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mediconico · 6 years

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Atitlán

Lake Atitlán is a lake in the Guatemalan altiplanos about 2 hours east of Xela by bus well known for its iconic geography and diverse Mayan history and languages. It’s a popular tourist destination, as the stunning vistas and classic Guatemalan lakeside towns make for a relaxing getaway from some of the more polluted larger cities in Guatemala. There is an interesting mix of cultures around the lake, from traditional Mayan peoples wearing huipil and corte to a hippie culture that has flourished in recent years to the more tourist-centered guide companies and overpriced restaurants. It’s a site that can’t be missed if one is traveling to Guatemala.

This past weekend, I make the trek to Lake Atitlán from Xela by bus through winding mountain roads as we drop a few thousand feet of elevation to the volcano-ringed caldera that forms the lake. It’s a large group of 13 of us in the bus, having coordinated our trip with friends from multiple different programs in Xela. Five other girls on our program from UVA will also meet us at the lake, as they are working on a clean water initiative in a small town there. We’re on our way to San Pedro, a popular town on the west side of the lake that boasts a good blend of both tourist and more local cultures. I’ve decided to stay with 3 of my friends from Xela in a cheap hostel “Mr. Mullets”, which is popular among tourists but appears to have a good reputation for its social atmosphere.

The first day at the lake, Saturday, I spend largely relaxing with the folks from Xela. In the late morning, we make our way to another hostel, Zoola, which has a bar overlooking the lake and an open-air swimming pool. Why the pool? Sadly, Lake Atitlán has suffered from significant pollution over the last 20 years, and it’s not particularly safe to swim in with all of the waste and algae bloom that covers parts of the lake. It’s a beautiful location, but the pollution is a pragmatic reminder of the lack of infrastructure in Guatemala. And it’s a reminder that in America, we have the luxury to propose initiatives to save the environment; in Guatemala, the government has to pick and choose where it will spend its money. The environment may not be the highest priority.

The view from the pool at Zoola. Note the algae growth in the background on the lake.

After a couple of drinks around the pool, the group decides to jump spots and hop on a lancha (these are small motorboats that run between the towns on the lake for somewhere between Q15-Q25) across the lake to a small town called Jaibalito. The group tells me that over there, there’s a small hotel with an infinity pool, jacuzzi, poolside bar, and good view of the lake. While I’m not so fond of only drinking and lounging when traveling, I’m keen on relaxing and take the adventure in stride. Traveling is all about being flexible, and I’m optimistic something fun will happen across the lake.

And fun it is! The hotel in Jaibalito is a gem. The pool has a great view of the lake, and they make a killer basil mojito of which I have a couple. There’s also a small TV that one can see from the jacuzzi playing the Russia-Croatia World Cup game, so that’s where I elect to sit. In the jacuzzi, I meet a group of local girls traveling together, and before long we get to talking. Two are from Guatemala City, and one has come to the lake all the way from Costa Rica! I end up spending a while talking to one of the girls, Pamela, because I learn that she has recently earned her degree as a nutritionist, and I am curious to know more about her work here in Guatemala. I’m glad to have made some local friends, and before we have to leave a few hours later I make sure to exchange numbers.

After a bumpy lancha ride (the lake gets quite windy in the afternoon), I get back to Mr. Mullets around dinner time. Getting back to my room I find my roommate, Melu, lying down in bed not looking so well. It seems like she’s caught the stomach bug (pretty much a requisite of coming to Guatemala) of the “front-end” type, and she’s not feeling so well. I’ve got a little bit of medical knowledge, some Tylenol, and a big bottle of water so I take a minute to empathize with her and let her know it’ll likely be okay as long as she takes care of her fluid intake. It’s a brief moment, perhaps 5 minutes, where I’m reminded of some of the reasons why I went into medicine. It’s nothing big – just a snapshot of compassion where I’m able to reassure a fellow human being that they’ll most likely be okay, and that yes, it’s never fun to feel sick. In that common ground, we earn each other’s trust. I give her a hug, and she climbs back up to her bunk feeling a little better.

Just as I’m about to walk off to the shower with my towel in hand, another girl opens the door to our room. “Welcome to our room!” I exclaim, hoping to make another friend in the hostel. Megan is a tall, blonde girl with soft blue eyes and a happy face who looks to be traveling alone. We get to talking, and before long I’ve forgotten about that shower I was going to take. She’s American, from what I would consider to be the Pacific Northwest (Montana), and it turns out we’ve got lots in common. She’s at Lake Atitlán for a month to study Spanish and live with a host family, but this is her first day on her own and she’s at the hostel hoping to meet some new people. We end up talking for at least a couple of hours – she’s reading “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood; we chat about my work at the hospital here; a little bit of her home life.

