Atitlan Adventure

Last weekend, Chris and I headed over to Lake Atitlan. You can check Chris’s blog for a description of the harrowing journey. This is the lake. It is huge. Since we were mostly in the clouds, we weren’t able to see the other side. It was like the calmest ocean you ever saw. It reminded me a bit of Lake Tahoe, except cheaper and with Mayans, and much dirtier hippies.

We arrived in Panajachel the first day (me a little out of it from the Dramamine I took before our chicken bus ride). Pana is filled to the brim with dread-locked white kids, most of whom appear to be tripping on something. We wanted to get out of Pana as quickly as possible, but first we needed money. We went to every ATM in the entire town. None of them would let us take out money. We were trying to take money out of savings (because I forgot to transfer money from savings before we left). After going from ATM to ATM and getting very cranky, I finally remembered that I had disconnected the savings account from the ATM card. Duh! No one should ever let me do anything after taking Dramamine.

Any ATM aggravation disappeared once we got on the boat to go to the town we were staying in. That’s Chris enjoying a boat ride. Riding across the lake is amazing - cool air, surrounded by mountains and pine forests (and, of course, ridiculously huge vacation homes). In the mornings, the lake is so calm, you just glide through the water. The town we were staying in, San Marcos, had a lot of yoga people and meditators. One place offered “transformation therapy” which allowed you to be released from childhood traumas, get a glimpse of your dharma and meet your inner-healer, among other things. Chris and I did not indulge.

Aside from the yoga studios and a couple stores, there is not much else in San Marcos. To keep ourselves amused, we hopped over to a couple other nearby towns. Santiago is a pretty large town that we hit on market day. It is known for its paintings and galleries, as well as the usual textiles and whatnot. Here’s a pic. It is definitely a tourist oriented market. Everyone shopping was from the US or Germany or the UK. . We also went to another town called San Pedro. There, the locals were putting on a little karaoke concert. Only problem was, the “stage” was the outside of a store and the audience sat on bleachers across the street. Every time a truck drove by, it drove right between the performers and the audience. Very low budget.

Chris and I really wanted to swim in the lake, but when we went down to the rocks near our hotel, there were a bunch of teenage Mayan girls bathing. They were in their bras and had shampoo in their hair. Somehow this was a cultural line that Chris and I just could not cross. I can’t explain why. I jumped right in to the ocean with half naked people on South Beach, no problem. Bathing suit, fine. Topless, fine. Bra and shampoo, can’t do it. Instead of swimming, Chris decided to fly. Here’s one for the Chris’s most embarrassing pictures collection.

Now that I have embarrassed Chris, I must also tell you that he is the only person that bothered helping people in and out of the boats. This included one older Mayan woman carrying a huge basket on her head. The basket looked very heavy. Turned out it was full of Cup-a-Noodles. Traditional Mayan Styrofoam?

On our way out of the area, we passed by the hotel we were thinking of staying at. It was filled with retirees out bathing in the lake. Picture a scene from the movie Cocoon, but with a boatload of tourists gliding by.

Shana Xela

Well, a couple of days turned into a couple of weeks since my last blog entry. We’ve been busy recovering from all our travel. This is Quetzaltenango (Xela), a city of a few hundred thousand in the middle of the mountains and volcanoes of Guatemala. The surrounding countryside is all mountain pine forests and little villages where women in Mayan dress herd goats and where little kids in school uniforms run by the side of the road. (Unfortunately, they run about two feet away from crazy truck drivers who like to go 80 mph on windy mountain highways, but that’s another story.) Xela has everything a girl needs - cheap restaurants (Guatemalan, French, Italian, Middle Eastern...), good coffee, internet cafes galore, and hotels. Unfortunately, some of the hotels and hostels are pretty damn gross. (See Chris’s Blog).

We took it easy at first because we were tired from all those long crazy bus trips and because we are at a really high altitude. Just climbing a little hill was wiping us out. After a week of lolling around, we decided to sign up for Spanish lessons. That’s Chris concentrating really hard on his lessons. We signed up at Miguel Cervantes because it was cheap, had rooms for rent, and didn’t require us to live with a family. Turns out we probably would have been better off living with a family. The place was repugnant. All I kept thinking was, my mother would die if she saw this. Luckily, our Spanish lessons were better than our accommodations. Five hours a day of one-on-one lessons. We reviewed a lot of grammar, but we also just chatted. Daniel, my teacher, told me all about “Guatelinda” (pretty Guate) and its problems. For those of you who don’t remember, Guatemala had an ugly war in the 80s - hundreds of villages destroyed, hundreds of thousands of people disappeared, tortured, and murdered. Ugly stuff. Even uglier is the fact that the people responsible are still involved in Guatemalan politics, one general is currently running for president. Yuck. I also taught my teacher a few things. He now knows that there are lots of poor people in the U.S., that many felons can’t vote, and that Hilary Clinton doesn’t have a chance in hell of winning the presidency. (O.k. that last one is only an opinion - for now.)

The people in Guatemala are incredibly nice and friendly. The waiters and waitresses introduce themselves. If you look lost, strangers will come up to you on the street and ask if they can help. I think in part the difference is that the economy here doesn’t depend on begging for tourist dollars. There are tourists, but only a few and they are mostly studying Spanish or volunteering. Another thing I notice is that, unlike in Mexico, not every advertisement is filled with families that look like they came straight out of Scandinavia. The Guatemala City paper is a little more Euro-centric, but the local paper is filled with people that look like the locals. And, unlike in San Cristobal, the indigenous women aren’t accosting you to buy trinkets. They are just going about their business like everyone else. (Which is not to imply that there isn’t racism here. When I find the place where that doesn’t exist, I’ll let you know. We can all move there.)

I think our favorite person in town has got to be Magda. She works for the Black Cat hostel (where we stayed for a week). Every morning I would go down to have their phenomenal French toast and we would bug Magda for all sorts of info about Xela. She knows everything. Chris calls her our Guatemalan OB1. I’m not sure how she would feel about that. It was Magda that helped us find an apartment. We moved in the day before my birthday. It is 1,100 quetzals a month including electric, water, etc. (That is about $150). Only problem is, our water only works about half the time and we only have hot-ish water in the shower (none in the kitchen or bathroom sinks). The hot-ish water in the shower is via a weird contraption that has all sorts of wires coming out of it (see pic). It heats the water right before it gets to you. It looks like a death trap, but so far no electrocutions. We had to buy a little fridge and tiny stove, but they didn’t cost much. Now we can actually wake up and have a cup of coffee and some breakfast. Also, we don’t have to share a bathroom. (Yippeeee!!!) We cleaned the shit out of the place, but after living at Miguel Cervantes Pit of Filth, this place seems like...my moms house. Ok, not really.

Speaking of my birthday, we went to a french restaurant and ordered a three course meal and wine. We managed to spend like $30 on dinner. Do you know how hard it is to spend $30 on dinner in Guatemala? Really hard. A couple days before my birthday, Xela had a music festival with everything from rock to salsa to an accordion player. We mostly watched the rock stage. There was Guatemala’s version of Green Day and a very Santana-influenced group. There was also this very morose girl band (that did a pretty good cranberries cover). The most entertaining part was that all the hippie tourists were wearing Guatemalan bags and belts, while all the Guatemalans looked like they were about to try out for Metalica. I love how culture travels.

That about brings you up to date. We haven’t traveled around the area much as we have been studying and trying to settle in a little. Now that we have an apartment, we hope to go to the volcanoes, the little towns, the hot springs, Lake Atitlan, the ruins...all that jazz. Hopefully Ill have more exciting things to post soon.