San Marcos, Lake Atitlan!

15.04

After spending some time at Lencho´s place in order to pass the data (Actually it took us longer than we thought) we had to move in order to see new places and live new experiences! When we were asking other travellers about places that worth to see, there was a place that everybody mentioned. And this was the Lake Atitlan, Around the lake, there were located a lot of communities, with different characteristics each. Our choice, was San Marcos which was a more relaxed place, deep into spirituality and known to possess a trapping energy!!

And indeed, this place was kind of.. Magic! The landscape was pretty strong, and the energy surrounding it quite intense, also due to the nice people around it. We camped in our hostel Kaivalya in which we found amazing people that helped us a lot when we needed it. In general you could find in the place a lot of spirituality: yoga courses, mediation meetings, reiki sessions, reflexology, medicinal plant excursions etc etc etc, all in considerable (European) prices.. And this made us a bit frustrated. However we learned to cope with it, abstaining from consuming for spiritual purposes, and try to find our way in the place! And this is when we first heard for the cacao ceremony!

In a small yard with a biiiig huge garden all around, we first met Keith (the cacao shaman, as people refer to him), Barbara, as well as plenty of happy beautiful beings (some of them with substantial features, others with ethereal etc.). The ceremony included the drinking of a powerful dose of cacao while calling the cacao spirits, and a deep meditation guided by Keith afterwards.

As they are inviting the cacao spirits! 

The ceremony was quite intense. In the beginning is difficult to shut your logical mind and only feel with your soul. But once you achieve it, everything comes on its own! You learn to smile passionately (go to glow as he was referring to it) and to transmit all the good energy that you have inside you, to your beloved ones.. We hope that all of you felt, the excessive amounts of love that we send you during those days! :D
Something special about this place, is that Keith was asking more for a donation and not a strict payment, which could also be a voluntary work for a morning in his beautiful garden! And that´s what we did. If you want to know more about Keith and the cacao ceremony you can take a look here: http://ceremonialcacao.blogspot.com/. Keith is planning an excessive tour in Europe, where is going to curry out the ceremony, with fellow cacao mystics of the world!

As you can see this time, the photos are not ours, as we forgot to take (care of) our camera! But no hard feelings at all. After all we learned that there are not mistakes, only lessons to be learned! And this is the best thing that we got out of that place. Lessons that make you improve, and be a better person.
Lessons and beautiful, helpful people. And with these powers, we go on..

Guatemala city

Guatemala city has been quite vivid! We´ve been lucky to be there when the celebrations for the Holy week have started. Fortunately, we stayed in a ¨chillero¨ hostel (Pension Meza) with beautiful happy people!! As Nere told you before, supposedly commandante Che Guevara have passed from this hostel, which fact made it even more wonderful! 

One of the permanent tenants,  classical figure that makes a lot of bird voices  aaaallll the morning long! Also know as the duck!! :P

Our beautiful room!

The veranda of the hostel!

The rich gardin of the hostel!

Mayan woman, making beautiful offerings from maize and flowers for Jesus! 

Whole streets were decorated with colorful mosaics.  Theparade with the  tomb of Jesus is supposed to pass over them. 

How the mosaics were made, with small colored grains! Beautiful and quite laborious.

The parade starts.

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It was a huuuuuuuuge gigantic tomb, more than 60 men, dressed in traditional  cloaks, were carrying  it!

Wonderful philarmonic orchestra was playing veeery good music to accompany the parade! 

The previously beautiful mosaic, after the passage of the parade! Just colored dust..

As a beautiful greek song says: Borders, irons, railings and fences  (Synora, sidera, kagkela kai fraxtes...)

Colorful walls around the city! Fortunately a lot of good graffiti artists in the city!

And beautiful old buildings...

Women in resistance! 

Close to the city center. An attempt to catch the heartbeat!

Also fancy colored malls!

Mayan woman

All over the city!!! 

Heading to Utopia!

Friday 16.02

As we have one week free, we decided to find a place where you can relaaaax and at teh same time have a loot of things to see around. During our stay in Antigua, we have seen a beatiful poster of a hostel called Utopia, and we trusted the name and the beautiful description...!
So yesterday we got on several buses, full buses, extremely full buses, with people hanging out of the door, behind, on top etc.. And try to reach the place were it is supposed to be located the 8th miracle of the world: Semuc Champey..And always, the way to paradise it´s hard!

As we arrived late at night we couldn´t really assess the landscape around as. But we could understand everything in the morning... Pure paradise: In the middle of the "jungle" next to the banks of the river Cahabon a huuge wooden "tipi" works as our hostel. We are staying in dorms and private rooms which are all open to the fresh air and sometyimes the refreshing rain, with around 30 people with a super friendly staff ready to make every wish of us truth (always for the right price!!!) Our relaxing week just started...

This is what I saw from my bed when I woke up....                               

Umma Gumma and the lost mayans

We have found a very cute and cheap hostel where to live, it's named UmmaGumma, it is the land of hippies, batik t-shirts hang on the dryer, psychedelic decoration, a rooftop for chilling with bar and open kitchen... oh yes, this is the place where to establish first!
We have visited the different markets of Antigua, you can find everything you need on the streets, fabrics, crafts, books, food.... We have eaten our first "comida chapina" (chapín=guatemalteco) at the market, a nice enchilada, a ball of fried banana with frijol dulce (sweet beans) inside, something with chicken, and we have not experienced any sickness :p yesss!!

Even though you can find Thai, Japanese, Greek, Italian, etc food here, there are still some typical places with very cheap and nice food: you can have a whole meal, including a just made orange with papaya juice, for 3 euros, even cheaper if you eat at the market, could be an euro for 2 people!

My first impressions about what is maya are confusing. You can see "maya restaurant", "maya this", "maya that" everywhere, but what does that really mean? So far I see it as a marketing issue rather than cultural. The mayas were extinct long time ago, and most of the current population hold the catholic, protestant or evangelic religion, don't wear the tipical clothes and don't consider themselves as indigenous. And currently, there are communities that try to maintain their culture or rescue it.
In general, it's very difficult to assess who are indigenous and who are not, unless they are pale, then it's easy. And the ones that wear the typical clothes are the conservative people, the ones are selling crafts on the streets or fruits on the markets. But, I would like to know how do they live, and what makes them conservative, do they still maintain their religion? practices? We will know more about this further in our trip...