GoForth and Blog

Lago Atitlán is a gorgeous crater lake surrounded by mountains, volcanoes, and small Mayan villages. San Pedro is one of them- quaint, friendly, and despite the significant number of foreign Spanish students manages to be essentially non-touristy. There are lots of guesthouses, Spanish schools, and restaurants catering to backpackers, but they neatly blend into the village… the tourists are still just guests- they haven’t claimed the village for themselves.

• Every road in the village is violently steep.
• In the morning you can hear the clapping sounds of women making their tortillas for the day.
• In the afternoon you can hear the incessantly repetitive thump of reggaeton- apparently the only music to listen to if you’re young in San Pedro.
• At night you can hear the haunting cacophony of the millions of stray dogs.
• There is barely any car traffic- only the zippy red tuk-tuks (moto-taxis; curiously, they’re called tuk-tuks in SE Asia as well and it’s not just the tourists who use the term).
• All of the women dress traditionally, with lacey blouses tucked into long, colorful, woven skirts. Most of the men dress in boring modern fashion, but some of the old men wear the traditional striped Capri pants, colorful woven button-down shirt, equally colorful woven belt, and huaraches and Stetson hat. They look awesome.
• Guatemala is a very Catholic country, but Evangelicalism is enjoying major growth in popularity. A major reason is that it denounces drinking and domestic abuse, making it very popular with women. San Pedro is very Evangelical. For the one Catholic church in town which honors patron Saint Peter,
  there are several bright, new Evangelical churches. All over town are brightly painted slogans like “Jesus – la única esperanza para ti” (Jesus – your only hope), and “Jesus es el Señor de San Pedro” (you can figure out what that one means).



• In San Pedro, when it rains, it POURS.

Take me Home!

I had a great week in San Pedro.

I spent a large part of it studying Spanish- 4 hours a day of one-on-one tuition at San Pedro Spanish School, with a very sweet and patient instructor named Mayra. Everyone studies in personal cabañas which are scattered throughout a beautiful garden right on the lake. A perfect setting.

During the week, I visited 2 of the other villages on the lake: Santiago de Atitlán, and Solóla.

Santiago de Atitlán

The people here are known for their devotion to the Mayan-Catholic diety, Maximon. It is believed that Maximon is an amalgamation of Mayan gods, Pedro de Alvarado (the Spanish Conquistador of Guatemala), and Judas Iscariot. He is portrayed differently in the effigies created of him throughout Guatemala. In Santiago de Atitlán, he is guarded in the dark room of a dilapidated house which is lit by colored lights and decorated with silk flowers and plastic fruit. He stands about 3 feet tall, is fully dressed, including shoes, dons a Stetson, smokes a fat cigar, and wears about 20 ties around his neck. Local women change his outfit weekly. Worshipers offer him cigarettes and liquor before making their requests. It is an interesting sight.

(here is another good picture from Wikipedia)

Solóla

I went to Solóla on one of its market days, as my trusty guide book advised that Solóla’s market was more authentic (i.e. less touristy) than the better-known Chichicastenango’s. To get to Solóla I took a lancha (small boat) to Panajachel, then I got to ride a chicken bus the rest of the way. The ride from Panajachel to Solóla was only 20 minutes (but uphill the whole way so the views of the lake were incredible) which was perfect- enough time to fully experience the chicken bus but not so much time that your muscles start cramping from fighting to keep yourself from falling off of the 5 inches of seat that you have because there are 2 other people sharing it or so that you get dizzy from trying not to inhale too deeply because you don’t want to breathe in the chicken dander (sorry, but living in China during the bird flu thing has made me a little uncomfortable about being in close quarters with chickens).