Before leaving for dinner with some of my program-mates I convince Megan to join me and my friend Erinn for a sunrise hike the next day at Indian Nose, a popular viewpoint of the lake where one can see seven of Guatemala’s 37 volcanoes lined up, including the infamous Volcán de Fuego which recently erupted sadly killing over 100 local Guatemalans. Melu looks to be a little too sick still to get up for the 0330 wake-up call, so I’m glad I’ll have another friend from the hostel joining me.

The next morning, as promised, Megan and I wake up at 0330 to make sure we’re at the tour company next door for our departure time at 0400. Indian Nose is a popular hike around San Pedro, so we pack in tightly with the rest of our group to one of the ubiquitous minibuses that form much of the local transportation in Guatemala. With our three guides sitting in front, we begin our short drive to the trailhead up through the potholed dirt roads of the pueblos in the hills above San Pedro.

At one of the city centers, a couple of armed policemen flag us down and hop aboard. ¿Quieren que les acompañemos? they question, asking if we’d like an escort. The guides acquiesce; unfortunately on many hikes in Guatemala, it’s safer for tourists to go with police escorts because robbers hide out on trails, knowing they can take advantage of relatively wealthy hikers walking with expensive cameras, cellphones, and other outdoor gear.

We arrive at the trailhead and begin a brief walk through the cornfields in the backyards of the small pueblo at the base of Indian Nose before arriving at a more established trail that winds through the mountainside. One of our guides, Jorge, teaches me about some of the fauna and flora surrounding us, including café bushes that extend down the hillside with their still-unripe green coffee beans as well as trees with mottled bark that he tells me are used to make the traditional Guatemalan marimbas. He pauses for a second on the trailhead, pointing out a couple of small herbs. Esta es la que te fortalece, he says, picking the leaves of one. Es como la marijuana, he continues with a hint of a smile. He wanders over to a different plant. Y esta, para el sueño. It’s good for sleep. The volcanic earth around Lake Atitlán is bountiful.

We wander on, catching our altitude-shortened breath every few steps, finding a series of small wooden ladders that lead us up the hillside. I won’t comment on their safety, but I do choose to use the knotted ropes that lie to the side of the latter to steady myself. After about 30 minutes, we crest the final hill to the mirador where we’ll watch the sun rise around 0530. There’s a small set of benches, and in the back is a shelter where our guides are heating up coffee in a large cast iron pot over a fire.

We grab a seat with some hot coffee and freshly-baked bread over one of the most spectacular vistas Guatemala has to offer, and I’m once again struck by the natural beauty of the country. The sunrise has only just begun, with the clouds flecked in a rose red that conjures to mind the lighting of a fire. In the foreground lies the volcano-ringed lake – including the massive Volcán San Pedro just off to our right.

Volcán San Pedro, right, and the town of San Pedro, front.

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Sunrise progression including timelapse. Not visible in the photos, but in person one could see Volcán de Fuego erupting in the background.

Photos of Megan and Erinn and me atop the mirador

After about a half an hour, it’s time to begin the trek back to town for a much-needed nap. But I’m glad we got up early; it’s always a good feeling when it’s 7am and you feel as if you’ve already accomplished so much with the day.

After a brief nap and delicious breakfast of eggs, bacon, and avocado toast (millenials, amirite?) I get together with Megan, another of our new roommates, Karen, and her friend Lise to go out and explore the lake for the day. I propose that we walk over to the hostel Zoola again to grab some drinks, as it turns out that my new local friend Pamela and her friends are coming to San Pedro for the day and want to meet us there. We end up hanging out by the pool for a little while, and while it’s only around 10:30 in the morning we figure it’s about time for a piña colada:

From Zoola, we manage to convince Pamela to join us for a quick trip on a lancha over to Santiago, and adjacent town on the lake, for lunch and to explore the Sunday market. Santiago is famous for this market, as it’s the largest one on the lake.

After a relatively nausea-inducing ride on the lancha towards Santiago (the lake gets quite windy and choppy during the afternoon), we are dropped right into the middle of a tranquil market that extends from the dock all the way up into the town of Santiago. Markets in Guatemala are diverse; vendors hawk wares anywhere from traditional handmade Guatemalan clothing to electronics to second-hand clothes. We walk up the hill towards town, ogling at the bountiful variety of colors, sounds, and smells.

Dried fish typical to a Guatemalan market.

After a couple of hours, we decide it’s time to head back to San Pedro to relax. We say goodbye to Pamela, who hops on a different lancha towards Panajachel to rejoin her friends across the lake. This time, the lancha ride is mercifully a little bit quicker and less choppy as the lake has cooled down a little bit.

