5:00 AM - Thought we won’t see it for another hour, the sun’s first rays crawl over the mountains above Panajachel. Half of the mornings here have  been perfectly clear and still, the other half foggy and mystic. A quick look over our shoulder from bed tells us which type of morning it will be.

5:30 AM – We spring roll out of bed, usually to environs lit up in pastels. Within seconds coffee is brewing (Ian), the tea kettle is one the stovetop (Brie), and our sliding doors have been thrown open to let in the cool morning air.

6:00 AM – Educational and personal enrichment, catching up on news articles, studying Spanish (Ian), taking classes on Coursera (Brie), etc.

7:00 AM – Work time for Ian. Yoga and meditation for Brie.

8:45 AM – Work time for Brie. Granola-based cereal for desayunos.

10:30 AM – Head down to the dock to swim and sun. Some days the dogs get to come with us; Maya swims, fetches her tennis ball, and climbs the ladder while Olmec finds himself a nice shady spot to lay down.

11:30 AM – Lunchie lunch. Leftover soup or some simple pasta. Back to work.

4:00 PM – Ian goes running or does Crossfit Central America style (which basically means finding large medium-sized rocks or other heavyish things and lifting/throwing them).

5:00 PM – Brie whips up some banana-mango smoothies. Lately there have been some beets in the mix too.

5:10 PM – Walk into San Marcos la Laguna to pick up anything we need, which usually means Brahva or Gallo. We usually check out what’s going on at the covered basketball court in the center of town; so far we’ve seen some basketball games, chamusca (pickup futsal), and a traditional dance ceremony.

6:00 PM – Wrap up work, write blogs, cook if it’s a cooking day, etc. On many days, the a rain shower will set in sometime between now and dinner.

7:30 PM – Dinner. We’ve been on soups again this month. Cooking every fourth day is fantastic.

8:00 PM – Weeds. We’re about halfway through Season Three. No spoilers, please!

]]> http://www.vangabonds.com/a-day-in-the-life-lago-de-atitlan-guatemala/feed/ 0 http://www.vangabonds.com/panajachel-and-san-pedro-la-laguna/ http://www.vangabonds.com/panajachel-and-san-pedro-la-laguna/#comments Fri, 17 May 2013 01:28:24 +0000 Ian http://www.vangabonds.com/?p=2784 Read more →]]> Thus far we have managed a grand total of two trips away from our corner of Lago de Atitlán, one to Panajachel and one to San Pedro la Laguna (check out the map for reference – our place is just east of San Marcos la Laguna). That’s not entirely true; it’s actually been three, but one of them was a return to Pana (as it is sometimes called) in search of the internet one day when ours when out. As noted earlier in our intro to Atitlán, boat travel is generally the fastest and most practical means of transportation around the lake. For us that means we simply walk down the hill to the dock on our property and flag down a boat passing in the proper direction. Anyway, below are some quick facts and our impressions of these two lakeside towns.

Panajachel

Population: Around 12,000

Cost from San Marcos: 25Q ($3.20 USD) per person each way

Time from San Marcos: 40 minutes

Panajachel, despite its small size, houses a healthy tourism industry, and is one of Guatemala’s major tourist hubs, both as a stopping off point for other places on the lake and as a destination itself. Though seemingly more commercial than the lake’s other towns, Panajachel still maintains a genuine charm. After disembarking at the public dock, it’s a five to ten minute walk to the town’s main drag, Calle Santander, or you can always grab a tuk-tuk for a few quetzales. Santander and the adjoining streets are filled with restaurants, hotels, and shopping – the main downside to Pana is that this street has no view of the water. Cruising this strip or finding a table to watch the passersby seems to be one of the main activities in town; on our two trips to Pana we managed to squeeze in three breakfasts (aaawww yeah, double breakfast). Groceries around the lake are surprisingly expensive, but walking uphill from Santander, there is a daily market full of local produce for sale by Kaqchikel-speaking Mayans. We are assuming we were the victim of some serious price-gouging, but we still came away thinking we had scored some major deals.

