Viva San Pedro !May 29th 2012, Tuesday’s Edition

Viva San Pedro

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 adrenaline 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 hustle of local life is early in the morning at the market where you can

buy fresh local pro-duce and sample some cheap and tasty street food. Try the everything sand-wich for only Q2.50! With your bag full of local produce, take a walk around the rus-tic streets of San Pe-dro and see how the Maya people live.

San Pedro is also home to a large com-munity 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!

La PiscinaSan PedroBar & Restaurant

Swimming pool

Billiard

Boccie balls

The Best

Afternoon

Hangout

Welcome to San Pedro La Laguna

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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 water-line 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. Fortu-nately, 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 farm-ers 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 phe-nomenon began to affect the lake. It rained more ev-ery 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 hur-ricane, called E-12, stagnated for 10 days over Cen-tral America and gave us rain as bad as the biblical 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 me-ters 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

It wont be easy to change peoples habits. But let us think about it for a moment. In Paris, the people that want to go out at night, stay home until 11pm, meet some friends in a café for the apéritif and finally aim at the Night Club around 1am. In San Pedro, the bar have to close at 1am. The music volume has be reduced way before that. So, why don’t we start the night ear-lier ?

The most popular bars of San Pedro are al-most empty before 9pm. But where is ev-eryone at the beginning of the night ?It is unfortunate that the nights has to end sooner than we would like, but we are in a different country with its own laws. The first one is “la ley seca”. This law forc-es any establishment to close and stop sell-ing alcohol at 1am. But there is also the possibility of local laws that could make the closing time even

earlier. Most bar in San Pedro are located in resi-dential area therefor the music can be heard by the neighbourhood. It is normal that some persons are not happy with this. So we have to find a way to enjoy our time here, without making enemies with the vil-lagers. So why don’t we start the fun earlier ?Why are we not watching a live perfor-mance at 8pm instead of 11pm?Why are we not dancing like maniacs at 10pm? Why are we waiting for midnight to have fun.

Maybe I don’t know the answer to those questions, but when you are in San Pedro, try to make it happen earlier. Invite your friends to join you at 7pm instead of 10pm. We’ll make this town fun and we’ll go to bed earlier and feel more rested the day after.

Why wait for 11 pm ?

San Pedro .La Piscina

Bar - Restaurant - Swimming Pool - Oasis

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* * * Best

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

27 o

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I do miss the time when somewhere popularity was mostly base on oth-er people’s stories. But we have to be of our time and admit that the tourist of today relies more on trip a d v i s o r and Wiki-pedia than the opin-ion of his f e l l o w travellers. Therefor, San Pe-dro has to be of it’s time and be avail-able 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 Facebook 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 ad-

vertised every day in the Viva San Pedro Magazine. A new business, SP-WebStudio is now taking on the mandate of help ing local business to be visible on

the net by pro-d u c i n g Web sites at low cost that are ac-cessible direct ly or via the portals.

SanPedroLaLaguna.net

Jenny’s ClosetSlightly Used Clothes,

Amazing Prices

# 5

on t

he M

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Hosting and Domain Name

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Viva San Pedro 5

Every day boats dock in San Pedro carrying tourists eager to sample another Mayan vil-lage. They take a quick walk around, may-be buy a souvenir or sample some local food then leave with no particularly outstanding impression.

Then there are travel-lers who maybe come to San Pedro to relax or take part in one of the many activities on of-fer in the town. They doubtless enjoy their stay and leave with a positive impression of the friendly Mayan 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 recharge your batteries but perhaps a little slice of paradise and they stay an-other 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 foreign-ers 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 despite 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 peo-ple are friendly and the sun shines most of the year.

Those of you with a tendency towards a laidback 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 NightSUNDAY

AT NOON

Smokin’ Joes’ BBQ

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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

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San Pedro La Laguna

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

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Viva San Pedro 74. 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)

LaPiscinaSanPedro.com

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Camera, towel, Lonely Planet guide to the local area, phrasebook, hiking boots and a backpack of books you’ve always meant to read but never found the time. That’s sure-ly what every traveller needs right? Well it would appear that the missing piece of traveller’s heaven is free wi-fi and a bot-tomless cup of cof-fee.At the risk of sound-ing cynical it’s these additions to the travel essentials that are killing the once unquenchable thirst to share your expe-riences with another human being. Pic-ture if you will, a sunny afternoon in the lakeside town of San Pedro, there are a host of activities available to you and if you don’t feel up to any of them there’s always the pleasure of an ice cold beer and a friendly chat. Sadly this doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. While you will definitely still find a num-ber of tourists taking advantage of the many adventures Guatemala has to offer it’s sad to see the greater number of younger tour-

ists 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 up-loading pictures instead of taking more. Skype cer-tainly helps you to keep in touch with those back home but nothing compares to face to face conversa-tion with fellow travellers; ex-changing 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 re-alizes 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

!

