Guatemala Part 5

Guatemala Part 5 San Pedro

In the morning I took a boat to San Pedro, one of the villages on Lake Atetlan. San Pedro is known as a hippie hangout, the place for drugs. The lower section, near the docks, is like a time-warp. It’s Yorkville, 1970, all over again. I haven’t seen so many hippies in years. They still flash the peace sign. And they are all American or Canadian.

I had lunch in a restaurant and it was all gringos. The only native was the cook. The menu was in English, and everyone spoke English. Not my scene.

The town is full of Spanish schools, and a lot of New Age things. You can chose between “Hot rock” massages, Mayan massages, Japanese massages. You name it. There are signs for yoga classes, there are palm readers, Tarot card readers. You get the idea.

As you climb the street you enter a different world. Very few tourists. Not nearly as many colourful costumes as in Pana. I think in Pana it’s mainly for the tourists.

The gringo restaurants show movies at night to bring in the customers. One bar is showing "Juno", a Canadian film, that I would like to see. On the way to the bar I stopped at the local coffee operation. It is quiet during the day, but in the evening the farmers bring in the beans they have picked during the day. The bags get weighed, and recorded. The beans are sent through several large machines that remove the outer husks. The beans are then washed. I have noticed several places in town, a couple as large as a basketball court, where the beans are spread out and allowed to dry in the sun. At the end of this drying period you end up with green coffee beans. In this state the beans can last years without losing any flavour. Once the whole beans are roasted they last a month or two, before they lose flavour, depending on how they are packaged. Once the beans are ground they lose flavour within days. While I am standing there, who comes up behind me, but Amaia and Paz. They had quite the ride home last night. Because of the downpour some of the roads were like raging rivers. They decided to postpone the Volcano walk for a day, and were staying in San Pedro for the night, doing the walk first thing in the morning.

I took the ladies for a cappuccino at my favourite little coffee bar. Afterwards we met Ramon and Pedro for a drink at a bar overlooking the lake. It was a beautiful evening, a few stars, and you could see the twinkling lights of a couple of the villages across the moonlit lake. It was very romantic.

I finally got the story straight. Ramon and Pedro are best of friends, from their school days back in Spain. Pedro and his wife are presently living in Solola, a village just north of Pana. Ramon and Amaia are in Guatemala for a couple of weeks. They traveled around Guatemala the first week, and are spending this week with Pedro and his wife. Paz is Pedro’s sister. She is presently living in Kyoto, in Japan. She is working on a PHD in microbiology. They are all flying home on Saturday.

They invited me to join them for a concert at Zoola’s. Zoola’s is a hostel, hotel, restaurant, run by some Isrealis. It has quite a reputation, and is always full, mostly Isreali hippies.

Zoola’s was quite the experience. You must visualize a good-sized thatch roofed pavilion. Seating is on bamboo mats around low tables. Even at 9 the aroma of smoke, other than cigarettes, is hanging in the air.

It was a perfect evening until the trio started to sing. It was Tiny Talent Time, with the emphasis on Tiny. They sang, and I use the word loosely, in Hebrew and English. You have not experienced life until you have heard Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” sung in Hebrew, and badly.

After an hour the microphone committed suicide, and for the rest of the night we listened to music over the PA. They played a lot of Bob Marley. Jewish hippies listening to Jamaican reggae; deep in the heart of Guatemala; Pinch me.

Ramon, handsome devil that he is, actually scored some weed, and was busily rolling a large joint. Beer here comes in 1L bottles. I have never seen such large bottles. What you do is buy one bottle, and share it. When that is gone, you get another bottle. That way the beer is always cold and fresh.

In his travels around the restaurant Ramon also met one of the locals, who joined our little group. This gentleman was a teacher at a local school where he taught one of the Mayan languages to Mayan children. With the help of his 96 year grandmother he has written a Spanish-Mayan dictionary.

We spent the rest of the evening learning about the Mayan culture and religion. He even tried to teach us how to say hello and goodbye, in Mayan. The four Spaniards talked to him is Spanish, and then took turns translating into English for me. What a delightful group of young people.

We didn’t leave until the waitress kicked us out.

I staggered back to my hotel, and sat on the porch looking out over the lake, just soaking in the experience of the last few hours.

Priceless.

Reality is stranger than fiction.