¡Pase adelante!

I’ve been slacking in the writing a bit, but only because before I felt there wasn’t enough information to fill a whole entry (an interesting entry at least), but now I think I have collected enough juicy tidbits to keep you reading.

So the weekend before this last one, not much was really done as we were tired and Ryan was kind of sick. We stuck around Xela for the most part. I went to two poetry readings with a girl named Sofie from Quebec who lives in the house as well. (Maybe I’ll get to practice my French too.) It was pretty fun. The poets weren’t half-bad either, and really rather friendly. I hope similar events are on the horizon.

Last week was another fairly typical week: volunteering for Trama, teaching the three students English who sometimes show up and sometimes don’t, and translating here and there. My last student of each day, Alicia, makes me laugh. She thinks her English is really bad, but in reality, hers is the best of all three of my students. She let me borrow a CD of music she likes in a style she calls “bachata.” Anyway, it’s pretty lousy, and maybe I can make her see the error of her ways? Doubtful, but worth a shot. Maybe I’ll make her a CD under the guise of “this will help you learn English”, when really it will help her music tastes… ha.

The last week also contained Carnaval on Tuesday, what in New Orleans would be called “Mardi Gras”. It’s kind of sad that I lived in New Orleans for a while but never even got to experience a Mardi Gras, but oh well. This fair has been set up next to el Parque Calvario in my neighborhood for the past two weeks or so, for Catholic-fueled party purposes, I think. So we went down last Tuesday to see what all the fuss was about. It was full of people and seemed like it would really be quite fun. Music in the air, street food, homemade traditional candies, even a ferris wheel! But of course, it couldn’t be that fun that easily. No. Soon we started seeing groups of adolescent boys going around throwing handfuls of flour at nervous passerbys. And of course I was lucky enough to be on the receiving end of said flour attacks at least three times. My sweater and head were splattered with white (yes, even moreso than my hair usually is), and needless to say, I didn’t want to stay long. I just have this hang-up where I don’t enjoy things being thrown in my face.. call me crazy. It felt like escaping from a war, as we hurried through the crowds to get back onto the street towards the house. On a happier note, some of the homemade candies are quite tasty. In fact, I think I’ll eat one now. Mmm.

With the week behind us, Ryan and I decided it was high time to take off again, our destination this time being Lake Atitlán. I had wanted to visit the Lake for quite some time, so I was pretty excited. It’s supposed to be one of the most beautiful lakes in the world, and it definitely lived up to its reputation. We took off Friday morning, having to take several buses to get close to the lake, as I’m guessing a direct one wasn’t available at the time we left (there is not bus schedule posted anywhere…). Since the bus stopped off in the traditional town of Sololá, and as it was their market day, we decided to check it out a little. It was huge and quite a sight. If we had been feeling more up to it, we would have spent more time there, but as we were anxious to get to the Lake, we hopped on another bus,--this time for Panajachel. This is where I caught my first glimpse of the lake, on our descent down the hills into town. I had seen plenty of pictures of it before, but still its beauty took me by surprise. Pictures don’t do it justice.

We soon arrived in Pana, a city we had been warned to avoid spending much time in by at least several people due to its strong touristy vibe, but still came to anyway. For one thing, buses from Xela get to the lake either through Panajachel or San Pedro La Laguna, and we figured the western side of the lake would be for our next visit. So while Pana was much more touristy than most parts of Guatemala we’ve seen so far and even rather obnoxious at times, it was still something to be seen, occasionally amusing, and overlooking the most beautiful body of water I have ever seen, so for now it’s forgiven.




We ambled through the streets of Panajachel, eventually finding a place to eat lunch. One of the nice things about Pana, was that there was a fair amount of good places to eat. We happily took advantage of this, eating at a Uruguayan restaurant, a little crepe place, and a place that had good pita sandwiches (not all at the same time of course). We joked that going to the lake was our vacation away from Guatemala. Many tourists walked around wearing their big khaki floppy hats and cameras around their necks. This was the first time I saw a fair amount of families on vacation in this country, wearing their Mayan-woven scarves and Tikal Petén t-shirts they picked up from street vendors.

The next day we woke up fairly early to catch a lancha (little boat) across the lake to the town of Santiago Atitlán. I’d read a fair amount about Santiago, so I was all geared up. While Santiago is a much more traditional town than Panajachel, there were also many tourists, and lamentably a fair amount of the villagers play to this. We got into town around 8 AM, and we did not go unnoticed, as a man wearing the traditional Santiago shorts sauntered up to us and badgered us about staying at some hotel, and proceeded to follow us for several minutes after we’d said, “No, Gracias” and other discouraging things at least 10 times. Some of these people would make fantastic telemarketers, I’m telling you. I think he was particularly persistent because we must have been the first gringos of the day. Hah.

