Vigilanteism is alive and well in Guatemala!

My first day in Guatemala was eventful. A shuttle driver met me at Guatemala City airport and I was the only passenger for the long trip through the mountains to Panajachel on Lake Atitlan. He barely spoke English and I barely speak Spanish but he was very kind. I felt so safe and was very thankful.

Luckily I had Clair's Spanish phrase book with me and figured out he was telling me there was trouble in ¨Pana¨ and the pass may be blocked. We made it to Sololal, a Maya community just before the pass to Pana, around 4 or 5 pm. He stopped at a friend´s house to get the latest news.

Luckily there was another shuttle bus waiting there too with English-speaking tourists. They told me four robbers from the big city had started robbing Pana.  Three women and one guy. The town people got really mad and started a riot. They blocked the only road out of Pana and hunted down the robbers. They lynched the guy and the police took the women to the local jail. Yikes! I had just read in my Lonely Planet guide on the airplane that this sometimes occurs. It said that while it may be hard for us to understand this, the politics are complicated and so they resort to an age-old justice system when push comes to shove...Anyhow, the women weren't safe so finally the army helicoptered them out and the people opened the road. We began our way down around 7 pm. The road was littered with boulders and huge trees for about two kilometres along the road. They must have been pretty freaked to haul so much stuff on the road.

One of the American travellers in Solola explained that they are totally dependent on tourism and don´t want robbers thinking they can come here anytime and destroy their means of livelihood. He spends about half a year in Guatemala and Mexico trading. He seems to have a pretty healthy respect and good understanding of the cuture here. Lake Atitlan recently became toxic, which may also explain the desperation behind the people's reaction.

Luckily Jessica was OK, though she saw them dragging the guy, which kinda sucks. She had to hide someplace downtown for hours, until things calmed down. She and her boyfriend met me when I got there around 8:30 pm, and we grabbed some food and called it an early night.

I'm staying in a bare "bungalow" close to Jessica's. It has its own bathroom and outside there are poinsettia trees growing. I've only ever seen the plants so when I realized I was looking at bushes of red blossoms that look just like the Christmas flowers, I was amazed! They are supposed to be really hard to grow but here, they grow naturally!

The only other adventure in the day was my luggage missed my connecting flight in Houston. I had 20 minutes to get to the 2nd plane - in another terminal - and my luggage wasn´t as quick as me :-) The coolest thing happened though. At the Guatemala airport, I was looking for my bag, which I realized might not be there, and an airport worker approached me and asked, ¨Are you Sally?¨ Wow! I didn't even have to do anything. She told me my luggage was delayed, got Jessica´s phone number and told me she would send it on the shuttle tomorrow. It´s now tomorrow and I haven´t got it yet but it´s on its way. We just phoned the airport.

In the meantime, Jess is giving me everything I need.

Today we took a trip around the lake to San Marcos on a ferry. It´s beautiful. The mountains and lake are like Nelson, only more spaced apart and smaller. Jess says the altitude is much higher. I haven´t had any problem adjusting and feel totally normal. San Marcos is like being in California in Guatemala. It is full of retreat centres for wealthy health-conscious people. Organic restaurants, yoga and massage schools, you name it. There are also many luxurious houses built into the mountain sides along the lake owned by wealthy Americans. This place became a mecca to the hippies in the 60s and 70s and still is. The Maya people squeeze in around them, in huts higher up in the mountains.

I saw the little mountain that inspired the guy who wrote the Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery´s illustration of the elephant. Do you remember that picture in the Little Prince? The mountain is the same shape (without the legs). Apparently he wrote the book in San Marcos. Who woulda thought?