Saturday, September 30, 2006

24-29 Sep - Xela and Lake Atitlan

Xela; Guatemala´s 2nd largest city and a good-looking one at that. We took a chicken-bus to Zunil, a nearby town then a pickup truck for 10 quetzal each (about $1.20) to a hot spring called Fuentes Georginas... the driver then informed us it was 20 quetzal each to get back down... the thermal spring was gorgeous but smelt and tasted pretty heavily of sulphur. We then decided to the walk down-hill (about 8km) and noticed lots of steaming vents in the side of the mountain right by the roadside. Loads of fields of local farmers growing cabbages (repollos), radishes (not sure), onions (cebollas), corn (maíz), flowers (flores) and more.

Lago Atitlan; a huge crater lake at 1560m altitude. Surrounded by 3 volcanoes and numerous villages perched on steep cliff sides it´s an amazing vista. Phil´s going to do an Altitude Diving course sometime during October, since the instructor wasn´t available the few days we were there. We had the fortunate experience of coming face-to-face with a Mayan god - named Maximon, or San Simon, or something... a 3ft wooden statue dressed in traditional clothes with plenty of candles and ´incense´ (if you know what I mean)... Mayans in the area still speak there native language (Spanish a distant second)... the god though... it´s a sad state of affairs when you´re taller than your own deity.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

awesome photos.

Karen and Phil said...

Thanks Dude.