GUATEMALA - 7 -

TILAPIA AND RED SNAPPER

We are hungry now. When we find a small restaurant right on the water to have fish for lunch, it turns out to be the highlight of the day. We order grilled Tilapia. I’d like to taste the fish in its origin. I hope it tastes better than it does in the US. As we are waiting for our ordered grilled fish, a young woman approaches us in her usual attire: Long striped skirt wrapped around the hips made of cloth hand-woven by perhaps herself, tucked under a waist band again hand-embroidered, hand woven; a blouse again hand-embroidered and a shawl across one shoulder that is usually used to carry their infants and other things. In her case, her textile is nested in her shawl. She must be a mobile vendor. Her eyes are innocent, mild, friendly, not pushy at all. Zeynep, at that moment proposes to get all of the gifts from Guatemala for my family in Turkey for my (now already completed) visit in September. What a fine idea, they will so appreciate it.

Shiri with her lovely Textile and warm innocent looks

And we have this fine woman, now, whom we like instantaneously. We buy several items, and whatever she doesn’t have, she drops everything she is carrying at the feet of our table and runs like a doe; to her nearby store or house and in a minute she is back with more goods and Zeynep is happy to find the treasure she is looking for in her supply. We buy as many of our gifts as possible from her. Zeynep pays for all our purchase, she wants these gifts to the family members to be truly hers. When we are done with our shopping, I ask Shiri, that is her name, if I can take a picture of her with her textile. She agrees with a shy smile. Zeynep would like to have a picture with her as well. Shiri is delighted, they are like two pals, feeling so at ease with giving a hug to each other.

Shiri felt like we could easily take her home with us

I ask her whether she has an e-mail address for me to send her these photos. She says she doesn’t. I ask her whether she would like us to send them to the restaurant owner. Her face is slightly clouded, she says “Esta bien” to the effect of “No, thanks, that is OK.” We smile, we understand, there may be cultural barriers, certainly. We thank her and she leaves happy, fulfilled. We are also very happy and fulfilled. The only worry we have now is whether and how we will be able to fit all that we have and will continue accumulating in our bags.

Another positive note is that the tilapia dish turns out to be the best dish we will have in our entire Guatemala trip. This reminds me of a red snapper dish Bill and I had had in Puerto Rico during our first trip there. We were spending our vacation in the Northeastern section of Puerto Rico. One day we had decided to go down south along the eastern shore. Around 11 am, we had arrived in a town called Naguabo. We stopped at a restaurant to have a cup of tea. As we were passing by the cook’s stand, who was frying fish in the rear central section of the open air restaurant, I was stunned to see a stack of fried red snappers, a foot high covering a window 2x2 feet in size. Curious, we had asked the waiter why they were frying so much fish with not many customers visible in town. Wait, he had said, in an hour this place is going to turn into a zoo, today is Three Kings’ Day. Certainly, it was January 6^th and this eve kids in Puerto Rico would get their gifts instead of our Christmas. We decided instead of tea to order our lunch before the crowds hit. Sure enough, in an hour, it felt like all of San Juan had driven down to Naguabo to have lunch and picnic. That red snapper also remains to be the best one I have had so far.  

Simple bust the best Tilapia I have had so far over handwoven Mayan tablecloth 

Mid afternoon, we feel we have seen enough of San Pedro and head to Panajachel. Zeynep wants to show me the street market in Pana, as the locals call it, and I am sure she wants to explore it herself a bit more. Yes indeed, the open air street market in Pana is very big and full of variety. We find an ornate horse for my best friend Nukhet’s father Sadan Amca, whom I will visit in September (and, did he like it! He was so happy when he was proudly placing it in his cabinet where he has been displaying all the horses he has been accumulating for many decades now). To my surprise, I find a small rug for my house, which is now happily residing in the hallway leading to my bedroom. We sometimes feel this is getting out of control. I bought a Mayan blanket already in Xela, now the rug and lots of other textile in addition to all the “macramé” jewelry Zeynep has been accumulating. But, we are also so happy to get these unique items and be able to help these women, we don’t care. We both feel like teenagers in a way, and I let it go. It feels good from whatever perspective I look at it. Let it go.

After purchasing our tickets for the next evening to go to Antigua, we head back to our casa, on the same boat that brought us the day before, the same captain and his helper, Pablo. This time I get a spontaneous crash course on how sturdy the canvas above our heads is. It is loaded with boxes of a dozen of 2-liter soda bottles, at least a dozen of them. I get it, there was no way our luggage would fly off. We travel with two Canadian families this time. They are there helping locals build houses. One teaches engineering at a university, the other is an IT person. And they were there with their spouses and children. What a wonderful task. Out of religious aspirations (we don’t know for our Canadian friends at least) or not, a lot of people are doing such good in this country, I will discover in the next several days.

