Coban Mini Marathon May 2007
CAG teachers completing the run

Secrets of the Talking Jaguar (Introduction to Guatemala: A Deep Love Affair)

By Prechtel, M. (1999)
NY: Penguin Putnam.

Guatemala Rising
 
By Steve Hendrix
Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive

It was easy to get a table at Frida's last weekend, and one with some elbow room to boot. Gone, temporarily, was the chair-to-chair Friday night crush in one of the most popular restaurants in Guatemala's tourist hub of Antigua. For a change at this cantina, which is dedicated and decorated in honor of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, there's no line at the door, mojitos arrive instantly, and the chatter and clatter levels are well below their usual roar.
 
 And not just at Frida's. All along Cinco Avenida Norte -- under Antigua's signature cupola-topped yellow arch -- restaurants are half-empty, curio shops are at idle and many a plum, courtyard-facing hotel room is available.
 
 "There are normally many more people in Antigua, but now they've all been scared off," said Antonio, a waiter killing time on the sidewalk in front of La Fonda de La Calle Real, a fashionable base for traditional Guatemalan cooking. La Fonda has been turning diners away since President Bill Clinton raved about his grilled beef dinner here in 1999, but only half the tables are filled now. "It's too bad, because nothing happened to Antigua."
 
 He's right. The streets of Antigua are clear, which is a good thing. While other parts of Guatemala are digging out from Hurricane Stan's assault earlier this month, Antigua escaped with no harm to the colonial core that attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors a year. But the streets are quiet, which isn't so good for the hotel, bar and restaurant employees who live off of tourism in this UNESCO World Heritage showpiece.
 
 In the wake of Stan, which demolished riverside neighborhoods in towns around the country, Guatemala saw a sharp drop in international visitors. Even though most of the tourist infrastructure was untouched, travelers understandably canceled plans to visit in the face of dire video and uncertain conditions. But tourism is now Guatemala's biggest industry. And at the start of high season, locals are worried they will be more buffeted by the economic fall-off than by the hurricane.
 
 "Tourism has become not only the major source of income for the country, but the major tool for development in many regions," said Guillermo Castillo, Guatemala's ambassador to the United States. "We hope this will just have a small impact in the short term once people see that the country is standing and back in business. The nicest period of the year is about to start, beautiful sunny days from here to January." In fact, there are signs the slump may be short-lived. Of the big three attractions that make up the typical Guatemalan itinerary -- Antigua, the Mayan ruins at Tikal and the spectacular vistas of Lake Atitlan -- two dodged hurricane damage completely. The 16th-century streets of Antigua are open for business. And at Tikal, which is reached by a short flight from Guatemala City to the country's remote northeast corner, the millennial hush of temples towering over the rain forest canopy is undisturbed.
 
 At Lake Atitlan, scene of the some of the worst damage, Stan's scars are visible as white streaks on the hills and on back roads still lined with piles of earth. But even there, in the gateway town of Panajachel, the main tourist zones were spared, the government has cleared one of the tricky mountain roads to the town and the other is expected to open soon.
 
 During a visit two weeks ago, a few days after the storm, I saw the number of sightseeing gringos increase every day in Guatemala City, Antigua and Lake Atitlan. Overland travel was appreciably faster at the end of my week-long trip than at the beginning. And tourists who visited despite the hurricane said they had no regrets about coming.
 
 "We had to wait for half an hour at a blocked road coming out here, but other than that we've had no problems," said Gil Paza, waiting for a tourist van to depart from Panajachel. He and his wife were visiting from Israel for two weeks. In eight days, they'd been to the capital, Antigua and the lake. They were on their way now to the Rio Dulce on the Caribbean coast and would fly up to Tikal as a finale. "Now the shuttles and boats are running on schedule. People have been very happy to see us. They need the dollars. I think everything is okay here."
 
 However fleeting they may be, the setbacks of Stan occurred just as Guatemala is emerging as the Americas' latest tourism phenom. Quietly, the country that for years was synonymous with civil war and strife has gone from the exclusive province of wandering hippies and savvy textile traders to one of the most popular general destinations in the region. Bus tours and Elderhostel groups now break tortillas alongside backpackers and hard-core antiquity buffs. CBS filmed its latest "Survivor" installment on the Pacific coast, and Francis Ford Coppola has opened an eco-lodge near Tikal. Guatemala lured 1.2 million visitors last year, hard on the heels of Costa Rica, long the reigning king of Central American tourism with 1.4 million tourists in 2004.
 
