Four Pieces of Panajachel

All and sundry passed through Panajachel towards the lake. Panajachel was the thin end of the funnel, where souls lingered before onward journeys to lakeside languor. Like Purgatory.

Below: Sunset on the promenade - pretty, but you can't see the flies.

One cannot always have too much of a good thing. Time reveals all things which are not of God in their rancid nakedness. The transit from Jaibalito to Panajachel took one from the masterful composure of Monet to the distressing grostesque of Goya. Jaibalito existed in permanent portraiture. Panajachel, on the other hand, was restive, refractory blur - an endless parade of tooting tuk-tuks and harlequin souvenir stalls. It was all the more remarkable for its almost comically startling contrast. We share four observations from our short stint in Panajachel.

Below: tuk-tuks, souvenirs and the basis of the entire lacustrine ecology - tourists.

1. No, I don't want no scruple

We already recounted how a tout attempted brazenly to rip us off before our boat ride to Jaibalito. The boatsman who stood next to him all the while, and who we saw was a very helpful man, did not even bat an eyelid. Living off the alluvial bounty of gringos that enrich these shores has become established fact.

Below: while some have no scruples, others have no scraps.

Frequent shoppers would know how quoted prices are almost always wildly inflated. The knives are always out - but we didn't expect to have slashed the price of one particularly colourful tablerunner down to an eighth of what was quoted. Mary thought me too timid a bargainer. She expected, probably rightly, that if we had held on to our guns we would be able to purchase the piece at half the price we paid for it.

Below: the Tinamit Maya, an outdoor crafts market where guile is as valuable a resource as the greenback.

2. Fever pitch

The shopping in Panajachel fascinated us - not so much for the range of products on offer but for the lengths to which many merchants tried to sell their wares. A ceramic chess set pitting feathered Mayan warriors against burnished Spanish foes caught our eye, though eventually we were unwilling to pay the US$70 demanded for it. With a glint in his eye, the determined shopowner tried to barter the chess set for my watch. We weren't sure if it was an elaborate joke.

So shop encounters invariably become attritional battle of wits. Sometimes the zeal to sell drives out all the wit in a shopowner. I was entranced by a painted sculpture of a Mayan warrior. The shopowner sensed my approbation, and disregarding Mary's disapproval stepped brusquely between Mary and I to commence his sales pitch. Within minutes we left without buying.

Mary shrugged off any further entreaty on my part to turn back. Well, he couldn't locate the neck that turned the head, she snorted. Ultimately, our over-enthusiastic shopowner was spurned because he failed to win over my chief negotiator.

Below: behold, the neck which turns my head.

3. The commodification of just about everything

Mayan culture has received a considerable boost from the revenue brought to Atitlan by growing tourist interest and numbers. While this has sustained a cultural revival from the dark days of the civil war, the new value which the country has just begun to appreciate in its native people also bestows upon all things - even humanity - a price tag. Shoeshine boys, who I thought I'd only see in period dramas, patrol the streets with eyes glued to the ground. They saw only shoes, not those who wore them. My flip-flops disappointed a handful who immediately turned away to look for more polished customers.

Below (from top to bottom): Setting up shop before the heavenly gate - what are souls worth?; so I'm spurned for more polished customers by shoeshine boys, I wonder why.

4. Jenna's menagerie

At a neat little corner of Panajachel, Jenna runs a Bed and Breakfast together with her workshop and gallery where she displays both her own artwork and others' on consignment. A refurbished yurt in the yard provided a touch of luxury, though we opted for simple, cosy and inexpensive rooms where creaking floorboards announced every single movement. She has also raised an unlikely company of two cats and three dogs, the curious rapport between them the source of much fascination.

Below: Samson, one of Jenna's delightful duo of cats. I must emphasise that no animals were hurt in the photography below.

After Panajachel, we had an additional day in Antigua before flying back to Boston. It was our last new stop in Latin America. We had our fair share of the good, the bad and the funny. We may shake our heads and wag our fingers at deeds of questionable morality. But who are we to complain? The plain and simple truth is, we paid to come. We chose to come.

The Most Beautiful Lake In The World

Such was the claim made of Lago de Atitlan by Aldous Huxley. In Beyond the Mexique Bay, the writer compared Atitlan to the famous Lake Como in the Italian Lake District, which already touches on the limit of permissably picturesque, adding of Atitlan that it is Como with additional embellishments of several immense volcanoes. It really is too much of a good thing. Enough said?

