Viva San Pedro !Tuesday’s Edition

VivaSanPedro.net

Friendly local people, delicious cuisine and a host of activities both day and night make San Pedro one of the most visited towns on Lake Atitlan. If you are visiting this special place you will need to take more than just a couple of days to un-mask the many charms it has to offer.

Surrounded by the dra-matic slopes of Toli-man, Atitlan and San Pedro volcanoes, the lake itself is a stunning sight. There are many ways to enjoy nature’s bounty whilst in San Pedro: take a kayak out on the lake; hike up San Pedro volcano or The Nose; get a guided tour to one of the many nearby attractions such as the zipline; take a mountain bike ride to feel the adrena-line pumping but above all take the time to gaze upon the calm beauty of the lake. No digital image will ever do justice to what your eyes will see.

Getting a feel for the local culture couldn’t

be easier or more fun. The Mayan people are very polite and friendly, expect to be

greeted by pretty much everyone you see! The best time to see the hus-tle of local life is early in the morning at the mar-ket where you can buy fresh local produce and sample some cheap and tasty street food. Try the everything sandwich for only Q2.50! With your bag full of local pro-duce, take a walk around the rustic streets of San Pedro and see how the Maya people live.

San Pedro is also home to a large community of English speaking people. Visit the tourist area or

‘Gringotenango’ and sample a wide range of reasonably priced, fresh and tasty menus. There are many bars within this area, all of which offer a variety of entertainment from poolside boccie ball to darts or pub quizzes and just good old-fashioned socialising.This little piece of paradise really does ex-ist and it’s just waiting for you to grab your camera and explore every inch of it!

Welcome to San Pedro La Laguna

Wednesday night, 7 pm

Pub Quiz with Great Prizes

-- Open every night at 5 pm --

2

V

iva

San

Pedr

o

Saturday Brunch All you can eat for 40Q 10 am to 2 pm. -- Open every night at 5 pm --

I won’t lie to you. I was told the lake could rise. I was told there was a 30 year cycle. I was told there was a 50 year cycle. I smiled. I nodded. I thought about crystal balls and stories told by grand-fathers. I bought some land 150 metres away from the lake, 8 vertical metres from the waterline with 6 neighbours between me and the water. I thought I was safe.No one spoke about the lake rising. No one really thought about it. For a couple of years the lake even went down.

In 2005 Hurrican Stan paid us a visit and in one week the lake rose one vertical metre. That was a lot of rain. Fortunately, it happened at the end of the rainy season, the local ‘lancha’ operators raised their docks and business and life continued as usual.The following years, with or without special storms, the lake continued to rise a little each year. It wasn’t anything to be alarmed about; nobody had houses that close to the shore anyway. Sure, the local farmers lost a couple of corn plants to the erosion but life was good. At this point it is important to understand that the lake has no exit point. Only evaporation can reduce the quantity of water it holds, that or a change in the magma chamber or an earthquake. In 1976, after a particularly strong earthquake, the lake lost 2 vertical metres in 3 months and then another 8 vertical metres in the years following immediately afterwards. This created new land, new beaches and new farming fields.

As time passed, people forgot about how the lake once owned these lands. Local people built houses on the new land, tourists who loved the lifestyle of the lake bought the new land and built houses on it.After 2006, a new natural phenomenon began to affect the lake. It rained more every rainy season than what can be evaporated in the dry season. The result being that each year the lake rose a little more. Until in 2010,

hurricane Agatha poured another vertical meter in the lake in 5 days. A first business was lost to the lake. Our friend Nick closed the doors of “La Playa”. Some houses were also affected but most lakeside owners were safe, this time.Then came the nightmare of 2011: rain, rain and more

rain. By the end of October we heaved a sigh of relief and though to have avoided the crisis. We were wrong. A tropical depression, not even an hurricane, called E-12, stagnated for 10 days over Central America and gave us rain as bad as the bibli-cal great flood. At some points, the lake was rising 1 centimetre per hour!Lots of our friends lost their houses, and some busi-nesses had to close or move. Now, of the 150 meters that used to separate my business from the lake, none are left. The lake has quite literally stopped at my fence. I have had to build another septic system and a new toilet. I’ll still in business this year but next year, who knows.

