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We spent two and a half days on Lake Atitlán, which was both beautiful and comical in parts. We got the chicken bus from Xela which dropped us by the turn-off to Panajachel on the Interamericana highway - where we caught two more short buses down to Panajachel on the lake. Finally we caught a boat across the lake to the small village of San Marcos which is much more beautiful than the built up tourist town of Panajachel. We chose to stay at a wonderful place, as recommended by Lonely Planet, where we got two floors (not really required) and an amazing garden - this stretched our budget but studying Spanish had been very cheap. San Marcos is famed for hippies and we saw loads of adverts around town for spiritual healing and holistic treatments. Unfortunately it rained all afternoon so we sat on the patio until dinner - only to be disturbed once by a small earthquake; the first we've ever felt.
The next day, we explored two other towns on the lake - Santiago and San Pedro. San Pedro was a bit like a relaxed South East Asia tourist town, while Santiago, once you got away from the docks, was a normal working town. The reason we visited Santiago was because we wanted to see Maximón. Maximón is an effigy of a Mayan god which has got mixed with Christianity along the way. He 'lives' in a different house each year so we had to pay a kid to take us to see him. He has guardians who watch over proceedings and who looked ridiculous. Maximón loves gifts of money, booze and cigarettes, which funnily enough is what his guardians like. An incredible scene surrounded Maximón; there were candles, a model of Christ on the cross, a coffin with another Christ inside and other Christian items around the room. On the coffin were purple fairy lights which light up in time to electronic Christmas songs such as 'Rudolf the red nose reindeer'. We would have laughed if it hadn't been for a group of people there crying and praying. We waited for about 20 minutes for them to finish but they just kept offering Maximón gifts so we took our photos and left after giving our gift of about 80p.
On the 27th May we explored our own town a bit more. To the west of town there was a park with trails up the hill, which pass Mayan altars, and along the shore there was a jumping platform which was good fun. We also hired canoes from the park and paddled around our corner of the lake past some very expensive houses with manicured gardens. We didn't use as much sun tan lotion as we should have so caught the sun for the first time. That afternoon I (Simon) got a massage as my back was still playing up from football the week before. I was interested in my hippy masseuse from Worthing so I asked lots of questions about her beliefs but had to stop myself laughing at some points. She talked about "connecting with the power of the Jaguar and the Serpent" and about how she was able to "view the upper, middle and lower dimensions". There was loads more that I can't remember along similar lines. Towards the end she started talking about healing people and said that they had 'machines' that could deliver frequencies to heal all sorts of things ranging from eye sight to dyslexia to cancer. I just thought 'stupid hippy' but enquired about dyslexia and she said that the guy who could 'heal' me was out of town today but could see me tomorrow and only needed 10 minutes. I declined as we were leaving on a 5:30am bus. Later that day I grew increasingly angry about her healing claims - particularly those relating to cancer. I hope that no one puts their trust in her but I'm sure that a small number of people do. We finished our last night by the lake eating an amazing Indian curry - one of the best we've ever had but also one of our most expensive meals in Guatemala (~£10 for 2).
Simon
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