If Antigua is Guatemala's beating tourist heart, then the accompanying cliche is that Lago de Atitlan is the shiny jewel in its crown. The lake was a scenic three-hour ride over winding mountain roads and rugged terrain, with vistas of green valleys and golden fields of ripening maize. People visit to lounge around (as we unexpectedly spent the whole time doing), climb volcanoes (which we meant to do but couldn't) and dive (not an option). There are 12 major settlements around the lake, just as many, it is said, as there were apostles. Our destination was Jaibalito, a tiny Kakchiquel Mayan village clinging on to a steep rocky hillside on the lake's northern shore.

Below: Scenes on the road - roadside souvenir stalls and our fill of volcano views - though these were taken when we were going back towards Antigua after my Atitlan spell. People, Guatemalans in fact, do actually buy these twig reindeer (massed to the right of the picture just below). The sight of wooden antlers wedged between blurred bodies on many passing motorcycles was not uncommon.

Most tourist shuttles terminate at the town of Panajachel (Pa-na-ah-chel, most accurately pronounced like a mighty sneeze), on the northeastern shore, from which lancha (speedboats) routes radiate to the many towns and villages scattered around the lake. We got off at the public docks, and half-expected to witness the inevitable carnage which ensues when zebras and wildebeests gather on the steep banks of the Mara River and crocodilian shadows lurk purposefully beneath its gray waters. The nightmare didn't materialise, there were berths enough for four boats, and passengers waited patiently inside. We were very nearly conned, though, by a tout who quoted us three times the regular fare to the docks at Jaibalito.

Below: Mary attempts to blend in on the lancha from Panajachel.

It was a smooth twenty-minute ride to the dock of La Casa del Mundo where we would stay for two nights. We were amongst the last passengers, and it being market day also the seats behind were occupied by the resplendence of Mayan women with their miscellaneous ware scattered around - large plastic pitchers, cartons of soft drink and brightly dyed fabric in contrastingly drab bags. The women conversed softly in their Mayan tongue, one of over twenty within a language family that didn't sound like anything I've heard before. Each uttered syllable was a brick in a wall before which I stood beside incomprehension.

La Casa del Mundo was built into a cliffside just east of the actual village of Jaibalito. Several flights of stone steps led us up to first the reception and then our room just above it. This was the room that was smaller than the bathroom in Chez Daniel. The view, however, brooked no comparison. From bed and balcony, we were met with each waking gaze with grace, majesty and power - the slumbering giants of Toliman and San Pedro above the shimmering water of Atitlan.

Below (top to bottom): La Casa del Mundo's private dock, launching pad for boat and bum alike; balconies rarely get any better than this.

Wide, breezy verandahs under leafy shade, equipped invitingly with deck chairs, hammocks and plenty of sunshine, screamed out for guests to simply do nothing. Which we did. There was one tiny spot of bother, though it still afforded us some mirth. The wind on Atitlan tends to pick up towards mid-day, and whilst we were there impish noontime easterlies whipped up an unruly broth close to shore which defied our efforts to keep ourselves dry.

Below: Fun in the sun, right by wind and water. It might not be noticeable, but the hammock in the second photograph below was wet too.

Being away from the hullabaloo in the populous areas of the lake does have its downside. While the small cafe on site serves a decent range of affordable options, dinner was an expensive communal affair. At US$16 a head, I expected something better than vegetables bruschetta. The closest alternative was a five-minute tramp to the waterfront Club Ven Aca just next to the village. I suppose you can't have both world-beating vistas and food at the same time without having to fork out wallet-beating prices.

Below (top to bottom): Portraits of a day - Morning reveals, Afternoon ravishes, Evenings refreshes and Night reposes.

And so indolence gnawed away at the hours. One night passed, then two, and the rest of our lives was placed firmly before us once more. Paradise on earth always has an expiry date, for erosive time leaves nothing unscathed. We caught a lancha back to Panajachel, our rucksacks and hearts heavier with each step hence which would bring us closer to home.

Five Arresting Volcano Views in Antigua

Antigua's beauty lies on its southern horizons - a landscape of exquisite simplicity. Three volcanoes loom like silent sentinels over the town. Agua (Water) stands aloof on the left, while Fuego (Fire) huddles behind Acatenango to the right. Agua and Fuego have temperaments as dissimilar as their names. Fuego counts amongst one of the most active volcanoes in Central America, frequently spewing small but observable amounts of ash and lava. Agua, on the other hand, is almost ominously calm with no recorded eruptions. The 1541 mud flows which claimed the life of Antigua's governess originated from a breach in the lake which once stood upon its crater, and which gave Agua its present name.

