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| Lake Atitlan |
It was good returning to the boat after spending time in Tikal and Flores. On Sunday morning 19 March, we were back at the travel agency waiting for the small bus that would take us to Antigua and Lake Atitlan in the southwest of Guatemala.
We left Fronteras at 11.00am
going via Guatemala City, arriving at Antigua after 7.00pm. On the way it
rained quite heavily and the traffic for a Sunday afternoon was horrendous.
About 10 kms outside of Antigua, our bus driver pulled over to the side of the
road, only to announce that the bus was overheating. The radiator was situated
next to the driver’s seat, so he slowly released the cap. The bus started to
fill up with hot steamy air and everyone started to panic. We were sitting
towards the back of the bus, and I had the window slightly open so was okay.
However, the driver wanted to speed things up so took the radiator cap off and
of course water started spewing out. There were screams from some of the
passengers and shouts of ‘Open the door!’, ‘Let us out!’. The bus door was
opened and most of the people jumped out of the bus. Mel and I remained sitting
in our seats, although I did open my window up a bit more in case we had to get
off the bus by jumping through the window. Within 5 minutes of this drama, the
driver had filled up the radiator and it was all good to go, so off we went.
When we arrived in Antigua, it was drizzling slightly but the first thing one noticed were the cobbled streets as the bus driver had to slow right down. There are no high rises, as the city is in an earthquake zone and has experienced quite a number of volcanic eruptions in its history as Antigua is surrounded by two Volcanoes. Volcan de Agua (Volcano of water) is 3, 766m high while Volcan de Fuego (Volcano of Fire) is 3, 976m high and is still very active. While we were there, we could see the volcano puffing away. In fact, Volcan de Fuego erupts frequently – June and November 2018, 23 September 2021, 11 December 2022. The largest most recent eruption was in 2012 – I can remember something on the news about this eruption.
Guatemala is in the Pacific coast
ring of fire and has 37 volcanoes, three of which are still very active –
Paccaya, Fuego and Santiaguito.
A little bit of history… Antigua
is known as the old capital city (1543 – 1773). After a very strong earthquake
in 1773, the Spanish crown moved the capital city to safer grounds, where the
present-day capital city is located – Guatemala City. Prior to this change, Antigua
had experienced several major earthquakes over the years – especially in 1717
and 1751. As recently as the 1970’s, Antigua was still very much a scattered
town and was in wreck and ruin, but I will explain more later.
We eventually arrived at our hotel in Antigua but soon realised that we were not suitably dressed as it
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| The Palace of King Charles III of Spain with Antigua's two famous volcanoes in the in the background - Fuego was letting off some steam. |
was a bit cooler than the Rio Dulce. I had brought my wind cheater from the boat but soon realised that the inner plastic protective coating was fragile and disintegrating. I was a bit like Hansel and Gretel, leaving a path of crumbs/white plastic bits wherever I went. The following morning, we went down to the local market to buy a sweatshirt for me as I was pretty cold.
On the Monday morning – 20 March,
we walked around the town which is in a grid system enjoying the many different
sights. The town square is colourful with the main municipal buildings on one
side, the Palace building opposite and the main Cathedral in between. The
Palace was never used as a palace by King Charles 3rd of Spain and is now an
art gallery for local Guatemalan artists and a museum. Many buildings have been
restored but there are still many others that haven’t, predominantly Churches.
It just costs far too much money, particularly when there have been multiple
earthquakes.
The cobbled streets were very
uneven but there was evidence of the local council trying to repair them and to
make them as level as possible. It was quite fascinating to see the different
arrays of doors. Some were Arabic-looking with the wooden inlays and capped
nail features.
The saying, ‘Never judge a book
by its cover’ – well don’t judge a place by its doorway in Antigua as behind so
many of the doors were hidden gems. The beautiful courtyards with lush gardens,
amazing restaurants and dwellings, huge shopping malls, cultural centres, flea
markets, Domino’s pizza, Starbucks - several the fast-food joints - were behind
many of these doors, so numerous surprises!
