Friday, February 19, 2016 - Lake Atitlan

We started this day with a three hour drive into the volcano area of Guatemala to Lake Atitlan. There are well over 20 volcanoes in Guatemala. Lake Atitlan has three large ones on its borders. Volcano Atitlan is right behind Volcano Toliman. Volcano San Pedro stands alone. Lots of tiny volcanoes also surround Lake Atitlan. In fact, Lake Atitlan is the caldera of a volcano. Yike!!

These are a few pictures of the drive from Antigua to Lake Atitlan.  The first two show some of the housing. The third is of our rest stop which we used going from and returning to Antigua. They had a grill where a lady made fresh tortillas for you to purchase and enjoy. She had ones from white corn meal and also blue corn meal. Yummy. Claude and I also purchased a snack called a Submarino. It was really a Twinkie. Next is a picture of some farm land. Then we happened to pass a casket being born on the shoulders of some men. The tradition in Guatemala is to carry the casket to the cemetery. The next four pictures are of scenes in Panajachel. This is the village we would stop in to get the boat to cross Lake Atitlan. The men in the picture before the truckload of pineapple are wearing the pants many of the men wear. The pattern of the fabric lets one know the village from which the men come. The last picture in this group has brightly colored buildings in the background. This is actually a cemetery. They build a little building over the grave and paint it bright colors. We saw this type of burial when visiting Eklutna in Alaska. 

When we got to Panajachel our bus left us off at a hotel. We made our way from there down the hill to the docks where we boarded our boats to cross Lake Atitlan. Claude and I were in a boat named Amy with others from our bus group. 

First, pictures of the three major volcanoes on Lake Atitlan. The first picture is Volcano San Pedro. The second picture has Volcano Toliman in front and the curve on the left side is Volcano Atitlan behind. They were stunning to view. 

This is us as boat people. It was a challenge to get into the boat. It was quite a step down and the lake was extremely choppy that day. It doesn't look it in the pictures but it was very choppy. When I stepped onto the side of the boat and then put my foot on the wheel well before stepping to the bottom of the boat, my foot slipped and I almost fell into the boat. The nice man below me just wrapped his arms around me and didn't let me crash. Claude and I are on the third row back on the right hand side of this boat. Then we set off at a race across the lake with the other boat full of our tour group. By the end of our 30 minute ride across the lake, my left side was saturated with water. 

Our destination was Tzutuhil Village of San Juan La Lagun. This is a Mayan village as are the others around the lake. There are still a lot of Mayan people in Guatemala. 

We were loaded in little taxis called tuktuks and driven at breakneck speed up the hill to the community's Cathedral. It was great fun and harked by to the drive up Mt. Hermon in Israel. I have video to prove the speed and fun this ride is.

We enjoyed a nice walk through their Cathedral. Not quite as ornate as some of the others we were in but the best of the best of what this community had to offer.

We would walk down the hill to get back to our boat. We had two stops as we walked down the hill that were part of our tour. The first was the most interesting. It was the Artesians Cultura Ancestral. It was a Co-op of Mayan women who make their own yarn, dye it from natural materials and then weave it into cloth. This cloth is then made into beautiful things which you can purchase for a nominal fee. Knowing the hours put in to create these articles from scratch, the price charged was indeed nominal. The Mayan women live in outlying communities and their finished product is sent to this store to sell. Because of all the political unrest in this country, many of these women are single mothers raising children on this income.

They gave an excellent demonstration of preparing the cotton. One of the first things I noticed was a basket with samples of brown cotton. I grew up in Louisiana. I know what cotton looks like growing in the field. I have a cotton boll Christmas ornament that hangs on my Christmas tree. I can honestly say I never saw brown cotton. Our cotton was always white. They take the cotton boll and pick out the seeds by hand. Then they pound that ball of cotton to soften it and make it more workable. Then with one hand they hold and turn a spindle and with the other they hold the pounded boll of cotton in the air. This way they spin a single thread of cotton that winds around the spindle. They showed us how they take the seed of one plant and crush it on a stone with a stone rolling pin. This powder is then boiled to make the dye for the thread. After it is boiled, the yarn is dipped in it until the desired shade of color is reached. There is something they dip it in to set the color in the yarn but I can't remember what that was. The yarn is then woven around another contraption that spins making the skein of yarn with which they will weave cloth. The weaving is done with a loom that straps around the woman's back and is pulled at from the other end. The lady will sit on her mat and diligently weave fabric all day using patterns memorized in her childhood. It is really amazing to watch them work so quickly with all those threads. 

After the demonstration, we shopped in their store for items to take home. Claude and I purchase a piece of cloth with a Quetzel (bird) embroidered into it to display on our dining room table. It is very pretty. I really wanted a piece of authentic fabric and we truly happy we waited and purchased here.

We walked to an art studio a little further down the hill. We did not purchase anything here. Alan had a friend he has made in Peru that was in front of our hotel every day in Peru with his paintings on canvas. We had purchased one of his pieces with a llama, the mountains and a child in it to frame and hang in our family room in the basement.  

We did try to find a certain kind of top for Claude in each of the shops as we continued down the hill but they just don't have XXL in Guatemala either.

Our boat came to the dock and we made the 30 minute ride back across Lake Atitlan to the hotel's restaurant we went through earlier. This hotel had lots of different animals made out of old tires and painted brightly. 

Our lunch was there for us. And we enjoyed eating Guatemalan food with this great view of Volcano Toliman in front with Volcano Atitlan in back.

The hotel is fenced off and secure. When we went to get on our bus, the vendors were waiting to try and sell any little thing to us. 

We began the 3 hours long ride back to Antigua. Along the way we saw smoke coming out of the top of one of the volcanoes. We got back and packed up overnight bags and put all our other luggage in order. It would be stored at a hotel in Guatemala City. We would live out of our carry-on's for the next day and night.