Agua, the nearest and most visible of the three volcanoes, also functions like a giant compass. Except in this case true north is south. Amongst Daniel's directions to get from anywhere in town to Chez Daniel was the rather quaint instruction to start by walking with your nose towards the big volcano. Having been assured that it was near impossible to get lost in Antigua, we could therefore devote the rest of the day to savouring the volcano views on every turn. In this post, we show you where to get the best.

Below: Mary goes public with her opinions of volcanoes.

1. Tenedor del Cerro

Meaning Fork on a Hill, we would never have heard of this place if not for Howard's recommendation. And what a recommendation. Owned by the Hotel Casa Santo Domingo, the compound contains a restaurant, several art galleries, an aviary and an outdoor conference centre. Its hilltop location offers sweeping views of the Panchoy Valley, Antigua's three volcanoes and their orbiting vultures - the best of any vantage point still within easy reach of the town centre.

Hotel Casa Santo Domingo runs a complimentary shuttle from the hotel. This was like those garishly painted hop-on hop-off trams one sees in zoos, except ours was fashioned from a lorry. In fact, I'm not sure if Mary enjoyed the ride more than the views from the top. Walk through the restaurant to get to the terrace for least obstructed views of the volcanoes. The food isn't half bad too - Mary loved the sirloin.

Above (top to bottom): Manicured views of maleficence, from left to right - Agua, Fuego and Acatenango; Fuego's day eruptions are less spectacular than its night ones, but no less impressive.

Below (top to bottom): Tenedor del Cerro's life-like wallpaper on a glass sliding door which can be moved to reveal the exact same vista; a black vulture surveys its surroundings.

2. Casa Santa Domingo

While you are waiting for the shuttle for the Tenedor del Cerro, why not take a little walk round the sumptuous grounds of the Hotel Casa Santo Domingo. Once, it was one of the richest monasteries in the New World, its grounds even containing an artificial lake for boating and fishing. These grounds today house a five-star hotel, a museum, a lonely macaw and possibly the poshest bus stop in all of Central America.

Below (top to bottom): enjoying the views while waiting for our shuttle, wondering why people ever charge for wifi; marionettes ponder Christ.

3. El Tanque de la Union

Just a block south of the Parque Central is a choice rest stop in the middle of town. A place in colonial times for woman to literally wash their dirty laundry in public, the adjacent plaza and its graceful yellow arches today are a popular meeting point for guatemaltecos. And on a clear day, the still water honours Agua's near-perfect profile with a second symmetry.

4. Arco de Santa Catalina

The defining landmark of Antigua, many come to admire Agua beneath its gilded arch, and to enjoy a fleeting moment of Man's hubristic subordination of Gaia. The arch was first built as a passageway for nuns of the Santa Catalina convent to cross the street to a school opposite without literally stepping out of cloister (ie. being seen on the street).

Reflecting the precinct's position as the tourist heart of Antigua, handicraft shops also line the street running beneath the arch. The pick of the bunch is Nim Pot, a treasure trove of Guatemalan handicrafts from traditional Mayan costumes to wooden effigies of Guatemalan saints. Peddlers patrolling the street outside offer similar wares - shawls, table runners, doormats. Prices are negotiable, though their persistence seem not to be (word of fairness: they still aren't pushy).

5. Your hotel terrace

If your hotel has a terrace, chances are it has an unobstructed view of Agua. Chances also are, at the end of a day's walking, another sight of Agua lording it over every landmark is the last thing on your mind. However, it does offer the luxury of an unhurried appreciation, when you feel like it.

Below: How much of Agua is revealed depends on prevailing conditions. In all our time in Guatemala, we were very fortunate to experience our only cloudy day just as we were preparing to head to the airport.

Remember one thing though, the terracotta tiles on the roof will not bear your weight.

Learning to Walk in Antigua

We would have given Antigua, that lovely colonial predecessor of the chaotic concrete behemoth that calls itself Guatemala City, no more than a derisory glance if Mary hadn't slipped in El Salvador. And if paranoia had prevailed. Antigua ticked all the boxes that raised alarm. It was Central American, Guatemalan and attracted hordes of tourists (us being one of them). According to our original itinerary, Antigua was a means to different ends - towards the treehouse we reserved at Earth Lodge in the neighbouring village of Jocotenango, then towards Guatemala's second city Quetzaltenango to climb Volcan Santa Maria, and finally towards the airport on the last day of our Central American leg. Even after four full days' rest, treehouses and volcanoes were squarely out of the question. And so we stayed four nights in Antigua instead.