Overlooking the town is the Hill of the Cross. We walked from the city centre to the Hill of the Cross, where we spent about 2 hours enjoying the scenery and landscape. The whole area is being developed with various seating arrangements and new gardens. It will look quite beautiful when completed. (See video).
The following morning – Tuesday 21 March, we caught our bus to Lake Atitlan as planned. We would be returning to Antigua later in the week for another two nights before catching our bus back to the Rio Dulce.
The bus drive to Lake Atitlan was interesting to say the least as we went from narrow cobbled streets to fast double lane highways, to flat open plans where every spare piece of ground was used to cultivate some crop, back to narrow windy roads leading down to the water edge of Lake Atitlan. We saw many people working in the fields and even some children as young as 4 -5 years of age, helping. We even saw some children helping their father carrying large concrete blocks. They were assisting their father to build an extension onto the family home. They were smiling and laughing – not a care in the world but learning resilience and what hard work is all about. Many of the small towns specialise in certain crafts or products, for example one of the towns, specialised in leather, so every shop had leather goods for sale. Others were carpentry, mechanics, engineers, etc. Apparently with the internet, more and more of the children are reluctant to learn the family business so the crafts are no longer being passed down the generations. Another social dilemma.
The children though are taught
how to cook by the time they have turned 10 years of age, so they know how to
prepare the family meal while the parents are out working. Not a bad idea!
Along the way, on top of one of
the main mountain ranges, the buildings and houses were constructed like Swiss
Alpine houses. These houses were also surrounded by Alpine Forest areas so if
we didn’t know where we were, we could have easily said we were in the Swiss
Alps.
We were staying in one of the
main towns, Panajachel or as the locals refer to as Pana. It is a tourist trap
or haven, but it was extremely colourful and a perfect place to view the whole
of Lake Atitlan.
Lake Atitlan is the deepest lake in Central America, and it is surrounded by three extinct Volcanoes – Atitlan, San Pedro (the oldest of the three volcanoes) and Toliman. There are several other towns situated around the shores of Lake Atitlan and many visitors use Panajachel as a steppingstone to the other towns. One can catch a ‘lanchas’ – public boat to places like San Juan La Laguna, San Pedro La Laguna and San Atitlan La Laguna.
The word ‘Atitlan’ means ‘between the waters ‘and the Lake Atitlan is approximately 350 m deep. Millions of years ago it was once a HUGE volcano and the lake formed the volcanoes, crater. Apparently in 1996, a hidden city referred to as Samabaj, was located under Lake Atitlan. It was possibly submerged due to many volcanic eruptions. Many relics of this hidden city have been found but due to lack of funding, nothing further has been done to find out more. Just a bit of useless information but – Aldous Huxley of ‘A Brave New World’ fame, once said that Lake Atitlan was even more beautiful than Lake Como in Italy.
We were staying at a hotel just off one of the main streets, and once again like Antigua, never judge a place by its front gate or door. Behind this HUGE security fence and gate (it reminded me a bit of living in Zimbabwe and South Africa) was a beautiful oasis. I was in heaven with all the wonderful plants and flowers.
As soon as we had checked in and
gained Wi-Fi access, we went exploring down the main street, Calle Santander,
where most of the restaurants and vendors were located, walking down to the
edge of Lake Atitlan.
On Wednesday, 22 March, we had booked
a tour of the lake. We met our tour guide Lena who is Mayan. She speaks three
languages, Spanish, Mayan, and English.
In Guatemala, there are 22 different Mayan groups all speaking Mayan with their own dialect. Only 20% of the Mayan language is common between the dialects, while the other 80% is totally different, so the Mayan population keep very much with their own dialect and group.
The people are also very short. I
am only 5ft 4 and I was rather tall compared to some of the people.
On our tour of Lake Atitlan, we
visited three towns along the water’s edge – three totally different towns -
San Juan La Laguna, San Pedro La Laguna, and San Atitlan La Laguna.