San Pedro la Laguna

Population: Around 13,000

Cost from San Marcos: $15Q ($1.90 USD) per person one way

Time from San Marcos: 15 minutes

Located at the foot of Volcan San Pedro, this largely Tz’utijil Maya town has a reputation as a backpacker center and the lake’s main party town. This was fairly evident by the people there; the foreigners in San Pedro la Laguna seemed to sport both fewer years and fewer clothes than we have seen elsewhere and they didn’t really start emerging until afternoon. While many of the lake’s towns are quiet and contemplative places that shut down early in the evening, San Pedro is allegedly home to some genuine nightlife. We arrived on the dock on the east side of town; there is a second dock on the west side that departs toward Santiago Atitlán. Marching up a fairly daunting hill straight into the heart of town, we found that we were on a bustling market street. Only after exploring for a bit and heading back down hill did we realize that many of San Pedro’s restaurants, hotels, and bars were on a street running parallel to the waterfront. Most of these have a great view across the lake to the towns and peaks on the other side and are an idyllic way to while away the day. There is a legitimate sports bar (something pretty rare in this part of the world) just up from the dock called The Allegre Pub. If you happen to be in San Pedro, be sure to stop by and talk to Simon, the Scottish proprietor who visited San Pedro a dozen years ago and never left.

Apparently, there are multiple ways to eat beets – raw or cooked, boiled or baked, seasoned or plain. All we’ve tried is boiling them, and doing so quickly morphs these dirt covered roots into soft, sweet-ish, flavorful snacks that turn your poop purple. Yeah, that’s right. Beets turn your poop purple. Can your afternoon treat do that? Things get even better though, friends. The root is only half of the plant! The greens attached to the stalk are delightfully rich and make a perfect topping to pasta after being sauteed in olive oil for a few minutes. Add in the nutritional value of both and anyone who’s keeping score would quickly be forced to institute a mercy rule. To be fair, I was hooked before I delved into the health benefits of beets, because that’s not what this is about, but these articles seem to think that beets are pretty damn good for you (and maybe for your sex drive too). So check out this photo gallery, which I call “Fun with Beets”, naturally, and then think about grabbing some for yourself on your next trip to the store or farmers’ market (I recommend this one if you’re in the area).

First step in preparing beets: rinse them a bit. Second step in preparing beets: separate the root from the stems. It would probably be safer to do this on a cutting board.

Third step in prepping beets: cut off the ends. Some people also do not eat the skins, but they are fine so I just leave them on. If you want to remove the skins, trying boiling the beets whole to loosen them.

Step four: Chop beets into equally sized chunks. Look at those beauties!

Step five: bring beets to a boil. Let boil for an hour-ish, until soft.

Step six: drain beets. I put a cup under the strainer to save the beet water. The interweb seems to indicate that this is called beet stock and can be used in place of water in recipes for things like chili or risotto.

Voila, beet snack! If you don't eat them all right away, put them into the fridge and enjoy them later.

Not interested in plain beets? Try blending and using them as a base for a delicious veggie soup!

Beet stock is very similar in color to red wine. That's just the water the beets were boiled in!

We added beet stock to our mango smoothies. They were still mango flavored, but a bit richer.

And they're pink!

“Lake Como, it seems to me, touches on the limit of permissibly picturesque, but Atitlán is Como with additional embellishments of several immense volcanoes.” – Aldous Huxley

Lago de Atitlán, in the Guatemalan highlands, is the deepest lake in Central America, surpassing one thousand feet in places, and is considered by many to be one of the most beautiful and breathtaking lakes on the planet. A fusion of Nahuatl words meaning “at the water,” the lake is surrounded by steep heights and fills a giant caldera left by an eruption 84,000 years ago. Three classic cone-shaped volcanoes lining the southern shore are constant reminders of the lakes violent origin, as is the dramatic plunge of the lake floor from crystal clear rock beds to greenish-blue nothingness just feet from shore.