Below: adding colour to lifeless stone at the ruined Catedral de Santiago.

Having arranged for a door-to-door shuttle from Copan, we were nearly dumped in the centre of town by its irresponsible driver. Sitting tight after everybody else had alighted and Daniel's (who owns Chez Daniel, our Antigua accommodation) intervention saved us from being stranded. However, it didn't take Antigua very long to charm Mary - we hadn't even stepped into the old town proper yet. Chez Daniel being booked out, Daniel arranged for us to spend the first night at the Hostal Las Marias. This was a typical colonial house in Antigua - artfully decorated and tastefully furnished, with high roofs and a spacious, verdant courtyard overflowing with flowers.

Above: A wall full of wooden masks at the Hostal Las Marias, where we spent our first night, and its flora-festooned courtyard.

Below: studied neglect adds character to another courtyard found typically in Spanish colonial houses, this one was in the middle of a souvenir shop.

Daniel picked us up the morning after we arrived, to head back to Chez Daniel. While Mary ogled at the cavernous bathroom (bigger even than some rooms we paid more for), Daniel gave me a whirlwind tour of the town highlights. He marked with a pen an eminently walkable rectangle on a map, name-dropping cathedrals, ruins and eateries. In yet another mortal triumph over curiosity, our first tentative sightseeing steps in four days only took us as far as the nearest eating recommendation. Rainbow Cafe would have been less than ten minutes away on good walking feet. We arrived after thirty arduous minutes, as hobbling transmogrified cobblestone into brimstone.

Below (top to bottom): Mary sipping happily on her iced mint tea at the Rainbow Cafe; a window within a window, at Samsara, an Indian vegetarian restaurant close to the southwestern edge of the town centre.

All of Spanish Central America, from Chiapas in what is now southern Mexico to Costa Rica, was once ruled from this elegant city. But the city, the location of which has moved twice within the vicinity, was always built on both precarious ground and the sufferance of its sleeping volcanoes (which entailed stirring volcano views at every turn, more on that in the next post). It was no stranger to fire and brimstone, which its tumbled masonry recall even if many of its inhabitants today do not. A 1541 mudslide consumed the city and claimed the life of its governess Beatriz de la Cueva (her husband Pedro de Alvarado was earlier conqueror of the Mayan highlands). Earthquakes in 1717 and 1773 leveled the city on successive occasions. Officials decided to move the capital to present-day Guatemala City after the latter earthquakes, and Antigua never regained its prominence. Tourist arrivals today outnumber its 35,000 inhabitants, a little more than half its population at its height in the mid-eighteenth century.

Above (top to bottom): the Palace of the Captain-General, on the Parque Central, once the seat of the colonial government of all Spanish Central America; walking past abandonment on the streets of Antigua.

Below: Earth's wrath leaves the Catedral de Santiago without a roof.

Antigua, in Daniel's words, has enough to occupy us for two weeks, though we didn't set out to visit all the sights. The by now familiar grid system meant it wasn't easy to get lost. Our pace was necessarily slower, unhurried ambling punctuated by long breaks in cafés and cathedrals. The city's position as Guatemala's tourist capital also invited a roaring trade in souvenirs. Apart from a multitude of souvenir shops splashed with the psychedelic hues of Mayan fabric, there were groups of itinerant Mayan peddlers clad in the same colourful garb which they tried to sell.

Above: The baroque facade of La Merced, a cathedral to the north of town built by the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy. Members of this religious order founded in the eastern Spanish kingdom of Aragon in the early thirteenth century worked for the redemption of Christian captives caught up in the tumult of the Reconquista in that time. Right next to the cathedral, the bust of Bartolome de las Casas (immediately above), Protector of the Indians who spoke up tirelessly for the rights of the indigenous population when the Reconquista arrived on American shores, seems well-placed in this context.

Below: The Church of San Francisco, on the southeastern part of town. The entrance below leads directly to the tomb of Brother Peter of St Joseph Betancur. Canonized by Pope John Paul II and popularly known as "the St Francis of the Americas", he worked amongst the poor, African slaves and indigenous amongst them, raising funds and establishing hospitals, shelters and schools. His tomb is a popular site of local veneration.

Two Mayan girls passed us at the Arco de Santa Catalina and shouted sayonara before breaking out in giggles. My reply in Hokkien (which I thought approximated most closely Japanese) while mustering my sweetest smile only served to renew their sale offers. Well, at least sayonara meant something - in Morocco men rattled off Japanese brand names and hurled them at us.

