San Marcos is known as a bit of a draw for the new-age traveller, so I wasn’t surprised to see signs all over offering everything from yoga to meditation to healing massage to lessons in reiki to accommodations in the shape of pyramids with their four points coinciding with those of the compass. Long hair, wispy tie-dye, and bare feet was the dress code, apparently, and shaving was frowned upon, for either sex. Rooms were cheap, food was healthy, and the atmosphere one of quiet contemplation. I actually liked it.
In the mornings, I swam and sunbathed off the rocks that cascaded into the clear, calm water that lapped the shore, and spent my afternoons downing strawberry liquados and tofu burgers.
wailing voice accompanied at times by a chanting crowd. As the singing approached, I was delighted to see a procession coming my way, consisting of a large group of locals, the women in matching purple traditional dress, the men bearing on their shoulders a statue of Jesus carrying a cross. They solemnly wound their way around the lane before turning right and disappearing up the hill, the voices still resounding. I managed to steal a few shots as the parade went away.
going to, I came across an English girl, Clare, who talked me into attending a special ceremony taking place on a nearby hilltop to celebrate the eve of the Mayan new year. How could I say no? We trekked up the rocky path and soon stumbled across the bonfire ringed by Mayan priests and new-age travellers who were focused on the flames as they listened to each other make speeches that were translated for the rest of us by a greying lady in ankle-length tie-dye with matching bandana.
The onlookers were taking the event very seriously, but I became more fascinated by the fireflies that flashed like neon beacons in the grass and trees around the semi-meditative crowd. I was impressed when, at one point, one of the priests talked about the importance and benefit of having canine companions and, as he spoke, a dog walked out of the darkness and stood by his side as though to press the point. The priest seemed tickled too.
One seemingly very important priest, who had fasted for five days to protect us from the evils that abound during the shortest month that marks the end of the Mayan calendar, lectured the audience on the rituals that should accompany the coming of a new year. He suggested cutting one’s hair, shaving, and taking a shower to mark this important new beginning—not unwise words given the audience.
The last time I came to Guatemala, about thirteen years ago, I came to Lake Atitlan but only stayed at Panajachel for one night. I thought I’d seen the best of the area, as Pana, as the locals call it, is the most visited town on the lake. But I had missed the point: Lake Atitlan’s draw is it’s calming tranquility, and I wasn’t going to find that in its busiest town. So I was kind of happy this time to be forced to try some of the other villages that nestled lakeside in the volcanoes’ shadow.
I liked San Pedro. There were cafes and restaurants I could happily have stayed in for days, with colourful furnishings, natural settings, music to lounge to, and some fantastic vegetarian food. I stayed two nights, and spent most of my time relaxing in D’Noz, a popular dockside restaurant that offered not only free wireless Internet, but Marmite sandwiches to boot. Canoeists quietly paddled the water beyond my laptop screen, while lancha pilots called out their destination to beckon stragglers to board. There was no room for improvement; I had found my paradise.
I have learned from my travels so far that, no matter how much I like a place and want to stay, there is a destination just down the road that will please me just as much while also offering something a little different. But still I was quite sad the morning I decided to head out. I sat on D’Noz balcony and enjoyed the lake view, the breeze, and a flurry of cheeky sparrows who came one by one to take advantage of a bowl of sugar that was lacking a secure lid. I bade them farewell as I finished my breakfast and limonada and traipsed downstairs to the dock to haggle a ride to San Marcos, known to be the hippiest of hangouts on the lake.
I caught the 6.00 am shuttle that took me and my fellow travellers on a rolling, windy road through the Western Highlands before finally descending toward the magical and mystical Lake Atitlan. Looked down upon by a ring of mountains and volcanoes, Atitlan is one of the most beautiful lakes in the world, and yields ample crops of coffee beans and corn around its fertile shores. Native Guatemalans who populate the lakeside and mountain villages maintain a mixture of Catholic and traditional Mayan customs, and many, particularly the women, still adorn themselves in traditional, richly textile costumes. The air is clean, the lake usually clear and calm, and the atmosphere one of intoxicating relaxation.
