Lake Atitlan

The following morning we caught a bus to Panjachel on the shores of Lake Atitlan, a massive and stunning lake in the mountain highlands of Guatemala. Panjachel itself is nothing to write home about but the lake is magnificent, surrounded on all sides by mountains rising sharply out of the lake, plus a few volcanoes sprinkled around the horizon. The lake has several small villages on it which we visited a couple. Panajachel is the main gringo meeting point as it is the only village easily accessable by road. This has meant the village has grown significantly and has lots of stalls selling arts and crafts, it also means it has plenty of cafes and bars for us to enjoy. The margeritas here were a lot cheaper than Antigua so we felt it rude not to sample a few. We spent most of our first day on the lake browsing the stalls, book swapping and generaly enjoying the amenities. The following day we caught a lake taxi, a small motorboat with a sun shade. What the taxi lacked in life jackets was more than made up by the speed. Our first village visit was to San Pedro. San Pedro was a more traditional village and heavily populated by hippies, who were to haunt us for the next couple of days. We found some solar heated plunge pools, but abstained as the last taxi left in the early afternoon and we were getting peckish. Instead we found a nice cafe overlooking the lake with a gorgeous blue sky. There is not much else to do there other thann chill with Mojitas, but seeing as we had those for brekky we decided to catch the last taxi back. After checking out of our Hospadajare we caught another boat to a place on the lake called San Marcus, the beardy wierdy centre of hippy ville. Our guide book advised us that it had the most unique accomodation in Guatemal, which indeed it was. Each hut was built into a shape of a pyramid, and the two ´temples´, one for the sun and one for the moon, were also pyramids. As part of your stay, the courses are free, as well as mandatory as we failed to appreciate when we first checked in. But, hey, this sounded like fun. Our first lesson was meditation in the moon temple. We all entered via a small hatch in the floor to a tunnel that led to the inside of the pyramid decorated with buddhas and other effigies, with another smaller pyramid in the centre with a crystal on the peak. We found a mat each and then the white robed guru entered...todays lesson was going to be exploring our emotions. Mild panic on my behalf, which I´m sure Jo shared, nut it was too late we were locked in. Actually it was fun in the end, we had to face a partner (Jo and I were on different sides of the pyramid and hence could not take the easy option), take deep breaths, look in each others eyes and then express to each other our deepest fears and anxieties. This was followed by some group sesions and finally some breathing exercises. It was kinda spooky, afterwards on exiting the pyramid we all felt really, really chilled and peaceful. Post emotion treatments we made a dash into the village proper for some dinner and wine. This was a bit of a shocker as the village mostly consisted of rubble as a couple of months ago they had a bit of a hurricane that had flattened the place and badly damged some of the other villages. The only place that seemed unaffected, poor tykes, was the school. We had to awake early the next morning for a yoga session, which I escaped as I was up all night hooked into the pyramid vibe and being at one with the cosmos, Joey on the other hand had slept well and later told me it was really good fun, lots of strecthes and poses to channel inner powers or somehting like that. We checked out before they could drag us into the metaphysics lectures, and caught a boat to another part of the lake. The casa del mundo, built on a cliff side, designed primarily for mountain goats. Getting us and our rucksacks to the hotel was quite a feat, but worth it. The views from this place were unbelievable, every room had unhindered views onto the lake as the place is vertical. We spent the day chilling out on hammocks watching the passing boats, admiring the view right across the lake to the volcanoes and mountains with a whsipy cloud or two breaking up the blue skies. The owners and staff were extremely helpful and friendly and we felt in heaven. It was such a shame we only found this place on our last day on the lake as we could have stayed for quite a while. The hotel insisted on communal dinners, and hence we were trapped between an american family visiting uncle in Antigua, and a canadian artist for the night. It was a really good night, the wine and conversation flowing, excellent food. Luckily the americans were more on the liberal side so i don´t think i upset them too much, and Joey got a good contact for an artist in Scotland who may be pursuaded to visit her workplace to help with conservation education. A little worse for wear we hit the sack only after Joey making a video of the lake, in total darkness with running commentary. Waking the next morning was a struggle and we had the get the first boat away from the hotel back to Panjachel to catch another bus to take us deeper into the highlands and Chichicastenanga for market day. The biggest market in the whole of guatemala, been running for all known history, although of late this has meant an increase in toursit craft stalls. Yet this took none of the magic away, villagers resplendent in their colourful clothes from villages all around the highlands still come as their main trading centre. It was a vibrant, exciting and colourful experience. Many many stalls of crafts especially mayan arts surrounded the market, and if you ventured inwards there were the food stalls and local wares. All through the day fireworks and bangers were being fired from the crowd, as although generally speaking guatemala is a catholic country, the mayans in the highlands still practice their old religion. This has been mixed into the catholic religion and even some of the mayan gods now reside in the churches. One of my favourite, which I failed to visit, is Maximon (mah-shee-mon) who demands cigars and rum as offerings, the locals tend to leave cheap ciggies and beer instead, but this is my kinda religion. I really loved the way in Chichi the old and new, the tourists and locals, freely mix all intent on their individual bargains and we spent the day haggling prices away. We ended up spending far too much and we haven´t really worked out how we are going to carry this stuff around. Tomorrow we plan to return to Anitgua via various buses we havent worked out yet, and then make our way to Honduras, probably making a dash straight for the carribean coast where we´ll move onto the Bay Islands for some serious scuba action, apparently the whale sharks are in town.