Atitlan, a lake on the rise...

Gypsy’sBored of your travel clothes?

Second-hand clothes, hip and unique piecesWe also do alterations & repairs

Restaurante Jakuu’

# 11 on the map

Viva San Pedro 3

Every day boats dock in San Pedro carrying tourists eager to sample another Mayan vil-lage. They take a quick walk around, maybe buy a souvenir or sample some local food then leave with no particularly outstanding impres-sion.Then there are travellers who maybe come to San Pedro to relax or take part in one of the many activities on offer in the town. They doubtless enjoy their stay and leave with a positive impres-sion of the friendly Ma-yan and foreign peoples who live there. They may even visit again or recommend the town to fellow travellers.Then there are those who stay a little longer. They fall in love with the Mayan people, with the relaxed atmosphere of the gringo bars and start to see what makes this town magical. They realise it is more than just a place to re-charge your batteries but perhaps a little slice of paradise and they stay another week.

After a couple of weeks in San Pedro, you find you know all the bar and restaurants owners by name moreover the staff know what you drink and they call you by your name. You can almost feel you are amongst family. That’s

when you find it is hard to leave. A lot of the foreigners who live in San Pedro came for a couple of days but now call this funky little town home. In order to survive some of us have set up businesses but don’t be fooled, it’s not easy to eek out a living in a

place like San Pedro. Yet those of us who have chosen to live here know that de-spite our complaints about limited profit margins we would never give up our piece of paradise to return to the rat race. The lifestyle here is amazing, the people

are friendly and the sun shines most of the year. Those of you with a tendency towards a laid-back lifestyle and a dislike of the daily 9-5 grind beware. Maybe even take the next boat out of town before the vortex sucks you in...

San Pedro, a day, a week or a lifetime?

RESTAURANTE15 years of

experience in serving you the best food

Happy Hour 5-8 pmGreat daily specialsFriday : Fish Night

Health Care Center “Los Volcanes”San Pedro La Laguna at 100 metres of the Panajachel

Dock, next to Hotel Mansion Del Lago.

We offer the services of :

Medical LaboratoryDentist and Health Care Doctor

24 hours Emergency

7823-7656 — 4951-7330 — 4013-1967

4

V

iva

San

Pedr

o

Your Lonely Planet guide has warned you about taking pictures of children in Guatemala. You’ve heard what hap-pened to that Japanese tourist in 2000 but still your finger hovers over the lens cover on your camera whenever some-thing photograph-worthy catches your eye. Taking photo-graphs in Guatemala requires the same amount of common sense that you would use taking photographs anywhere.Ask yourself, would you like to have a stranger shove their camera in your face without your permission as you go about your daily life? If the answer is no, then the chances are the people you wish you to photograph feel the same way!

The problem of course with asking permission is that if people know you are taking their picture the results can be artificial and lose that special quality that you saw in the first place. What follows is some advice on how to capture the moment without upsetting your subjects.1. Try to use a small digital camera, huge Canon or Nikon cameras are not discret. Of course, if you have one of these with a huge zoom range, you could just take your picture from far away. I am a trained professional photographer and my weapon of choice is a simple Lumix, 10x optical zoom; it’s small so it fits in your pocket but still takes excellent photographs.

2. Do not look directly at your subject. Put the camera at an angle facing the subject but look in front of you as you take the picture. Don’t forget to make sure the flash is off!!!3. If you are with another person, you can get them to help you by posing next to the subject you actually wish to photograph and then cropping the friend out later. Alternatively you can pretend you are showing your friend the back screen of your camera and take a picture of your subject at the same time.

