Now This Is Guatemala!

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After a bumpy bus ride from the over-touristed Antigua we arrived where we wish we had budgeted more time for, in the lakeside town of Panachjachal. This small town is the largest of the towns that surround Lake Atitlan. We paid for a 3/4 day long lake tour that took us by small motor boat (lancha) to three other towns. All the towns were named for saints San Pedro, Santiago, and San Miguel. One outstanding feature of this region in Guatemala, is that the people in these villages still speak thier native Mayan dialects (different ones in each of the towns, there are 24 spoken in total throughout Guatemala.)

San Pedro was great, we paid a local (Pedro) the equivalent of 8 dollars to walk us around for about an hour and give a tour in Spanish. He brought us to the workshops of a few local artists, showed us the local catholic church, and to a souvenier/food market.

I knew the islands to be strongholds of rebel resistance during the Guatemalan Civil War but it just was not long enough ago (1954-1992) so, I just did not have the guts bring up the topic of the war, despite my curiosity. Plus me being a Gringo (our CIA started it by overthrowing the democratically elected President Jacobo Arbenz in 1954) made the topic even more uncomfortable for me to discuss with anyone. On the second Island (Santiago, I think?) we did see a monument in the local Catholic Chuch to a an American priest who was assasinated during the war. Nuns and priests were often targeted by the US backed and trained regimes of Central America, because of their "off the wall" beliefs in things like human rights and a fairer distrubution of resources (we still like to call these ideas Socialism). See the upcoming book by this author entitled Shitting In Our Own Backyard: American Foreign Policy in Central America.

Anyway, it is noteworthy to mention that we had a lovely time with the people on our tour. When we got back to Pana we had a great vegetarian Indian/Middle Eastern meal with them...Falafel is now officially available everywhere ladies and gentlemen.

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Photos

Lake Atitlan
More Volcanoes

Faith
It was beautiful to see these Maya Women saying the Rosary.

Finally!
Finally, we got someone else to take a picture of us.

Maya Woman Lake Atitlan
Probably should have asked before I took this one, but I don't speak the dialect of Maya they speak on this island.

Comments

[Eleanor]

Lake towns
More great pictures and interesting history lessons. Am really enjoying all of your travels. Take care