Just as much a characteristic of the lake as its stunning vistas is the people who live there. In many of the lakeside villages, traditional Mayan culture and dress are the norm. Most of the people on the north side of the lake are Kaqchickel speakers, while those from the south are Tz’utijil. Spanish is spoken widely, especially among the younger generations, but is a second language for most.

Each town lining the lakeshore has something of a distinct reputation:

• Panajachel – The lake’s largest town, it’s also the most visited and most commercial.
• San Pedro la Laguna – A laid-back backpacker’s hub and the best party spot on the lake
• San Marcos la Laguna – A more meditative place, with many spiritual retreats
• Santiago Atitlán – A small and largely Tz’utuhil town, famous for its shrine to Maximón
• Santa Cruz la Laguna – The only notable village left with no road access
• San Juan la Laguna – Less-traveled and quiet
• San Antonio Palopo and Santa Catarina Palopo – Traditional Kaqchikel villages

We happen to be staying a few docks down from San Marcos for our month in Guatemala. Though some segments of the lake are connected by roads, boat travel is much more extensive and practical. Lanchas, as they are called, zip back and forth from sunrise to sunset and the length of the lake can be covered in less than an hour.

When, Where, and Which Direction: May 1, 2013 – Ciudad Cuauhtémoc, Chiapas, Mexico > Santo Domingo, Huehuetenango, Guatemala

The Process: Almost immediately upon entering Cuauhtémoc heading south on 190, there is a decently marked building housing Banjercito on the left side of the road. As the Mexican auto import permit must be cancelled to collect the deposit and is also supposedly a requirement for getting an auto import permit for Guatemala, this Banjercito office is the first step to leaving Mexico. Just inside the door, travelers should present their auto import permit at the window on the left. The worker will probably come to your car to verify that it indeed matches that which was registered when entering the country. The deposit will be processed the next day and post back to the account it was charged to a few days later.

Stop two is at the building next door to Banjercito, the second building on the left from the road. Here, travelers must present their passports and tourist cards and pay a new fee (a sign in the office indicated that this was another November 2012 customs policy update) to receive an exit stamp in their book (not that anyone would notice if you didn’t get it…). Tourist cards are collected. Now you are free to get back on the road and drive to the end of Mexico.

This “end of the road” is a congested and messy place. What we assume to be the exact border between Mexico and Guatemala is marked with a narrow gate. Cones stop vehicles about two car lengths passed the gate on the Guatemalan side, where swarms of people filter about just feet away. At this first stop, vehicles are sprayed for bugs, a non-optional part of the process, by a non-uniformed employee whose office is in a small, single-room building on the right side of the road behind the crowd. Men with wads of cash approach new visitors offering to exchange money, which is a necessity if you don’t have any quetzales as this is the only currency accepted at the border, but the rates are usually pretty terrible and the chaos of it all only adds to the feeling of being taken advantage of. It is apparently at this first tiny office that dog permits are addressed, but as our experience below details, this is about all we know.

Once shooed away from this station, vehicles can be parked on the right side of the road just before the second gate, which looks like a horizontal pole blocking a railroad track. Travelers take their passports into a larger building on the right side just past the bug-spray-and-pet shack. Here, passports are processed and stamped by a uniformed customs official standing behind a counter. Next, travelers with a vehicle must check in at the window at the front of the third building on the right for an auto import permit. The vehicle title, the owner’s passport, and the cancelled Mexican auto import permit are all requested (though our cancellation was never looked at) so that the employee can process the temporary import, which is good for 90 days. The worker will probably come to the car to verify its VIN. He then sends the vehicle owner to a door next to the window (apparently a bank; we were not allowed inside) to pay the fee and then return to the the window with a confirmation of payment to receive the windshield sticker and permit. If traveling with pets, you may be asked to show your papers or permit here as well.

With a permit sticker in the windshield, the second gatekeeper will allow you to pass, and if you can get through the next mile of excruciatingly narrow and crowded streets without running anyone over, you’re free to enjoy Guatemala!