 I got the Guatemala bug five years ago when I came to write about a Spanish school near Tikal. It wasn't love at first sight. Guatemala City is homely and sprawling. And the escape from the airport takes place on choked streets amid an ongoing monster bus rally, the highways heavy with prettily painted but aggressive and diesel-belching road hogs. Ugh.
 
 So much for first impressions. Within days, they were blown away forever in a lush mountain terrain filled with the echoes of past civilizations -- from booming Mayan grandeur to the trills of colonial conceit. Like many a hardened traveler, I'm usually more eager to bag a new stamp for my passport than go back over old ground. But Guatemala turned me into a repeat customer. I couldn't get enough of Antigua's fountain-filled courtyards, the volcano-scapes of the highlands, coffee brewed by the gods and tortillas clapped into being by such hospitable local people.
 
 Finally, my affair with the country was consummated last year when my wife and I and some Washington friends took the ultimate plunge and bought an actual chunk of the place, a small house on Lake Atitlan. We had eyed For Sale signs in plenty of other beauty spots around the world, but sanity had always asserted itself before any money actually changed hands. In Guatemala, a four-hour flight from Washington, we didn't even resist.
 
 Inevitably, as war has faded from headlines to history and the country has haltingly laid on better roads and passable hotels, Guatemala's formidable assets have begun to assert themselves: a deep indigenous tradition, a landscape of 32 steep volcanoes rising over flowered tropical valleys, a pervasive sense of craftsmanship in everything from a Mayan woman's blouse to the carved frogs of an Antigua doorway. Culture, artistry, orchids -- these are the grace notes that lure travelers to Asia. Guatemala is the Thailand of the Americas.
 
 For decades, most tourists knew little more about Guatemala than the famous ruins at Tikal. Even when war and poverty kept them out of other parts of the country, intrepid travelers flew or drove in from Belize and Mexico for a flash visit to the onetime Mayan capital. The caps of the highest temples rise above the canopy like mountain peaks through a green nimbus of cloud. Within a 200-acre national park, three mighty ziggurats, up to 20 stories high, line a shady campus where warriors once sipped chocolate and plotted empire. Howler monkeys provide a basso evening chorus for the tourists who climb to the top of the Lost World pyramid to watch the abrupt tropical sunset (take a flashlight for the walk out).
 
 Hundreds of day-tripping tourists arrive every day on flights from Guatemala City, where several companies offer one-, two- and three-day packages. But stay at least a night, if for no other reason than to snag both sunset and sunrise time amid the Mayan skyscrapers. The lodging options used to be limited to a few modest tourist hotels outside the ruins' entrance, or a few others in Flores, 90 minutes away by the one good highway. But the hotel choices have gotten more numerous and upscale in recent years. Coppola's eco-lodge, La Lancha, is the most notable recent entry. Near Flores on the shores of Lake Peten Itza, it's one of three rustic resorts the director has built in Central America (the other two are in Belize).
 
 In fact, Guatemala is fairly packed with memorable hotels, the best being on a boutique scale at bargain prices (for a visitor from the north, anyway). In Antigua, which is the country's New Orleans, Savannah and Santa Fe all in one, creative hoteliers have taken a root stock of 400-year-old homes, convents and monasteries to produce small inns that are both whimsical and elegant. At Panza Verde, a few blocks along the colonial grid from the main plaza, the ceiling of your bathroom may be the soaring brick tower of an old chimney. At the larger Casa Santo Domingo, the huge gardens include a ruined cathedral, now lighted for maximum cocktail-hour atmospherics.
 
 Antigua was Guatemala's capital until the earthquakes got to be too much and the Spanish decamped to Guatemala City after a huge one in 1773. Now, in spite of the many toppled churches and dramatic ruins -- or maybe because of them -- the much-restored mountain city easily qualifies as one of the most picturesque in the hemisphere. A grand volcano, Vulcan Agua, overlooks a roofscape of barrel tile and bell towers. The 12-block historic district is a bit forbidding at first, with lines of pastel walls along the cobbled streets. But behind many a blank face is a fanciful wine bar, Internet cafe or antiques shop making a modern life amid the old bones of yard-wide walls, polished stone floors and 12-foot ceilings. Behind others are the homes of Guatemalans and expatriates (many of them American retirees) who would rather live here than in the noisy capital 40 minutes away. Tourists should follow that lead and base their visits here. The airport is just 40 minutes away, and Antigua is infinitely more interesting, fun and safe than the capital.
 