Our Canadian friends, good people building homes for other good people

The next day, we will spend in SanTiago Atitlan, the most authentic town, we hear, around the lago, its namesake. We are a bit disappointed to learn that it is quite an ordeal to get there. But we feel like it is still doable despite the time crunch to catch our shuttle to Antigua from Pana. We get up early in the morning but leave only after enjoying the sunrise and the mystic beauty it brings to the lake nad the surrounding volcanoes.

Breathtaking beauty of the lake early in the morning 

We then take a boat to SanPedro. We have to take a tuktuk to the next embarcadero, where we will take another boat to SanTiago. I hadn’t realized that SanPedro was so big it needed two docks for intercity transportation. It turns out to be a clearly two hour trip, door to door. We leave the touristic market behind quickly and head toward the real, authentic market. And, that turns out to be the highlight of SanTiago for me: This is where the local locals buy their food, their materials, their eggs. Eggs are abundant and it seems like their major protein source is eggs and beans. Fish probably is part of their diet, but most likely caught for the family by men, not sold in the market. Lots of bananas, oranges, amorphously shaped peaches, plums, avocados, a green vegetable that I couldn’t recognize, beans of various colors, potatoes, onions, tomatoes are some of the edible goods I could recognize.

Zeyno certainly adds to the beauty of the lake, doesn't she? 

Times like this is when I feel part of a community. When I go to places where they eat, to places where they shop, to places where they hang out. I wish, I had had more Spanish skills to strike up lengthy conversations. Alas, not yet. We buy fruit and do something I thought I’d never do for fear of traveler’s diarrhea, but we do, we buy freshly squeezed orange juice filling a plastic bag and served with a straw. Zeyno has been seasoned with that and has no reservations for this daily tradition here, which eliminates my concerns, and one more time I let it go. Mmmm, it is delicious and so refreshing. I feel rehydrated instantaneously.

Never say never is my motto while traveling, you never know what you will do that you thought you'd never do like drinking handsqueezed orange juice out of a plastic bag! 

GUATEMALA -6-

DAY 2 ON LAGO DE ATITLAN

The next morning we take a boat to San Pedro right after breakfast. We pass by several little villages and towns on the hills of the Lago. We stop at several docks to pick up passengers from “casas” like ours, from little secluded hotels or from homes of locals. Some homes look like villas of some significance. When we inquire, we learn that, sure enough, one of those belongs to the owner of the Guatemalan beer Gallo. Who knows how kosher the money they make is. I recall the 10 M dollar homes we had seen in Miami on a tour Zeynep and I had had in Miami more than a decade ago. One had belonged, to Somoza, the Nicaraguan dictator, and who knows who it belongs to now after his death in 1980 following the 1979 revolution led by the Sandinista Liberation Front.  When his people were moaning under poverty, starvation, and torture, he had invested in America this “negligible” amount of the national income into a single family home, with air-conditioners installed in the yard for their summer parties. Who knows what the Castillo Hermanos’ home, everybody on the boat is mesmerized with looks like. I can’t help but wonder if there is anybody’s blood staining the quetzals spent to build this mansion.  

Castillo Hermanos' home by Lago de Atitlan

SanPedro is a town similar to Panajachel, but less touristy. The entrance to the national park leading to the summit of Volcan SanPedro is at the skirt of the impressive volcano. That is where we are heading. We take a tuk-tuk, a local means of transportation, a motorized tricycle that accommodates up to 3 passengers in its backseat. $1.5 per person, the driver flies us to the trailhead. The streets are narrow down to ally size now. But our driver seems to be seasoned. As soon as we get off the tuk-tuk, locals meet us at the entrance to the park, volunteering to guide us up the volcano. We heard at the hotel that it is a straightforward hike, but the story here is different. They state, whether we take a guide or not, the entrance fee is 100Q (quetzal), doesn’t make sense, but what the heck. We decide, it may be another opportunity to get to know locals. We take the guide, it turns out to be an opportunity for Zeyno to practice her Spanish, too. 

1/3 of the way up to the summit of Vocan San Pedro

The climb unfortunately is more difficult than I expected. The guide is half way to flying up the mountain. The earlier he gets back, the more likely he will squeeze in another group up and another 100Q. I wonder if we made the right decision by hiring this guide. Setting our own pace could have been much better. In addition, altitude may be playing a role in this, too. Zeynep and the guide obviously have been well acclimated to the altitude. For me on the other hand, it has been only 36 hours of breathing this thin air. In an hour and a half, we are half way to the summit.

