Down the Lake to San Juan February 29, 2016
Embarking for a mini-vacation in San Juan.
Two weeks ago, after finishing our Spanish sessions in Panajachel, we "vacationed" in San Juan la Laguna, a town on the opposite side of Lake Atitlan. The lake is the deepest in Central America, surrounded by 3 volcanoes on one side and steep cliffs - an escarpment - around the rest of the lake. It was formed thousands of years ago when a caldera, created as a result of volcanic eruption, filled with water. The results are stunningly beautiful. There are several towns (pueblos) on the lake, a few accessed almost exclusively by boat. The whole area is populated by two or three Mayan groups. In recent years the area has been invaded by foreigners, creating their own little nirvanas and pushing the indigenous people aside in some places. In other places, the newcomers try to learn the Mayan ways. Like the towns around Portland, Maine, each town on Lake Atitlan has its own personality or vibe.
The dive school/resto/hostel, La Iguana Perdida (the Lost Iguana), in Santa Cruz.
Santa Cruz, not far from Panajachel, is the small pueblo where Bruce and I had celebrated his birthday earlier in the month. Santa Cruz boasts a dive school, run by a British/American couple, and additionally has a couple of kayak rental places and the sweet eco-hotel where we had stayed, as well as the beautiful AirBnB where we stayed on Bruce's birthday weekend last year.
San Marcos, farther down the lake, is filled with new-age folks of all nationalities, seeking enlightenment of one kind or another. We took a boat there for a few hours one day with a fellow traveler. The walkway from the lake to the town center was the best infrastructure that we had seen, with smooth, unbroken cement tiles. The town center is one of the prettiest, with a huge tree shading the indigenous women as they sell their wares. This is one of the places where the culture of the newcomers, with their nudity on the lakefront and their open drug use, has clashed with the more traditional lifestyle of the natives, who fear for their youth. Cutting off the water supply to the offenders (along with a very well-worded statement that we saw posted publicly) sent a pretty clear message. We wandered a bit, had a nice lunch, and then returned to San Juan. But not before we noted all of the workshops for reiki and yoga and meditation and Mayan studies.
Tom and Bruce kicking back in San Marcos.
San Pedro, within walking distance of San Juan, is the "party town", populated by lots of young folks covered with tatoos and piercings and smoking various substances. It's a bit gritty and busy. Hostels are plentiful, as are restos serving vegetarian and middle eastern meals.
Santiago is the largest town on the lake. It has an amazing history stretching back to Spanish colonial times, in this case the 1500's - and before that to even earlier Mayan times, I'm sure - as well as a recent history of tragedy and resistance during the civil war (mid-1960's - 1996), described a bit in an earlier blog post. There is a boat-building tradition here.
A cayuco, a local boat, along the shore in Santiago.
San Juan, the town where we stayed for a week, has the reputation of being less touristy and having more civic pride than many of the others. Wonderful wall murals tell the history of the town, as well as depict Mayan traditions. Women have come together to create weaving cooperatives. Only a few restos exist.
One of the lovely wall murals in San Juan, this one depicting the process of picking coffee beans.
Two weeks ago, after finishing our Spanish sessions in Panajachel, we "vacationed" in San Juan la Laguna, a town on the opposite side of Lake Atitlan. The lake is the deepest in Central America, surrounded by 3 volcanoes on one side and steep cliffs - an escarpment - around the rest of the lake. It was formed thousands of years ago when a caldera, created as a result of volcanic eruption, filled with water. The results are stunningly beautiful. There are several towns (pueblos) on the lake, a few accessed almost exclusively by boat. The whole area is populated by two or three Mayan groups. In recent years the area has been invaded by foreigners, creating their own little nirvanas and pushing the indigenous people aside in some places. In other places, the newcomers try to learn the Mayan ways. Like the towns around Portland, Maine, each town on Lake Atitlan has its own personality or vibe.
Santa Cruz, not far from Panajachel, is the small pueblo where Bruce and I had celebrated his birthday earlier in the month. Santa Cruz boasts a dive school, run by a British/American couple, and additionally has a couple of kayak rental places and the sweet eco-hotel where we had stayed, as well as the beautiful AirBnB where we stayed on Bruce's birthday weekend last year.
San Marcos, farther down the lake, is filled with new-age folks of all nationalities, seeking enlightenment of one kind or another. We took a boat there for a few hours one day with a fellow traveler. The walkway from the lake to the town center was the best infrastructure that we had seen, with smooth, unbroken cement tiles. The town center is one of the prettiest, with a huge tree shading the indigenous women as they sell their wares. This is one of the places where the culture of the newcomers, with their nudity on the lakefront and their open drug use, has clashed with the more traditional lifestyle of the natives, who fear for their youth. Cutting off the water supply to the offenders (along with a very well-worded statement that we saw posted publicly) sent a pretty clear message. We wandered a bit, had a nice lunch, and then returned to San Juan. But not before we noted all of the workshops for reiki and yoga and meditation and Mayan studies.
San Pedro, within walking distance of San Juan, is the "party town", populated by lots of young folks covered with tatoos and piercings and smoking various substances. It's a bit gritty and busy. Hostels are plentiful, as are restos serving vegetarian and middle eastern meals.