We pulled into Panajachel, the largest town on the lake, and I set about finding a cheap but comfortable hotel room and exploring the cafes and shops that lined the road leading to and along the lakeside. Panajachel was once a hippy hangout, and therefore--luckily for me--healthy, organic, vegetarian fare was easy to find, so I settled into a colourful roadside cafe and studied my guidebook over an extremely refreshing limonada.
the police station, wanting to lynch the accused. The police managed to contain the trouble but not the discontent, which was threatening to spill over to the neighbouring town, Panajachel, as the kidnappers were to be transferred to a jail there today. Rumours were milling among the maddening mob that the criminals were to receive a light sentence, and frustrations manifested themselves in violence once more. The word on the street was that we were to be vigilant and stay well away from the town centre.
I considered staying and taking photographs, but then I remembered how foreign photographers had been a popular target for maddening crowds in recent years, so I put my camera away and decided another course of action would be wiser. Concerned that we may be stuck in a town where, at worst, machete-wielding mobs might wreak havoc, or, at best, all the shops, bars, and restaurants would be boarded up for the rest of the night, I decided to take the lead and gave the order to run away.
After helping Mariachi feed the iguanas and turtles and fixing up a wall to separate one iguana from some young caimans who’d attacked him during the night, I asked Mariachi what else I could do. He led me to the hammocks, explaining that there would be more work tomorrow, as we’d be rebuilding the fronded roof of the turtle cemetery. I decided to head back to Monterrico to check my email, find a lost towel, and grab a soyburger and banana liquado at Johnny’s.
For the next three hours we sat, enthralled by the performance that we felt was put on for those of us who stayed to enjoy the real Monterrico. The spouts and breaches continued across the vista, culminating in a lengthy and intensive display of fluke-smacking that had us all shouting ‘Wow!’ in unison. I ordered another liquado to celebrate our fortunate sighting, and contemplated the amazing sights I had seen in this country, and in such a short time, particularly in and around Monterrico.
Buenos diaz!
The white pup drew my attention to a hole dug in the sand just beyond the shoreline. It looked to be the size of a turtle nest; further down the beach we spotted a couple and their child digging a similar but larger hole at the water’s edge. I went to investigate, but my limited Spanish ability and understanding of local arrangements left me with little more to do other than photograph the diggers to show the parque managers, although it’s probably nothing as we are clearly no longer in nesting season.
I’m in heaven. I’m on the beach, just a stone’s throw from the border to El Salvador, sitting under a palm-fronded lean-to, watching the sun set over a tumultuous Pacific. I’m completely alone (almost), and will soon be in utter darkness save for the light emitting from my MacBook monitor. This is Parque Hawaii, the 
ARCAS-run centre dedicated to the conservation of sea turtles, and also iguanas and caimans. The place seems to be run by three puppies, who greeted me enthusiastically when I arrived, checked my bags for me, and playfully escorted me as I explored the centre.
I found free-roaming geckos and captive fish, turtles, and caimans as I made my way around the grounds, and bathrooms, a library, an activity centre, and a couple of bunk-bedded dormitories. So I put my bag in the nicest one, claimed the bunk with mosquito net already installed, and headed down to the beach. As much as I enjoyed my stay at Monterrico, I was now enjoying being far away from the madding crowds and their maddening late-night and early-morning revelry. I was alone—just me, the pups, some reptiles and some fish, the sunset, and, soon, the stars and my old fiend Orion, who has accompanied me throughout my Guatemalan travels.
I felt like I had ridden into a ghost town that had clearly once been a hive of activity; the whiteboard showed that volunteers collected more than 32,000 turtle eggs from May of last year until this January. The busiest months were August to October, with roughly 9,000 eggs per month. January reaped just 83. February, it seemed, was only for the foolish who had no idea when egg-laying season was over; it wasn’t even represented on the board. A message in Spanish mentioned something about food for the puppies and leaving in the
afternoon, and a freshly cut quarter of watermelon sat tantalisingly on the long, blue-painted but weathered table that at times must have hosted a dozen or so fervent volunteers. A large tub marked ‘PATROL KITS’ sat on the floor beneath a small notice reminding egg-saviours of their pre-bedtime duties, such as burying the nests properly and writing up all relevant data.
One of the highlights of late-turtle-season weekends is the release of hundreds of hatchlings back into the ocean. The activity, organised by university-backed CECON, takes place every night in season, but, despite advice to the contrary, keep all the week’s hatchlings during slow season for mass release when more tourists are in town. People can pay to release a hatchling themselves, and if theirs is the first to cross a line drawn in the sand, they win a monetary prize.
