Image above: The morning view across Lake Atitlan from Panajachel with the Toliman volcano on the left and San Pedro volcano on the right. [Saturday 08 October]
Shooting out from a window seat at 1/2000 shutter. iPhone playing out some sweet tunes. That was the way to get through another killer 12 hour drive from San Cristobal, across the Guatemalan border, to Panajachel.
Meant to be a party town, in this low season it certainly was not. However, nestled on the shore of Lake Atitlan and surrounded by six of the volcanoes (some active) of the Pacific Ring of Fire, the spectacular location more than made up for it. That and the local delicacy of pupasas that I ended up working in the kitchen making. Not as easy as it looked and boy do I miss cooking now.
With Panajachel being the home town of Joshua, our guide, we got taken across the lake by his mother, Gabriela, to visit the two very different towns of San Juan and Santiago.
A small enclave of local arts and crafts, in San Juan we met a couple who were self-taught painters using the bird’s eye view style of the area; an old woman who had been honoured for bringing back traditional ways of cotton and silk weaving; and a herbalist who showed us natural remedies for common ailments.
Crossing over to Santiago it was a different world. A bustling town which was more (even fiercely) traditional in it’s dress sense and ways. Here we saw the confluence of the Catholic with the Mayan faith it had tried to usurp. No more so in making a pilgrimage to Maximo who is regarded as a living Mayan god.
In actuality he is a carved wooden statue that is treated as being alive. He is moved from family to family – such is the power and importance bestowed by his presence – and wherever he resides he has his own room, is dressed daily, is always accompanied by two minders, and is put to bed at night.
Always with a lit cigar in his mouth, the offerings of rum that passes through him are collected to be consumed by the brotherhood who attend to him. So basically they are all stone drunk … such a surreal and bizarre experience being there.
Despite the differences between both towns what was evidently common was the effect of environmental change. With the water level rising so quickly, the shoreline is littered by submerged docks, shops, and homes. So much more impactful seeing it first hand and not on BBC News.
Finishing my brief visit to Panajachel was a home stay in the neighbouring town of San Jorge with Urs. Here the widowed Teresa and her six kids (three boys and three girls) welcomed us and thanks to Urs’s Spanish we were able to converse with them a little as they didn’t speak English.
It was a revealing experience seeing how they lived. With no TV, no PC, and no Internet their life was simpler and slower. The kids found different ways to entertain themselves and they taught us cards games as well as something that I can only loosely describe as a paper based version of Battleships.
In the morning, I saw how the eldest daughters did their usual morning ritual of collecting the maize, taking it to the local mill to be ground into a paste, and then using that to hand craft each tortilla. Urs and I had a go but we were awful! We left grateful for the experience and for their hospitality.
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