Panajachel

Sunday, Feb 6, 2011

Yesterday Jeff and I went on an excursion to the town of Panajachel which sits on the north side of Lake Atitlan to visit Louise, our friend from St Joan of Arc. To get there we had to catch three different buses in towns we were unfamiliar with. We were a little nervous about making our connections, but we managed to do it. Our first bus, from Xela to Los Encuentros was muy rapido. I’ve never before thought of Blue Bird buses as potential entrants in the Indy 500, but our driver seemed to think it possible. We FLEW to Los Encuentros. We were both wearing our lightweight travel pants and mine were so slippery that I kept sliding around on the seat. A couple of times, we nearly slid right off. I finally figured out that if I kept my left shoulder pressed against the window and my right leg planted on the leg of the seat ahead of us, I could brace myself and stay in place. The ayuante (bus guide/money collector) stood in the doorway of the bus with the door open half the time, whistling and shouting out Los Encuentros Los Encuentros Los Encuentros! The driver, as he took the turns, would lean in his chair to counter balance the centrifugal force, and his rosary and the pull for his horn would swing like a pendulum at an angle that was just a little alarming. The road, although good, is very curvy. As Jeff would say, “snakes all the way.” I just had to offer up a prayer to God that our driver knew the limits of his BlueBird, his abilities and the road, and that we would get there in one piece, which we did. I spent most of the time, head down, reviewing my notebook, going through everything I’ve learned in the past two weeks and that kept my mind off thoughts of untimely demise, or worse, lingering pain and disfigurement. At Los Encuentros, we caught a bus to Solola and at Solola we caught our bus to Panajachel. We weren’t sure where to get off the bus in Pana, and it was just fortunate that when the bus did stop and a lot of folks got off, I switched seats to the other side for a better view. Louise was standing on the sidewalk and saw me, calling out my name just as the bus was pulling away. We quickly grabbed our stuff and headed to the front of the bus and were able to get off just a short way down the street.

Once off the bus, Louise took us for a little tour of the town. It is much more developed than Xela and filled with gringos, many of whom live there during at least part of the year. There are beautiful hotels and nice apartments and a lovely lakeside area and a lot of people selling hand-made crafts. Walking the street was a little like walking the gauntlet in many Mexican tourist towns – a constant assault from the vendors trying to get you to come into their shop or from the women with their wares piled on their heads and over their shoulders walking alongside you offering lower and lower prices in the hopes you’ll buy.

The lake and the weather were really beautiful in Pana . The town is surrounded by volcanoes and we got a nice view of them before the skies clouded up in the afternoon. As a matter of fact, it didn’t take long before I got a little dizzy from the heat. We walked along the lake a while and then Louise took us down the shoreline to see the river and the damage from Hurricanes Agatha and Stan. The river right now is just a wide rocky riverbed that has just a trickle of water running through it. There are containment walls that must be 30 feet high, and Louise said during the storms, the river was full to the top. You can still see where houses and other buildings had their foundations swept out from under them and the entire building is lying upside down in the riverbank. We could also see, down in the dry riverbed, the figures of men and young boys with picks, shovels and wheelbarrows. Each would be working a small hole in the riverbed with little piles surrounding their work area. Louise said they were sifting the gravel to sort out the various grades of gravel, pea rock and sand, which they could then sell to the cement companies. It is back-breaking work – one of the worst jobs around – but it is a way for them to make at least a few quetzales. Whenever it rains, of course, their carefully dug holes and sifted piles are swept away and they have to begin anew. It seems like a Sisyphean chore and certainly a job of last resort.

After stopping briefly at Louise’s apartment, we went to a restaurant overlooking the lake for lunch. Scattered around the restaurant were huge pots filled with canna lilies – like something out of a Diego Rivera painting.

After lunch we did some shopping. I was hoping to get a huipl or table runner or pillow cover with the lovely patterns of Santiago Atitlan which are especially captivating to me. Instead of the usual geometric patterns, their huipls are often woven or embroidered with birds and flowers, often on purple or blue cloth. They take an incredible amount of work and after looking at a few I decided it was more than I wanted to spend. And I did not want to bargain down the price to something unfair to the creator. So I walked away from them and will just have to keep them in my memory.

Anyway, on the our next bus to Los Encuentros, we got on right away as it pulled up and sat in the second or third row of seats. Between Solola and Los Encuentros, a distance of no more than 10 km, the front of the bus filled with people until it seemed it could hold not one more person, no matter how small. At one point, I counted 12 people in the first row alone, sitting on laps, standing behind the driver, etc. Things got pretty jammed up before anyone actually sat down next to Jeff and me. We’re pretty big compared to them and our knees press up against the seat in front. The only way to be somewhat comfortable is to sit at an angle so your knees have a bit of room. I don’t know if the locals avoid sitting with gringos for that reason, or if it is something else, but eventually the situation was so dire that we did get a seatmate, a smiling old fellow in the fabulous menswear of the region – a highly embroidered western style shirt, topped with a bright vest paired with highly embroidered pants in the same pattern of the shirt, encircled by a skirt of brown polka dotted blanket, and the entire ensemble finished with a stained cowboy hat. Oh how I wished I could get photos of those men in their trajes.