GUATEMALA 2023

My sister Kathy and I visited Guatemala together beginning in late March for 3 weeks; I've traveled in Guatemala several dozen times since the 80s but it was Kathy's first visit. Her son Stuart and some Beca Project sponsors (scholarship and social aid project based in San Pedro La Laguna) joined us for part of the trip.

Stuart flew down on the 28th and headed to Antigua. Kathy and I (and Beca Project sponsor Joni) flew down on the 29th and spent 2 nights in Guatemala City at Villa Toscana, 2 minutes from the airport. We had a day in between to explore with local tour guide Elmer Soto - WhatsApp: +(502) 5129-2222. Here are a couple of photos from March 30th in GC:

Elmer at Plaza Berlin

National Palace

The flags are at half mast to honor the Guatemaltecos who recently lost their lives in the immigrant holding facility in Juarez, México. The display beneath the flag names the girls who lost their lives in an orphanage fire a few years ago.

On March 31st Stuart joined us as we flew to northern Guatemala to visit the Tikal and Yaxhá Maya sites. We had 2 days to explore with Marlon Díaz, a wonderful guide I first met in 2016. It was hard to narrow down my photo choices.

Strangler fig

Parrot

Toucan

Temple V

Spider monkeys

Black howler monkey

Sunset from the top of the Great Pyramid of the Lost World

Sunrise from the top of Temple IV

Kathy and I in the Seven Temples area

Watching the moons, stars, and planets from the Grand Plaza (Temple I)

On the way to Yaxhá (sadly, no jaguars crossed the road while we were there but our guide had seen one the day before).

Yaxhá

With our wonderful driver and guide, Marlon Díaz of Gem Trips.

We flew from Flores to Guatemala City and headed to Antigua for 2 nights. We were there for Palm Sunday and the processions and crowds were impressive. I’m happy to have gotten a taste of Semana Santa (Easter week) in Antigua which is most famous for it, but was happier still to head to Lake Atitlán.

Stuart got to enjoy San Pedro a few days before he left on Good Thursday - we were sorry to see him go. Here we are ‘wearing’ the traditional traje of San Pedro.

These ratchets are LOUD and precede every procession in San Pedro. Small boys have little ones and Stuart was sort of dared to try this huge one. Nailed it! You can get a peek of Volcán San Pedro in the background.

He spent part of his time painting on the terrace of Hotel Mikaso including this beautiful water color of the Maya symbol associated with my birthday, 13 Batz.

We celebrated my birthday with breakfast at Las Cristalinas where they gave me carrot cake...

...and with dinner at Jarachik where the power went out but we still enjoyed each other and the food.

The procession where they parade fruit through town to be used to decorate the church and the streets was also on my birthday - the happy face in the middle is a former Beca Project student.

The children’s procession was on Thursday.

There are night processions, too.

These are alfombras - the street carpets that they build ahead of the Good Friday procession that are demolished as the procession proceeds through the streets. Most don’t have fruit and vegetables these days because it’s considered insensitive with so many hungry people in town - pine needles, flowers and flower petals, and sawdust are more common.

Good Friday procession - the largest one. These huge andas are carried by teams of men and women from the Catholic Church and they hand off every few blocks to a fresh team.

A special highlight for me this trip was helping Mynor’s large extended family with the alfombra they build every year. Here we are hand mixing dye into sawdust the day we arrived in San Pedro. We tried using light disposable gloves but they just filled with the sawdust and warm dye. It took about a week before my hands returned to a normal color.

This is the center walkway in front of the church. Once the procession left the church on Friday, our group swept in with sawdust and stencils and built a long alfombra to receive the procession when it returned to the church. It was a race against time and took about 2 and a half hours; we finished just minutes ahead and had time for a group photo.

One of my favorite things in San Pedro is bumping into Beca Project students, graduates, their parents and sometimes their spouses around town.

This is the mother of a Beca Project graduate and a nice opportunity to show how humans come in different sizes.

On Thursday of Semana Santa Stuart left, sadly, and we gained Beca Project sponsor Linda from Oklahoma and 2 of her best friends. 

Judy, Linda, Kathy, and Diane.

Friday afternoon our little group headed to neighboring San Juan for a walk about.

Some of us climbed from town to the mirador (viewpoint) at the top of the next photo where the decks are beautifully painted and the view is amazing.

Saturday morning we took a pre-dawn boat across the lake along with our dear friends Mynor and Josefa and their sons Manuel and Antonio to go birding with outstanding local guide Rolando Tol Gonzalez. Here was the view from a mirador near Santiago.

Our target - the resplendent quetzal! We saw them over and over and especially loved this pair taking turns flying into their nest hole to feed babies.

It was a really challenging hike, the sort that seems uphill both ways. 

Lunch in Santiago.

