Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras: Lake Atitlán 1

This was the fabulous view from our 4th floor bedroom that we woke up to (the vast expanse of concrete is the restaurant roof) and feeling refreshed after a wonderful night's sleep we thought we'd walk down to the lake shore.

In fact we couldn't even get out of the hotel grounds!

But luckily the restaurant was open for breakfast earlier than advertised and having learnt the correct way to order Fried Egg Yolks from Francisco (yemas fritas) and not huevos pero sola la amarilla (eggs but only the yellow) as I'd been saying I had a delicious breakfast, although we had a good giggle about this spoon which wouldn't actually fit into the glass of granola and yoghurt - photo taken at the wrong angle so you can't really see as there's another glass behind.

This volcano reminds me of when we were in Darjeeling and everywhere we turned were fabulous views of Mt Kanchenjunga (3rd tallest in the World) both were strangely hypnotic.

Here are two of the 3 volcanoes

A couple more views from the water's edge.

We are a very timely group and wandered down to the shoreline to board our boat for the lake trip bang on the appointed time.

Unfortunately the driver wasn't quite as punctual and so we sat onboard waiting for some time. This bright yellow-green boat was extremely smelly and eventually "hove to", or whatever the correct nautical expression for pulling up alongside us is, and eventually turned off its engines.

So far we've seen very few birds so I had to take this Brown Jay.

Finally we set off for our trip across the lake to visit a couple Maya towns. The crossing was surprisingly choppy and on more than one occasion we hit the water quite hard causing one of the group to get rather anxious.

Our first stop was Santiago Atitlán and there were some lovely houses on the lake side.

Presumably these little shelters are for fishermen.

The town itself is more of a housing jumble.

There's clearly plenty of money around with all these posh boats.

Some of the views back across the lake are just breathtaking.

It was quite a steep walk up into town - a few snaps en route.

Wall art.

I love the Ferrari symbols on this but hopefully the driver doesn't rely wholly on Jesus to guide his tuk tuk.

Our first stop was to visit a Maya deity known here as Maximón and if I thought the goings on in San Juan Chamula had been weird, it was tame compared with what we witnessed here; the cult and adoration of Maximón - whereby the syncretism, or religious mixture, that exists in this area has resulted in an actual entity being created.

The following is taken from an article, originally written in Spanish for the Los Angeles Times which I've translated (with a little help from Google in places) and augmented with information Emilio gave us:

Maximón is an ancient deity and a physical representation of the Maya spirit Rijlaj Mam, who himself is venerated as the protective guardian of Tz'utujil people (a Maya ethnic group); as they believe he was created by the Heart of Heaven and the Heart of Earth at the unique moment of The Creation.

Local tradition holds that before Maximón existed, evil had begun to rule the 11 towns around Lake Atitlán whereby the manifestation of the underworld, through witches and devils, was being used to control the people. Good people began dying of diarrhoea and vomiting so the nahuale (priests) of the various towns got together for a big meeting and decided that good forces alone weren’t sufficient to control the evil and what was really needed was a benevolent force that wasn’t averse to using a bit of evil where necessary. Speaking with their Maya gods, they asked Rijlaj Mam for his protection and he generously offered to incarnate himself in a figure carved in wood.

So the priests began to look for the right wood to carve the body but no tree was said to be worthy of providing the necessary, so they began to make it with pieces of old rags tied together with cords. Just as they were finishing the rag body, a tree finally offered its wood, but the work was already so advanced that only the face was missing. None of the priests wanted to undo their work so they only accepted the wood to carve the face that was still missing.

When Rijlaj Mam was finished, with its carved wooden face, it was given the name of Maximón, which in Mayan means "the one who is tied with a cord or bow". The priests had only just finished the figure when they were visited by a beautiful woman who invited them to drink atol (a corn drink) and eat bread, to celebrate. When the woman said goodbye, the drink turned into urine and the bread turned into faecal waste. They say that a woman's voice was heard in the air laughing and celebrating having deceived the priests. However the priests were very happy because they were sure that this woman was none other than Rijlaj Mam himself.

With Rijlaj Man reborn in the form of Maximón everything changed in the lake communities: the witches began to flee and the devils succumbed to his power and peace descended over the whole region once again. Rijlaj Man then demanded he be rewarded for protecting those communities, but he only wanted one thing: to be their patriarch and to be recognized as the Great Grandfather.

The locals adored the image of Maximón but when the Spanish invaded in the 16th century the Catholic Church considered him persona non gratia and on a par with Judas Iscariot because of his habit of using evil to bring good to the population and so banned him from all the temples. Without having a physical place to be worshipped in, Maximón told the local priests to create Cofradías, brotherhoods who would disregard the Spanish Rulers/Catholic Church’s authority and arrange for Maximón to be worshiped wherever they chose and so he began travelling through the various towns around the lake and spending 365 days in each. Until that is he visited Santiago where, after his year in residence, he decided to stay – simply because he felt that he had been very well received by the local Cofradía, who had celebrated with alcohol and tobacco in an continuous 365 day party throughout the year he spent in that community.

So Maximón remains in Santiago and the modern day Cofradías simply move him from one house to another each year (usually during Holy Week) and join him in smoking tobacco and drinking any alcoholic beverage while they are on duty. This seems to please Great Grandfather, the one who doesn't stop smoking, drinking and looking with his small eyes at everyone who visits him with their popular offerings of money, tobacco and home brewed alcohol.

Because Emilio hadn’t visited the town for over 2 years due to Covid, the first thing he had to do was ask around and find out exactly where Maximón was currently residing.

To take Maximón's photo I firstly offered some money, to and gained the permission from, the Cofradías sitting beside him - which was delivered with the briefest nod of ascent.