Feliz Ano Nuevo

This is a sign from the city of Puebla, altho most applicable for the entry on this day that I spent in Guatemala.

In the evening on New Year's Eve I decided to join the Mayan homestay family I was living with when they went to an evangelical church service -- they are a very active family in the congregation. Now THAT'S sure a switch from the trance dance party I was originally considering attending this night!

The church service was quite enjoyable because there was a lot of happy singing going on. Various groups from within the congregation got up to sing, including cute little children. Everyone was dressed in their best clothing. For the women this meant beautifully-embroidered traditional blouses and a thick, woven skirt of a complementary colour pattern. Often little girls matched the pattern of their mother's clothing and they looked really cute together. Men and boys were dressed in white shirts and dark pants and jackets or sweaters.

In between the singing groups, there were long sermans spoken by 4 different men, mostly in Spanish, yet with a bit of the local Mayan language, Tzutujil. I think the gist of it all was that they were thanking God for the blessings of the previous year and asking for blessings for the coming year.

We headed home, FINALLY (it was a 2 1/2 hour church service!!), in time to watch the fireworks of San Pedro from the rooftop of the house. We could also see the lights of a few other towns located around the lake, and saw some of their fireworks from a distance, too.

When I was in Guatemala 9 years ago I remember lots and lots of firecrackers. I didn't notice as many this trip to Guatemala. It may be that the children of this small town can't afford as many as the children in the big city of Quetzaltenango, where I was back then. Or it may be that I am not as bothered by them and so they don't seem as numerous and irritating. Maybe a bit of both.

At any rate, the New Year's Eve fireworks were very nice and colourful, not just a bunch of noise and smoke, tho there were some of those type too. I was exhausted, yet stayed up for special festive fruit punch, served hot, and a chicken tamale, before falling into bed. I easily slept thru whatever street noise and firecrackers continued into the night.

New Year's Eve

Basketball and soccer are the main sports in this town, and New Year's seemed to be the time for basketball tournaments. Kids were playing on the court in between official games, and there were teams of girls, too, not just boys.

The costumed dancers were an interesting feature. They did a sort of choreographed dance on the basketball court that lasted almost an hour, with repetitive moves and not a whole lot of excitement. The crowd watched without smiling or laughing much, and I was wondering what the whole point was. Later my Spanish teacher told me that the same costumes are used each year, yet different people wear them. The reason the crowd stuck around to watch, even tho they didn't seem too entertained, was that they were all watching intently and concentrating to try to figure out who each person was. It was all revealed with huge fanfare and SUPER LOUD speakers, later in the evening.

The pot on the fire is a photo from the courtyard of the place I lived at during this week. Inside the pot are traditional tamales, which are banana leaves enfolding a moist corn mash with a chunk of meat and a raison inside. They are being steamed in preparation for eating them around midnight on New Year's Eve.

San Pedro la Laguna

Here are some photos of San Pedro, a town of about 13,000 people, I think. It's the 2nd or 3rd largest town around the lake, behind Panajachel and close in size to Santiago Atitlan.

I lived near the big white building with the turquoise roof in the middle of town, uphill by the central plaza. There were actually 2 houses and a courtyard between them where the fire was built for toasting home-made corn tortillas made by hand. The sister of my homestay mom also took in Spanish school students, so were were quite a community -- 5 teens, 4 parents and 2 or 3 foreign students at a time. Generally we ate separately, cuz there was a dining room and kitchen in each house.

The 2nd photo is of some of the local Mayan ladies doing their laundry directly in the lake. This is definitely not a wise, healthy thing to do. All the villages around the lake got a big scare and "reality check" recently when a huge cyanobacteria bloom occurred in the lake in late October and November of 2009, turning it to an unusual green colour. Many townspeople from San Pedro were apparently working down at the lakeshore to draw out the bacteria with bed sheets and transport them up onto the side of the volcano, to "clean" the lake.

I imagine that the main reason it happened was because many communities and hotels don't have septic tanks beneath their buildings. My homestay family assured me that San Pedro was different and that at least 80% of the houses had proper septic tanks dug beneath them. Who knows if it's true. Another reason is that the locals do laundry and have baths in the lake with soap that is high in phosphates. A third factor is all the pollution flowing into the lake from the agricultural processes on the hillsides all around the lake. A fourth factor might be pollution from all the motor boat traffic on this popular lake.

Many people are now quite concerned about the health of the lake, tho they don't stop the traditional Mayan women from doing their laundry. There is a system of pipes that pump lakewater up into the village to fill large cisterns so the ladies can do the laundry higher up where there are cisterns, yet my Spanish teacher told me that it has been broken for quite some time and still hasn't been fixed. This is apparently how things go in Guatemala. Here are some links to more info:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_8xSib2euA
http://www.lakeatitlanhealth.com/
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=41385

The 3rd photo is of the nativity scene inside the Catholic Church -- I thought it was very appropriate that they had dressed Maria, Jose and Jesus in traditional Mayan clothing, to fit in with the community here.

