Transportation is quite good in Guatemala. You can take reasonably-priced first-class buses all over the country in the dry season. Or, if you want to be hard-core, you can take third class and be jammed on a bus with Guatemalans and their livestock. I actually prefered second class to either because they weren't too crowded and the windows opened.
Another alternative is to hitchhike with commercial truck drivers. When their load is empty, they are happy to take on passengers. I was waiting for a bus outside of Finca Ixobel with some tourists and a Guatemalan family, and one bored tourist waved his thumb at all passing vehicles. To my horror, a coke truck stopped. The tourist ran up to the cab, exchanged some words with the driver, and waved for us to climb on. The Guatemalan family looked at us like we were crazy and did not move. We hopped on. The ride was pretty smooth, but our driver had to periodically top-off the radiator with creek water.
Livingston is a small town on the Caribbean accessible only by water taxi up the Rio Dulce. It may be this isolation that allows it to preserve its identity. |
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The stereotypical neo-hippy backpacker. You see them all over the world and in all the liberal college towns in the States. Their long hair and rainbow-colored clothing and accessories usually make them stand out, but not here in Panajachel. This is where they make that stuff. So if you have a favorite colorful shoulder bag, feel free to use it in public. The old farmer walking by may be carrying the same one. They also happen to grow pot around the lake, so it is truly a counterculture paradise.
Lake Atitlan is a large placid lake surrounded by dormant volcanoes. The air quality is often not good enough to see them from Panajachel, so I was somewhat lucky to get this shot at sunset. You can take water taxis to the towns ringing the lake. Panajachel is by far the largest. The other ones are more peaceful and the water may even be clean enough to swim in. The strange thing about Atitlan is that there is no obvious inlet or outlet - it's just a big pool of water. Some guy in Panajachel told me that in the late afternoon, giant whirlpools open up in the middle of the lake. They'll tell tourists anything. I decided not to take the afternoon ferry just in case.
If you sit down or even pause too long in Pana, you will immediately be surrounded by souvenir sellers. They will offer bracelets, belts, shirts, blankets, hackey sacks, anything. Actually, the quality is consistently decent. The people from the surrounding villages have no reliable source of income other than the tourist trade, so rather than sell their goods for a pittance to a merchant, they walk through the tourist areas trying to get cash. You can decide if you think buying stuff from a child is charitably giving money to the local poor instead of the wealthy shop owners or is encouraging children to stay out of school.
The town of Zunil is beautiful. It is in the mountainous western part of Guatemala. The local fabrics feature a bright purple. A good place to purchase local crafts is the cooperative, not far from the centro mercado. The medicinal hot springs of Fuentes Georginas are just up the hill. Well, it is an arduous 7km walk. As I was trudging along, a guy in a tractor offered me a lift. He dropped me off two or three kilometers later when he had to turn off to get to his farm, and refused to accept payment.
Fuentes Georginas was pleasant. My guidebook claimed they were closed on Mondays, so I did not bother bringing my bathing suit. I was surprised to see them open. I rented a voluminous pair of orange swimming trunks and used my scarf as a towel. The large scarf from Solola had many uses during my trip. There are many pools of varying size and temperature, with the more distant ones being cooler. I opted for the largest one, which had a statue of the Virgin Mary in the middle. The temperature varied from uncomfortably warm to pleasantly cool, with the heat coming from distinct points in the spring floor.
A local man lounging in the spring told me that drinking the water is good for your health. This was news to me. He asked the guy at the refreshment stand for a glass, and he held it under a trickle coming from the rocky mountain and dripping into our pool. He called it "tea" and drank it down. Well, at least this is what I think he said. My interpretation of many things would have been different if I had spoken Spanish. I did the same, as I was pretty sick with diarrhea, and things couldn't get worse health-wise. And the spring water did taste like a sour hibiscus tea.
Antigua is the tourist center of Guatemala. It is a beautiful Spanish colonial town. This is La Merced, a church. Many of the buildings were left as ruins. It is full of internet cafes, tourist bars, and Spanish language schools. It is not a particularly good place to learn Spanish, as everyone speaks English and it is all too easy to slip into it. Every morning, I would go to the Jugocentre Peroleto for a bowl of yogurt (for my stomach) and fruit with honey. They do a good job of it.