Today I visited some of the other villages around Lago Atitlán: San Marcos La Laguna, San Juan La Laguna, San Pedro La Laguna, and Santiago Atitlán. The villages are all connected by small boats shuttling people around, and to make things for tourists even easier, there are tours visiting the four villages in a row, with about one hour to spend in each place.
After the heavy afternoon rains yesterday, I was pleasantly surprised by the morning weather. In sunlight, the lake suddenly looked a lot more alluring than during a shower ;-)
The villages were all quite nice, but became increasingly touristic as the day went on. There were also no real sights to see - just the villages with their indigenous population and traditional weaving. This is the dock of the first one, San Marcos La Laguna:
In Santiago Atitlán, there was one big attraction hidden behind hundreds of handicraft shops: the Maya god Maximón. Maximón was a somewhat short male statue, dressed up with a hat, traditional clothing and lots of shawls. He has a mouth that is frequently used to give him spirits to drink and cigarettes to smoke. And, in typical Latin American fashion, venerating Maximón and making offerings to him is somehow integrated into Catholicism: there is a big parade with Maximón in the Easter week, and with that parade, he also changes his lodgings. Each year, Maximón is housed in a different home in the city - which has the funny side effect that guidebooks cannot print directions as to how to find Maximón; you have to rely on information locals give you. All in all, I found that the customs regarding Maximón were surprisingly similar to the mine god Tío in Bolivia.
Since photography would have multiplied the cost of the visit, I chose not to - Wikipedia has a few. But to give you an idea, I found similar statues a little later, in the catholic church. This one is less opulently dressed and does not have a "functional" mouth, but otherwise quite similar:
It being market day in Santiago Atitlán, we also had the opportunity to see lots of indigenous Maya selling wares in their traditional clothing. Like in Bolivia, it is still normal for indigenous people to wear their traditional dresses here. Beautiful!