The Catholic Church in the bottom photo is near the centre of the village, high up above the lakeshore. There isn't a nice park in the centre here like there is in so many Mexican towns and cities. I wonder if that has to do with it being poorer? I guess so. It's definitely obvious right away that Guatemala is poorer. There is more garbage in the roadsides, less well-dressed people, more tumble-down houses, rougher-looking vehicles, and very few tended flower beds to beautify yards or parks to beautify towns... it's too bad that beauty and nature lose out when finances get tight.

Homestay in San Pedro, Guatemala

I high-tailed it away from the gong show of Project Nuevo Mundo getting ready for a receiving potentially hundreds of visitors, with LOTS of items still on the to-do list with only 2 days prep time to go.

I borrowed a guidebook from one of the other volunteers (there were about 10 volunteers at the site -- more arriving hour by hour), and wrote down some notes about recommended Spanish schools and places to visit around Lago Atitlan. I decided to head for San Pedro, which was the next town further north along the lakeshore. I also noted a meditation and metaphysical centre, called Las Piramides, in the village of San Marcos.

As soon as I got to San Pedro I walked to the office of San Pedro Spanish school, arranged for a week of one-on-one schooling plus a homestay with a local family. These are photos of the traditional Mayan family I stayed with for a week. They were super nice and friendly, I had a room to myself and was fed plenty of great food. The first morning for breakfast I ate pineapple crepes with chocolate sauce -- wow! I guess Graciela's cooking isn't all that traditional 8-).

View from Project Nuevo Mundo

I have to admit that the site has an incredible view of Lago Atitlan. It is located on the lower slopes of Volcan San Pedro, about 15-minutes by small motor boat from the closest town of Santiago Atitlan.

How things are done at the project

David's project is on a very vertical site that is not good for corn field farming, and is really rocky. This is why the locals sold the land. They've planted wheat grass and various salad greens on flat patches created here and there. You sure get a workout walking up and down among the various buildings. The middle photo is of Antonio doing planting bed preparation. Check out how the wires from the generator are attached directly into the electrical socket without a cord. The generator is turned on only occasionally for electricity, to run a blender or power tools used in building construction.

Solar bath

One of the cool things about Project Nuevo Mundo is that there is a solar-heated hot bath system. They can also rig up a shower. There are coils of black plastic pipe filled with water and then coiled on the ground exposed to sunlight. As long as you run the bath by 1pm, it's really hot. A little later in the afternoon and it's just lukewarm, so I guess the pipes lose a lot of heat when the sun isn't shining forcefully.

It was very nice to have a hot bath the first afternoon I arrived, sitting under green foliage watching the waves on the lake. It was super windy and rough on the lake, tho sunny and hot. Lago Atitlan is certainly a gorgeous place. The water is a turquoise to cobalt blue colour, depending on depth and winds.

Project Nuevo Mundo site

The reason I headed to Guatemala was because David, who I met back at Bosque Village, raved about the wonderful opening party his project was planning for New Year's. He had told me that there would be 3 days of workshops on sustainability and other interesting topics, plus a trance dance on New Year's Eve.

I wasn't sure exactly what a trance dance was all about, and was fairly leary of that part, yet the workshops sounded very good. David had told me that it was no problem if I didn't have my own sleeping gear and tent, and that if I arrived early and volunteered, I'd get into the 3-day workshop for free. So that's what I had decided to do.

Unfortunately it was a very disorganized place, with no accommodations for volunteers. I slept on an extra mattress in David's cabaña, which wasn't ideal. The cold that I had picked up in San Cristobal got waaaay worse, and my nose was running like crazy and my head was all stuffed up.

The communal kitchen on the property was very small and cluttered with bulk bags of food, yet had very few utensils, plates, bowls or cups. And the CRAZIEST thing was that the men had put a toilet in this little tiny kitchen, with only half walls and no door, with no running water or soap to wash hands afterwards. !!!! Honestly!

David's business partners, who own the land, are an American man who has lived in Guatemala for over 20 years, and his Guatemalan wife and their 3 or 4 kids. The man is a total dopehead who couldn't think straight and was forever starting things and not finishing them.

The place was a gong show, really, and by the 2nd morning I decided I had to get out of there. Based on the type of volunteers who were showing up, it seemed like the New Year's party would involve a lot of drinking and smoking and loud music, and that's not my thing at all.

I contributed for the two days I was there with some planting of seedlings of various greens that will be used in salads in the future, watering a new soil bed in preparation for planting it, and sweeping out a couple of partially finished buildings on the property.

