Sunday, April 29, 2007

Since Tacaná, time has crept by with me not having done anything quite as sweet as climbing that volcano. However, I’ve been traveling a lot, so that’s kept things interesting. I just got back to Coban last night after a meeting in Antigua and signing my contract for the new job. Prior to that, I went to Lake Atitlan during Holy Week and climbed a much smaller (and hotter) volcano in eastern Guatemala.

Holy Week in Guatemala is a big affair. Schools close for the whole week and most people take the time to travel. I hadn’t really made any plans, but suddenly realized that everyone I knew in Coban was leaving, so I decided I’d better go somewhere. Luckily, my buddy Chris from Miami has been working on community projects with a parish right on Lake Atitlan.

Wednesday morning, I hopped the bus for Guate and it immediately got in a wreck with a pickup. No one died or anything, but it slowed us down and set the tone for the day. Later, it was a total mess trying to catch a bus from Guate to Lake Atitlan. What I didn’t realize is that practically half of Guatemala travels on the Wednesday of Semana Santa, so the terminals were jam-packed. Most busses passed by full with doors closed. Whenever one even remotely slowed down, hoards of people mobbed by me to get on before I could think to move. This went on for an hour or so. Meanwhile, I was becoming more desperate and contemplating just going back to Antigua as the bus situation was not getting better as night approached. However, an Atitlan bus rolled by shortly thereafter. Normally, I’m very polite in crowded public settings and make a concerted effort not to be the imperial gringo, but I’d had it. When I saw that bus, I stepped out in traffic to make it stop and let no one get in front of me. What resulted was me blowing through a crowd of people, lots of chatter and “¡Ay Dios!” I didn’t care and most importantly, I got on the bus. Despite standing for the next 5 hours in the aisle of a chicken bus, I made it to the lake and it was all worth it.

Lake Atitlan is in the Mayan Highlands at the base of three volcanoes. It has 15 or so small villages on the surrounding shores. Panajachel and San Pedro are the two touristy towns first popularized back in the 60’s by hippie ex-pats getting out of the States. The other towns are traditional, indigenous and materially very poor. Chris works in a couple towns like these at the base of the Toliman volcano. He works with an NGO started by an American priest who was been there since the 60’s and through the war. I spent the first day checking out his sites and some water projects they have going. From there, it was mostly hanging-loose on the lake. The water is deep blue, clear and chilly.

Besides the lake, Chris’s village was in full celebration of Holy Week. This began with nightly processions to parade Jesus and the Virgin Mary through town. On Good Friday, the town gets out to make alfombras which are carpets made of dyed sawdust, flowers and pine needles. Later on, the processions march over the carpets in celebration. The most unique tradition is the presence of Maximon.

He’s a sort of fallen-saint figure revered by the Mayan communities around the lake. Every community creates his figure out of wood in varying completeness ranging from a stump with a hat (Santiago Atitlan) to a whole body. During the year, people ask him favors that they wouldn’t usually pray for. This could be a small monetary gain or something bigger like asking to have your neighbor whacked. He’s admired for his fallibility as this makes him the deity most similar humans in behavior. Anyways, he’s paraded around all during holy week outside the main church. Finally, on Good Friday, Maximon appears hung dead from the front of the church as he incarnates Judas and his betrayal of Christ. The whole spectacle is a really cool example of the synchronism of Mayan and Catholic beliefs.

So besides the Holy Week trip, I also hiked the Ipala Volcano a few weeks ago. It’s in Eastern Guatemala which is far less populated, not Mayan and very hot. The volcano is much older than those in the west meaning it’s much shorter. It wouldn’t be so sweet were it not for the crater lake at the top of the volcano. The hike only took a couple hours. We left really early to beat the heat, but it caught us, so the lake was an awesome reward. What’s more is that inside the crater, the lake and altitude create a tiny cloud forest in the midst of a complete desert. Very cool.

To finish up, things are good for now. Finishing up Peace Corps and getting ready for the new job can be hectic, but that’s fine. I’ll mostly be working with my schools. Chris is coming up next weekend and we’re planning to hike into a cloud forest outside Coban known to have the highest concentration of Quetzals in Guatemala.

Lastly, here's a pic of one of my schools I visited last week. I did a garden with them last year and when I showed up recently, they'd already gotten started on another one.