The carreteras sinuosas en-route to Panajachél were nothing as compared to the small road we took through the highlands around the lake, with the relentless procession of curvas peligrosas and jagged potholes. The guard rails had seen some serious action. Our driver looked agonized as we scraped and nearly high-centered our way down toward San Marcos La Laguna. He noted that the road looked like the surface of la luna.
But I’m ahead of myself. Maria and I had decided not to take the shuttle back to Antigua, but to hire her cab-driving friend Don Isra to drive us to a couple other lakeside villages and then home in greater comfort than we had enjoyed on the way there.
We said goodbye to our modest but nice hotel, with its incongruous dinosaur skeleton in front, and Don Isra took us up the mountain, away from the lake. At the top, we started down again.
Along roadsides here, you often see a classic image of Guatemala: Mayan women in huipiles and skirts, carrying colorful bundles on their heads, with children by their side and strapped to their chests. Sometimes they’re sitting on a dusty embankment. Usually they’re walking. I used to wonder why they were by the road in what seemed, from the car window, to be the middle of nowhere. It’s especially mysterious in the high country, where the road is a narrow gash across the face of a steep mountainside. There’s no clear sign of habitation: only a drop below and a cliff above, and people walking along the edges. But if you look really closely, here and there you may spot a tiny notch in the jungle and the start of a narrow path down the slope. Above, there are sometimes slivers of hand-cut steps up the 75-degree clay hillside, and at the top, another notch into the selva. When my eyes find these, I try to see what lies beyond, but the dense foliage keeps the Mayan lives private from casual passersby like me.
On our tourist van to the lake two days ago, I overheard one person ask another, Why are all those Mayan people by the side of the road? The other, an expat who lives in Guatemala, replied, They’re always here, every day. There’s just not much else for them to do out here. Well, maybe I misunderstood his reply, but I disagree. It seems to me that there’s too much to do—wood to cut, produce to haul, survival to eke, extreme poverty to endure. I can’t imagine it: things like watching my baby die for want of access to medical help. That happens too much. But yeah: at 40 miles-per-hour on the way to a vacation, maybe it does look like a pleasant afternoon stroll.
I digress.
We saw the usual stream of people along the roadside, and hundreds of potholes, plus the totally gratuitous tíºmulos (speed bumps). Don Isra seemed to get better and better at getting the Toyota Yaris through tough spots without the sound of grating metal from below or from the side. He said he had developed a sexto sentido for navigating: a sixth sense.
After a bone-rattling ride we finally arrived at San Marcos. I’m so glad I didn’t accidentally stay in San Marcos on a past visit, or in a past life. It’s a fairly pretty little village, with a main road crossing the uphill side, and other “roads” wide enough only for foot-traffic. But watch where you put your feet: you might step on a sharp crystal. The village is overrun by blonde girls in dreadlocks and the desperate need to discuss with their tender boyfriends the minutiae of their every emotion while blocking your way in the middle of the cobblestone path. The third-generation hippie boys of many English-speaking persuasions wear more-new-agey-than-thou expressions on their blissed-out, pink faces. I could almost hear them say: Hey, man, don’t send out all that negative mindspace here. That 65-year-old Californian over there in the caftan and crocheted cap really is a reincarnated Mayan priestess. You should go get your aura cleaned. I mean, dude!
A tiny hotel called Las Pirí¡mides, with its miniature outbuildings shaped titularly, sells month-long moon-quests (or something like that) for $3,000. I think it costs the same for a sun-quest. There are Mayans in the village, of course, since it’s theirs. Most noticeably are the enterprising little boys who so skillfully clung to Maria and me like dust motes until they’d gotten a few Quetzales for their “services,” and then demanded we owed them double. They are good little businessmen, if terribly annoying.
Our next stop was the lovely town of San Juan a little further along the lake. As Maria had told me, the women of the village have formed a weavers’ collective, and most of their textiles are dyed from natural sources such as the wood of various regional trees. At Corazón del Lago I bought a huge pile of beautiful scarves. If you give me things, maybe I’ll give you one. Maybe not. Depende.
There have been many disasters at Lago de Atitlí¡n: mud- and rock-slides burying villages, and of course the massive death toll during the wars. The most recent trouble involves voluminous flooding around last October. During three months, the lake rose an astonishing 20+ feet. Where we stayed in Panajachél, we could see parts of trees sticking out of deep water, but until we got to San Juan we didn’t see the human effect. Many people have lost their harvests—and the land itself—to water. A few feet from where we shopped I saw a small wooden pier that looked like any other. It wasn’t until I looked more closely that I realized it was brand new, and it led to some of the houses that had been on land a few months ago. As I strolled out the pier, a tiny, round, multicolored shape came at me. Your friend, the elderly woman said. Last time she was here, she bought a lot of things from me. My store used to be there. She pointed past the end of the dock, to the dark water. She bought so many things before, but not this time. Please, I want to talk to your friend. I agreed to take her back to the car to see Maria. They chatted for a while and then the old lady went away. When she came back, she leaned in through the open car window, handed Maria a wrapped present, and then hugged and kissed her. I rolled down my window to say goodbye, and got a hug and kiss myself.
As we left San Juan the weather started getting nasty and windy. I learned that el vientre is not the same as el viento. The former is the stomach. The other’s the wind. When you’re saying that one is strong, choose carefully.
At first, the mist was light, and the sun shone through, and I saw my first Guatemalan arco iris. Unlike any rainbow I’ve seen before, this one seemed to arc just above the ground, hugging it close.
It took us over five hours to get home along the same rough roads. Things got easier once we reached the Pan American Highway. We stopped for dinner at a restaurant where we sat by a bucket of embers to keep from freezing. I told Don Isra my nieta’s name. The Spanish word for it is chispita, he said. I think it’s Central American Spanish, since I can’t find it in my little pocket dictionary. He also said there’s a Mexican telenovela by the same name: Chispita part 1 of 4 (final episode).
Here are pictures from today including one for my sister, whom I hope is reading this, since I haven’t had a chance to write to anyone, not even her. Oh, darn. I just looked at these pictures small and they look crappy. Look at them bigger and see if that helps.
I like the sound of that, “Chispita”. I told it to the guy at Autometrics, who had no idea what I meant, of course. He asked how you were, by the way, and went on to tell me how brave and adventurous you are. He asked, also, what Ember calls you and I said proudly “Mama Ginna”.
That’s strange that he didn’t know. He’s from Mexico City, and the telenovela was Mexican. The only fire-related definition I’ve found is “spark.”