Lago Atitlan

I spent one night in a crappy hotel in the city of Panajachel, then I headed off the next morning across the lake via a large boat that could handle the choppy waves. It took about an hour to get from the town of Panajachel to the town of Santiago Atitlan, and was a lovely trip. I did some journaling and took plenty of photos while enjoying the nice hot weather. San Cristobal's cool nights had chilled me, and combined with the temperature fluctuation with the hot days and the communal living at the hostel, I got a cold. This hot, sunny weather was very welcome!

This lake is a well-known Guatemalan tourist destination. The richest of the rich in Guatemala City have multi-acre lakefront properties with big mansions. Middle-class Guatemalans also come to the lake to swim and kayak and enjoy the stunning scenery with 3 big volcanoes ringing the southwest shore of the lake.

The various traditional Mayan villages around the lake have been transformed with tourism, as hotels, restaurants, Internet cafes and Spanish schools have sprung up all over. Still, the Mayan women and girls still wear the traditional clothing, which is a thick, long skirt and a top decorated with flower designs. Within their homes I think traditions are still strong.

Here's a bit of info on the area:
http://www.larutamayaonline.com/guatemala/maps/lake_atitlan_map.php

Arriving in Guatemala

Here we are in the van journeying thru Guatemala. This was actually the second van of the trip, cuz the tourist companies don't bother with the hassle of taking vehicles across the border. Instead they completely change driver and vehicle at the border. We only had to walk about 50 m between the two vans, thru a gauntlet of souvenir stalls and men trying to sell the local currency at cutthroat rates.

The volcano in the 2nd photo is Volcan Santa Maria, which towers above the city of Quetzaltenango (Xela), Guatemala. This is the volcano I lived beneath for 6 weeks in the year 2000, when I took Spanish school for the first time. I climbed this volcano with a guide and large group of locals one full moon night -- we started at midnight and got to the summit in time for sunrise. That was one of my favourite experiences from that first trip to Guatemala.

Journey to Guatemala

I took a long daytime tourist van to Guatemala and this is some of the scenery along the way. First we descended out of the highlands of Chiapas into a broad, lowland valley used for agriculture. The statue with the state name Queretero is one of the monuments to each of the Mexican states, located in the Chiapas city of Comitan. I saw dancers in traditional dress like this at the Guadalupe shrine on December 12th. The mountains in the distance in the 3rd photo are the highlands of Guatemala.

Needless to say, it was a very curvy van ride. We swayed back and forth from one side to the other on all the fast, tight corners. I dunno why, but all the drivers treat the highland roads like it's the Indy 500 once they're heading downhill. I was almost carsick by the time we got to Lago Atitlan in southern Guatemala after 8 hours of travel. That included an hour and a half process of getting out of Mexico and getting stamped into Guatemala.

Croc!

We saw a massive crocodile on the Sumidero Canyon tour. My camera isn't so hot with telephoto, so it may not look so big. We also saw a great big iguana hanging out on a tree.

This canyon reportedly has monkeys living in the forested hillsides, tho we didn't see or hear any. I had wondered if Mexico had any monkeys, cuz you don't hear about them much. I don´t think there are many left.

Sumidero Canyon

On Boxing Day I took a tour to one of the largest, deepest canyons in Mexico. It's 1 km high at the highest point, and a few hundred metres deep below the river water at the same spot. VERY impressive place. I really enjoyed the boat trip, tho it could have been slower, with a much quieter motor. The scenery was absolutely stunning and I highly recommend a visit to this canyon.

On the down side, the crowds were just nutty to get onto a boat around mid-day during xmas holidays, and the boat company (companies?) was totally disorganized. We waited and waited and waited. They were definitely not set up for handling big crowds -- they could learn a thing or two from Disneyland.

I was impressed at how calm I was with the waiting. Usually I just can't stand waiting, but on this trip to Mexico I've observed myself waiting very calmly. I almost always have my journal with me wherever I go, so I pull it out and spend the time writing. I'm don't let myself get as behind in my written journal as I have with this blog -- usually I'm only about 4 or 5 days behind in having it up-to-date.
Mexicans are also very calm with waiting and unexpected delays, so maybe that has rubbed off on me.

The guides all stop at exactly the same spots in the canyon on their tours, and probably say exactly the same thing. As a former interpretive nature guide myself, I have pretty high standards, and this guy driving our boat was pathetic. Again, the Mexicans have a lot to learn about giving excellent tourism service. From what I've observed, the tourism operations are laid out to benefit the operators and not, as a priority, to be of good service, efficient and highly enjoyable for the tourist.