Some tips on taking pictures in Guate

Hotel Sak’cari El Amanecer

Beautiful Lakefront Eco-Hotel

www.hotel-sakcari.comE-Mail : hotelsakcari@yahoo.com

(502) 7721-8096

San Pedro La Laguna

Viva San Pedro 54. If you are able to engage in con-versation with people or wish to take photographs of people you are friends with you can of course ask their per-mission. Ensure that the first photo-graph is bad as they generally tend to be, show it to the subject to make them laugh and this will usually encourage them to want more photographs taken

to improve upon the first one. Keep going with the photographs until your subject gets bored of posing and you can then take more subtle, natural shots of the person(s) in their natural environment.

5. Another good idea is to return to the people you have taken photographs of

with a print of the photograph. They will invariably be excited by this and may even offer you money which you will of course decline and instead give them the print as a gift. Doubtless the same people will be more than willing to let you take photographs again.

6. Something else worth knowing is that when someone dies in Guate-mala a photograph of the deceased person is placed upon their coffin. If you take a photograph of an el-derly person and offer them a print of it this could not only please them but ending up being their final por-trait used by their family.

In a place like San Pedro, taking photographs of people in a pub-lic place is in no way dangerous. They are used to tourists and their cameras. However, when you visit more secluded villages it is worth being cautious. Like the infamous story of the unfor-

tunate Japanese tourist in 2000, local people could well believe that you are taking photographs of their children to arrange a kidnapping. You must keep in mind that such villagers will not be used to camera-wielding tourists and may therefore, be hostile towards you.

Wherever you take a photograph in a foreign country be sure to use your

common sense. Be considerate to-wards the people you are photograph-ing. Remember they are just going about their daily lives and did not request to be the subject of traveller’s curiosity. They are merely living, you are passing by…

(Photos : D. Bazinet)

Flor del cafe The Best Burger in San Pedro Speciality : Big Sandwich #

27 o

n th

e M

ap

6

V

iva

San

Pedr

o

I do miss the time when somewhere popu-larity was mostly base on other people’s stories. But we have to be of our time and admit that the tourist of today relies more on trip advisor and Wikipedia than the opinion of his fellow travellers. T h e r e f o r , San Pedro has to be of it’s time and be available on the net. San Pedro La Laguna has now two portals, .net and .org. The magazine Viva San Pedro also has a Web site, vivasanpedro.net and a Face-

book page. Most business in San Pedro still don’t have a Web site but will probably be thinking about it now that there is a portal that will be advertised every day in the Viva San Pe-

dro Maga-zine. A new busi-ness, SP-WebStudio is now tak-ing on the m a n d a t e of help ing local busi-ness to be visible on the net by producing

Web sites at low cost that are accessible directly or via the portals.

SanPedroLaLaguna.net

Trust us to organize your activities and all your transportation needs.

Agencia Maya Tzutujil (Also Postal Services)

Tacos : 3 x 12 q

Quesadillas : 13 Q

Tortas : 17 Q

Good, cheap, fast

Open until 1 am every night

Abierto hasta la una de la mañana todo los dias

Viva San Pedro 7

Camera, towel, Lonely Planet guide to the lo-cal area, phrasebook, hiking boots and a back-pack of books you’ve always meant to read but never found the time. That’s surely what every traveller needs right? Well it would appear that the missing piece of traveller’s heaven is free wi-fi and a bottomless cup of coffee.

While you will definitely still find a number of tourists taking advantage of the many ad-ventures Guatemala has to offer it’s sad to see the greater number of younger tourists sat in internet cafes. Of course you want to share your adventures with those back home but wouldn’t you have more to tell them if you were out there grabbing the bull by its horns so to speak?!

With so much to do and see it seems a waste to spend time uploading pictures instead of tak-ing more. Skype certainly helps you to keep in touch with those back home but nothing compares to face to face conversation with fel-low travellers; exchanging stories over a beer and being told about that ‘secret spot’ doesn’t

come close to paging through an online travel blog does it?

Remember why you left home in the first place I say and experience everything available to you whilst you are away. A Chinese proverb says it best - ‘No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.’