The first town we visited was San
Juan La Laguna, which is 23km from Pana. It was a lovely boat ride across the
Lake. The scenery was stunning with the high Volcanoes and mountains as a
backdrop against the beautiful blue sky.
The main street of San Juan La Laguna was decorated with umbrella’s while another street was
decorated with hats. We visited a chocolate factory where we were shown the different processes of how cocoa is extracted from the seeds/pods. We were given the opportunity to taste a few of the different percentages of chocolate and Mel enjoyed tasting the chocolate rums.
After walking around the town, we
went to a Mayan weaving centre where the Mayan work in a cooperative to make an
array of items for sale, thus supporting the local Mayan women. We watched a
demonstration from the raw product to the final process of weaving. We were
also shown the different natural dyes that they use to produce the colour range
of items. I tried my hand at spinning the cotton. The cotton found in Guatemala
is grown from a tree and there are three different colours, white, brown and
red.
After spending some time walking
around the town centre, we were back on the boat and heading for San Pedro La
Laguna which is often referred to as the hippie area and one could see why.
This town was different and there were a lot more ‘colourful’ people around.
San Pedro La Laguna was also a lot steeper than the other two places we
visited. We didn’t stay here for very long and were back on the boat and
heading for San Atitlan La Laguna.
San Atitlan La Laguna has the
largest lake community where they worship Maximon, which is a blend of Mayan
deities, Catholics Saints and Conquistador legends. While we were there, we
walked past the colourful market square on our way to the main church built in
1547, where we saw a mixture of statues of Catholics Saints and Conquistadors.
There was a place of worship for a Roman Catholic priest by the name of Stanley
Rother, calling for him to be made a saint. He was murdered in 1981 during the
horrendous Guatemalan Civil War (1960 -1996). Many awful human rights abuses
took place, in and around Lake Atitlan as the government assumed that the
Indigenous people (Mayans), sympathised with the guerrillas, so imposed a
scorched earth policy. It is believed, at least 300 Maya from Santiago Atitlan
disappeared during the conflict.
Outside the church, Lena, our tour guide, arranged for a lovely little lady to show us how the Mayan women would usually wear their hair. On the 25-centavo coin of the Guatemalan money (the quetzal) is a figure of a Mayan woman with the elaborate hairdo. Lena asked this little lady if she would show us how it was done. Her grey hair was very long, almost to her waist and she curled, braided her hair with such ease.
We spent another half an hour
walking around the town of Atitlan which was quite fascinating as there was a
mixture of old and new buildings.
We took the boat ride back to
Pana, across the Lake, once again enjoying the wonderful and beautiful scenery.
The following morning, Thursday,
24 March, saw us once again on the bus back to Antigua. We had decided to split
our time in Antigua as it was far easier this way getting back to the Rio.
Otherwise, we would have been on a bus back to the Rio for a lot longer than
what we had in store for us later in in the week.
We caught our bus at the
designated place and what struck me, were the number of stray dogs around. This
was like most cities we had been to in Guatemala, stray dogs. Some looked quite
frightening, while others were rather cute and adorable, but I hate to think
what bugs, etc., they were carrying.
Our bus ride back to Antigua was interesting to say the least. The driver decided to go a different way to the way we had come, and my goodness was it hair-raising stuff. Steep cliffs and tight bends, meandering down the never-ending row of mountain passes. We would get to the bottom of one pass,
only to start climbing and curving up to the top of the next steep mountain top. Many times, I said a little prayer and even asked Mel if our life insurance and wills were up to date. We both felt quite car sick.
We were both extremely grateful
to be back in Antigua bumping along on the cobbled streets.
On Friday 25 March, we had booked
a walking Cultural tour of Antigua. We met up with Elizabeth Bell, who would be
our tour guide for the next 3 to 4 hours.
