Day Thirty-Six, Antigua

Lago Atitlan

At 7am Saturday morning, Casa Herrera students piled on a bus and drove the three hours to Panajachel on Lake Atitlan for the weekend. Our bus ride was very fun; winding roads, bumps and groves, and landslides covering roads. We passed through several towns and cities on the way, one of which is Chimaltenango, which had been the epicenter of the 1976 earthquake and where our TA was born and raised.

View of Lago Atitlan from our hotel

We arrived at Lake Atitlan and took some pictures from a high point with a beautiful view for a few minutes then headed off to the hotel we were staying at for the night. On the road winding around the lake we passed the city where I had done a one night home stay back in March and I pointed it out to the other students and the professor. I will be returning to this town at a later point during this trip to give the family I stayed with a photo album with pictures from our time together in March.We stopped at our hotel, which is right on the lake, dropped off our bags, and met with the six students who had come to the lake early.

Our boat at the hotel's dock

After a brief reunion, we all piled into two boats at the hotel's dock to head off to San Juan la Laguna and Santiago Atitlan. On my boat there was several students and our TA from Guatemala, whose nickname is Pollo. The driver of our boat was a young boy who claimed to be 13 years old, but was probably younger, and an older man who was mostly on the roof of our little boat on the way across the lake, and we were pretty convinced he was going to fall off of the boat at some point. The boat ride was fast and wonderful, and we all enjoyed zipping across the water from one end of the lake to the other.

Our "13-year-old" boat driver

The "Sleeping Prince"

We arrived at San Juan la Laguna first, and walked up a very steep hill to the town. Our first trip there was to a new church being built in the town to redo an older church that was damaged. We also got a good view of the "Sleeping Prince" mountain range that is shaped like an ancient Maya profile.

Woman's Weaving Cooperative

We then went to a small woman's weaving cooperative and got an introduction to their process of dyeing and weaving their wares.
After we left the woman's weaving cooperative we went to a natural medicine shop, where we were introduced to the gardens and all of the different plants with healing abilities. We were able to pick and look at all plants and shopped at their small home for some of the things they create with the plants from the garden.

View from the front of the boat

We walked back to our boats and headed around the bend to the city Santiago Atitlan. On this boat ride we all started really enjoying ourselves and we started to the climb around the boat, particularly the front, to get the best view.
When we arrived in Santiago Atitlan we went first to a Catholic church and then went to visit Maximon.

Christ Cross at the Catholic Church 

At the Catholic church we looked around at the saints who the people of Guatemala dress in clothing to keep them warm, and we looked at the Christ cross which was also dressed in bright clothing to keep him warm.