Santiago is the largest town on the lake. It has an amazing history stretching back to Spanish colonial times, in this case the 1500's - and before that to even earlier Mayan times, I'm sure - as well as a recent history of tragedy and resistance during the civil war (mid-1960's - 1996), described a bit in an earlier blog post. There is a boat-building tradition here.
San Juan, the town where we stayed for a week, has the reputation of being less touristy and having more civic pride than many of the others. Wonderful wall murals tell the history of the town, as well as depict Mayan traditions. Women have come together to create weaving cooperatives. Only a few restos exist.
On the advice of a couple of acquaintances, we had chosen to stay at another "eco-hotel", Mayachik. It was located on the edge of town, at the foot of a steep high hill. Although Isla Verde in Santa Cruz was also an "eco-hotel", this one was more primitive, more "eco", That one had a lot of charm. This one "is still finding its footing", as one reviewer politely described it. There were positives about it: the pretty grounds with lovely plants, the privacy of having our own very large house with a hammock on the porch, the feeling of safety there, the great resto with a delicious all-vegetarian menu and huge portions of food.
The amazing pancakes at Mayachik, loaded with fresh fruit.
The down-sides at Mayachik included the iffy hot water shower which initially didn't work: the shower water was neither hot nor even existent for a couple of days. The compost toilet was a bit smelly. The house was large but not very comfortable, filled almost exclusively with beds. For Bruce especially, the biggest downside was the noise at night. Stray dogs laid around in the sun all day, it seemed, and came alive at night to bark at every little provocation. In the dark wee hours of the morning, busses and boats honked their horns loudly, reverberating throughout town. They were followed by roosters crowing, as dawn approached. After the roosters, it was sometimes workers sawing down trees in the woods surrounding the compound. Needless to say, Bruce didn't have a good week for sleeping.
The best part of Mayachik was the opportunity to meet other travelers with fascinating tales to tell. We connected with three of them, all Americans, as it turns out.
Katie is a young Middlebury College computer science grad who has an IBM-Watson fellowship for a year-long study of textile traditions, ANYWHERE in the world (outside the US)! Being half-way through her year, she already has amassed some amazing experiences with knitters in the Shetland Islands of Scotland & northern Norway, and with the Sami people of Finland. Now she is in Guatemala to learn weaving techniques from Mayan women. Ahead for her are Bolivia and possibly Ghana. She writes a blog that you can access at: www.weaveofabsence.blogspot.com.
Caroline (Caroleena, en espanol) is an attractive hippie woman, our age, from New Mexico. She has been traveling around Central America for several years and is now looking for a place to settle. She is knowledgeable about sustainability and plants and yoga techniques (as well as website design), has studied in India, is culturally sensitive and interesting.
Tom is also our age and an inveterate traveler. In fact he has owned a travel company, has been a history teacher, is reed thin and a bike rider, and hails from Denver. He's also extremely well-read and liberal in his politics - as is most everyone here :). We had some great conversations with him.
And our last person "of interest" was Emilio. Emilio is the young Guatemalan cook at Mayachik, but he also has his own resto where he serves falafel and hummus. Had I understood his Spanish correctly? Falafel and hummus in a Guate resto? Turns out that he had perfected his cooking skills at a resto in San Pedro, the party town. He invited us to try out his place, and we did - of course! On a map, he had shown me how to get there. Bruce and I did a scouting mission first and ended up on a dusty, pot-holed dirt road that ended in a ravine. No resto in sight. Some women were sitting on steps. When I asked, in my best Spanish, if they knew Emilio, they brightened up and called a cute, seven-year old chica to lead us there. Entering a long, very narrow, dark alley, she skipped gaily along. We took a breath and followed. In a couple of minutes, the alley opened up and, like a royal announcer, she was yelling out, "Emilio! Emilio!". Soon another little girl asked, "Emilio? Es mi tio!" with a big smile and such pride, letting us know that she was related to this famous uncle. Emilio emerged, wearing a big grin, too. We looked at the menu and made plans to eat there another day. A couple of days later we returned with Katie and had a delightful meal in an airy, open wabi-sabi type of place, furnished with worn cushions on wicker furniture.
So, with our trips to two other pueblos and our meal at Emilio's place, lots of reading and chatting, as well as a brief visit to a weaving cooperative where we learned from Teresa about growing, spinning, dyeing, and weaving of cotton, our week's adventure slipped by. Tom returned home. Caroleena was getting ready to leave. Life is very fluid on the road.
As our own departure day approached on Saturday, our thoughts focused on the lake. The wind had whipped up at the end of the week. After a very scary, bumping, rolling voyage getting to San Juan initially and another getting back from Santiago one day, we were nervous. A long-term ex-pat advised us to go as early as possible to avoid the Xocomil wind that comes up regularly in the afternoon. We left by 8 am and had no trouble!
The lake was calm on the day that we left for our return to Pana.
It was delightful to return to Ana and her comfortable home for our last five days in Pana. We're in Antigua now for a week. Then we'll fly home to Maine for one weekend to prepare for our trip to Europe and our long hikes. It's a hard life but someone's got to do it :) !
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