Guatemala 3: Villages of Lake Atitlán (San Juan, Jaibalito and Santa Catarina)

Monday morning, August 15, 2022, I awoke early and saw the sunrise being reflected off of the western clouds, bathing the the lake in pink and orange.

Lake Atitlán is in the Guatemalan Highlands, at an altitude of 5100 feet (1500 meters). Like Antigua, it is part of the "land of eternal spring", with nice weather all year. It is 1,120 feet (340m) deep, making it the deepest lake in Central America.

German explorer Alexander von Humboldt called it "the most beautiful lake in the world". Aldous Huxley wrote a travel book in 1934, in which he said that Lake Como (in Italy) was just about as picturesque as you can get, but that Lake Atitlán is like Lake Como but with "several immense volcanoes" thrown in. He said, "It really is too much of a good thing." In other words, it's ridiculously pretty.

Lake Atitlán became a national park in 1955. Back then, it was largely unknown by the rest of the world. However, my grandparents, Dr. Malcolm & Thelma Merrill, visited there on numerous occasions with their friends, Dr. Carlos & Lilly Perez. Here is a picture of Lilly & Carlos Perez with Thelma, taken by Malcolm in 1955 overlooking Lake Atitlán. (Using Google Maps in 3-D mode, it appears that this picture was taken from near the Mirador Mario Montenegro viewpoint, above and not too far from where we stayed).

Lilly & Carlos Perez with Thelma Merrill.
Lake Atitlán, 1955.

My mother, Jean Merrill (later Wilson), visited Lake Atitlan in July 1956 when she accompanied my grandparents on a trip to Guatemala. (Appears to have been taken from Panajachel).

Jean Merrill (later Wilson)
Lake Atitlan, July 1956.

Thelma Merrill did a painting of Lake Atitlán. She used a postcard as a guide, but she said she moved the volcano over a bit to "give it better composition." Here it is as it hangs on our wall today.

Returning to 2022, the lake was still beautiful, and we enjoyed the breathtaking view.

An early-morning fisherman paddled by in his traditional boat.

With appropriate filtering, Jared caught a picture of the moon that morning.

Everyone enjoyed the view from various places in the house.

When I asked the owner of the lake house, he told me that they had one kayak. Once we saw it, we realized that there was a language barrier of some sort. But still, Linette and I paddled out in the orange plastic boat, and we had a lovely time.

Here is a picture of our lake house from a little way out. You can see the white, round observation deck near the top, and the boat house and dock at the bottom, where the hot tub is.

It was a gorgeous, calm morning. (You can see another view of our yellow lake house in the background).

There were some other big, nice houses overlooking the lake as well.

The hills were so green!

As we returned to the house, Roger saw us, and came down to take a picture of us.

It was a fun little outing.

Meanwhile, Jason and Shaylee were playing some pool upstairs.

Here's a view out the north side of our rental house, showing how green everything was.

We had arranged to meet a boat at 9am that morning to take us to tour some villages around the lake, so after breakfast, we headed down to the dock in San Antonio Palopó. We saw people in traditional dress going about their daily business.

Here are a bunch of fishing boats ready to go.

We went down to the dock to meet our boat.

Shaylee, Mikayla and Sienna were cute on the dock.

We had a bit of drama when we got to the dock, as we found that the person we had arranged a boat with had changed their price dramatically. The price wasn't necessarily bad, but we did not appreciate the bait & switch, so we almost switched and went with someone else.

At the same time, Jason was suddenly not feeling well, and eventually Roger took him home for the day, which was a bummer, especially since the two of them had missed out on zip lining the day before.

Eventually, we got the boat ride worked out, and we headed out across the lake.

Jared was able to zoom in on this cemetery, where you can see brightly painted mausoleums, like we had expected to find in Antigua.

Our captain's name was Byran.

Here you can see our yellow rental house as we pulled away, with another big white house next door.

The water tends to be calm in the mornings and choppy in the afternoons.

The water was beautiful, with its reflections of the sky, clouds and volcanoes.

The green hills were breathtaking, and we could see little villages nestled in pockets along the shore.

The clouds like to play hide and seek with the tops of the volcanoes.

This 1-minute video shows bits of our ride across the lake.

San Juan la Laguna

The boat took us clear to the opposite end of Lake Atitlán, to the town of San Juan la Laguna.

Our boat waited for us for a few hours while we explored the town.

