Hola.
The weekend of December 3rd and 4th, Kaycie and I visited Lake Atitlán—which means “Place of the Waters” in Nahuatl. We left Christopher and Nelly’s house pretty early Saturday morning for our big adventure. I’ll try to express just how early with a touch of irony: I put on sunscreen at 4:30 in the morning when it was pitch black outside our window. I have to admit: Kaycie is much better at blogging with really interesting facts, but I’ll try my best. I can’t even blame it on the language barrier this time, because our amazing tour guide, Juan, gave the tour in English. He spoke at least three other languages: Spanish, K’iche’ and Kaqchikel. The last two are Mayan languages. There are a total of 22 in all of Guatemala.
About a kajillion years ago, massive volcanic activity created a crater in Guatemala. Now, three volcanoes border the southern part of the lake. They say ash from this ancient eruption now rests in both Florida and Ecuador. Since then, that crater has filled and is now Lake Atitlán. Guatemala has seen a lot of rain in the past two years (that includes tropical storm Agatha). As a result, Juan said this is the highest he has ever seen the lake. Many Mayan natives refuse to call their country Guatemala, which is derived from "Goathemala," which means "Land of the Trees" in the Maya-Toltec language. Instead they refer to it by a word that means “Land of Corn.” I’m trying to remember that word… but it escapes me! I do know, the word was not Nebraska, because that is actually Oto for “Flat Water.” Did you already know that?
Speaking of Nebraska, you know how school lets out in May-June and begin again in August-September? I believe this was originally due to helping with the harvest over the summer. The same is true in Guatemala. Except coffee is harvested in November, December, January. Thus, Guatemalan schools have their “harvest vacation” over those three months. During the harvest, men typically hand-pick enough little, red coffee beans to amount to 110-150 pounds, while the women and children gather anywhere from 45 to 110 pounds of coffee… PER DAY! For the remainder of the blog, Kaycie has added the best photos and some videos from our weekend in Atitlán (she deserves credit for all the captions, too).
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| Our snack before the tour at the lake. |
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| Volcano San Pedro |
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| Volcano Toliman with Volcano Atitlan right behind it. |
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| The lake is rather high at this point because of all of the rain in the past few years...includingTropical Storm Agatha in May 2010 when we were here before. |
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| Lake Atitlan |
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| Do you see the large, safe boat called Telaviv? Yea...we were in the small scary ones next to it. |
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| Getting ready to to start our tour! |
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| The view from the back of our boat. |
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| Leaving Panajachel |
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| This is how our boat driver steered the boat...which was okay...until... |
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| The boat broke down and our driver (without a cell phone) tried to fix it with a wrench. |
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| It didn't work, but we were saved by another boat. |
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| Two volcanoes. |
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| Three volcanoes in one photo. |
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| Going to San Juan. |
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| Decked out in our new sunglasses. |
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The top floor with the window is actually the
second floor.
The first floor is under water. |
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| The root of a house. |
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| Coffee. |
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| The red beans are ready to be picked. |
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This is a painting of a shaman fixing the leg of a young boy.
Many of the Mayans still use shamans instead of doctors. |
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The tree is crying because they are tired of
being cut down. The earth is turning into a sun
because of global warming.
Intense, but sort of interesting. |
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| A festival at one of the towns. |
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Mayans used to use kites to communicate
with the dead, but now children use them to play
just in November though. |
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| San Juan was such a colorful place! |
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We went to a women's cooperative where they still make
thread from cotton and dye them naturally. |
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The Regina sewing machine that they use for all of the material
that they do not sew. |
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Thread make of cotton and silk (light green one) and dyed with
natural materials.
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| Cotton |
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| More cotton. |
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| The tree colors of natural cotton. |
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| Looms. |
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Dyeing natural fibers in the mural...this is one
of the only places they still do this. Almost all
of the thread now is from China. |
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| They used this plant to dye thread. |
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| Cotton plant. |
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| They go fishing in their basement. |
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| Kayaking on the lake. |
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| Tuk tuks all decorated! This is a smaller version of taxis. |
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Coffee process...white flowers, green beans, red beans,
dried beans, they take off a shell for another bean,
roast them, brew and coffee! |
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| Actual beans. |
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| Coffee roaster. |
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| Me in front of the lake. |
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| Can you see anything in the mountains? |
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| A mayan face...a sacred place for the mayans. |
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| Us on the boat. |
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| Do you see the yellow patch on the steep part of the volcano? |
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They grow corn on the steep sides of the volcano because
the soil is so fertile. |
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| Model of the lake. |
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| 25 cent piece. |
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| Our first christmas tree in Guatemala. |
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| Church in Santiago Atitlan. |
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| Us in front of the church. |
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| Grave inside the church of a priest that was killed. |
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| Juan, our guide, a rather interesting person. |
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| One of my favorite pictures. |
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| Again. |
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Travis broke his sunglasses...he isn't too good with
sunglasses. Notice his lucky bean though. |
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December 21, 2012...the end of the Mayan Calendar
...not the world (the calendar cycles). |
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| Chichicastenango Market |
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| Market scene. |
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| Blankets in the market. |
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| Paintings in the market. |
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| One of the paintings that I liked. |
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| Market scene. |
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| Guatemala is known for their tapestries. |
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| Man with turkey. |
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| Mayan masks. |
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Man carrying HUGE loads on their backs.
Women carry them on their heads. |
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| Textiles in the market. |
Adios.
