It was my third visit to Sumpango with Mily, as I continue to delve more deeply into the tradition and practice of Las Barriletes Gigantes, the giant kites flown for Dia de los Muertos.  Julio Asturis led the kite-making workshop I had attended in Sumpango and he had agreed to meet with us.    

After disembarking from our “ chicken bus” Milly and I waited for Julio in Sumpango’s inviting Central Parque and devoured ice cream cones from the nearby neveria.   I had been so enamored with the array of delectable cookies and the enticing slices of cake from the  panaderias  that I had not yet visited one of Guatemala’s  many ice cream shops.  Chocolate is depicted as a divine food in the Mayan glyphs.  So perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised when my cappucino ice cream
cone was dipped in hot Guatemalan chocolate and then sprinkled with chopped walnuts.  The flavorful ice cream and the crunchy fresh cone made it an outstanding  ice cream experience as well as a fitting prelude for an afternoon of kites.

Julio approached us with a smile, wearing a Giant Kite festival t-shirt, identical to the  tshirt I had won in the raffle at his
kite workshop.  He greeted us warmly and told us we would need to take a local minibus to a location where we could talk about the kites.  As we waited for the minibus, Julio motioned to a boy carrying a sheath of long grass.  Fingering the stalk, he
explained this is what we had used for the frame of the small kites we made at the workshop.  I had assumed  the “sticks”
we were given were bamboo, like the skewers available at craft shops, but this grass with its tough stem is from Sumpango.  

Julio added that the giant kites do in fact use enormous bamboo poles for their frame because they require large wood that is both light and strong.  Each kite group – there are around 75 kite groups in Sumpango -- hires a pickup truck to go to the coast
to buy the appropriate lengths of bamboo for their kites which measure from 3 to 6 meters.  Kites traditionally require 8 poles.

Julio is a third generation barriletero, kitemaker, in Sumpongo.  He says the exact history of these unique kites is unclear, but that the kites were mentioned in the accounts of the conquistadors.   Likewise, the Guatemalan round, octagonal kite is a descendant of the traditional Chinese diamond shape, but the story behind the unusual shape of the kites in Sacatepequez is not known.  Julio suggested that four of the corners represent the four directions of Mayan cosmology with the double cross of the 8 supporting sticks forming a corona, reminiscent of the sun.  The fringe around the edges of the kites makes a whispering sound when the kites are in flight.  This sound is believed to scare away bad spirits.    

Julio’s  group begins work on their kite in April and they continue working on the kite at night until the end of October.  In Sumpango there are about 75 groups of kitemakers. Julio’s group has 35 members, including artists, an architect, a graphic designers, lawyers, young people and other teachers, like Julio himself. Though the overall design of the annual kite is conceived by three primary artists in his group, the decisions about color, the hours of labor and the undertaking of the considerable expense of the kite is a group effort.  By tradition, the kites are kept secret until the kites are mounted or flown on November 1.  Each group has a name.  Julio’s group adopted the name, “the happy boys” which was controversial, he said, because it was in English.  Other group names are in Kachikel or Spanish.  He said their group wants to be known for their innovation -- their most recent kites incorporate open spaces into the kite design.  They are also interested in making this unique art form more accessible to the world at large and using English, Julio said, demonstrated their interest in multiculturalism.  And certainly Julio himself seemed very happy to be talking about kites!  

He asked if we would like to see a kite.  “But of course!” we said.   And so from his cardboard box Julio withdrew two large bundles of paper which we took outside to the play area to unfold.  He explained that these were  two parts of a three part kite.  The theme of this kite was life, death and creation.  The first kite illustrates the Mayan creation story in which life comes
from the sea.  In the second kite the angel of death embraces a woman who has died.  The colors and details of the kite are a testament to hours of paper cutting and an expertise in the use of tissue paper to make gradients of color by layering the paper.  He told us the eye lashes of the figures on the kite were made by using surgical scissors. “Nothing is painted,” he
reiterated.  At the edge of the kite he fingered the layers of thin tissue paper used to construct the kite.  He explained that parts of the design are first drawn on paper, then traced onto the kite.  Different colors of china paper are cut and layered to create the design and the many shades of color.  Even standing in front of the kite I had to remind myself that every detail was made from cut paper and not in fact painted.  

