Semana de la Feria!

Every June and July on Lake Atitlán, the towns that surround the lake celebrate the patron Saint's days of their respective towns with about two weeks of a city-wide celebration called "La Feria". Complete with ferris wheels, gambling games, fried food booths, and live music, if there wasn't a large volcano looming in the distance behind the festivities, you might not even know that you are in the quaint evangelical town of Santiago Atitlán when La Feria comes to town. The normally quiet town at night livens up to celebrate, and luckily for me I am here to experience La Feria in my last week in Santiago!

All of the towns around the lake have the festivities, but the event corresponds with each town's particular patron Saint's Day. For Santiago Atitlán, the Saint is Saint James and the festivities cumulate on July 25 each year (thanks to my boyfriend Patrick for his wiki-investigation that provides a bit more detail on the Saint and the meaning behind the festivities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James,_son_of_Zebedee).

The games and booths have been up for about a week now, but Tuesday was a parade kicking off the final week, and Wednesday and Thursday nights were parties, packed streets, live music, beer tents, and tons of fun! Here are some photos! Enjoy!

Ferris wheel with volcano views

Ferris wheel at night

Games

The music truck preparing for the parade

Parade clowns on stilts

All of the local schools had performances

So many bands!

There was a dragon...

And Jesus, of course. 

Boys dressed as men from the countryside

Crazy masks

Hawaiian girls

The gringo crew at Quilas

Limbo!

Live band at a bar on Feria night

Buscando por Zen

"All this wandering around 'Our America with a capital A' has changed me more than I thought." 

The Motorcycle Diaries

After a long week of traveling last week, I was in the mood for some rest and relaxation, so I decided to check out San Marcos La Laguna for the weekend. My Lonely Planet guidebook had mentioned that it was "without a doubt the prettiest of the lakeside villages" as well as "a magnet for global seekers, who believe the place has a spiritual energy that's conducive to learning and practicing meditation, holistic therapies, massage, reiki and other spiritually oriented activities." On my boat ride over to San Marcos, I met a couple from Colorado who literally live only a few blocks away from my house in Denver, so I had a feeling that the universe and I were on the same wavelength even before I arrived.  

View of the lake, from the jungle

San Marcos is an incredibly serene and beautiful pueblo. The town is very quaint, with only one road that is actually accessible to cars. Most of the attractions are located on one of two small cobblestone paths that are perpendicular to the main road and parallel to each other. The jungle weaves through the small paths, and there are only handmade signs pointing you to your destination, so I was glad that I had time to find my bearings before the sun set and had packed my flashlight for the evening. I walked around the town for a while with two women from my boat ride, and ate a delicious veggie burger at Restaurante Fe. Note that vegetarians and vegans are very welcome here. Although it was available in some restaurants, I didn't eat meat the entire weekend because of the wide variety of delicious vegetarian options. For accommodations I chose La Paz, as I was drawn to the A-frame huts with bamboo thatched roofs-- rustic but relaxing.

La Paz hotel

Paths leading to the hotel

I had some time to get stuck in my new book, the Motorcycle Diaries (great movie, but really awesome book too!), and I also watched a movie at a neighboring hostel before calling it an early night on Saturday. On Sunday morning I opted to take a yoga class, as La Paz offers 90 minute classes each morning at 9 am. As I suspected from the town vibe, it was more mystical than other courses I'd taken, and involved meditation, introspection, a bit of massage, some chanting, and a gong. It was actually a really pleasurable way to start my morning!

Some of my yoga classmates mentioned taking a lucid dream course later that afternoon (who knows what that entails...) but I opted to seek my zen through a hike, so I walked over to the Cerro Tzankujil Area Protegida. It's a beautiful nature reserve, with about a 45 minute hike to the top of a hill overlooking the nearby lake and volcanoes. There was also an awesome cliff jump that must have been about 40 feet tall and beautiful swimming cove. I certainly couldn't resist jumping in the aqua-colored water after my hike. Although the jump was actually kind of painful (how do you say "wedgie" in Spanish?) it was exhilarating and the water was the perfect temperature. What a wonderful weekend!

Nature reserve

Relaxing after a swim

View from my hike

You can't tell here, but this is a 40 ft jump to the water!

Here's a video I made of San Marcos-- some really amazing panorama shots of the lake and the volcanoes! Enjoy!

I, Brittany Burton: An American Woman in Guatemala

I spent the weekend exploring San Pedro La Laguna, which is located about 20-minutes via boat from Santiago. A really interesting aspect of Lake Atitlán is that each town seems to have it’s own unique alma. San Pedro is close to Santiago, and while much of the local community is indigenous, to outsiders the town portrays itself as a hippie haven for expats and backpackers. A small winding cobblestone street that is only wide enough for pedestrian traffic connects the town’s two main docks. Once you are following the path between the docks, you suddenly are inside a world of yoga studios and thermal bath pools, health food stores and smoothie shacks, and bars that feature nightly performances of acrobats and fire dancers.

Great hang out spot

The Santiago dock. Rising water levels --> several underwater restaurants

I arrived on Friday afternoon, and checked into Casa Santa Elena on the main road. For less than $5 a night, I got my own private bedroom with queen size bed and a balcony with a view of the lake. Over the course of the weekend I had my fair share of falafel and $0.50 cuba libres, watched a movie screening of The Hangover with subtitles in Japanese, ate some of Guatemala’s best barbeque and hung out at the pool, and enjoyed a live performance from a group that called themselves “Nomads United: The International Horse Circus Caravan”.

Typical San Pedro bar activity

"Acroyoga" fire dancer performance at Buddha Bar

Lunch spot at Shanti Shanti

Like any good solo vacation, I had an excellent balance of meeting a lot of interesting people paired with time for self-reflection. On Saturday night at the bar, I spent several hours chatting with a young Guatemalan named Manuel about the hardships of growing up in Guatemala and his dreams to move to Miami. I also had a chance to read for pleasure (which is a luxury for a grad student). I read the book I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala which is a biographical account of an indigenous Guatemalan peace activist. Her brutally violent history was kind of excruciating to read at times. Also, Menchu speaks a lot about how her Christian faith got her through her painful past and is what keeps her fighting against the ladino establishment, but to be honest, this refrain left me confused. Wasn’t it the Spaniards and ladinos who brought Christianity to the region, and replaced traditional indigenous faiths, in the first place? Fighting to maintain traditional values by defending her Christian faith seems kind of paradoxical to me. Either way, it was a really great read for someone who is here living in an indigenous town, and it also gave a bit of insight into the systemic marginalization and segregation that indigenous people have been suffering for centuries.

I must say that the biggest highlight of my weekend was the climb up Volcan San Pedro. The 5-hour hike was by no means easy, but the views of the lake were absolutely spectacular from the top. It was especially cool to be able to look down on Santiago and Chuk Muk. I found the main cathedral in Santiago and traced my way to approximately the location of my home. In Chuk Muk (the village that was built by the government for displaced victims of a 2005 mudslide) you could see that every single home was the exact same size and color, which is apparent by land but even more strikingly visible from the sky looking down. And of course, the lake was framed by several volcanoes and glisteningly blue and beautiful. I’m still sore two days later, but it was worth the trek!

At the summit, finally!

Busting out the new hiking boots

Panorama shot

This week I’m working on the launch of our online marketplace and grant proposal work, as we’ve almost collected all of the finished products from the first round of the Just Apparel project. Also, I’ll be traveling to Chiapas, Mexico at the end of this week to examine how our projects in San Cristobal have maintained sustainability and hopefully learn a thing or two from them. Stay tuned… hasta pronto!