Profile of a New Age Traveller

Certified Legal Translator Traductora Jurada

English - Spanish / Spanish - English inglés - español / español - inglés

All forms of translation available. Se hacen traducciones Legales y Libres

(Police Records, Birth Certificates, etc... all Documents related to Residency)

(Documentos relacionados con el trámite de Residencia)

Cel: (502) 5487-7010 joanne.kemp06@gmail.com

YoMama’s Casa

* Fire Pit / Hammocks* Kitchen / Pool Table* Free Coffee and Tea

# 26

on

the

Map

RESTAURANTE15 years of

experience in serving you the best food

Happy Hour 5-8 pmGreat daily specialsFriday : Fish Night

http://business.sanpedrolalaguna.net

Free Listings

8

V

iva

San

Pedr

o

Viva San Pedro !Info : vivasanpedroguatemala@gmail.com Production : Daniel BazinetCollaborators : Trish Van Veen, Ilda ReschPhoto : Daniel BazinetDistribution : AdrianInformation : 5304 7357www.vivasanpedro.net

Quality FoodAt Affordable Prices

Monday-Saturday : 8am-10pm. Sunday : 4pm-10pm

Sa

n P

edr

o l

a L

ag

un

aSo

lola, G

uate

mala

La p

isc

ina

Sa

n P

ed

ro

23

El

Ba

rrio

2

425

8

2 9

212

214218

219

220

221

213

216

217

H

Ma

rke

tH

H

H

Ka

ya

k

&

&

Ch

urc

h

Post

offic

e@

@

@

@@

@

@

@$

H

HH

H H

H

H

H

HHH

Bo

at

to

Sa

nti

ag

o

Bo

at

to

Pa

na

jac

he

l

Ro

ad

to

Sa

n J

ua

n

Es

cu

ela

Co

op

era

tiv

a

Ro

ad

to

Sa

nti

ag

o

(Un

sa

fe)

H.R

. Mik

as

o

Bar &

Res

taur

ants

1

La Pi

scin

a Sa

n Pe

dro

2 M

ikas

o Ho

tel &

Res

to3

el Ba

rrio

4 Th

e Bud

dha

5

Jenny

’s Clo

set /

Le ja

rdin

6

The C

love

r7

Vent

ana

Blue

8 Ja

rach

ik9

Coco

’s10

Ta

com

ex (#

10 &

#27)

11

Jaku

u’12

Zo

ola

13

Hum

us Y

a 14

Lo

le’s /

Hea

lth Fo

od st

ore

15

Gypsy

’s / Los

Volca

nes / P

ollo P

edrito

16

Alle

gre P

ub17

D’

noz

18

Chili

es19

On

e 20

Sh

anti

shan

ti21

Bu

rrito

Fact

ory

22

La C

lau

24

Agen

cia

nMay

a Tz

utuj

il25

Ho

tel S

ak’ca

ri26

Ho

stel

Yo’ M

amas

28

Flor

del

Cafe

29

Co

med

or El

ena

30

Casa

Bla

nca

Legen

d :R R

esta

uran

tsH H

otel

$ B

ank

or A

TM& M

useu

m@

Inte

rnet

San P

edro

la La

guna

(.net

)

1

Co

me

do

r

• Jua

nita

H. V

illa

So

l+

Ad

a’s

Ma

ss

ag

es

H. T

i-K

ajj

H

$

215

R

H

67

2

211210

H

222

• Zuv

uya B

ook

Yo

Ma

ma

’s C

as

a

Ta

co

me

x

Tacomex

Gyps

y’s •

Los V

olcan

es •

Jak

uu

’

@

The Clover

Ventana Blue

The Buddha

La Pu

erta

•

R. T

ulan

Kan •

D’Noz

223

224

227

H. S

ac

k’c

ari

H. S

an

Fra

nc

isc

o

225

230

231

229

226

228

Flo

r d

el

Ca

fe

Viv

a S

an

Ped

roviv

asa

np

ed

ro.n

et

san

ped

rola

lag

un

a.n

et

La C

as

ita

Ric

a

Ag. Maya T

zutu

jil

Hum

mus Y

a

Escuela S

an Pedro

Idea C

onnection @

An

dre

a’s

ma

ss

ag

e

2

2

Casa B

lanca

Com

edor

Elena

30

29