ritualistic cannibalism where, for example a warrior's heart was eaten to get his strength or a violent criminal was served for dinner to a family who had been the victim of his crimes.

We had a somber walk back to the car after hearing about all of the beauty of their art and mathematics and then the brutality of their offerings to appease the gods.

At the end of the walk our guide mentioned a woman who had married a Spaniard who had ended up in Central America (the Vikings, Chinese and Spanish had apparently made it across the ocean to this region centuries ago).  She had learned the language of the Mayans, Aztecs and Spanish and had suffered the brutality of Aztec rule to the extent that she helped the Spanish convince all of the subjugated tribes in their kingdom to rise up and defeat them - leading to Spanish conquest and pillage of all the wealth of the rulers.  As is always the case the details are more nuanced than this when you read up about it.

You are no longer allowed to walk up the largest pyramid - they have found seismic cracks in the top and 3 recent incidents where a person's pacemaker stopped from magnetic energy of some kind and two hikers had collapsed after taking on the steps without proper regard for how strenuous an effort it would be.

I was happy to comply.

Art and violence

 

I mentioned in a previous post the art of Diego Rivera and the artist Frida Khalo who sheltered Leon Trotsky for two years before he was assassinated in Mexico City.

We visited the Frida Khalo museum which is in the house where she grew up and then owned with Diego Riviera. 

The house is known as the blue house for obvious reasons and has a beautiful garden and water feature in what appears to be a wealthy suburb of Mexico City. 

 

I was struck at first by how big it is.  I supposed that her family were probably fairly well off when she was young.  She was in a devastating collision during a bus ride in her early 20s and among other injuries a pole in the bus pierced through her lower back and out of her groin. 

Doctors where unsure of her chances for survival and over the years she had over 30 surgeries but she was never able to escape the pain in her back.  

 

Her art embodies this pain and the violence of an abortion and later a miscarriage that she suffered because her body was too damaged to bear children.

Later in her life,  Diego paid off the mortgage on the house, which allowed it to stay in the family so that when she returned there after divorcing Diego it eventually became hers.

She was a very strong person and her art was unique for the time.  She deservedly gained world-wide fame in her lifetime.

We re-watched the film with Selma Hayak which was filmed in the house and gardens (although I suspect a studio set was used for the earlier years before Frida had it painted blue).  She decorated the inside with so many small details that all made the visit well worth it.

For example there were two bedrooms for her near her art studio - the first, a day bedroom (for when she was in too much pain to get up) has a portrait of a dead child above the bed with a garland of flowers and now has her death mask surrounded by a shawl which museum docents change each season as she would have.  Under the canopy is a mirror that allowed her to paint self-portraits without having to get up.

 

 

In the second bedroom (her night bedroom) she had a display of butterflies mounted above her under the canopy.  The cushion on her says "Despierta mi carazon dormido" (Wake up my sleeping heart) which she may have embroidered for Diego - it had previously been on a chair in his bedroom.

Diego's bedroom is downstairs next to the dining room and had one of the two bathrooms that Diego closed off to the public and in which were some things that he had sealed from the public for 50 years after her death.  The bathroom is behind the green door in his room.

 

 

When they were opened they revealed among other things letters that she had written to her doctor, a confidant and friend - expressing her sorrow at not having been able to have a child and also his urging her to reunite with Diego who he said had three loves:  her, painting and other women but that he loved her despite being incapable of being monogamous.

Afterwards we took a walk down the road to an appropriately death-themed restaurant called La Calaca (the skeleton) in Coyoacán where an old couple were serenaded  by a mariachi band for their anniversary while we ate.