Dogs in Guatemala seem to be pretty chill.

San Juan was a very colorful town, with brightly painted streets and various things hanging above the street in different areas.

The boat operators have an arrangement with people in San Juan to give us a set of free tours (each followed by an opportunity to buy things, of course). I found the presentations fascinating, and it made the day so much more interesting.

The first demonstration was done by our guide, Inez, and she showed some of how the textiles are made.

She showed how the cotton has seeds in it, and how you pull the seeds out by hand.

Then she showed us how to spin the cotton. Sharon and I each took a turn, but the gal was much better at it than we were.

After spinning the cotton into thread, it looks like this.

The gal told us what was used to create the dye for each of the colors. Most of them were plants, but the red color was made from roly-poly bugs!

The gal then demonstrated dying some cotton in purple dye, using basil that had been boiled for two hours.

She said if you want it darker, you can leave it in for longer. Then she dipped it in a smaller bowl that had water and banana tree bark, which seals the color in so that it won't fade. It must work very well, because all of the Mayan clothing I have seen still has vibrant colors.

Finally, she showed us how the traditional weaving is done.

The following video shows some of each of the above demonstrations. The gal spoke English pretty well, so the explanations are all in English. (It is 8 minutes long, but I include that much because Roger and Jason missed out on this day, and in case others find it interesting. I found it fascinating.)

Mikayla took this close-up picture of the cotton thread dyed in various colors.

I had been really curious about the Mayan textiles, so it was fascinating for me to learn how it was done.

After the demonstration, we walked out into a shop with a huge variety of colorful textiles for sale. We knew that was the point of the demonstrations, but there was no pressure, so it was a delightful experience.

We also looked at some of the colorful art for sale in a couple of galleries.

Our next demonstration was how chocolate is made. This gal spoke in Spanish while Linette translated for us (with occasional help from Shaylee, Jared or Mikayla).

The gal told how the cacao pod contains about 40 beans. The beans are fermented, roasted, and then a roller is used to crush them into a paste.

Then the alcohol is boiled out of them and the resulting cocoa paste is used to make all sorts of chocolate products.

After the demonstration, we bought some chocolate in their store.

We also all got a chocolate banana. (A frozen banana dipped in fresh chocolate).

At this point, we decided to go to the famous overlook by way of infamous Tuk-Tuks, which are three-wheeled taxis that seem to use a motorcycle engine. (In Peru, they're called "moto-taxis"). We crammed four people (plus the driver) into each Tuk-Tuk.

I think they're called that because they sound like that.

Here I am, snuggled up to the driver.

Riding a Tuk-Tuk is a cultural experience. Here is a 4-minute video of driving through town in a Tuk-Tuk, which gives a sense of what that experience is like. Feel free to watch as much or as little as you'd like.

Once we got to the base of the hill with the overlook, we found some pretty murals.

Sienna bought a colorful turtle, and named it "Tugs". She took pictures with it for the rest of the day.

The hike up the hill was a bit of a workout.

Many of the stairs had pictures on them that you could see if you looked at the stairs straight on.

The mountains were so green and lush!

Sharon pointed out that on the way up, it was interesting how you could see that "people grow crops wherever they can, even on the side of steep mountains (which is what they have around there)."

From the overlook, we could see the town of San Juan below us, and San Pedro just around the bend.

The views were wonderful.

This little girl was adorable in her traditional outfit.

The lookout point had a brightly painted boardwalk that was amazing.

It circled a central cross and statue of Mary.

The paintings were wonderful. Here is a big pile of pictures of them.

Sienna started taking pictures with "Tugs".

We took a few more pictures on our way out.

Once back at the bottom of the hill, we took our same Tuk-Tuks back to town, and continued exploring the colorful streets. 

In town we saw an aerial picture of the overlook we had just been at.

One street had hats hanging over it.

There was a wall with colorfully painted Mayan glyphs on it.

We visited another art gallery and enjoyed some of their paintings.

Another street had colorful umbrellas over it.

It was interesting to see the distinct shadows on the ground. (I suppose if it rains, you can stay dry if you stand in just the right place...)

Sharon and I us peeked into a church while we were out looking for an ATM.

Then we all had some fried chicken at a random place. It was fine, but I especially enjoyed having a couple of cold cans of soda after hiking and walking around.

Our last tour was where we learned about bees and honey. Again, the demonstration was in Spanish, and this time Shaylee translated for us.