Costs: There is no cost to cancel a temporary auto import permit in Mexico, and in fact, money is returned to the driver from the deposit put down when entering; however, a sign in the office where exit stamps are received indicates a November 2012 policy change requiring a 295 peso fee ($23.60 USD) when leaving the country. This fee is only charged to tourists who spend more than 7 days in Mexico. Entering Guatemala costs nothing for US citizens, but there are charges for cars and pets. We were quoted at 18 quetzales ($2.30 USD) to have our car sprayed for bugs, and the auto import permit cost 160 quetzales ($20.50 USD). Though discussion about the dogs occurred, we do not know if there is typically a charge (official or otherwise) and if so, what amount it would be for.

Dogs: According to pettravel.com and a 2004 statement from the US Embassy in Guatemala, acquiring a permit prior to arrival is required in order to bring a dog into the country; however, we opted for the play-dumb-and-run system, which worked fine too (this time). The previous listed sources site a need for a rabies certificate that is older than 30 days but not more than 12 months and a vet signed certificate of health that is not more than 30 days old for each pet, both of which we carry with us (except that we have to occasionally update our dates). Both sites indicate that these forms need to be sent, possibly with a fee, to the Guatemalan consulate to receive a permit for travel. Given the time to do this, it sounds like a lovely idea to show up at the border with a permit in hand. As that process isn’t entirely conducive to our travel-style though, we planned to try to address it with an official at the border. Voila, the bug-sprayer asked almost immediately about our dogs’ papers. I agreed to show them and was prepared with our rabies certificates, the certificates of health, and a bit of cash (though that’s probably not what he meant); however, the chaos of the area gave us an open window to hit the road, so we went with it. I can’t imagine that will work every time, but we were happy to get lucky at this stop.

Our Experience: After the debacle of getting our temporary auto import permit for Mexico, Ian’s credit card information was stolen by, ahem, from Banjercito, the national bank, to buy someone some snacks and jewelry in Tijuana. After cancelling the card, I emailed Banjercito to find out how to get our deposit back now that the card they had on file to return it to was no longer valid, and an employee responded to me in English telling me that we could just take care of it at the border when we were leaving. We didn’t head into the day with much faith in our chances, but were pleasantly surprised by a meticulous and unhurried attendant who filled in four blanks on a form letter that allowed us to apply the deposit to a different card at a pace that would make a snail look like a cheetah. Then, in a strange turn of events, he picked up a blank piece of copy paper from the copy machine and requested that Ian hand write a duplicate of the letter. While scrupulously checking Ian’s work about five minutes later, the employee found that two characters had been transposed in the text. Perhaps we could initial a correction? Of course not. As if trying to demonstrate the deplorable level of efficiency we’ve come to expect, Ian was told to rewrite the entire letter by hand a second time. Did I mention the office had a copy machine? With laughter, we completed the process and thanked the detailed man genuinely for helping us to solve our problem (and later also for not stealing our credit card information).

In the customs office, we were unaware of the new fee and tried to explain to the official that we had already paid for our tourist cards. She kindly pointed us in the direction of a posted notice that, even if fake, couldn’t really be argued with. Plus, she was really nice. So we forked over the fee, received improper change in our favor, and collected our passport stamps. As we walked out we mused that we probably didn’t really need the stamps to leave as the office wasn’t even within sight of the border and no other Mexican officials checked on us or our car.

But for all of the lack of enthusiasm on the Mexico side, we were thrust into mayhem on the Guatemalan side. As can be decently deduced from the above information on the process and the dogs, things around us were chaotic and way up in our personal space. Drive here, stop here, exchangemoneyexchangemoneyexchangemoney, I’m going to spray your car, 18 quetzales, move your car, you can’t drive this far, park over there, why, where the f is the guy I’m supposed to pay for bug spray, no I don’t want to give you money, get passports stamped, bug-spray guy is whistling at us, where are your dog papers, in our car I’ll go get them, car needs a permit, we need more money, where are your dog papers, right here, go to that door to pay someone, here’s your permit, go ahead and leave, we can go, yes you can go. Drive, Ian, drive! Just fucking go!