Below: never a colourless moment on the streets of Antigua; counting arches at Parque Central as dusk falls.

Antigua felt safer than we feared. But we played it safe, never wandering beyond the town centre and generally getting off the streets before evening. Our journey from El Salvador thus far had been one of rising prices, commensurate with an increase in both tourist numbers and matching infrastructural development. Things couldn't get any more touristy. So we thought, until we got to the Lake.

Forgettable Lessons From A Cross-border Journey, 30th year edition

Yet another birthday on the go, it's been nine years since I last spent one at home. Of course, it's no doubt been a fantastic privilege to be able to commemorate such milestones in different environments. But there was something even more symbolic this time round, as I spent the bulk of my 29th birthday (close to eight hours, to be precise) inside a shuttle between Honduras and Guatemala. So here are my musings, on three life lessons I somehow strive not to learn as I enter my 30th year.

Below (from top to bottom): conversations by a landslide; beautiful mountainous country between Copan Ruinas and Antigua.

1. Control! Alternate Delete.

Travelling excites me in many ways - deciding where to go, planning routes and connections, the actual visiting and then finally writing about them. Blank cheques are rare occurrences, if not fantasies, but it does feel like carte blanche looking at a map and deciding where to go. One then comes closest to being in the shoes of a campaigning general while planning routes and figuring out connections between different points of interest subsequently. The actual visiting sees the euphoria of conquest. And then the memoirs appear, on this blog (though only recently).

It all sounds too perfect. But to borrow another military axiom, no plan survives the first shots in a battle. A landslide held us up on the mountainous approach to Guatemala City. Once the debris was removed, traffic towards Guatemala City was first given the all-clear to proceed, and it took us all of five minutes to drive past a long line of waiting vehicles headed the opposite direction. It only set us back by an hour, so we were able to shrug this off. I'll be lying if I said it wouldn't put us off too, had it been ten hours. But it really shouldn't.

Below: A dusty post-landslide crossing.

The paradox is that one seems able to decide and control what in reality is a journey, both literally and figuratively and fraught with unbreachable unknown, into foreign territory. When traveling is about embracing the unpredictable, I seem to be clinging on to a ptolemaic cosmography - there is one plan, it doesn't change and we use it.

2. All-weather travelling

Have you been on the Milford Track? Mrs Tan, my ex-principal, asked me three years ago.

No, I've read that it is very beautiful, but frequently over-booked and over-regulated, was my reply. Hikers have to hurry from hut to hut, rain or shine. You can't really time the best bits when the weather is best.

Mrs Tan laughed. There are no best conditions. Any condition is best.

Below: Bulock's on a clear day - nobody buys it.

Mrs Tan and her husband saw New Zealand's best on foot when travellers her age prefer to do so on a coach. Her motherly demeanour and frugal habits hide keenness for adventure and a willingness to take the place and the weather for what they are.

I'm way behind as an all-weather traveller. Clouds I only ignore below a certain altitude - namely, when it obscures nothing. Instead, blue skies and sun seem to induce more anxiety, especially as we're making our way to the top of a hill, mountain or volcano. We got to get there before the clouds move in. And they tend to, sometime from the late morning onwards. There will be neither clear views nor good pictures left.

Mary admonishes me frequently. Don't always be so preoccupied with taking the best pictures! Sometimes the best picture is in the memory and not the memory card. And then she proposes anathema - why don't you travel without a camera?

The journey matters more than the destination, the experience more than actual attractions. I'm still learning.

Below: Find the rainbow. And find your own. Somebody else's is a lot harder to see.

3. Comfort Zoning Out

A friend, whose frankness is the only thing that is plain about her, once told me I wrote like a white anthropologist. I didn't agree entirely, but I do agree that I travel like one sometimes. As soon as we decided on Central America, I started to learn Spanish on my own (in fact resuming an attempt from a year earlier). However grammatically unformed my Spanish ultimately became, I learnt successfully to make myself understood in the language. Therein was the flaw - I made myself understood, but only partially understood others. I remained in gringo (foreigner) shoes, because in my mind gringos were never far away, whether they were salvadoreños, guatemaltecos, hondureños o otros extranjeros.

We never got off the beaten path, to avoid both being mugged and stared at. (Ironically, one is valued in the former instance and devalued in the latter.) And we seldom turned the other cheek.

Below: transiting between comfort zones.

I've stepped across a number of international borders to get to countries which hardly figure on Conde Nast or the Sunday Times Travel, but the real question is: how much have I stepped out of my comfort zone?