There were little beehives there with small bees flying all around. The guy said not to worry about being stung. I decided I liked my seat better than Mike's, since he was right by the bees.

The guy opened some of the hives to show the honeycomb inside.

Shaylee did a great job. Here she is by the sign that says "Queen" (Reina).

Here's a 45-second video showing just a bit of Shaylee's translations of some fun facts about bees.

A butterfly (mariposa) landed on Sienna's finger while she was there.

After the tour, we all got to taste a few different kinds of honey.

With that, we headed back to the boat. (I thought it was cute to see this couple on a date, with the gal wearing her traditional clothing).

Our pilot's name was Byran, and the boat was named Brayan, so that was kind of fun.

We got back on board, and then zoomed across the water to another village.

Here is a 45-second video showing our boat flying over the lake.

Jaibalito

Our next stop was Jaibalito, a tiny Mayan village that can't be reached by road.

It had one resort, right by the shore.

The rest of the town seemed to consist of homes along just a couple main pathways. In fact, there were only a couple of side alleys that came off of the main one, so there wasn't actually that much to see in the town.

We saw a lot of dogs, though, and some adorable kids.

Jared got this interesting picture of a dog with two colors of eyes.

They apparently use greens in their traditional clothing here. It was fun to see the kids just hanging out in those outfits.

We saw these two adorable girls zooming down the main road with wild abandon, using the soles of their shoes as brakes.

Here's a little video of them careening down the hill.

When the alley ended, we continued up into the jungle. 

"We're the first ones to ever go this way!" I said dramatically.

"Dad," Sienna said. "There's a path."

"Ok, " I replied, "...the second!"

"Umm," said Sienna. "You don't seem to know how paths work."

Finally we decided we had gone far enough and headed back.

We had a nice chat with this lady, who was sewing a quilt with rabbits on it.

These ladies walked by with huge branches on their heads.

We went into a shop to buy water and soda, and these little sisters talked with us and giggled.

Tugs chose a grape soda. That was my favorite, too.

In fact, Tugs the turtle proceeded to have quite a photo shoot around the little town.

Soon we headed out into the lake once more.

At that point, it started raining pretty hard, so everyone put on their rain jackets or ponchos. Linette put hers on backwards so her face wouldn't get wet. Luckily, she didn't suffocate.

Santa Catarina Palopó

In this 1-minute video, people are hunkering down during the very rainy boat ride from Jaibalito to Santa Catarina Palopó. The video also shows the rain continuing in Santa Catarina, and Linette talking to an adorable 81-year-old lady there.

Santa Catarina Palopó is a small town between Panajachel (where we went zip lining) and San Antonio Palopó (where our AirBnB was). (Incidentally, the word "Palopó" comes from the Spanish word "palo" (stick or pole) and "po", a Mayan word for a type of tree common in the area.)

Mikayla was pretty excited to be there.

These two kids were carrying a board, and the littlest one was reaching up, pretending to help, while all of them giggled.

It was still raining some, but not too bad.

The buildings there were brightly painted.

Here's Sienna in Guatemala, wearing a Peru hoodie, hanging out with Tugs the colorful turtle.

I never stopped being amazed by the ability of the women there to balance stuff on their heads.

I briefly went into the center church in town.

When I came out, I saw a kid with a Captain America shirt on. I had one, too, so I walked up to him and said "¡Amigo!" while pointing at my shirt, and then took a selfie with him.

This house was very zowie.

Same here.

A kid rounded us up and led us to a "cultural center" where we learned more about their textiles.

A gal there described how the traditional outfits in the town have evolved over time.

She also showed how the money changed over the years. Their collection also included currency from around the world that tourists had donated for their display.

As we walked by this table, I said, "...Y este es un gato tradicional," ("...And this is a traditional cat"), as though this was part of the tour. All the gals there laughed.

Upstairs there was quite an assortment of traditional wares that had been made there.

Several ladies were hard at work making new creations.

The gal explained how things worked, and how long it took to create each item.

The lady who owns this place insists that nobody ever make an exact copy of anything. Each item incorporates the imagination and creativity of the weaver, while still adhering to the general patterns and color scheme of the community.

While some scarves can be made with one "row" every couple of seconds, the things these women were working on took several minutes per "row" (meaning, per horizontal thread), as they move various threads forward and back to make them show or not. 

Here is a 3-minute video where Jared translates for the gal as she tells about Mayan weaving.