Vangabonds Border Crossing Number: 6

Cuauhtémoc Banjercito on the left side of Mexico 190. Our car is parked to the left. The building with the red cap and an orange car parked in front is where passports are stamped.

Looking back towards the gate on the Mexico/Guatemla border at Cuauhtémoc from inside Guatemala. A truck is stopped at the cones to be sprayed for bugs, and a red car is waiting behind it just inside the gate. Photo taken from in front of the passport stamp building. Payments for bug spray and possibly pets are made at the blue structure on the left side of the picture.

All that said about the variances within Mexico, we had developed a comfort zone that tugged at us a bit when the time came to leave the country. Despite the many differences from one month to the next, there was a familiarity in each new place, in the words of a good friend, a rhythm that had begun to sync. Our month in Chiapas was spent enjoying the beautiful scenery and abounding natural highlights, perusing the lively, diverse centro, and learning about the impact of uprisings in recent history. We would definitely recommend San Cristobal de las Casas to potential visitors as it is in lovely surroundings, culturally rich with lots to do, and different than the typical US American experience of Mexico, while also being easily accessible and accepting of outsiders. Mexico is a wonderful country, and as we depart for Guatemala, we are already looking back on our time there fondly.

We were in a church in the autonomous village of San Juan Chamula in the Mexican state of Chiapas, and it was all at one time an unfamiliar anthropological amalgamation, a uniquely styled ambiance, and a practice of a powerful, nearly tangible faith that had been woven together by threads of traditional Mayan belief systems and partially successful Catholic conversion efforts. Behind the innumerable bouquets along the church walls and into the altar were dozens of large, wood and glass display boxes enclosing statues of Catholic saints, some of which were prayed to directly as the figures looked down upon their parishioners’ mixed customs and idol worshiping. Where one might expect pews was instead a wide open space with a floor of pine needles and randomly distributed areas of individual or group devotions on the ground. One family of 12 knelt behind the patriarch, facing their unusually imposing grid of hundreds of candles. Only he spoke the prayer, but they were all fully engaged. Five bottles of Coca-Cola sat neatly organized, equidistant from one another creating the front row of their altar of candles. Though a live chicken did make an appearance, this more basic arrangement appeared to be the typical setup. Candles, name brand soda, and kneeling practitioners chanting in ancient Totzil whose eyes, if open, said they were a million miles away. It was remarkably moving, especially for a religion we couldn’t even begin to define or understand.

We had ridden horses from San Cristobal de las Casas, worked our way through the unrelenting village market, paid 20 pesos ($1.60 USD) each to a 12-year-old sitting at a school desk in front of the church, and then suddenly found ourselves transported to a larger-than-life version of the candle room in Kwai Chang Caine’s flashbacks to Kung Fu’s Shaolin Temple. There were many things that I had anticipated writing about when I began this post – the ride to the horses in the back of a pick-up truck, trotting through the mountains with an only-sometimes-present guide on a horse that was just my size, dropping into a market in which most people were communicating in an indigenous language we did not understand, the wariness of locals when our camera came out, details we had learned from the many accounts of others who had paid a guide to lead them through, and so much more. What continues to capture my thoughts though is how mystic and gripping the experience truly was. As no photos are allowed inside of the church (nor in the market as many Mayans prefer not to have their pictures taken and some believe that the camera steals their souls), we only snapped a few shots in acceptable outside areas, but photos likely wouldn’t have done justice anyway to this beautiful house of worship that plays such an integral role in the lives of the villagers of San Juan Chamula.

