We took a tuk-tuk to the next town over--Santa Catarina--which was similar to Panajachel but smaller and the manner of dress was slightly different. The women there wear a headdress that is made of something that appears to be velvet and is wrapped like a fluffy turban around their heads. Getting out of Pana was eye opening. While the Rough Guide suggests that these towns are inundated with tourists, it doesn't seem so. We wandered around Santa Catarina for a short time and, in what appeared to be an alley that deposited at the lake edge, found ourselves in front of a corrugated tin panel structure that we first thought was a school until a young girl came into the yard--again fenced in by barbed wire--and told us it was her temple. I think Chris already put a picture of her up on the blog. We also went to the cemetery at the edge of town. The graves were similar to those in Mexico: hand painted with bright colors and tokens left for the dead, but the layout was quite different. There was kind of a central path, but the graves were plotted in a haphazard and helter skelter way, making us think that there were as few regulations adhered to here as in Burr Oak.
On the map, the next town around the lake, San Antonio, appeared to be about an inch away so we decided to walk there. Turns out the map was very small. It took us over an hour but we made it. We made the journey at high noon and the sun was intense. There were few patches of shade and we forgot to bring water so I nearly died of dehydration. Needless to say, Chris was fine. At just the moments I thought I couldn't take another uphill step, a breeze would come and God would whisper, "see, the sun and the heat will not kill you" and then my next step would be rewarded with a breathtaking vista, these views shifting as we moved around the lake. There were natural walls of flowers along the road, explosive in their pinks and whites and reds and oranges all jumbled together like fruit salad. It was one of the more beautiful walks I have ever taken.
Our arrival to San Antonio was met with a traffic jam, the likes of which I have not seen before. The streets are so narrow that only one car can pass at a time, but the streets are not one way. Instead, today we stood aside as several trucks backed down the road in order to let oncoming traffic pass. At just the same time, school let out. The town is nestled between the lake and the mountain and there aren't three feet in a row that are level. In fact, it is like an Escher print with stairs going everywhere and nowhere so when school lets out there are children above and below you, cascading like lava from the volcanoes that created the valley. The Rough Guide warns that couples traveling alone are viewed with suspicion because they may be in Guatemala to steal children. Well... they shouldn't make their kids so cute if they don't want people to steal them. San Antonio is very traditional. In the other towns, the majority of the women and girls wear indigenous clothing but here the men and boys do, as well. The males wear brightly colored striped tops (one of which Chris is now the proud owner of) and woolen kilts; the little boys coming from school in their kilts were dear. We stood out in this town, and the children pointed and giggled at us at almost every turn.
We understood it was possible to take a boat back to Panajachel from San Antonio but apparently this was a huge misunderstanding, so we took a bus back. I didn't know they even had buses since I didn't see a single one while we were in the smaller towns but then we discovered that the pick up trucks we saw full of people sitting and standing in the bed were the buses, so I climbed on to the back of a pick up truck with Chris at my heels. There were 11 of us total: nine sitting on the six-inch planks that lined both sides of the bed, one girl sitting on the tailgate and a boy who stood on the rear bumper for the entire, long ride back to Panajachel.
When we got back, we found yet another market... a more traditional supermarket although it had a bizarre collection and again we were foiled on buying fresh fish, which is weird for a town in which fishing is a major industry, but we were able to get some frozen fillets and everything else that we needed for a good meal. We are to bed early this evening because we are heading to another town tomorrow--Chichicastenango--and we leave in the sevens.
I think Andy and I asked about the fish situation when we were there (we spent 5 days on the lake and never saw fish on a menu!). We were told that most of the fish in the lake are sold off at a higher price than people in the area can afford. They tend to eat much smaller fish when they can get them... More like a pan fish if I remember correctly.
ReplyDeleteYou'll love Chichi!!!
KT