Home Cooking, Homemade Pasta

or Take Away

Open from may 23rd to may 30thClosed may 31, june 1st to 4th

Open june 5th to 9th 12:00 - 17:00

Viva San Pedro 9

Wednesday night, 7 pm

Pub Quiz with Great Prizes

-- Open every night at 5 pm --

Take time for Yoga Looking for a cure to that three day San Pedro bender you just went on? Or perhaps to do something a little bit more relaxed than hiking volcan san pedro?

Then may I recommend checking out the San Pedro Yoga studio. Perfect your tree pose while listening to the birds singing overhead in the mages-tic outdoor studio (located just below cafe atitlan). Don’t know what a tree pose is? That’s cool too.

The two instructors Ishil (mon, tues, fri, sat) and Marco (weds, thurs) offer plenty of options throughout the two hour long sessions for beginners and advanced “yogis”. So if the intensity of San Marcos and all that spiritual enlightenment is a bit too much for you, and you’re looking for a more

chill environment to clear your head, work your body, and feel relaxed, then pop by the studio and see what its all about - pyramid of silence not included!

Hours of Operation: Monday-Satur-day, classes are from 9-11

Prices: Q40 per session, 6 classes for Q200Location: follow the path between Home and Buddha, just below cafe atitlan .You won’t regret it!

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

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Santa Boat Cruises3030-1658 or 3031-6508

Visit Remote Mayan Villages Around Lake Atitlan

Sunrise Cruises – Hill of Gold – Private Charter

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By Ilda Resch, Tulan Kan. If one talks about the Mayan Calendar, one generally means the Tzolkin, the sacred calen-dar of the Maya. It is the base for most of the 20 other Mayan calendars known today.

The Tzolkin has a cycle of 13 months with 20 days in each month, which makes 260 days per year. Therefore, the Tzolkin is not in any way related to the solar year. 260 days correspond to the time in which a child is born, so it is a calendar that reflects develop-mental stages. These 20 days are called Nawales, each carries its own quality and fa-vors certain activities. Each day has its name and is represented by a symbol that refers to its quality.

The Tzolkin is a combination of the 20 Nawales with 13 energies, this yields 260 dif-ferent combinations. Each of the 13 energies, also called tones, has its own information. Like the tones of a musical scale, every tone

carries another vibration. Both the number 20 and 13 are directly con-nected with the human body. We have 20 fingers and toes and 13 main joints in our body. 2 ankles, 2 knees, 2 hip joints, 2 shoulders, 2 elbows, 2 wrists and the neck.

The Tzolkin describes the quality and energy of every day and serves as instructions for farming but also refers to all other areas of a humans daily life: Family and social lives, professions and finances, spiritual and material development, and it describes the determination of ev-ery man. For several 1000 years the Tzolkin has served as orientation

and instructions for a life that is in harmony with nature and its surroundings.

The Mayan CrossOne of the 20 qualities and one of the 13 en-ergy numbers determine every day.A person born on that day will be influenced by that quality during his life. The sign one is

Get to know your Maya Sign

# 11 on the map

Viva San Pedro 11

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

born with is called the Birth Nawal. Other than the Birth Nawal there are 4 more Nawales and 4 more numbers. These 5 Nawales and 5 num-bers in the Mayan horoscope are called the Mayan Cross.The Mayan Cross tells us about our strengths

and weaknesses, about our ener-gies which we carry since we were born and shows us our learning pro-gram as we grow older in order to follow our des-tiny.

It helps us to get to know

ourselves better and on top of that, it is one of the keys to understand the meaning of the Tzolkin.

If you’d like to have your Mayan Cross cal-culated, drop in the Tulan Kan art studio. We offer Mayan Cross reading sections with the

local Maya Don Clemente Peneleu or you can have it printed as a detailed explanation on 10 pages. (Available in English, Spanish or Ger-man.)

Tulan Kan offers books and further informa-tion on the Mayan Calendars and on top of it, there’s great Italian food, which you can en-joy while you get connected with the amazing Mayan Culture.

YoMama’s Casa

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

# 26

on

the

Map

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

Agencia Maya Tzutujil (Also Postal Services)

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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

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