Half way up to the summit, San Pedro spreading over the peninsula

Shortness of breath, dizziness and muscle aches take over me. Never experienced such altitude sickness before, but never have been at such high elevation and embarked on such a climb, at such a fast pace before, either. Zeynep is very understanding, we decide heading back to make use of the rest of our day in other ways, if nothing else there is shopping of course. We decide to walk down to SanPedro from the national park, partly to save my honor, I guess, and partly to see if we can catch an opportunity to walk through real neighborhoods.

Entrance to the national park

We spot a narrow ally heading down toward the water, we take it. What a good idea, it takes us to the heart of a neighborhood. Women cleaning their yards, carrying stuff on their heads as all Mayan women do, kids released from school bringing the streets to life, men driving their tuk-tuk. We go into a vivid discussion about how similar the Mayans are to primitive societies. Women stayed around the home, grew their food, took care of the home and the kids, men hunted. We observe that women do the same here, everything that is sold in the markets are pretty much the product of female labor. Men fish it appears and we see many of them, just like in the paintings all over the market in San Pedro and other towns we will see, fishing in their simple boats. Otherwise, all else seems to be produced by women. How unfortunate that the education of such important manpower, of women is neglected in many societies, especially in the developing world, which needs utmost efficiency from it.

One of the women earning a living for her family

One of the kids falls on the side of the ally or so we think, another starts yelling at us “Emergencia, emergencia.” We stop for a moment, hesitantly, but soon discover with the giggles from others around, he didn’t fall actually but threw himself on the ground and they are pulling our leg. We giggle back and continue on our journey. There are many more giggles behind us now.

Zeynep in one of the colorful allyways

The rest of our walk takes us to artisan galleries where a style of painting is displayed in great multitude. A style characterized by a combination of impressionism and expressionism displayed with as bright colors as these people have made part of their lives at every turn: the façade of their homes are in bright yellows, reds, oranges, pinks, greens, and blues. Their clothes bloom in all colors of the rainbow with a bold statement at each piece that these women weave and embroider. Guatemala, in short, is an elegant parade of spring colors that elate the mind and the spirit. They use all these colors, their weaving, their lake, their volcanoes, their fishing and cultivating the soil in their painting. We buy two paintings.

A woman doing her laundry, wading in the lake up to her waist.

I find one of them in an artisan store. She tells us she and her husband do all the paintings. I don’t know if she is telling us the truth initially. But I like the images of the lake I have been savoring for two days now, I buy it, for a special friend, who I know will appreciate it.  On the way back, we take out our lonely planet book and discover with joy that in fact that very store was one of those where this style of painting started and spread to the southern Lago de Atitlan. We will see similar paintings in San Tiago de Atitlan the next day and I will buy another one with the image of a Mayan woman portrayed from her back with just the right colors and right amount of details. This will go onto the wall where I display the special small art pieces I have been acquiring in countries I have visited over the years.

Throughout the week, we buy lots of things from mostly female vendors and shop keepers. I feel a gender-camaraderie with these women, somehow. I want them to be successful. I like overwhelming majority of them. They have such positive attitude, I can see the goddess of fertility and productivity in almost each of them. I wonder if there is something in the tropical and subtropical lands that make people so laid back, gay, jolly, and full of hope. Perhaps the mild climate, the sedative effect of the lush green, colorful flowers blooming everywhere, all the time. I hope they don’t lose this as they are more exposed to globalization and the perceived goods it brings along. I hope they don’t start feeling less because of being deprived of our fake fortunes due to their poverty.  

GUATEMALA -5-

LAGO DE ATITLAN           

The staircase leads us to a lovely terrace circled by several rooms, one of which is ours. The moment we step onto the terrace my breath is taken away. Lago de Atitlan is lying before my eyes like a submissive bride (I bet this is a Turkish phrase) with no ripple on her surface; she is definitely asleep. What is around it is surreal. The trio of volcanoes of Atitlan, San Pedro and Ixchimo are circling the beautiful lake making this part of the world indeed a spot out of heaven. I bet it didn’t feel like that when the old volcano that occupied the bed of this lake some couple hundred years ago exploded followed with an implosion that was filled with the juice of the skies and... Valla: a spectacular crater lake that we now enjoy. My Lonely Planet declares, the ashes of that explosion reached all the way to Florida. I feel sorry for the Mayans that must have been perished with the catastrophe. But I also can’t help being mesmerized with this surreal visual feast. “Savor the moment” is a whisper through my lips.

