A Tour of Lago de Atitlán, Guatemala

Lago de Atitlán (Lake Atitlán) is probably the most famous part of the beautiful Central American country called Guatemala. It’s a crater lake surrounded by volcanoes, and tended by many Mayan cultures over thousands of years. Come with me as we visit some Mayan friends at the incredible Instituto Mesoamericano de Permacultura, or IMAP (the Mesoamerican Permaculture Institute), lakeside near San Lucas Tolimán. It’s a great story of regeneration. 

And what was already a big adventure, unexpectedly became an even bigger one! You’ll hear papa with me in this one too. And you can join the whole family on a full tour of IMAP on his podcast, in both Spanish and English (with photos). 

You can see my photographic journal of our whole journey in the Americas on my website, Yeshe Images.

I’d love to hear what you think. Do comment or get in touch.

Follow the podcast if you like, to get future episodes.

And to hear more episodes on Yeshe Interviews, head to my podcast website.

And you can check out my website Yeshe Images.

Thanks for listening and stay tuned! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

G'day, my name's Yeshi, and you're listening to Yeshi interviews. Now, this is a long story in a nutshell, so I'm not gonna be explaining it all. But basically, what we thought was just a one-day or technically a one afternoon trip to a permaculture property in Guatemala turned out to be an overnight stay somehow. So it's something to do with the transport system because we arrived on a Sunday and then yeah, so we're at Lake Atitlan in Guatemala and we were staying in San Juan, La Laguna, and we were staying in a hotel and we were planning to return that night, but when we caught the lancher to San Pedro, a lancher from there to Santiago, I think. And then we ended up catching two tuk-tuks, which are like small three-wheeled vehicles that can make a lot of noise, but they're generally pretty fast to get you to small destinations. And then we caught a pickup, which is kind of like a Ute if you're in Australia, and it's kind of like a truck cab at the front, and then an open deck at the back with fences up pretty much. But yeah, so when we arrived, we started having a chat with some friends here, and they told us that the last launcher was at 5 pm. So we're like, oh heck, because we had arrived at 4.01. We thought it would just be a quick launcher from San Juan, or at the very least, San Pedro, to the town near here. But that didn't turn out to be the case. So they offered us one of the rooms since we were going to have to stay the night, and we got a little tour of the property, and yeah, so right now it's the next morning, and we're just watching the sunrise over the lake, and we're waiting for a pickup to come at around six, which is actually around now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:37

Do you want to see this giant moth first?

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Wow. Papa's just seen this giant moth. It's like it's like one of my hand lengths, so maybe that would be around a tenth of a meter.

unknown 2:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:56

Ten centimeters?

SPEAKER_01 2:57

Ten centimeters? Yeah. Wow, that's a giant wingstone. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:04

Alright, let's go get a pickup.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

I'll post that on my website if I remember to. Let's go get a pickup.

SPEAKER_02 3:29

Chili, eh?

SPEAKER_01 3:32

Oh yeah, that's a good one.

SPEAKER_02 3:34

Look at that lake being fine.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

Yeah, it's an inconvenient time to get out of here.

SPEAKER_02 3:43

It's a beautiful time to come up.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

So now we're walking up. Uh the long driveway. It's very long.

SPEAKER_02 3:58

And it's the cleanest area. It's melting quite a month.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

Yeah. It is a long rope.

SPEAKER_02 4:15

What's up ahead?

SPEAKER_01 4:20

Huh? What do you mean?

SPEAKER_02 4:21

Volcanoes?

SPEAKER_01 4:23

Oh yeah. They put it long. I think it might be called a volcano in it. And that's because there are three volcanoes surrounding it.

SPEAKER_02 4:33

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Yeah. And those three volcanoes, I don't know what they're called, but I think they're all extinct, right?

SPEAKER_02 4:43

A titland?

SPEAKER_01 4:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:45

Tolly Mun, which is the one here, some Lucas Tollyman. And oh, some big look, huh? Some bigger. And they're extinct, I think, but one still smallers.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

Well, if it's still smallers, it's not still.

SPEAKER_02 5:04

Yeah. Hasn't erupted for 1025.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

Well, if it's still small, does that twigger? Fuego's fast is active.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

Well, Twiggle.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

Twigger is the volcano, the active volcano. Yeah, and eagle. Um it's usually the most popular to the mountain. I mean like the one you felt come to Badmore. Usually because there are so many squirrels. The the uh bit of the ball. Yeah, we've still a lot of squirrels on this haven't played.

SPEAKER_02 5:55

In Guate?

SPEAKER_01 5:56

No, in the US.

SPEAKER_02 5:57

Yeah, that's the first one in Guate.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:01

And then you can see I can line the volcano at the land over there. You can see that's a bear at the top. Is it still smaller?

