We live in San Marcos, look across the lake for San Pedro, then Santiago

It takes a long time to get from San Marcos la Laguna to Santiago de Atitlan.  Santiago is located directly across the lake from us, in a long narrow inlet on the south side of the lake, between Volcan San Pedro and Volcan Atitlan.

The boat ride to San Pedro takes about fifteen minutes and is 10Q per person, for the “local foreigner” rate.  Then one must walk about twenty minutes through the warren of narrow cobbled streets to the “other dock” where boats run to Panajachel and Santiago.  The boat to Santiago is 20Q per person and takes about forty minutes.  It was a bigger boat and the boys eagerly clambered up to ride on the roof and take pictures.

Local canoe, taken from the boat to Santiago

Santiago is a big town, at least as big as Panajachel, but seems to have far fewer tourists.  The local mercado is wonderful, three stories of fruits, veggies, meats and other things.  It reminds me a little of the market in Guadalajara, perhaps it’s the Escher like stairs.

We had not even stepped off of the dock before a local boy was negotiating the rate to take us to see Maximon (Mah-she-moan).  Since this was the whole purpose of our visit, we let him commit highway robbery and set off through town on his heels, doing our best to memorize the route for “next time.”

A guide is necessary if you come to Santiago and want to see Maximon.  As the resident Mayan diety of Santiago he holds a place of extreme honor among the natives.  He’s been booted out of the Catholic church and so he moves from house to house, making the switch during Holy Week each spring.  Fortunately for us, he is living downtown this year.

I could never tell you how to find him; the directions include things like, “Take a left at the pile of old Coke crates,” but we could certainly take you if you’d like to come.  We won’t even charge you the 10Q that the boy extorted.

Mayan god Maximon & attending Bruhos

Clearly, Maximon takes over the house he resides in.  Outside, the women of the house were doing their washing and kids were rolling balls around in the dirt.  The entire courtyard was thick with the smell of incense.

Another 2Q per person gained us admittance to the inner sanctum: very dark, lit only by the rows of candles burning on the concrete floor, Maximon held court with no fewer than three Bruhos (witch doctors) attending him.

Kneeling on palm mats before him were a young couple, who’d been draped in some of Maximon’s scarves.  Between his wooden lips, a cigarette burned.  It seemed the exclusive domain of one Bruho to tap off the ash every few minutes.

The ceiling was hung with countless rows of colorful cut paper flags interspersed with flaccid balloons, presumably left from his joyous arrival, and shriveled gourds hung by their stems.  A glass coffin, similar to those housing saints in cathedrals everywhere, was pressed against one wall.  Two “protein whey powder” canisters were filled to over flowing with red flowers like the ones growing in my garden.  Those were flanked by two potted poinsettias.

The children, wide-eyed crept into the room.  We stood in silence for a long time, listening to the Bruho pray.  It struck me that, while this definitely had tourist trap potential, and certainly we’d had a pretty penny extorted from our wallets to be here, for the Bruho, there was no one in the room but Maximon and the couple, who knelt, completely motionless except for their silently moving lips.

The ceremony was interesting.  There was much incense burning (in a coffee can adapted for the purpose) and much pleading with Maximon in a Mayan language that we did not understand.

Maximon smoked his cigarette and then the cigar Tony had brought for him.  The Bruho at one point groped the woman lightly.  That was different, but not surprising, given Maximon’s reputation as a womanizer.

Then, he poured Maximon a drink, the local ultra-cheap rot gut.  The children whispered about how Maximon was going to drink that, when the Bruho surprised us by spewing the liquor out between his lips in a fine mist, directly in the faces of the penitents.  Not once, but four times.  The remainder of the drink was poured out at Maximon’s feet.

The rest of the day the smell of the incense that filled room would occasionally waft out of my hair and surprise me.  We wandered up through town, admiring the very different headdresses of this Mayan community, checking on the prices of a few things we’ve been looking for and ultimately buying nothing more than fruit and flour.

Catholic Church, Santiago de Atitlan, est. 1574

The cathedral in Santiago is one of the oldest in the region.  It’s existed in some form on this site since 1574 when the Franciscans first made inroads into the Guatemalan highlands.  It is a simple, but lovely church, hung at the moment, with enormous kites in rainbow colours.

The inside, hung with lovely kites

We stopped at the memorial for a priest from Oklahoma who is much loved and now revered by the people.  He was martyred here about twenty years ago when the Guatemalan military massacred and systematically terrified the indigenous people of the highlands.

He opened the church and hundreds of the locals would sleep there each night to be safe from their own government.  While that conflict is quieter now, it’s not entirely over, nor is it forgotten.  While doing the math I wondered aloud if that might not have been the reason that my parents stopped short of Guatemala on the trips we made south as children.  I’ll have to remember to ask them.

Nuns on the dock in San Pedro

We raced big black clouds coming down over the mountains as we headed back across the lake.  I managed to get the children enrolled in their first week of Spanish School for next week, while Tony and the children made arrangements with the young lady Gabe met on the boat to come to dinner tomorrow night.  It was a good day.