Panajachel

Trip Start Feb 28, 2009
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12
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Trip End Ongoing


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Flag of Guatemala  , Western Highlands,
Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Tracy here.  We have been in Panajachel (aka Pana) on the shore of Lake Atitlan in the south west of Guatemala.  The lake boasts several volcanoes and a few pueblos that can be visited in a short boat ride from our base.  We have been staying in a great little hostel right around the corner from the church and just seconds into the main hub of  Pana.  It is called Villa Lupita.  Our room costs about $8 a night. The family that runs it are very nice and helpful especially Wendy.  The week we have been here is called Semana Santa which is a huge holy week in Guatemala.  The main features are slow processions of Jesus accompanied by burning incense and slow band music.  The processions walk across alfombras which are colorful decorations made on the street with colored saw dust,and flowers.  They are quite beautiful and we actually spent an entire day watching their creation from start to finish.  It took about 6 hours to make them and then they were walked over and destroyed in about 5 minutes.  We visited the pueblo of San Marcos which is kind of a hippy, yoga, meditation village that has several foreign owned restaurants and hotels Boat docks For Panajachel (aka Pana)
Boat docks For Panajachel (aka Pana)
 .  We had an amazing lunch with Paul from England who just recently bought the hotel and restaurant Pueblo Real. He had a huge brick pizza oven that he said was made by a group called Masons on Mission. They come here to build brick ovens for the people who are still cooking with open fire in their homes. After a delicious lunch of spicy Muligatawney soup (spicy Indian with red curry and lentils) we walked along the boulders at the point where you could cliff jump into the clear cold lake.  Next we visited the pueblo of San Pedro. We were not too impressed.  It was hot, smelly and had a kind of hippy off the track vibe.  San Pedro seems to have two coffee bean processing places where I assume they cull the bean from the fruit.  The fruit gets left behind in huge piles of rotting fermenting waste.  Hmmm I can still smell it!  Next we walked around the lake front but between washing clothes, dishes, and bodies we opted not to join in.  I guess we are just too American to swim with all that.  Our next trip was Santiago where we went to see the local saint/legend Maximon.  He is the patron of drinking and smoking.  Maximon was expelled from the church for his pagan ways and now lives with a different local family every year.  We came to see him make the move from his house to a little blue church next to the big church, from where he will meet up with Jesus the next day.  The market was in full swing, Maximon was on the move and we were there.  Our pueblo of  Pana has been getting busier and busier as the days go by.  Today after breakfast we took a walk down to the lakefront.  We had been seeing lots of locals heading in that direction.  When we first arrived we spent two nights in this part of town and it was very sleepy and quite.  Today, not the case.  It looked liked every local from every village within 100 miles of Pana had arrived to hang out on the tiny crowded public beach and they river bed that leads into the sea.  Pana is touristy but easy to maneuver and its  been a great place to hold up for holy week. Tomorrow morning we are off on a long trip cross the boarder into El Salvador.
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