Cara Maya

I was awake early on my last day in the district of Lake Atitlan. I saw Orion sink behind the western hills where the crescent moon and Venus disappeared in the evening. I braided my hair and put on ample sunscreen before walking into town. The automatic teller operated without problems and I had a half an hour to wait in front of the bank for other hikers to arrive. The sun rose over Lake Atitlan and illuminated small puffy clouds overhead. The dark starry sky quickly became a brilliant blue. Antonio, one of the directors of Corazon Maya, met me and told me that only two other students signed up to hike this morning.

As soon as Ana and Walter appeared, we walked down to the church and clambered aboard a small pick-up along with other standing passengers who were paying 2 quetzales for a ride to the nearby town, San Juan. It was barely past seven o’clock and women in San Juan were entering the miller’s shop with bowls of corn to grind and departing with bowls of masa to make their tortillas. Just as Melida does here in San Pedro, the women take yellow, white, or black corn to be ground each day for the family’s daily tortillas. A morning walk through any neighborhood is accompanied by the pat-pat-pat-pat of tortillas being formed and the aroma of the tortillas cooking on griddles over open fires.

At the trail-head, we paid the park fees and began our ascent. It is the dry season and the trail dust covered plants and rocks on and near the path. Antonio told us that there are plenty of flowers and that the mountain is very green in the rainy season. Even so, I enjoyed purple, yellow, white, and red blossoms near the ground and hanging overhead. It was steep and challenging. With gratitude for my walking sticks, I gained footing on large rocks and used my arm muscles to steady myself. We stopped a few times to take photos, drink water, eat snacks, and enjoy the stupendous views. During one of our rests, a small group of women and children from Santa Clara walked down the hill toward San Juan. A couple of the women were carrying bundles and one had a baby on her back. One elder of the group was walking down the trail barefoot. While we sat in the shade at the summit, two hours after beginning our climb, we heard rumbling. Antonio identified Pacaya in the distance. This is one of the three volcanoes that encircle Antigua. Pacaya was belching black smoke into the sky. Antonio told us that it is dangerous to hike to the top of Pacaya, but many people do.

The trail on backside of Cara Maya descends very little and passes through woods and fields. While the national park was clean, this part of the trail was heavily littered. Trash was strewn everywhere. We reached the town of Santa Clara in twenty-five minutes and joined the huge throng for market day. We walked slowly through the tight spaces between the baskets, tables, and blankets heaped with fruits, vegetables, clothing, and other items. At one spot I recognized the vendor’s voice demonstrating some sort of vegiematic gizmo. I smiled, remembering the salesman on a boardwalk in New Jersey. I almost shopped for an embroidered blouse. Instead I took photos of other women wearing these traditional works of art. Some of the men wore wool wrap-around skirts and colorful woven shirts.

There are three indigenous languages spoken in the pueblos that surround Lake Atilan. In San Pedro, San Juan, and Santiago the people speak Tzutuhil as their first language. In Santa Clara, it is Quiche. Vegiematic vendors sound the same in any language.

After my group of four wound its way through the market, stopping for a few fruit purchases, we continued to the edge of town and squeezed onto an already overloaded pick-up truck. Market purchases, including a living hen, crowded our foot space. Four men stood on the rear bumper, holding on to the metal framework that is welded to transportation pick-ups, as we slowly descended the road of hairpin turns from Santa Clara to San Pablo. (5 quetzales per passenger) In San Pablo, the four of us squeezed into a three-wheeled tuk-tuk that transported us safely back to San Pedro (5 quetzales each), ten minutes before noon.

After lunch I enjoyed a hot shower on the porch and hand-washed a small load of laundry in the cement sink. The afternoon wind was making whitecaps on the lake far down the hill. My clean clothes flapped in the sunshine and were dry quickly. I sat with Melida and interviewed her for my Spanish project. She has been a wonderful hostess.