Here is her weblink: Tour
Destinations in Antigua Guatemala by Antigua Tours
Here is a link of the tour we did
with Elizabeth: Antigua
Cultural Walking Tour - Antigua Tours by Elizabeth Bell
She was amazing – straight to the point and extremely knowledgeable. She explained and described how she remembered Antigua when she arrived there in the 1970’s. Many of the buildings were in various forms of destruction and decay, due to the hole town being abandoned as a result of the earthquakes. There were lots of squatters who eventually were offered lucrative and desirable options to move out from some of the buildings that were eventually reconstructed. Elizabeth has connections with UNESCO and has been involved with them in the reconstruction of Antigua.
Apparently, the Spanish were essentially absentee landlords demanding taxes from Guatemala. The taxes were sent back to King Charles 3rd of Spain. Guatemala was considered to be second rate to Mexico and most of the countries in South America who had gold. All Guatemala could offer was silver, jade and cocoa. Elizbeth believes these feelings of being only second rate are now inbred in the Guatemalan people. In the present day, people of Spanish descent run the country although many of these people may have never been to Spain. There is a lot of corruption.
We know that elections in
Guatemala will be taking place in May 2023. We saw lots of political party
banners and adverts while travelling around the country. Elizabeth mentioned
that the president, once elected, can only stand /be in power for one term of
four years. She believes that this could be one of the main reasons why
Guatemala never gets ahead. Lots of NGO’s or private enterprise contribute more
to society than the corrupt government. Elizabeth gave us an example of the
Water company in Antigua, which is a private enterprise. Another example is that
one of main mobile companies here in Guatemala, TIGO, is owned by a very
wealthy Guatemalan who lives in the USA, who contributes a tremendous amount of
money towards education.
Talking about education, there
are two or maybe three sessions of schooling in Guatemala – morning, afternoon
and evening as many children can’t attend school for the whole day. Elizabeth mentioned that the average level of
education in Guatemala is only up to Grade 4 unless you can attend a private
school. Parents who can afford to send their children to a private school, find
inventive ways to raise the necessary funds. For example, if they own a piece
of property, they will rent out the front buildings to someone and live at the
back in small accommodation. We saw this in Antigua. The front of the
house/property could have Pizza Hut, Starbucks and in the back a very small
dwelling. They realise the importance of education to lift themselves and their
families out of poverty. Apparently, education and medical receive very little
funding from the government.
Our tour took us to the main
church in the square and out to the back of the building where we could see the
devastation of the earthquakes and some restoration as well. We went to a Jade
factory, where we were given a brief history of the jade industry in Guatemala
and how significant jade was to the Mayan people. While we were there, we were
given the opportunity to look at our individual date of birth according to the
Mayan calendar. Mel is the Fish or Tijax and I am the conche shell or Ajpu. See
photos.
The Mayan calendar or Tzolk’in is
comprised of 20-day signs and 13 Galactic numbers, making a 260-day calendar.
After our Cultural walking tour,
we visited the main museum and art gallery which is now in the building where
the palace for King Charles 3rd was built, on the main central
square. It is always interesting to see local art and artifacts as it
represents the way life was at that time and place.
We left Antigua for the Rio Dulce
early, at 4.00am arriving in the Rio just before 11.00am. Wow, what a change in
temperature!
It was good to be back on the
boat and to prepare for the next part of our journey. We found out while we
were in Panajachel that all our exit papers for leaving Guatemala had been
approved and we have 30 days to leave. Our plan is to leave RAM Marina and go
down the river, crossing the smaller of the two lakes on the Rio, El Golfete,
to an anchoring hole called Cayo Quemado. This is just before the last bit of
the river down to Livingston where we will need to check out of Guatemala
before heading to Belize.
We are keen to get going as we
want to see how the electronics and batteries on Passages are fairing after being
in storage for so long. We will continue to stock the boat with food until we
leave RAM Marina – Passages home since June 2018.
Here are some videos.
So, until the next update of our adventure, take care and enjoy whatever you are doing.
Bye for
now.
Mel and
Caryn
sv Passages
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