To the right is Volcan San Pedro barely visible, in the backgorund are the other two of the trio

As I am standing before our window, Antonio, the Mayan boy walks in with our luggage as if he returned from picking flowers, no penting whatsoever. It is almost impossible to believe the amount of strength he has in that small body. We appreciate his work, he appreciates the tip Zeyno gives him, to such an extent, in half an hour, when I am still dizzy with the beauty before my eyes, there is a knock on the door. It is Antonio, he is letting us know the dinner is served. A first in any hotel or even B&B I stayed all my life. I wonder if it is his appreciation of the tip or something residual from colonial days. The second evening he is at our door again. We want to believe he simply liked us, mother and daughter and is treating us extra nice. Who knows, he might have a dream of finding an American girl to take him to America, too. Who knows… 

Zeyno made arrangements for us to have dinner at the casa, a fantastic decision, I will discover, verified at each dinner. The dinner table is arranged in such a way, it is one big L shaped family table. People get acquainted as they get seated and learn from one another, share experiences of the day(s), etc. What a brilliant idea. We meet a group of American hikers, who just climbed up to the San Pedro Volcano today. That is our plan for tomorrow. We meet an Israeli couple, the wife a teacher, the husband an IT person. We chat about lots of things from middle-eastern politics to human rights, from child abuse to the limitations in child protection in Israel to their visit to Turkey, on and on and on. When we are ready to collapse to bed and say our good-nights to our fellow diners, I don’t know what surprise the trio has for me upstairs across from our room.

I step out onto the terrace next to our room one more time, the sky is pitch-black. I recall how dramatically quick the sunset was. Over a stretch of 15 minutes or so, fading daylight turned into pitch dark. This must be the tropical/subtropical latitude. What a contrast with what I had experienced in Ireland around the same time of the year where the sun wouldn’t set until 11 pm or so, and even when it did, it never got truly dark to call it “night”, really. And here, now, way past dusk, millions of stars are blinking at me playing peek-a-boo with the scattered feathers of clouds in the sky. Just as I am appreciating this peaceful and gay night show, the scenery changes dramatically.

The volcanoes that were buried in the black of the night all of a sudden light up with a lightening that started somewhere to the north of Volcan Atitlan, their silhouettes outlined against the sky that turns steel blue with an unexpected series of lightening, which moves very swiftly to just behind Atitlan. From that point on, the volcanoes, the non-stop lightening and the clouds outlined by the latter are in an intense, almost violent dance. I have never seen so much lightening back to back in my life. Some are vertical as if Zeus has left Mount Olympus and is now sending his spears onto the earth from over Volcan Atitlan. Some are horizontal, following and outlining the lower border of a cloud hanging over the trio like a holly halo. Sometimes it feels like a vicious snake makes its leap across the sky from one volcano to the other. Some are diagonal as if they don’t know where to go, as if they are the fun-loving little brats of the lightening family. Every lightening that outlines the volcano nearest to it creates a moment of unforgettable grandeur. I can’t move to even think of grabbing my camera and memorialize this show. All I can trust is my visual memory to hold onto this for the years to come. I can now, imagine how the indigenous people of this lake might have generated a wealth of attributions of supernatural powers to this phenomenon that I am witnessing they lived with for many centuries, generation after generation.

We leave the window ajar, the lullaby the lake will sing with its playful dance with the boats and kayaks at the little dock and the rocks below the casa, I know, will sooth me to sleep instantaneously. As I put my head down onto the clean, comfortable pillow, the scent and the sounds of the water below bring back memories of a similar but more intense lullaby that the Atlantic had sung by “El Yunke Mar” on the northeastern coast of Puerto Rico. It was the first time Bill and I had gone to Puerto Rico. We had let some of our planning to adventure. Sure enough, it had paid us beautifully. We found this family run hotel in the local touristic magazine and called them on the way to the coast. I had liked Maria’s voice even on the phone. We were delighted to discover that the little hotel was literally sitting half way in the ocean, Atlantic would thrust itself against the walls of the foundation and the tiny beach with all its force all day and all night long. In that violent thrust, I had found such peace and soothing, closing the window had never been an option. It won’t at casa del mundo, either. The lake will be with me all night long, who knows what dreams its lullaby will bring to me.

This is how far our room is from the water vertically across the steep cliff.


I wake up after a restful sleep very early. Sun is barely up, I catch the lake even more tame than the night before. I walk all around the terrace, around other rooms at the opposite end of it, take in all of the lake. There is a light fog, the lake is almost reaching out up to the clouds. To my left is Panajachal, to the right is San Pedro, where we are going to head soon. Once I complete my tour of the terrace, marval at some of the plants I have never seen in my life, and say Good morning to all three volcanoes, I go down to have a cup of coffee before Zeynep comes down. Antonio is around, we exchange smiles. Breakfast is very healthy in every way with grains, fruit, yogurt, and nuts. We can now take off to explore this beautiful lake.

One of the many unique potted plants hanging in the terrace