Lago Atitlan

Well, I finished out my last week at Cedescri. They gave me a nice gift basket of stuff they make on Friday when I left. I set off on a Great Chickenbus Adventure at 11 or so, first to Guate to drop off some books with Erika, because I dont really need to haul around 2 kilos of paperback books i've already read but don't want to get rid of.

From there I took a bus to Los Encuentros, then changed to get to Panajachel. All this time praying that my backpack, which was on the roof (with all the other luggage) wasn't going to fall off. I think I would cry....

So I got here at 4ish in the afternoon, pretty worn out. Walked around a bit, bought some tortillas and a tin of black beans and had a perfectly tasty supper for about 5Q. That's about 65 cents, kids. Gotta love it. Went to bed early with a headache, probably from buses and whatnot. Whatever.

At breakfast yesterday morning I met my next-door neighbor, a British anthropologist. Had a good conversation over coffee about development problems, overpopulation, etc. He apparently got his undergrad degree in Physics and Math and then decided to study Mayan aesthetics. OK, sure. Interesting guy. He was going to Santiago Atitlan to meet somebody, invited me along. So sure, I can go look at Santiago with a trained anthropologist. We went to a neat weaving museum. If you want to see really awesome handmade textiles, Guatemala really is the place to go. Backstrap looms are amazingly complicated for being at least many hundreds of years old.

Also went to the church, built in 1547. The priest there, Father Stanley Rather (he was from Oklahoma) was killed by death squads in 1981. But it's a really awesome church, with saints and everything, quite old. Some actually from 1547. Some with pre-Christian significance: one is standing on a skull that's missing the lower jaw, which apparently was how Mayans were sometimes buried, the lower jaw becoming a kind of sacrifice. I don't know exactly. Anyway, there's a bunch of stuff like that, some of it being the result of interesting coincidences between christian beliefs and maya ones. For example, the cross was a religous symbol for a couple of different reasons, even before Christianity.

So that was neat.

Came back here on the boat (went that way too). Its a pretty ride.

Today I think I'm heading for San Pedro La Laguna, which has gotten mixed reviews, but I'm going to check it out.