NOT San Marcos de la Laguna

• Sammygrim's Profile
• About this blog
• Entry from San Marcos

  San Marcos, Guatemala
Thursday, April 3, 2008

First of all, this is not San Marcos on Lake Atitlan. This is another, very different San Marcos, to the west of Xela.

I wanted to climb up the volcano Tajumulco, highest point in Central America (4220m) so I looked for the closest biggish town near to the mountain and ended up here.

I´ve been here two days waiting for the weather to clear up, and it doesn´t look like it will. There´s no point in climbing a hill, and sleeping out under the summit to catch the sunrise from up there, if there´s no sunrise to be seen.

So I´ve been kicking around discovering the joys of San Marcos.

The bad news first: Guatemala is filthy. I´m not moaning in the typical tourist sense, where all I´m concerned about is my own comfort. When you see little kids running around with their mouths at the same level as the exhaust pipes on buses which are farting out black smoke, your heart goes out to them.

And the good news: I´ve not come across a single non-Guatemalan or even seen another backpacker since I got here. I guess that´s one of the advantages of throwing away my Lonely Planet. I have met a number of people who all treated me SO well. People have stopped me in the street and invited me to spend time with their families in other villages, offers I´ve had to decline because I´m expected back in San Cristóbal for Monday.

This morning, I went into a fine-looking old colonial building following the faded sign outside which said Información Turística. It turned out it hadn´t been a tourist office for many years and now it was the seat of the regional government. I was introduced to the mayor of San Marcos, in his grey seventies-style office with typewriters clacking all around. There was one computer in the office - the screensaver that passed over the screen was a typically-Catholic grotesque image of a bleeding Jesus on the cross and the message "God Bless You".

The mayor passed me over to an old man with one eye and three teeth. I asked for a map of the region and some information on how to get to the volcano. There was a flurry of activity as women left their typewriters and and ran to the computer to open up Google Maps. I was proudly presented with a printout of the region (that I could have got myself here in te internet cafe), then my one-eyed friend took me to one side, sat me down, offered me a coffee, then started to draw a VERY detailed map of the route to the volcano. He did a preliminary sketch in pencil, then did a good copy with black biro, made a photocopy and kept that for his own records. I assume that´s in case another tourist comes into his office in several years and asks for a map...

(Pause for a month)

Well, I'm writing this now in San Cristobal, trying to catch up with the last month's events....

I ended up by climbing the mountain, but I didn't stay the night up there. It was a shame that it was cloudy and I didn't get the views, but I can proudly say I have walked up to the highest point in Central America. It was a very hard walk, mainly as the air is so much thinner up there. I met no other walkers on the way up, except for a couple of guys gathering firewood and another boy looking for his herd of cows.

As I neared the summit, I could hear little explosions coming from the crater. An old women lying under a tree told me there were 'brujos', or shamans, up there. Actually, when I got up to the top, wheezing away like an old man with emphysema, I found a group of about 15 people on their knees, arms raised to the skies, all praying frantically (each one with his own prayer). One of the guys was tossing firecrackers (hence the explosions) into the crater whilst he prayed.

I sat there for about 15 minutes watching this weird show, then when they had finished, said their 'amens' and wiped away the tears from their eyes, they all got up and one by one gave me a hug and told me that Jesus would save my soul.

I told them thanks, it was nice to know that.

Guatemala, or at least this region of Guatemala, seems to have a plague of Evangelical Christians. The religion is very popular amongst the indigenous people and I've seen people on buses reading evangelical literature, standing on street corners shouting about how Jesus is the light, and holding earnest conversations at food stalls about the day we will all be saved. They all have a very self-righteous air about them, but I guess people need something optimistic to believe in after all this country has been through.

The walk down the mountain was dull, as I couldn't see further than a few metres ahead of me so I shut myself off in my thoughts. Thankfully I didn't stay the night up there becuase, apart from the crappy weather, I would have been sharing the sunrise with an organised tour group of about 30 American and European backpackers who I passed on my way down.

I went to bed early. I didn't want to be out in the streets after sundown, and my concerns were well-founded. I was reading in my little room when at about 6pm I heard gunshots coming from the round the corner. I stepped out onto the balcony and asked my neighbout, a bored-looking guy smoking a cigarette, what that noise was.

'Disparos', he answered.

'Do you hear them often around here?' I asked, scared.

'Pues, si', he muttered, put out his cigarette, and went back into his room just as the police and ambulance sirens started howling.

Guatemala has had a VERY rough history, and although the war is over, there are high crime rates and other visible scars. There are still disputes over land rights and random acts of political violence. I entered into a little correspondence with the guy who wrote the comment below "Please learn as you travel' and we talked about the country's present situation. From his indignant comment you can see that he 's not happy about dope-smoking gringos laughing at his people. Understandably. Apparently he thought I was in the tourist trap of San Marcos on Lake Atitlan, and had misunderstood my comments about pollution.