From left to right, photo of me, Lise, and Karen on the lancha back from Santiago.

Typical street scene in San Pedro.

Back in San Pedro, we walk just a few short blocks to a small hotel named Mikaso, recommended to us by Pamela for its deck with jacuzzis overlooking the lake. When we arrive to the hotel, a sign clearly states that the jacuzzis are only for use by hotel guests, but you know the drill from when you were in high school or college. We waltz up the stairs to the roof deck with jacuzzis. In any case, we are hotel guests, perhaps just not at that particular hotel...

There on the deck at Mikaso, we spend at least a couple of hours relaxing in the sun, drinking cuba libres, and enjoying the warmth of the tubs. It’s rare that you find friends that you travel with this well, and even rarer to stumble upon so many experiences in a single day. Little did we know, there would be even more to come.

View from hotel Mikaso in San Pedro, Lago de Atitlán

Megan and Karen having some fun in the jacuzzi.

We cruise back to the hostel for a couple of happy hour drinks before heading out with a bigger group of friends to a restaurant named Clover recommended to me by one of the Spanish teachers at our school, Claudia. A departure from traditional Guatemalan fare, Clover offers Asian fusion food with dishes such as Thai green curry and spring rolls. It’s a solid meal for a good price, and we hang out in the garden with drinks for a couple of hours enjoying the ambience and the scenery of the lake.

After dinner, we decide to walk just a few blocks over to a carnival that we’ve learned is happening that night in San Pedro. We’re not exactly sure what the party entails, but we know from earlier in the day that a Ferris wheel is involved somehow, as we saw it being set up earlier in the day coming back from Santiago.

The carnival Ferris wheel.

A children’s ride at the carnival.

It’s dark out, but the carnival is full of lights and sounds. We walk past kids jumping on giant trampolines, arcades with old video game consoles (I would have paid good money to play some Metal Slug, but alas it wasn’t one of them) other, more improvised arcades set up with personal televisions and game consoles, foosball tables, more classic carnival gambling games such as airsoft target shooting, food vendors with fried foods...there is something for everyone.

A few minutes later, wandering down a narrow street packed on either side with games and vendors, we stumble upon what appears to be the Guatemalan version of a roulette table. The roulette wheel is adorned with Guatemalan playing cards in a circle, with different colored pins stuck at various intervals. Viene la rosa, la rosa, cien quetzales, la rosa viene, hollers the “dealer”, an energetic man in his 30s who appears to have much experience hosting the game as evidenced by his polished vernacular. Folks crowd around the table to place small bets of 1-2 quetzales on either colors or cards. Some cards, like the rosa, hold a value of 100 quetzales; winning on a color only returns a 5:1 value (there are 4 colors).

Playing the Guatemalan roulette game.

We play a couple of rounds, a highly enjoyable experience as the dealer amps up the drama by calling out cards and colors to lure people in to placing additional bets as the wheel spins. I end up losing a couple of quetzales, but Megan places a bet on the pajaro card and wins Q20! We decide to quit while we’re ahead, and wander off to the rest of the carnival.

Only a few paces later, we stumble upon the same rickety Ferris wheel that we saw earlier in the day. A handwritten sign scrawled in Sharpie states the price: Q5/2 people, about 75 cents. Megan graciously offers to pay for us with her winnings, and we hop on.

This isn’t like your typical Ferris wheel.

The Ferris wheel is unlike any I’ve ever seen. A teenage boy sits in a small seat connected to a large gas-powered generator at the base hooked up to a car battery and accelerator pedal, which is then attached to a network of metal cables strung around the wheel. I’m pretty sure the kid is stoned by looking at him. Safety standards are not particularly apparent on this ride.

After waiting about 15 minutes to fill all the seats on the ride, our operator hits the gas and flings us around faster than I’m sure the law allows in the States. Along with the speed, the yellow chairs are attached via a free-spinning metal bar, so we swing forwards and backwards. Megan grabs my arm and squeals in a mix of fear and excitement. Another 15 minutes later (this is the longest Ferris ride wheel of my life) we slow to a stop and un-board the ride. Exhilarated, we walk back towards the center of the carnival. Having so much fun I had lost track of time; it’s already close to midnight! I announce that I’d like to wander back to the hostel, and the others agree. We’re exhausted.

Lake Atitlán was beautiful, and the adventures I had were unforgettable. I’m unsure if I’ll ever get to see the girls again, although I know we’d be delighted if it were to happen. But in those few days at the lake together, it was as if we became best friends. Because friendship isn’t necessarily dependent on the amount of time people spend together, but rather on the type and the quality of the time spent together.

#lagoatitlan

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