Julio led us onto the flat roof of the school so I could take a picture of the kites.  Then we refolded the intricate paper murals. 
“Do you have time to see a giant kite,” he asked, “I have one here.”

The kite we had just seen was the largest and certainly the most beautiful kite I had ever seen, so I was surprised by his question.  But I was definitely eager to see another kite his group had made.

It took the three of us to unfold the kite.  Julio showed us how the kite paper was taped on the back with very long
strips of packing tape.  This strengthens the tissue paper  to provide sufficient resistence so that the very large area of the kite can be glued to the frame and then raised to a vertical position.

The kite filled the entire playing area – about the size of a soccer field.  Three kids stood outside the school fence to watch and I joined them to take a picture as if was impossible to capture the whole kite otherwise.  This kite was one they had made two years before.  Julio has taken this kite to several international kite exhibitions including the recent kite festival in Columbia.  

Once again, I was astonished by the magnitude of this endeavor and the dedication and skill of those who gather together to create this vision, without hope of payment and solely for the joy and cultural affirmation of this fragile and unique art form.

The first time I met a sea turtle was when my friend Jerene took me snorkeling in Hawaii. Schools of Yellow Tangs and Racoon fish swam around the lavender coral.  But in my peripheral vision I saw something much bigger and closer to me
than the fish.  An adult sea turtle was making her way to the surface.  She seemed to fly like a giant bird, each stroke of her flippers taking her much farther than the constant flutter of the small fins of the fish below me. When she reached the surface
she tipped her head to take a few breaths of  air.  Then she parted the water with her
fins and moved into the deeper ocean, fortified with oxygen that could last her for another hour.  Sea turtles can
live to be 100 years old.  Their lineage dates to the time of the dinosaurs when it was believed they were land
creatures who took to the sea at around the time dinosaurs became extinct, trading their capacity to hide for the ability to swim great distances. The Mayans believe that the creator god was birthed from a sea turtle carapice.  When I snorkeled, I I found that the turtles would look right at me.  I moved to Hawaii because I fell in love with them.  

It was not possible to see a baby turtle in Hawaii as the mother turtles do not nest on the major islands. 
And so I was very excited when I learned that Guatemala’s Pacific Coast iss a major nesting area for Olive Ridley and Loggerhead sea turtles. Sea turtle reserves, tortugarias, dot the coast, but the reserve at Monterrico, which also rescues endangered iguanas and alligators, was the most accessible for me.  

Baby sea turtles hatch after about 40 days. 
I heard there was to be a release of baby sea turtles at 5:30 that
afternoon at the Monterrico reserve. 
When I arrived at the reserve, which is only a short walk down the beach,
I was led to a pool where 25 baby turtles were swimming, some of them very
rapidly. Unlike other animals which assume an adult shape only with maturity,  baby sea turtles are perfect miniatures of the adult .sea turtles.   As they scampered in the still water of the pool, waving their tiny flippers energetically, they resembled  migrating butterflies.  I felt a great fondness watching them and imagined sending them love and protection for their perilous journeys to adulthood.

The tortugaria staff told us to head for the beach in front of the hatchery.  We peered in through the mesh surrounding the hatchery, where rows of marked PCP pipes indicated the reburied nests.  Then baby sea turtles from the pool
were carried in a dry bucket to within 6 feet of the ocean wash.  The turtles need to be released on the sand and to enter the sea by land.  

I paid 10 quetzales and received a ticket which allowed me to
dip into the bucket with my hands and bring out a baby turtle. 
Unfortunately, there was little in the way of education about the baby
turtles and no guidelines for the release, so the turtles were taken from the
bucket with varying degrees of consideration. Later, I talked with a woman who
works at another reserve and I heard there was criticsm of this reserve because
they sometimes held the turtles for a day or even two days after hatching, so as
to have a sufficient number of turtles for tourists at the late afternoon
release. She said that  research done at her reserve suggests that the baby turtles have only two days of  enormous energy before they become lethargic and so it is important that they are released within an hour of being
hatched.  She proposes that people sign up to participate in the release so that people could be notified of the
release shortly after the turtles hatch.

I was immediately aware of how mighty the little turtle in my
hand was, so much stronger than a baby bird or a kitten, repeatedly flexing her
fins as if she was already making her way through the waves. 
I quickly said a prayer to Gaia on her behalf and gave her a little reiki
before setting her on the sand.  