Oh, well, I still had a fantastic time staring wide-eyed up at the canyon walls. And my ego got a boost cuz the American couple behind me hardly spoke any Spanish so I was able to be a bit of an interpreter for them, and anything I didn't catch on to, the bilingual Argentinians in front of me could help us with.

There are quite a few Argentinians that I run into in my travels in the interior of Mexico, and also lots of people from France, Germany, Italy and Quebec. That said, I really don't see caucasian people very often. I guess they all stay at the beach.

Night time in San Cristobal

These are some photos taken while wandering around the centre of San Cristobal at night. The fire spinners were out on xmas eve outside the main cathedral, doing their thing. It's so nice to travel around xmas time, cuz the central squares are lit up so nicely. One of my favourite xmas traditions is the lights, so I appreciate being in a place with xmas lights.

Zapatista rebels in San Cristobal

This put a big smile on my face -- even little baby Jesus is a Zapatista rebel around here. This is a nativity scene I saw in a courtyard restaurant that was surrounded by stores selling fair trade products made by indigenous women, the profits from which are put back into Zapatista communities.

This is the area which had the Zapatista uprising in 1994, where the indigenous people were fed up with being forgotten about by the federal govt, and shortchanged compared to many other parts of Mexico as far as money for schools and basic services like water and health care. In the first hours of Jan 1, 1994, Mayan Indigenous rebels marched into San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas state, to declare war on the Mexican government. The takeover coincided with the start of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a strong symbol of corporate globalization.

It was one of many black periods in the history of Mexico, as the govt responded very heavy-handed with the ntnl military and killed hundreds (maybe thousands?) of Mayans. In addition, the federal govt prevented human rights organizations to enter the state of Chiapas and let the world know what was REALLY going on, then produced their own propaganda about how terrible the Mayans were.

This article from late 2006 describes some of the experience:
http://libcom.org/history/1994-the-zapatista-uprising

I can confirm that the "low intensity war" that the military began in Jan 1994, continuing to "disappear" civilians, is still going on, at least in the sense that I saw a heavy military presence in and around San Cristobal, with BIG guns and BIG, fancy, shiny, new pickup trucks. The federal govt seems very willing to spend money on the military, but not on water, health and schools. A familiar theme around the world, unfortunately.

This story isn't over. Again in 2001, Mayan rebels and their allies marched from San Cristobal to Mexico City to demonstrate their dissatisfaction with the federal government. The wealthier residents of San Cristobal de las Casas, known as coletos (white and mixed-race), "are especially cruel to indigenous peoples," according to a statement made seven years ago (1994) by Sub-comandante Marcos, the charismatic leader of the Zapatista National Liberation Army.

There are now various Zapatista communities in Chiapas State, which are apparently peaceful, harmonious, anarchic communities. I could have gone to visit and stay at a Zapatista community, as they are very open to newcomers. I had heard great things while at Bosque Village about the Zapatista villages, and about how well the anarchy style of living works for them. I decided I wasn't ready for living in anarchy, whatever that may mean.

Here's an exerpt from that article bookmarked above, to describe these communities:
"The Zapatista uprising has allowed over 1,100 communities in Chiapas of 300-400 people to organise federally into 32 autonomous municipalities where power lies at the base. Local decisions are taken at a local level and important decisions are made at a wider regional or municipal level, discussions continuing until something like consensus is reached. In these areas the people have much more control over their lives than before and women can play a much bigger role than traditional society allowed."

The trademark look of the modern Chiapas Zapatista is the black balaclava mask that covers all features. In this city of rebellian and struggles for freedom and equality with the rest of Mexico, there are constant reminders of the ongoing fight.

Juan Diego and Guadalupe

This is the most gorgeous monument to Guadalupe that I have yet seen in Mexico, altho I have to admit that the main basilicas/temples/churches at her holy place in Mexico City are all a blur from that day I was mostly focused on the native dancing!

Church of Guadalupe in San Cristobal

I walked over to the highest point on the east side of central San Cristobal one evening to see the sunset from a high point. It turned out that the Temple of Guadalupe was up on that high point, and I got so distracted with how amazing it was inside that by the time I got back outside, the sun had set. Oh, well.

This church has amazing frescoes and statues and paintings. Normally the Guadalupe shrine is in a side basilica of the main churches in Mexico. This church had a massive Guadalupe image on the main front altar, plus the side basilica had Guadalupe images. There's even a painting of Guadalupe, the indigenous Virgin, blessing the Pope!

San Cristobal Market

Some market scenes for San Cristobal -- very colourful and interesting to walk through, tho I admit I got very unfriendly looks from the locals, who seem to be quite angry at rich white people.

The fellow at the top is actually from the Huichol culture much further north, north and west of Mexico City. It was common in the most touristy towns to see people from various other parts of Mexico plying their wares. Mexico City of course has the full mix.