Guatamala
I got to say... when you can regularly see people walk in and out of stores with no shirt on, barefoot with a dog on no leash in tow and no one bats an eye, and there are about 7 people riding in a three-wheeled “tuk-tuk” with no seatbelts laughing as they whiz by, and a man and his wife and three kids on a motorcycle pass from the other direction, and people are playing music in the streets as a chicken bus pulls up with baby goats and people spilling out... and Mayan women are weaving and vending their wares wherever the hell they feel like it and little kids covered in dirt are playing barefoot at your feet wearing the shiniest of smiles plastered to their faces and oozing love from their eyes... you get this Freedom feeling... YES. GUATAMALA!
Sure… of course everywhere you travel, has their problems too. But. One can learn quite a lot from what WORKS in other worlds, and it can be a breath of fresh air to try and apply it when you come home, to your own world!
When I came back through those fabled pearly “freedom gates” of the US after 5 blissful days in that “other world” of Guatemala, suddenly it hit me with tremendous weight how much of a noticeable sterilized police-state we are constantly living in... so deep we lose track of ... how anything else could be. It’s uncanny to be struck with the disparity... it’s in the sterile streets and traffic lights as we drive away from the airport with my mind still full of Guatamala’s dreams... and it’s flickering in the lit up malls and pristine expensive shopping plazas of waste and depression, consumption and addiction of possessions to no end... and it’s in that cruiser waiting.. always waiting... and it’s from that oppressive world of judgement and fear perpetuated in every nuance of exchanges that place loads of inhibitions even on the youth... and it was in the not so subtle 5 point check-point at tsa as we re-enter so harshly and abruptly... to that cold, that cold. And, sigh, it’s also in the nuances of the entitled Caucasians drinking loudly at the airport bar talking diminishingly to the poc staff and walking around like they own the place in a way that makes me ashamed of where I live and thinking that perhaps those clever hilarious Brits we met on the boat ride we took across Lake Atitlan were right, as they teased Americans for being the most entitled, belligerent and ignorant...
But enough about that! For oh those GUATEMALAN sunsets and rugged, tough and tumble ways of scrapes and bug bites... of dirty nails and hearts aglow... of bumpy roads! And taking risks! And feeling alive! And drinking that nectar where even in the plane I wrote your song before I even met you! “Out where fairy temples wait for intrepid travelers to be bathed... singing, ‘baby you were born to be free'!”
Oh is it any wonder all my pirate friends love you so? All my wanderlust poet comrades and spirit chasers? How they adore Central America... and it’s not some romanticized fantasy for of course their world comes with much hardships and corruptions too but for a glimpse at... a different world! To taste immersively a DIFFERENT way of being! Complete with men on roofs of buses at mock speed! Oh With your volcanoes and lakes, rivers and cobble stone streets smelling of diesel amazing coffee! The coffee!! And some hot street food sizzling on the grill with a beautiful mayan woman at the helm of it all!
Indeed it was a Pirate wanderlust comrade whom inspired this trip! My friend and fellow adventurer, and photographer Robert Mathias inspired this trip! Robert had been traveling through Central America for a few months when he made it to Lake Atitlan in Guatemala, and his pictures from Lake Atitlan are exactly what drew me in and put the wanderlust in me to come emerse myself here.
Like me, Robert was on a “heroes journey” of self-discovery when we met. We shared a kindred love of school buses! The year I bought Banjo, my little blue school bus and Never-Land Adventure chariot, ( my pirate ship, my forever heroine!) is the year I met Robert. We were both at the little local music festival, “Strangecreek” that my little Wolf children and I have come to love when I met Robert vending beautiful clothing. He had a little white school bus named Govinda and that’s how we started talking. Robert looks like he’s stepped right out of Pirate’s of the Caribbean! As a writer I was drawn to his journey of self-discovery and his story. We became instant friends with our mutual love of travel, self-sovereignty, crypto-currency, and desire for independence. An anarchist pirate! What’s not to love? He had big dreams of driving himself and bus with his dog south through Mexico to Guatemala. Following his journey on social media grew in me a contagious wanderlust for the same!
When he finally made it to Guatemala and I saw one of his pictures of Lake Atitlan my heart skipped a beat. I felt a kindred kismet with the lake and surrounding mountains.
I remember writing to him as much and his response was, why don’t you and the family fly out and I’ll show you around! How perfect. As a world traveller that has been to 18 countries and lived in 7 I was beyond thrilled for the inspirational nudge! And there is nothing better than when someone’s whose clarity of perception you trust, has been to a far off place, scouted it a bit and can give you recommendations. This was e even better because Robert would still be there when were scheduled to visit! Our trip was scheduled for a week trip while the kids were on their February break from school.
Guatemala City surprises me in that it is much more mellow than Mexico City or Cancun. It feels safer and there aren’t cab drivers incessantly pestering you the minute you step outside to get a fare. We hire a driver fairly easy after bargaining a fair price for the 2 hour drive that will take us to Antigua. The drive is wonderfully entertaining as we speed up mountain roads with lovely scenery littered with Chicken buses and vehicles both very big and very small! This is very Central America. The driving is insane but has a rhythm to it, and the air is equal parts sweet with green and hot with diesel.
