The Guatemala Diaries: Part II

 

The journey through the rural Guatemalan south led across the highlands, reaching 3000m above the coastal plains which descend towards the Pacific Ocean. A two day marathon journey had me sitting nice and tightly at the rear of a small Korean made minibus. As is customary in Guatemala they managed to overfill the van by about 20 people leaving me as the centre of attention for inquisitive locals and livestock alike. I was beginning to discover that this country consisted of little else than a large rural population whose lives stood in stark contrast to the 20% living in Guatemala city and a few tourist enclaves.

I made my way to the refreshingly diverse Lago Atitlán, as a guest of a fellow traveller currently resident at the lake. With ten villages surrounding the edges of the lakes shore, it offered some of Guatemala’s most spectacular views with a backdrop made up of two volcanoes, towering 1500 m above the lake’s edge, a perfect opportunity for hiking.

As a guest, I had the privilege of a staying in a lake-side cabin as well as an introduction to the sizeable foreign community permanently based there. Small business owners, expats from Guatemala City, long-term travellers and gracefully ageing hippies lived side by side with the Guatemalan population in a bitter-sweet relationship which for the most part seemed mutually beneficial.

A two day local religious festival in the local village of Santa Cruz proved a fascinating experience. Aside from a traditional procession common to most Christian festivals, villagers were entertained late into each night by a dancing procession consisting of some quite confusing dress, think Star Wars meets the Village People. I was informed that the purpose of most of the festivals was for the men to drink themselves into a complete stupor while wives and children patiently waited for them to collapse allowing them to be dragged home to sober up in time for the following day’s festivities.

A week spent enjoying the hiking opportunities through the jungle and the very slow pace of life afforded me time to enjoy my surroundings. Subsequently I only spent a final night in Guatemala City. The reality of the city stood in contrast to the relaxed atmosphere of the country. The relative lack of any bandit activity in the hills was replaced with high walls, razor wire and tinted SUVs. There was no doubt that a few centralised monopolies constituted the dominant economic forces in Guatemala, one family owns the entire nation’s speed bump production. The insight derived from the contrasting regions of Guatemala has not progressed significantly further than the era of Guevara’s own writings on the Latin American condition. An indigenous population subsumed by the modern day state yet denied the full range of privileges expected with citizenship and manipulated for the benefit of the urban commercial-political elite.