Guatemala - Part XV

Wednesday, July 1st (part one)

On this day I took somewhere between 115 and 150 pictures!  It was probably one of the most adventurous of our adventures.  On this day, we awoke in Panajachel, one of several towns on the shores of a beautiful (and large) lake surrounded by volcanoes.

On our way to and from breakfast (at which I had the best orange juice I ever tasted), we were approached by a man with a bicycle and a map offering a boat ride to and tours of some of the other lakeside towns/villages.  As hinky as that sounds, ultimately we put our trust in these people and got on a boat headed for a village named San Juan la Laguna.

Selfie with the volcanoes - the three of them that fit in the picture anyway.

Three words: scariest - pier - ever!

On our way!  (I got so wet!)

Now that's extreme-angled farming!

That's Mayan for...something.  This is what you see arriving at the pier at San Juan.

This contraption is called a "tuk-tuk" and somehow we fit seven adults and eight children into two of these.
The words "clown car" come to mind.  (Surely that's a direct translation.)

Learning from some Mayan women how they make all those amazing, colorful, woven products.

This Mayan woman is telling us about medicinal herbs she and others use to make medicines and many other things.

San Juan Bautista (St. John the Baptist) church...The brick to the left is the original.  The grey is the newer addition.
See the "reclining Mayan man" on the left?  Look again at the mountain.  See his forehead and nose and chin?
A visual representation of how the traditional culture and the Western religions are living together everywhere here.

From San Juan we got back into the boat and headed back onto the lake to visit the next town.  We'll visit it together tomorrow night in another post.  :)