Atitlan, Guate-buena

We have spent the last few days at Lago de Atitlan in a small town called San Pedro. The lake is surrounded by volcanos and is considered the Gateway to the western highlands. There are definitely more indígena people than there were in Antigua (where a lot of people dressed in european fashions). Boy do we stick out. >The town we´re in is one of the more heavily visited by tourists, though not as bad as nearby Panajachel. We´re still managing to live pretty cheaply, though our first night we splurged on an awesome hotel right on the lake in this notorious party town.
The next day was Indepedence day, but Stew was sick perhaps from some bad wáter and spent the entire day in bed, also nursing an eye infection. Bummer. “pobrecito,” said Tori. We caught a glimpse of some of the parades as we walked to find food intermintently. There were many children in fancy uniforms reminiscent of Napoleon carrying instruments three times their size. It woud have been a lot cuter if not for the constant pounding of the drums/our heads.
On Wednesday, Stew felt a lot better and we went out in kayaks (cayacs) to San Marcos, where we met a Little indígena girl named Sandra. She led us to a nice rock beach where we dove off the a small structure into the wáter and took a bunch of pictures. It didn´t seem like she had ever seen a photo of herself, at least not in the immediate versión that a digicam provides. It was pretty cool to talk to her and convince her to jump with us. She told us she had a lot of fun, too. We then took our kayak back across the lake and the winds picked up. Stew was a Little heavy for our tiny kayak and the back of our boat was literally below the lake by the time we got back. Exhaustedly, we made our way to an American ex pat´s “Phat Burger” and ordered an Obamaburger which comes with bacon, cheese, every thing else, and is especially large. We hung out with our hostel mates that night. Angelique is from Holland (as is a weird guy we met at Antigua that is here again), Claudia is from Germany, Hellen is from Manchester, and again we are the only Americans (except for Marissa).
Stew´s eye was not feeling any better yesterday, so we tried to go to a doctor. The doctor Works in a different town, so we paid Domigo (about 13 years old…maybe)a tuc tuc driver, to wait at the dock and bring the doctor to us. Surprisingly, this worked and the doctor came into our hostel room and examined Stew. He wasn´t sure what was wrong because Stew´s contacts aren´t supposed to cause the problem that he appears to have, but he promised to bring us medicine when he returned from work the next day (today).
Today, we went to the market and purchased a bunch of ingredients to make a delicious breakfast of fried potatoes, sausage, pepper, onion, and pineapple (separate). Our friends declared it a delicious American style breakfast. Claudia was excited about our sausage. Afterwards, we caught a ferry to Santiago, the city where the doctor Works. We stuck out even more there because we were the only tourists in an otherwise indígena town. There is a catedral with a monument to victims of the Guatemalan civil war. In Santiago, there was veritable genocide commited against the Mayan populations by the right wing Guatemalan army.
A Little boy took us to a visit a Mayan god, Maximon. It is basically an idol dressed in small clothes with a cigar in his mouth and a cigarette in his wife´s. The idol moves from house to house in a town wide ceremony each year and all who visit must show their respects with a tip. Apparently, this will bring us good health. Normally, you pay a doctor for good health, but if the doctor is free, there is no need for Pascal´s wager to ensure good health. It is difficult to ensure good health in the U.S. after throwing Money at an idol, but one need not even tip a doctor for house visits. Rad.
We tried to find the national park, a preservation for a now extinct bird, but failed. We ate a delicious lunch of avocado, cheese, and tortilla in a beautiful park. After looking at some various art and tourist ítems, we walked into a gallery of a world renowned artist, featured at the Louvre and everywhere else. www.artereanda.blogspot.com is his website. It was cool to see his stuff and much more striking. Also, he gave us high fives and “pounds.”
SIDENOTE
While in LA, we met up with Stew´s friend Travis who drove usa round the town. He is starting a clothing line www.ninjaneishon.com and a ninja fraternity www.neishon.com We visited a clothing distributor where he can just walk in and grab free stuff to sample. Awesome. He gave Stew a free shirt and he has been repping Neishon wear all over Guatemala. The clothes are sweet.

Also, it is imposible to type on these keyboards. Forgive the errors.