Anyway, the market was definitely authentic – I could tell because there was nothing I wanted to buy – busy and colorful and huge. Sadly I found my camera battery dead when I attempted to take my first picture, but here are photos that I found on this person’s blog (and also one of the inside of a chicken bus, although this one lacks the usual plastering of Jesus stickers above the windshield):

As I walked around the market- at a brisk pace to keep from getting in the way of the people who were not just there to browse- I couldn’t help feeling a little relieved that I wasn’t able to whip out my camera at every turn. I thought about how annoying it would be if I was trying to buy my groceries when the store was already packed with other shoppers, and I had to deal with people taking my picture and standing in my way gawking at the products on the shelves. How annoying and how ridiculous. And if it happened often enough, I’d probably start going to another grocery store to avoid it. I would hate for it to get to the point where a Guatemalan woman dreads market day because on top of the normal crowds she has to deal with silly Gringos all over the place- or for her to decide that she’s going to start going to the market an hour further away to avoid it. It’s a tricky thing, tourism. I firmly believe in the importance of knowing what else is out there, of how other people live, but the line at which me seeing how other people live starts to change how they live is a fine one. I feel somewhat better about myself when I think “hey, at least I didn’t parade through the market with 50 other tourists all wearing the same hat following a guy with a microphone and a flag.”

The rest of my time was spent relaxing in San Pedro, enjoying gorgeous views, delicious food, awesome tourist hang-outs (hey, I can’t hide what I am), good company, and perfect weather. It’s the rainy season in Guatemala, but through a wonderful stoke of luck if was gorgeously sunny and hot everyday, except for my last evening there. And oh, did it rain that evening. It started during the last hour of my Spanish lesson and just dumped for the rest of the night. It was incredible- not only was it coming down in buckets, but because of how hilly the village is, there were literally waterfalls rushing down the roads. After waiting in my room for it to slow, I decided it wasn’t going to and ventured out for dinner. When I went outside I realized it had slowed considerably- but the ferocious noise of the rivers rushing down the roads and the force of the water pouring off of the houses through the gutters made it seem torrential. When I waded home from the restaurant and opened my door to find water pouring onto the floor through the spots where the windows and the wall weren’t flush, I was extremely grateful that it was my last night there.

Take me Home!

Because the hotel we ended up at in Antigua was comparatively posh, and because I booked the shuttle to San Pedro through the hotel, and because I was fairly certain that a conversation took place between the hotel receptionist, the shuttle driver, and myself about being taken directly to a hotel in San Pedro, I naively assumed I would be traveling grown-up class, not backpacker class.

My assumption was only vaguely challenged when, 30 minutes later, the shuttle was crammed with backpackers. In four hours or so we got to Panajachel, the main town on Lago (Lake) Atitlán, where everyone else in the van was going. I figured we were going to drop them off and then continue on to San Pedro, until the driver stopped at the top of a dark path leading to the dock, and said “San Pedro.” I attempted to compose the sentence, “But you are supposed to drive me there!” in Spanish. He replied, “No. Take the boat.” “But my guide book says the last boat to San Pedro is at 6:00, and it’s 8:00.” He got out of the car and disappeared down the path. A few minutes later he returned. “There’s a boat.” “But it’s dark and scary and I don’t want to go by myself!” So in the third fortunate incident in the past 2 days, 2 British guys, Ollie and Guy, said they too were going to go to San Pedro, and then 2 American girls, Cait and Elisia, said they were planning to go the next day, but as long as there was a boat they’d go now. So luckily, again, I wasn’t alone. We squeezed in to the tiny boat and put-putted around the lake in the dark, dropping passengers off at each village, until finally we got to San Pedro.

We were greeted at the dock by a man wanting to take us to his hotel. We told him the name of the hotel we wanted to go to, and he replied, “That’s my hotel!” So we followed him as he helped push Guy’s bicycle up the steep road. Upon arriving at the hotel, the proprietor told us it was full. Our guide shrugged his shoulders and tried to get us to follow him again. We declined, found ourselves 2 rooms at the hotel next door, and then went to a restaurant for dinner. Not long after sitting down, our guide approached and asked for money for helping Guy with his bicycle. Guy had already given him some money. He wouldn’t desist. We were getting a little freaked out. Eventually he left our table and resigned himself to moaning loudly in the corner. This was equally disconcerting, but at least he was far away. We relaxed over dinner and Gallo. And thus past my first night in San Pedro.

Take me Home!