First of all, thanks for all your comments, keep them up, it makes us feel like we are being accompanied by all of you :)Yesterday we did a tour of Lago Atitlan with a "tourist" boat. It was really nice and the views were just beautiful...by the way, we will try to upload some photos onto the blog but its a bit hard as they are too big and we have to figure out how to downsize them!
The boat ride took us to 3 villages around the lake: San Pedro, Santiago and San Antonio de Polopo. In all of them we had to walk extremely uphill as they are all on volcanoes! In San Pedro we were amused by all the houses as they all had paintings of religious sayings such as "Dios te ama", "Solo Jesus pode cambiar tu vida", I took a couple of photos of that...some houses even had two sayings, I guess the local priest must have told them that they would be blessed the more they showed their
belief or something. We were welcomed into one house by a really nice Mayan family, they spoke Tzutujil (local dialect: tzu-tu-hil)) between them but also spoke spanish. The "male" of the family showed us his painting depicting rural life (very bright colours is all I have to say) and asked us to take pictures of him. We ended up taking photos of the entire family many times over with a promsie to send them by post :)In Santiago, the thing to see was the local God "Maximon". He is supposed to be part Jesus, part local diety, part Judas. He changes houses every once in while (we think its to balance the power as the people that "hold" him are payed to present Him to the locals and tourists). It was quite a funny site as the "god" is made out of wood and he is holding a cigar in his mouth, he usually likes cuban cigards and expensive rum but he will do with the local stuff :) We also bought a local mask of the jaguar (which they use on local festivities and holidays), its extremely colourful and some might say kitch but I thought it makes a great decoration and as it is a local tradition, why not!
In San Antonio you could see the desperation of the people. As it is always the last village to be visited, all the tourists have already bought what they had to buy and were too tired to visit the town properly. Little girls would ask us for 5 quetzals (9.50 quetzals = 1 euro, 7.5 quetzals = 1 dollar) for a bunch of bracelets, hand woven, and even if you say "No Gracias" because you really dont need them, they lower the price to 1 quetzal for the bunch! In this village the only building that had paint was the local church (big and white) while in the other 2 villages the houses were all colourful...By the church a nice local woman selling textiles called Jo "Jesus" (it happens a lot in these parts, so he tells me :)
After a charged morning we made it back to the hotel to get our bags and head out to the bus stop to catch a "chicken bus" (they are in fact old US and Canadian school buses that were given to the Latin American countries when they get old). Most have been painted over with bright colours while others retain their yellow school bus colour. They are plentiful and a lot cheaper. Example, the tour agency asked us for 20 dollars each from Panajachel to Quetzaltenango while with a chicken bus we paid 2 quetzales each to Los Encuentros and then 12 each to Quetzaltenango!! So, we decided that from now, whenever possible, chicken bus it is!!
We got to Quetzaltenango around 6:30. Lets just say we were expecting a small quaint village and ended up being in the second largest city of Guatemala! Well, there goes that...We arrive at the bus station and a couple (girl American from Falls Church, Virginia ---for those who dont know, when I lived in the States I lived the first 5 years in McLean, VA which is practically the next town over :) and the boy was guate) are nice enough to take us with them to the "taxi" stop where we get in a minivan that acts as a taxi and takes us for a 1 quetzal each (plus 2 for the bags) to the center of town. There we make it to a nice and huge hostel called Casa Argentina.
This morning, after being woken up numerous times by trucks, cars, music blaring and market people, we get up lazily (hey, we have been waking up everyday since we got here at 7 in the morning so give us a break :) and make it to the bus stop to get to Zunil. After another comfortable chicken ride (think: the seats are made for two but they cram up to four people and baggages per seat) we get a pickup for the outrageous price of 35 quetzals (we have been told its normal) that takes us to Fuentes Georginas, a sulphuric hot pool, visited by locals and tourists alike. We pass a nice and relaxing 3 hours there. It was a really beautiful place as the pools are covered in mist and surrounded by tropical vegetation. We have lunch and nice hot chocolate before heading back. We had asked the pickup driver to come get us at 3 but luckily for us the man who comes to sell chips to the restaurant was heading to Xela (the mayan name for Quetzaltenango) and offered us a lift. We got to know about his life and it was actually quite envigorating as he worked hard to have enough money to buy a house and only after did he get a wife and now has two daughters whom he takes care of by having a store in Xela and selling the chips to the restaurants (in chips I mean cheetos and pringles, that kind of stuff). He said that usually men in Guate dont work and get girls pregnant then are forced to marry them and in the end have four or five children they cant feed or send to school. He was quite amazed when i said that back home women wait until their late twenties, early thirties, to have kids :)
Once back in Xela we visited the only thing there is to see --- parque Centroamerica. Let me just tell you, one of the mayors (gobernador) of Xela was crazy for greek architecture so you will see a parthenon, an ampitheatre, and the parque is full of greek columns. Around the parque is the Municipalid (also in greek style) and a very cool building which seems to belong to 2 different owners as only half of it is painted! Tonight we intend to visit a local bar (mostly filled with foreigners --- including the waitresses as there a lot of foreigners that come to study spanish and then decide to stay and work).
Tomorrow we head back to Pana ---where we might meet up with Julien, a friend of Jo's from ULB and we head out to Flores (via Guatemala City) at 4 in the afternoon. Next time you hear from us will be on the 19th from Flores...
Oh, by the way I forgot to mention, Jo got a really nice compliment the other day by a Israeli couple: They asked him if he worked for National Geographic (because of his huge camera!) Nobody could take the smile way from him after that :)
Hope you are all well, including those two adventurers in Beirut and Haifa. Tina, take care of yourself, we are all worried! Thank you to those who wrote to us, keep it up!
Love,
Jo and Fil
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