We had a lot of fun joking around with these beautiful Mayan ladies, and learning about their amazing skills.

Sharon bought a belt that she thought would go well with her full outfit that she bought. The guide said that a belt like this can take up to 3 months to make.

A gal led us up to the top floor where there was a nice view of Santa Catarina.

Here you can see the main church that we went into.

The green hills looking down on this little town are really steep.

These traditional fishing boats looked cool, all in a row.

Finally we met up with Byran and climbed aboard Brayan.

Our pilot was kind enough to drop us off not only at our town, but at the dock at our actual house!

We throughly enjoyed our day on the lake.

While all of that was going on, Roger was hanging out with Jason back at the house. Jason eventually felt better, and built some houses of cards.

They also played a little pool upstairs.

It was a bummer that Jason wasn't feeling well enough that morning for them to come with us. On the bright side, there are worse places to be stranded for the day!

Here is Rogelio, the guard and caretaker of the house. He was super friendly! He also said he really liked our group, because we didn't drink, so there were no bottles or cans to clean up.

The clouds were such that we didn't get the bright red sunsets that often appear here, but it was still beautiful every night.

The local fishermen have been using these same square-backed boats for centuries.

That night we hit the hot tub again, but, alas, it was barely warm, and thus no fun. And since it only gets colder once it's filled up, there was no reason to stay for long.

We just kept taking pictures every time we saw the view again.

We played some more "ripple" that night, and tried out some of the chocolate we had gotten in San Juan la Laguna.

Roger made another time lapse video that day, which went from about 1:30 in the afternoon until dark.

That evening, Jared got some nice shots of the Milky Way galaxy over Lake Atitlán, thanks to some skills he and Mikayla had gained on their photography study abroad program in Europe that summer.

The next morning, Sharon & Roger took Jason out on the little orange boat.

It was fun to see the lake house and its dock from out on the lake.

Finally, it was time to pack up and get ready to leave.

We all took a few more looks at the amazing view before we headed out.

We hadn't used our cars since we got there, especially after the harrowing drive in. But having walked around the towns, we expected it to be much easier on the way out.

The kids noticed a little stowaway on the trunk of the SUV.

Its antennae were so long!

Lake Atitlán was awesome, and we were going to miss it!

The drive to Panajachel still involved a bit of dirt road, huge speed bumps, and a bit of congestion, but it turned out to be much better in the daylight, especially now that we knew our way through the two little towns along the way.

It was fun to see all the people in traditional clothes going about their business and preparing for the day.

These little kids sort of screamed and ran (and giggled) when they saw cars coming.

Here is a 1-minute video that the Kartchners took of driving through Santa Catarina. We had to navigate oncoming trucks, wandering dogs, and massive speed bumps. Linette and I even hopped out at one point to help move some firewood that had been 'delivered' to the middle of the road.

When we got to Panajachel, we found a new place to park (since our previous one was closed that morning), and then walked down the main street to get breakfast. 

Along the way, we saw this boy leading a couple of goats down the street.

We walked down the street to a restaurant called Mister Jon's, run by an American expat.

Mister Jon's is known for having huge, delicious pancakes, and it did not disappoint. Jared ordered two pancakes, and soon realized he was in trouble.

They were as good as they look.

I also appreciated the diagram of the Millennium Falcon, showing where all the systems are on the ship. That will come in handy if I ever build one.

Linette took several half-pancakes that weren't touched and put them in a to-go box. Then, as we walked down the street, she told a young lady that we had extra pancakes and asked if she would like them. She happily accepted, and I thought that was so thoughtful.

Sometimes electricity is wired up like this.

Finally, we headed out of Panajachel. 

As we drove along, we saw quite a few people getting a ride to work in the backs of pickups.

The roads were fairly reasonable from there on out, and the countryside was beautiful.

Jared set us up with some beautiful Spanish music as we drove along. If you'd like a feel for how our road trip went, you can watch this little video, where we listen a song by Sebastián Yatrato called Dos Oruguitas ("Two Caterpillars"); or "¡Ay, Mariposa!", ("Oh, Butterfly"), as I call it.

When Linette and I went to Lake Atitlán in 2011, we only had one night there, and it wasn't enough. Especially with our family's history with Lake Atitlán, I was so happy to be able to get to know it so much better. It was great to see the villages, learn more about the people, and build memories with our families.

In our next episode, we explore the magnificent Mayan ruins of Tikal!