SPEAKER_01 6:09

What?

SPEAKER_02 6:10

Is it rough?

SPEAKER_01 6:11

Well. Okay. I'll tell you something funny. So this morning when we were going to get breakfast, which was all left over from you know that was put in the fridge, but Mama didn't check the golden doll. Didn't say that it was set to number six. So then once you went to get it, when I went to stab my pork and some eggs, they were completely frozen. So was everything else. Except the platanots, which are kind of like large bananas that are cut in half and fry. And then yeah, so I think we salvaged them and maybe the cheese as well. Oh, it's still frozen for bread.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

What else was on the picky coat do you look like?

SPEAKER_01 7:21

Um well there were tortillas which a light monster killer squishy bread.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

There were tortards with a light hard tortillas. That's a truck.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

There was free homes, but just got there was buttercross, there was eggs, there was cheese, and there was sauce, which was frozen as well.

SPEAKER_02 8:07

Lasty. We left the lake for breakfast.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:12

Do you like how was that?

SPEAKER_01 8:23

Wow, that was absolutely cold. Yeah, that was crazy cold. My hands are numb now. I'm just whacking them around trying to get the blood back in them.

SPEAKER_02 8:38

You look like a zombie.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

Haha. I feel a zombie.

SPEAKER_02 8:45

Where are we now? What are we doing?

SPEAKER_01 8:46

We're in Santiago walking down to the boat dock to try and get a launcher to San Pedro. Now I don't think I mentioned it before, a launcher is it's kind of like a small motorboat that can fit many people, like up to at least 15 for the public ones and a lot more for the private ones. Mind you, the private ones cost a lot more as well, obviously. But yeah, so if there's not one street to San Juan from here, then we'll make a stop at San Pedro on the way over.

SPEAKER_02 9:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

Mm-hmm. So now we're back in San Juan, pretty much on the other side of the lake from when we started an hour and a half earlier, and it's just like absolute silence. You can't really hear anything. The pumping music and the tuk-tuks and the latches, they start around eight. We had to pay a little premium to get back from San Pedro. I guess because it's early, but no other people. Yeah, no other people wanting to come this early, so it was just us on the boat. And now we're walking back to our apartment at our hotel, ready to pack up and go back to Antigua for a few more days.

SPEAKER_02 10:30

And describe what you said?

SPEAKER_01 10:32

Yeah, well, not many people except for us. The occasional truck or chicken bus passing on the road up on the mountain, mama standing down at the shore, long grasses and the lake pretty much. And a few lanches. I noticed that the lake has like a haze coming off it.

SPEAKER_02 10:59

It's the cool of the morning here, because the sun hits it.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

Yeah, it's like when you have the hot ground around the pool and then you splash cold water on the pool.

SPEAKER_02 11:09

Yeah, vapor, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

But so thick, you can see it.

SPEAKER_02 11:17

And what does it look like? What else do you notice?

SPEAKER_01 11:20

Glassy, definitely. No wind at all.

SPEAKER_02 11:24

It's idyllic, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 11:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:28

Which is fitting, I guess, because of where we were. Wanna describe that a bit more? Ema, what did that look like?

SPEAKER_01 11:34

Yeah, so that was like it's a giant permaculture property, so there were gardens everywhere and trees, and it was the first night that we had here where we weren't hearing barking dogs all night.

SPEAKER_02 11:54

Yeah, that's what I noticed too.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

We got dinner delivered.

SPEAKER_02 11:59

Wasn't that nice.

SPEAKER_01 12:00

Yeah. In the morning it was frozen, so I am looking forward to having some bread with honey when we get back.

SPEAKER_02 12:10

Local honey, native honey, wasn't it? I think made by the Maya. And um what sort of regeneration did you see at the moment?

SPEAKER_01 12:20

Well, a lot of there was a lot of gardens. They had a worm farm and they were all it was all like wet mulch.

SPEAKER_02 12:32

Seed bank.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:34

What else did you enjoy playing with?

SPEAKER_01 12:37

Um, the metal pieces that they had building for from building something.

SPEAKER_02 12:43

And down in the conservation area? In the island?

SPEAKER_01 12:47

Oh, in the island. They ha oh, they had this water pump that's supposed to take water from the lake and pump it through to irrigate the trees. In summer, yeah. In summer. So I had a go on that, and it's pretty much like that machine that you consider the gym that's like a walking machine, it's pretty much like that. So I was pumping it pretty hard.

SPEAKER_02 13:18

Like a crazy boy. Alright, are we done? Can we go pack up and head back to Antigo?

SPEAKER_01 13:26

Yeah. That was a tour of like I did long, or at least half of it, maybe. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Adios.

SPEAKER_02 13:43

Good work. Good work, mehoe.