Groceries

Our host has a large, beautiful, organic garden full of colorful blooms and a wide variety of edible greens that she welcomed us to pick and eat if we wanted. Of course we took her up on the offer, but aside from salads, we, in an embarrassing swing of laziness this month, bought the majority of the rest of our groceries at a giant, Walmart-esque, clothing-electronics-groceries-and-more chain store called Chedraui. There is a neat little market just north of the centro, but our couple of visits there were entirely overwhelming. Within a couple of blocks of our house there are also a few small shops with various processed foods and a handful of vegetables, where we have indeed picked up an avocado or some crackers here and there, but that didn’t quite do it for us either. Our lodging setup this month is smaller than the last few places we’ve stayed, and our cooking space is limited to the top of a mini fridge and two stand alone burners. As a result, April has been a month of soups – chili, tomato based bean and veggie, potato based lentil, etc – that we get all the ingredients for at one time and then cook up in a large pot that lasts us a handful of meals.This isn’t inherently a bad thing. We’ve found that we actually tend to spend a lot of time cooking and that by making a dish that lasts a few days, we buy ourselves some hours back. Switching away from our rice, beans, and peppers staple dinner, however, found us less skilled at shopping locally, and thus, Chedraui.

Water

Though we didn’t know it when we booked our April cabin, the property we’re staying at has UV purified water throughout which means drinkable water in all of our faucets. We learned about this system while in Guanajuato, but haven’t actually stayed in a unit in which it was fully functioning. While this has been incredibly convenient, especially when brushing our teeth, it’s amazing how quickly we had gotten used to not drinking from the tap, to brushing our teeth with a cup of water, and to keeping our mouths closed while in the shower.

Laundry

The first time we got our laundry done this month was by our host’s housekeeper while we were at Palenque for the weekend. We paid about the same as we typically do but without having to haul a bunch of dirty clothes out into town, and when we returned on Sunday afternoon, they were folded nicely for us on our bed. Later in the month though, we had a sudden realization that we were completely out of clean, um, necessities on one of Marta’s days off, and so took our bag of clothes to a nearby lavandería, where prices were even lower than usual and our clean laundry smelled like gingerbread cookies.

Auto Care

As we discussed last month, oil for the CR-Van has proven to be quite expensive in Mexico, but with an oil change approaching, we headed to Auto Zone, decided to change our oil type from 5W-30 to 10W-30 (as we won’t be in cold climates for a while), and happily found much better prices. 6 liters of oil, which gave us some extra to carry for when we are running low, and a decent Bosch filter cost us 478 pesos ($38.25 USD). The cashier then pointed us in the direction of a mechanic at the end of the road who would change the oil for us; however, in our excitement, we stopped at the first car-type place we saw and started asking questions. It wasn’t until after they had looked at us confusedly, gone to check with someone in the back, quoted us at 50 pesos ($4 USD), and sent us to pull our car in, that we realized they were a tire and rims joint next door to the actual mechanic. Since an oil change is car maintenance 101 and they had been so very nice, we decided just to go with it. Fortunately, that choice worked out for us. The job was done in 20 minutes while we stood in the garage and watched. A suited gentleman, who appeared to be the owner, even bought us each a cup of pozol, a cocoa, corn dough, and water beverage that resembles grainy chocolate milk, from a street vendor nearby (“on the house,” he said) and chatted with us in Spanish for a while.

Exercise

One of our favorite everyday essentials in San Cristobal de las Casas is the large, free, outdoor athletic complex where we’re able to do a variety of workouts on our own schedule and at no cost. The facilities, which we think are called CEDEM (Centro Deportivo Municipal) but which also confusingly house the SEDEM (Servicios Deportivos Municipales) offices that are noted on Google maps, include multiple fútbol fields, basketball courts, a baseball field, an 8-lane running track, an obstacle/ropes course, and a swimming pool, among other things. We’ve seen field hockey, girls flag football, an unidentified racket-based sport (apparently Ian has learned that it’s called frontenis), and fan fueled case races. Near the track are also a number of “weight machines” which at first appear to be simple playground equipment, but which use the weight of the exerciser as resistance for a handful of simple movements such as incline chest presses and pull downs. In addition to having such a great facility at which to work out ourselves, we also really enjoy being part of an active community. Every time we visit CEDEM, we are surrounded by locals of a variety of fitness levels from confidence crushing high school track teams to families in jeans with children and grandparents in tow.