 Safety concerns in Guatemala are a bit like they were in New York during the 1970s, or in parts of the Washington region right now -- real but remote. Antigua is well patrolled and largely presumed safe from street crime, while there are parts of Guatemala City where prudent people don't go at night. Occasional robberies in the capital and on back roads have led to State Department "advisories" (two steps below the more dire "warnings") urging tourists to be aware of security concerns. But after more than a half-dozen trips to Guatemala in recent years, often with my wife and two young daughters, I've yet to meet a tourist who's met a criminal. Personally, I've never felt threatened, despite ignoring some of the State Department advice. (The closest I've ever come to Central American street crime is Langley Park, Md., two miles from my house.)
 
 Right now, the only way to reach the tourist zones of Lake Atitlan is by back road, but they are heavily lined with police directing traffic around the road reconstruction. The country's main road, the Pan American Highway, became passable from end to end two weeks after the hurricane, Castillo said. That will make it easier to reach such highland tourist towns as Quetzaltenango (beloved by language students who want to avoid the diversions of Antigua-based schools) and Chichicastanengo (the country's biggest and most popular tourist market).
 
 But the back-door entrance to the lake is a boon for view lovers. The winding, climbing road from Patzun crests the rim of mountains and looks down on a scene that has bewitched people for centuries, from the Mayans who still live in small, isolated villages around the lake to the hippies who made it a must-stop on the Gringo Trail in the 1960s and '70s. The Mayans and the wacky expats are still here, but now the 80-square-mile body of azure water -- lined by three volcanoes so perfectly conical they could have come from a Flintstones set -- is also surrounded by quirky hotels, decent restaurants and a scuba diving outfitter.
 
 "It's a lot different than when I came here," says David Corbert, known around the lake as English David. He's been a bar owner, land buyer and hanger-on in the expat capital of Panajachel since 1976. "It was nothing but onion fields then. I think there were six cars."
 
 After the two-hour drive by van from Antigua, the now busy, hustling town of Panajachel is the starting spot for most visitors to the lake. Its river was turned from a docile stream into a battering ram by the rains of Stan, widening the banks by dozens of yards at the expense of riverside neighborhoods. But the waterfront hive of clubs, travel agencies and cafes was undisturbed. Within days of the flooding, the textile shops lining Calle Santander, the town's Rodeo Drive, were filled with the blankets, hammocks, scarves and belts woven in the surrounding villages. Mayan women in traditional embroidered blouses, or huipiles , walked the street offering the same handmade wares that show up in Adams Morgan and SoHo at many times the local prices.
 
 In the background, lake waters wink their invitation to get even deeper into the slow local vibe. The south side of the lake, where most of the mudslide damage occurred, is accessible by road and lined with the weekend homes of wealthy Guatemalans. That's where Santiago Atitlan, the lake's second-largest city, sits, and where an entire neighborhood was swamped and more than 600 people killed.
 
 But most of the more remote north side is reachable only by the public boats that ply the lake for about a $1.50 a ride (much less if you're a local). A string of small Mayan villages lines this side, each tolerating a slightly different expat scene: Santa Cruz, where painters live among a group of followers of Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh; San Marcos, where New Age seekers have built an appealing collection of massage studios, yoga clinics and vegetarian restaurants; San Pedro, a bigger town with backpacker nightlife and a not-so-secret marijuana trade.
 
 Right now, the street down to Panajachel's public dock features a flood-carved crater the size of a house. In San Marcos, a plaza below the main village was wiped clear by the torrent. And all around the surrounding mountains, the slopes are marbled with the thin white nicks of minor landslides.
 
 But with roads being cleared and tourists already refilling the boats and shopping districts, it's easy to see normalcy on the horizon. The quiet parts -- those remote shores, tiny villages and timeless ruins -- will still be quiet. They always are.
 
 But I wouldn't count on getting a quick table at Frida's for very much longer.
 

© 2004 The Washington Post Company