At first I was impressed that so many people, both Guatemalan and foreign, came to watch the sunset event, and hoped that it served its educational purpose well. I wasn’t happy that young children were allowed to handle the soft, tiny young turtles, as clearly some weren’t as careful as you should be with an animal that’s just a day or so old and about to embark on an arduous and dangerous first night in the hostile ocean. The people at ARCAS also explained how they performed a study that showed the hatchlings' energy ebbed with every hour they were kept from entering the water; holding them on shore for a few days may 
provide more entertainment for and money from the tourists, but it was giving the turtles far more precarious chance of survival once released.
the beach at night, competing with local parlameros (egg hunters) to be the first to spot and claim a nest. It’s hard work, in hot, humid, and often thunderous and mosquito-filled conditions, but most of the volunteers take the job very seriously, as they are very aware of the importance of ensuring the 
rescue of as many eggs and release of as many hatchlings as possible.
ARCAS.
It wasn’t easy getting up at 5.00 a.m. when the salsa party next door didn’t finish until 2.00, but I didn’t want to miss the tour I had booked. I met my tour guide and fellow tourists at the main road at 5.30, and we quietly walked through the pre-dawn darkness to board our launcha, stopping briefly on the 
way to move a young and reckless pup from the middle of the road.
Dawn is the busiest time on the canal, for all the animals, including humans; many boats carried a silent fisherman or two, with one on the bow continually casting a net across the water and loading the wriggling 
catch into the hull. I felt like I was inside a National Geographic article. It was magical—well worth the pre-dawn rise.
It’s always difficult to once more pack your bags and move on from a place that you really enjoyed and are not yet anywhere near tiring of. I felt sad leaving Antigua for Hound Heights, the same when heading back, and once more when departing Antigua for Monterrico. But always I’d been rewarded with a just-as-enjoyable experience at my latest locale, and my most recent stop didn’t let the side down.
A sleepy Pacific-side village by day, the popular beach resort comes alive at night with green bellies* and foreigners alike, who descend every weekend upon the bars and restaurants in their hundreds to enjoy the fresh seafood and air, convivial vibe, and endless stream of beachside reggae, bachata, and salsa.
attention was drawn to some commotion centred on a recently arrived outboard. A svelte young blonde woman in sunglasses and a tiny black bikini had also risen from her sun-soaking to see what was going on. We agreed to check it out together.
table. But then I realised that, if all animals had the freedoms he had up until the moment he met his baker, there would be far less suffering in the world. I wished him well, reminded him to be thankful he wasn’t factory farmed, and bade him farewell as I escorted the bikini-clad blonde back to our towels.
Her name was Kristine, and she had just moved from her native Denmark to Antigua to set up an organisation to raise awareness about water (I’ll expand on that bit once I have clarification from the lady herself). I was very interested to hear that she had made, for her thesis some years before, a documentary about the 15,000 people living off a huge garbage dump on the outskirts of Guatemala City. I was enthralled and appalled as she told me how people built homes from the garbage, ate from the garbage, sold their bodies among the garbage, and gave birth to and raised children in the garbage. I realised the importance of what someone had explained to me a week or so before: that we had no hopes nor right to increase the level of animal welfare in this country until we had first lifted the well-being of people from the abject depths at which some of them languish.
Kristine and her friends, Casimah and Jenna, and I hung out for the weekend, along with Matt, one of the Canadian guys I spent time with when I first arrived in Antigua. It was relaxing fun, as most of our time was spent on the beach, or in a café supping liquados and scoffing soyburgers. Jenna, the mother of one of Kristine’s friends, like myself couldn’t bear to look at the seven parrots in a tiny cage and started a whipround to build them a flight cage, which the hotel management agreed to. The cage should be built this week. Bless her.
Saturday evening, we danced a little in the sand, and I did my best to teach the ladies a little salsa as the only customers at one of the quieter beach bars. Salsa makes sense here, as does bachata, and the mariachi that set the pace for Sunday night Sumpango, and the Cuban rhythms in Antigua. It matches the local mood so much better than the hectic, conservative lifestyle of Taipei. I promised I’d meet the girls for real salsa lessons in Antigua early next week if my next stop didn’t work out. I clearly needed to refresh my repertoire of moves and turns, but the women, in their naivety, thought I did pretty well, bless them. I let them keep that misguided thought.