We wandered around the town, eventually finding the old church. Inside were statues of saints wearing various gowns and really gaudy scarves. We had read in my guidebook that if you go down to dock you could rent a canoe and go out to this nature reserve close by. We decided to investigate this. The second you get even close to the dock various workers approach you and say, “Pana? San Pedro?” thinking you want to catch a lancha to one of those towns. But, no. This other really eager man in a cowboy hat, purple shirt, and traditional Santiago shorts kept asking us things in broken Spanish, saying he would take us in his canoe to some place we couldn’t understand. He was more persistent than the first guy, if that’s believable. We finally told him we wanted to rent a canoe, and that we wanted to go alone. He agreed on my lowered price and we lightly stepped into the reed-strewn wooden boat. With one paddle in each of our hands, we set out, away from the dock, or at least we tried. I think I’d only been in a canoe once before, when I was maybe 11 on a school field trip in 5th grade, so I was a bit out of sorts. We finally got the hang of it, and awkwardly maneuvered further from the shore. Many strange looks were shot our way from villagers in other canoes, and one man looked at me and laughed, “lanchera!” meaning it was funny to see a woman rowing. The old woman in the canoe then pointed and laughed and said something in what I’m guessing was Tz’utujil.



Then as we curved around the bend, our friendly Santiago Atitlán helper appeared amongst some reeds. He shouted something intelligible that sounded like “Ixca!” I have no idea. We paddled closer to figure out what he was talking about. We had wanted to see this weaving museum earlier, and it had been closed, so I think he was talking about there being a museum and it was open now, but I don’t think it was the same one. Basically, I think he was trying to get his canoe back early.. not so fast, buddy. So we just thanked him for telling us and said we wanted to stay in the canoe more, though. He skipped away towards the dock again, hunting for more gringos.

We eventually got a handle on the rowing, but still the canoe would occasionally turn in circles. Tourists passing in lanchas took our pictures as we struggled towards what we thought was the little nature reserve. By the time we got close to it, nearly two hours had already passed, and there didn’t really seem to be much to see, so we began our trip back to the dock. The scenery was absolutely stunning: crystal blue water, volcanoes looming immediately ahead of us, surrounded by mountains on all sides.




The trip back was also difficult because by now our muscles were starting to get quite sore. My butt hurt from sitting on a coke crate, my arms from constantly shoving a paddle into the water. In between moans I would shout, “left!” “right!” “no, left!” And we felt like shipwrecked sailors disbelievingly rowing with frantic energy when the dock appeared in sight again. The wind and constant presence of the lanchas skimming across the water made it more of a fight, but doggonit if we didn’t make it back alive. Quite shaky and sore—but alive.

The crazy guide popped out of nowhere again and helped us steady the canoe onto land as we hobbled out. He then got in the canoe immediately with a little boy and they began rowing away to who knows where.

Feeling like conquering heroes, Ryan and I followed the road back into town where we stopped in the tiny weaving museum that was now open. It was pretty tiny but interesting nonetheless. Further up the road, all the stalls were set up with the folks from Santiago Atitlán getting ready to sell things to hordes of tourists, who had finally arrived. Every little stall you pass by you are tempted with the phrase, “Pase adelante!” (Come in!) as if it’s some sort of spell they cast to will people into their stores. Meanwhile young men stroll past you playing the same few notes on a wooden flute before saying, “flauuuuta.” (flute)

We decided that we finally needed to start buying gifts for people, and maybe some wall hangings for ourselves?—knowing that we can’t buy anything too bulky since we have to think about bag space. I’ll probably be getting rid of lots of unecessary possessions to make room for my new purchases. So after a while of climbing up and down a hill, being tourists, and figuring out what we were interested in, I bartered with a woman for a pretty woven wall hanging. (Ryan later put on a great show and bought one from San Catarina for a good price in Panajachel.) Satisfied, we caught the next lancha back to Pana, as there was more assortment of lodging over there. (our room for the night ended up costing us only 25 quetzales each—that’s about $3.00!)



We watched the sun set over the lake and ate some pie in the street. At 5 AM we were woken up by what sounded like 34 roosters practicing for their choir ensemble recital later that day. God bless them. Every one.

So-the next day, we got up pretty early (remember, the roosters), and headed down to lake one last time. We finally found the public beach of sorts. I was surprised to not really see any foreign tourists around, but instead many Guatemalans, and even a class practicing swimming. Close to the shore was a group of people singing songs about Jesus while a band played. The water was too icy cold for my liking, so I just sat and watched Ryan shiver in the water for a bit. There were really only two other boys swimming. Maybe it got warmer later.



We then soaked up our remaining few hours in Panajachel with a desayuno típico and more window shopping. The bus back to Xela was rather painless and fast considering others we’ve taken… And that about wraps it up. Next time we go to the lake (and there will be a next time) I think we’ll hit up the western side more around San Pedro, San Juan, and San Marcos. Yes.

Until next time.