I had arranged a tour with local guide Dolores Ratzán - Whatsapp: +(502) 5207 4622 - who had a loving, personal relationship with Father Stanley Rother when she was a child. Known locally as Padre Aplas, he was assassinated by the military during the genocide period for his devotion and support of the local Maya population. He is the first US citizen to be martyred and made a saint in the Catholic Church; his heart was entombed in the church and his body returned to Oklahoma.

This is Dolores with Maximón’s girlfriend. Read about the trickster, Maximón, if you're interested in the cultural background.

The embroidery in Santiago is stunning! In addition to the huipil (blouse) Dolores made herself and is wearing, here is another example and a closeup of her husband’s traditional pants (also hand embroidered by Dolores.

Kathy bought a hoody embellished with traditional fabric from this young woman.

On Easter Sunday we were invited to the lake to enjoy a meal with Mynor and Josefa's extended family, not my first time and always a joy.

The days following Easter were busy with group activities ahead of the Beca Project sponsors’ departure mid week. We visited their sponsored families, took 70+ families shopping for food and needed household items, and enjoyed cooking and weaving classes with Beca moms arranged by Mynor and his wife Josefa.

Shopping

Learning to make paches - sort of like tamales but with savory mashed potatoes, sauce, chicken, little dried plums, and strips of pepper.

Weaving with a backstrap loom

Note she's following the pattern on her cell phone.

After the group left, Kathy and I moved from our little apartment, Ti Wachooch...

...to one of Mynor and Josefa’s 2 bedroom apartments on the lake. The views!

Some mornings Kathy took time to put her feet up on the balcony while I visited Beca Project families. One morning she joined me for the family visits and a stop at the Beca Project office. In the afternoons we talked, ate out with an expat friend, went shopping for food, gifts, and souvenirs, and enjoyed the lake and the beautiful weather.

I would be literally and figuratively lost without Mynor leading the way. I don't speak the local Maya language and most of the parents weren't able to attend school long enough to speak Spanish well, so Mynor is translating for us between Tz'tujil and Spanish. Also, there aren't really addresses and many of the homes are along paths in the surrounding countryside. 

Of necessity we're on foot a lot but sometimes I'm on the back of his motorcycle. 

I also visited some of the Kamoon home building project houses and the elderly couple who will receive the next house, pictured below.

Mike and I try every visit to Guatemala to include an adventure with Mynor, Josefa, and their boys Antonio and Manuel. On previous trips we’ve hiked from Xela back to Lake Atitlán (27 miles in 2.5 days), visited the beautiful water features of Semuc Champey, gone birding multiple times, and climbed the Pacaya volcano. This time Kathy and I headed with the family to western Guatemala near the border with México to the Huehuetenango Department. On offer: stopping at the Zaculeu Maya site, watching the landscapes turn to desert and back to green mountains, eating good food, seeing gobsmackingly beautiful cenotes, sometimes swimming in them, and spending more than 20 hours on challenging roads in 3 days. 

Our son Isaac served as an international observer for the elections regarding environmentally and socially devastating mining operations in the mountainous rural departments of Guatemala in 2007. This sign says, “To fight for water is to fight for life - no to mining” with the name and distance to a local town.

Gas for the old pickup we rode in the last half hour to Laguna Brava (roads too rough for Mynor’s new pickup).

Laguna Brava where we enjoyed swimming and watching locals and ate a delicious meal in a small family restaurant.

A couple of the Cenotes de Candelaria we visited, including a swimming spot where fish nibbled at our feet.

We hiked to the huge Hoyo de Cimarrón dry cenote.

Our last stop was a nice meal out in Xela that included Manuel (right) who wasn’t able to join us on this adventure because of university classes.

Mynor and Josefa are part of a group called JUN IMOX that is working together to preserve the old ways of the Tz’tujil Maya and teach them to the next generations. Kathy and I were honored to be invited to a moving Maya spiritual ceremony on the lake followed by a return to our apartment for ice cream cake and a discussion about the project and their goals for the community.

Here are a few more photos from our time in San Pedro La Laguna including market scenes and a few of the town's stunning murals.

These murals are on the school that most of our Beca Project students attend during their first 3 years with us.

This mural is on the wall at the top of Mynor and Josefa's lakeside apartments.

And then we were off: a tuktuk to the dock, a boat to Panajachel, by road to Villa Toscana near the airport, and 2 flights before landing in Portland and heading our separate ways. 

I'm always grateful to visit Guatemala, to have a place there and hundreds of friends, for the shared joys of Beca Project, and for a long list of new places on offer in Guatemala I have yet to visit. This trip I was also grateful for the happy, memorable shared experiences with Kathy and her son Stuart and for meeting and sharing time with our other fellow travelers. 

If you'd like to see 11 albums of photos from this trip, click HERE.

HAPPY TRAILS!