DAY 9... BOAT TO SANTIAGO ATITLÁN

DAY 9

Weekend. No classes. I plan to play it very much by ear and just see what today brings. I find myself standing in front of the pier for boats to the neighboring town of Santiago Atitlán. And I think to my little devious self: Why not just get on the boat and go to Santiago and see what happens? So I do. It’s somewhat warm and sunny today for a change and for that reason I have donned a t-shirt, beach pants and flip-flops, trying to be a little touristy for a change. It’s another 30 minutes until the boat leaves. They say the trip will take about 40 minutes. I watch Mayan women get on, carrying their huge bundles, dressed in amazing pieces of almost totally embroidered clothing. One young woman sits at the stern of the boat, a little sideways and tips her head to one side, peering into the grey water and it is a picture I never want to forget. A young man gets on. He, too, is in traditional dress, really cool looking in striped blue pants that stop at the knee, a matching blue shirt, a woven sash of many colors and one of the sort of western, cowboy hats that you see here. These hats are hugely high, as in the hat part of the hat is about 8 or 9 inches inches tall and worn sitting on the top of the head, not pulled down on the forehead. A little strange looking. Exactly like I hate for a hat to sit, as if it is way too small for your big head and you were really stupid and never figured out that your hat didn’t fit you.

Well, this Mayan guy turns out to be my new best friend at least for this boat trip. As the boat putters along, skirting the edge of the volcano we talk. We trade questions and he teaches me some Mayan words. I never realized that they have sounds that are simply glottal clicks. It’s amazing. These people are totally adept at both Spanish and their particular Mayan language group, at least most of them speak Spanish. My new friend tells me that he works in a shop in Santiago that sells artesanías. His name is Domingo.

We steam into the almost hidden inlet where Santiago is perched on the edges of the volcano It’s charming looking and Domingo is obviously proud of his town and not at all reluctant to let me know that I am crazy to be in San Pedro and not in Santiago. We hop onto the pier and Domingo invites me to take a look at his shop. I hope it is not full of a bunch of kitsch tourist stuff because as we make our way up the hill we pass unbelievable Mayan textiles. He, however, is not interested in looking at anything on the way. And, you guessed it, his shop (I meet his boss) is pretty much certifiable, solid kitsch. I know this will take some slippery maneuvering to get out without spending any money here or hurting anybody’s feelings, but soon I am on my way back to see those textiles. It begins raining, well, pouring. I must be the only person in this whole town out looking at textiles in the rain. I go from place to place telling people that today I am not buying anything, just looking and find that I have discovered a great way to get negotiations started:

‘How much will you offer me for it?’
‘No, señora, today I am just looking’.
(Gringo tries to leave the shop)
‘But, señor, I will make you a good price.
You can have a special discount!
(Gringo aims at some ridiculously low price in order to be able to leave the shop)
‘I cannot offer you more than 220 Quetzales.’
‘It’s not much, señor, for 6 months of work. 250 Quetzales!’

I have almost unwittingly become the proud new owner of an amazing huipile from the area of Nabaj for around $30 dollars. It is totally embroidered in a illogical array of geometric patterns and abstracted animals shapes in colors of deep green, burgundy, yellow and tan on heavy, hand-woven caramel colored material of two lienzos which means the base material was woven on back strap looms and two separate pieces were then sewn together to give the huipile it’s width of perhaps something like 33 inches.

If you were here on the boat with me back to San Pedro you might be thinking that the other people on the boat were sad. They are indeed very quiet. They move very little. They look far into the distance without straining. There is quietness. Mostly people don’t speak. They seem to communicate by touch or by glance. There is no filling the air with busy chatter. And there is timelessness as the boat moves through the rainy afternoon lake. I don’t think this is sadness. It’s something else. Something like being able simply to ‘sit with time’, sit plump with it, just letting it be, realizing that if anything is eternal, time is eternal; and then looking long and deeply into its eyes like trading long glances with an old friend.