San Marcos

Today I went to San Marcos by boat - it took about 40 minutes to get there. On the boat I met Susan from Stuttgart and Alisa from Berlin. They also came to study Spanish and they will work in orphanages outside of Antigua. We exchanged addresses in Antigua and we will hang out after school. We arrived at San Marcos and we saw many signs advertising various hotels and retreats. Susan and Alisa found a place in which they would spend the night. We asked the hotel owner where the village was and he said "Oh, I don't know really, I think it's somewhere there (he pointed left), or there (he pointed right), well, you will walk up and see it somewhere up the slope." He has lived there, it seems, for some time but he didn't know where the village was! Meaning the original village. Where he lives is the "new village" built by foreigners. We started walking around the "new village" and we thought we would just turn back and hop on the boat and go right back to Panajachel. The "new village" looks like some kind of a commune of totally organic people, organic to the very extreme limits: "Here's a place when you will feel good, where we will find the deepest secrets of your childhood and we will cure you for ever of all your old traumas", "Find your inner child and be free for ever", "Compost is holly, don't waste it", "Here's a separate toilet for pee and there is a toilet for poo, please use our toilets responsibly", "No toilet paper is permitted" (is that some kind of dictatorship, again???), "The food is totally organic, grown in our gardens, fertilized by our own compost" (from the poo toilets perhaps?). The place is full of healers, acupuncturists, herbalists, homepathic doctors. There's meditation and yoga 24/7, extreme detoxication, purification, etc., etc. I am pro hollistic healing and alternative medicine. It helped me tremendously and I have no bad word to say about it. HOWEVER! Anything too much of and concentrated in one place is not good. It looks like a Disney Land of alternative medicine. It is just so separated from reality that next to Hollywood it's the most artifical, silliest place I have seen so far. The tourists wander around in this elated state of nirvana, now that their traumas have been cured and their bodies purified. They are ready to become saints. I felt like asking one of them: "Hey, is there any McDonald or a Burger King here, man?" The place seemed so holly that I felt like a little of blasphemy might be helpful... to keep the balance. What is worst about the "new village" is that there is a clear division between the tourist who come to the retreats and the indigenious people who work for them: there are masters and servants. The local people's mentality is completely changed: they are not nice out of kindness of the heart but because they will get a bigger tip if they are nice. So they are nice in a very slimy and fake way. Terrible. Later, coming back, I met two girls from Argentina who were also running away from San Marcos as fast as they could. I guess it's the usual story of a place which becomes a tourist attraction, where the needs of the tourists are served and local customs disappear. And where the newcomers are so rich in comparison to the local people.

The three of us, Alisa, Susan and I, were forced, out of hunger, to have the very organic lunch and afterwards we decided to climb the slope around the lake to get away from the village. It was mid-day so it was rather hard to climb in this heat but the views of the volcanoes, the lake, and other "real" villages on the distant shores were magnificent. The water was deliciously torqouise, the surface slightly wrinkled. I think I have to agree with Aldous Huxley that it is one of the most beautiful lakes I have seen. We then found a little beach and some rocks to sit on and that was the best part of the day. The local women were washing their clothes and kids in the lake. Another group of kids came a little later and we had so much fun observing them play in the water. I played with them as well - they were splashing water on me (when I was reading a book), a few times their ball landed on my head - they were little pranksters. I laughed and that, of course, encouraged them to play closer to me. More splashes and more giggling. Local dogs came, were shaking off water on me, put their muzzles on my book, leaned against my back. O what fun that was! On my way back in Panajachel I bought a beautifuly embroidered shirt - I couldn't say no to a very nice man with a little son. He said "This one is the best for you" and I put it on at home and it's true: it's goregous. It will remind me of the fun on the beach today.