We booked our first 2 nights in a small charming hotel in Antigua. Antigua is a charming but colonial town paved in cobblestone roads, featuring a mix of both indigenous people and the post-colonial Spanish “Ladinos.” It is also a popular backpacker destination with it’s delicious food, gelato, beautiful gardens filled with Mayan women selling their wares, music, and features a bustling local business scene fed by it’s lively tourism.
The hotel in Antigua is small with only 6 rooms out of a woman’s house. Just what we envisioned as we wanted to stay in a village vibe living like the locals. They have a beautiful open-air courtyard filled with exotic flowers, as many Guatamalan homes in this part of the town have, and a small swimming pool. It is February in the US and we are traveling close to the equator so a swimming pool is a must in our eyes as the girls and I love to swim when we can escape the cold for nice warm climates in winter. The room is spacious with two large beds and is decorated in a combo of the post-colonial style with touches of traditional Mayan accents like the ornately decorated woven pillows and tadditional hand-made art around the room.
By sheer serendipitous coincidence, another friend, Tim, a good friend of our mutual friend, musician Ryan Montbleau is also in Antigua. Tim would be leaving for Nepal the following day, so of course we meet for dinner and a walk around exploring Antigua even though we are tired from our flight. The architecture is breathtaking, the door knockers on each of the carved beautiful gates seem to none be the same, all unique, one a lion, another a carved horse and so on, as Tim points this out to us. We say goodnight to Tim and make it back to our hotel to sleep after a long day of travel from the US.
There is nothing I love better when I travel to a new city than waking up early and walking the city alone in the morning and finding a good yoga class. This time I have a buddy! Martina comes with me and we’re in luck because upon a quick internet search we find not just plentiful yoga offerings throughout the city but a Sivananda rooftop art gallery class! Sivananda Yoga is very hard to find and is special because it is a lineage of yoga that honors the Gulu Kula system in which a practitioner doesn’t just do yoga poses, but engages in many of the Paths and Limbs of yoga- including meditation, pranayama (very specific breathing practices that unlock the intuition and creates a very strong effect of serenity and balance) and chanting along with the series of poses and sequences. It was the style of yoga I was trained in India and continued my study in, in Canada and Woodbourne New York. They have a handful of ashrams and centers around the world but finding a teacher anywhere can be difficult as it is not astyle that lends well to branding and commercialization :)
Navigating a new city with Martina and traveling the many blocks on foot in the early morning as we pass merchants just opening their stores for the day to the smells of coffee, glimpsing into gardens and just the overall feeling of immersion in a whole new world is wonderful! I absolutely am in my element being a sponge walking around in this fragrant beautiful mountain city. We find the address and enter through a little wrought iron gate and climb the steps to the rooftop garden to where this gem of an art gallery is hidden. Through the art gallery we see many people already set up with their yoga mats. I introduce myself and my daughter, explaining that I am a teacher and that she is a serious student. Sometimes people are skeptical when I bring my daughters with me because they assume children will be disruptive, so the disclaimer is an important one. The teacher reminds me of many of the international family of teachers I have met over the years through the Sivananda Yoga ashrams and centers, and she recognizes the same spirit in me. We are instant distant family, comrades… as only two people can feel who have been through the same rigorous program or life event… or war. Martina and I find a corner facing a lovely wide open stone window in which many flowers and gardens can be seen, and we immerse ourselves into the over-2 hour practice. It is wonderful, and special and renders us so peaceful and soulful. You can see it all in my daughter’s face and eyes when she is finished, how good the practice makes you feel. I never forget this morning and it continues to be one of my all-time favorite travel moments in 18 countries around the world.
We meet up with Jason and Zoe for breakfast and today is extra-special because it is Zuleica’s brithday.
I tell her, “get whatever you want!” Hot chocolate of course. Along with her bacon and eggs and other accoutrements that we eat at a local recommended breakfast place. It is in an open air courtyard like much of Guatamala and there are little lizards scampering on the stucco walls as we eat to the sounds of tropical birds.
There are many spectacular hikes one can take in Antigua, but because of the heat and the kids we have decided on a shorter hike to Cerro De La Cruz which is situated at the top of the hill overlooking Antigua. On the way we stop at a local playground and take a walk through one of the small outskirt indigenous villages surrounding the post-colonial part of time. In one word it is, Sad. Very poor, a deforested shanty-style town. I felt disrespectful taking any photos of these peoples living situation but it made me feel ashamed at the incredibly disproportionate division of wealth. The inequity.
We spend only one more night in Antigua and the next day we take a cheap cab to Lake Atitlan- the inspiration for this trip.
Two and a half hours west and slightly north in an “exciting” ride through mountain roads and we go from the post-colonial town of Antigua to the mostly Indiginous inhabited Lake Atitlan. But more specifically, Lake Atitlan is actually several towns surrounding the lake, surrounded by 3 volcanoes! In one word Gorgeous! Panajachel is where we decided to stay because we were only staying for another 3 nights and wanted something we didn’t have to take a boat ride to from the other towns as our home base. It also hosts some of the best views of the volcanoes, since they are mostly on the south side of the lake towards San Lucas and Santiago!
Here’s the view from the place we were staying at, pictures Robert Mathias took of my girls and I.