On the vast beach she looked small, only slightly larger than a
pebble.  But she moved determinedly
towards the water, hoisting herself forward with her flippers until she caught
the wash of an incoming wave.

I  have thought of “my” turtle many times since that day. 
After the release I checked my email at the hotel and found that my
dearly beloved cat, Frankie Topaz, had died that afternoon at nearly the same
hour that I released my turtle into the sand.  I called in my mind to my baby
turtle.  I said I would name her Topaz in honor of another fine animal. 
 Perhaps like my beloved cat and like the sea turtles I swam with in Hawaii, Topaz the Turtle will also
survive into maturity and one day open the heart of a human who chances to travel beside her.

                The day was sunny and clear as I set off for Monterrico in a shuttle from Antigua.  There was plenty of room on the mini-bus this Friday as Guatemala’s national elections were to be held on Sunday, September 11.  By law, no alcohol can be consumed the day before the election or on election day itself, so Pacific Coast holidays on this particular weekend are limited to those attracted to the other wonders the coast offers.  In addition, campaigning for four days preceding the election is prohibited, so for the first time in many days, the morning was free of amplified pickup trucks touting their candidates. 

                It was my first view of one of Guatemala’s three active volcanos, Pacaya.  With smoke rising from her peak, she was easy to follow among the neighboring mountains which dominated the first hour of our journey.  As we got closer to the coast, we passed many trellised loofa plants, the long green loofa hanging below the yellow flowers of the plant.  The loofas are hung to dry ibefore they’re eventually sold for use in scrubbing the skin. 

             In contrast to Antigua, Monterrico was hot.  I was happy to change into a light dress I’d brought from Hawaii.  In Monterrico, the beach is dotted with small hotels, restaurants and tiendas.  There are no big resortswhich disfigure so many vacation areas. I was immediately approached by two friendly local guides who were offering eco-tours of Monterrico.  I signed up for a non-motored boat ride through the mangrove canals at sunrise.  But over dinner with two French women travelers who had participated in the mama sea turtle tour the night before, I was persuaded to set off at 8PM that night with Eleazar.

                Selene and Catarina had warned me that the two hour beach walk  would be “difficult,” though Selene was willing to do it again, having persuaded Eleazar to let her come along a second time for free.  I was certain I would get soaking wet as the sky was heavy with clouds.  In the distance, lightening would illuminate the ocean.  The next night I would sit in a chair on the sand and watch the sky for two hours, as the streaks of lightening shot into the ocean and others crossed the sky horizontally like arrows.  

I soon understood why the walk was considered difficult.  The sand was soft, making each step a meditation on the challenges  of moving forward.  I was soon drenched with sweat, (but not rain, as I searched fruitlessly for more solid footing.  We walked in the dark, passing groups of men and boys who stood motionless as they stared at the incoming waves. The watchers were local residents, many of whom are fishermen no longer able to make a living from fishing, due to the diminishing fish population.  Now they stay up until 1 or 2 AM, watching for a solitary female turtle to emerge from the sea and come far up on the sand in order to lay her eggs.

In the past, they would have sold the eggs as food.  Considered a delicacy, sea turtle eggs are believed to be aphrodesiacs.  In addition, dogs and beach vehicles take a considerable toll on the eggs.  Now that sea turtles are an endangered species in Guatemala, the tortugarias which line the coast pay local residents to sell the eggs to their reserves, where they are reburied in a protected area.  The babys are released closer to the sea to protect them from the perilous journey on the beach.     Even with this additional protection from predators, it is estimated that only 1 in 100 to 1 in 1000 baby sea turtles survive into adulthood.  

As we walked, moving away from the lights of the hotels and houses, I began to realize that finding a lone turtles as she made her joumey from the sea to make a nest was an improbable trek.   It was possible that as we walked onward, a sea turtle had come out of the water behind us.  Or that she might wait until midnight, or tomorrow, or even next month.  But we were lucky.    Eleazar spotted the butterfly tracks of the mother turtle.   We were joined by the small group of egg collectors who had been watching this part of the beach.  “See, she’s up there, searching for the right place to bury her eggs,” they told us, pointing into the darkness.  I could only marvel at the acuity of their night vision as I could not see her. “Now we wait, maybe half an hour, until she finds just the right place to lay her eggs and then digs a hole for the eggs.”  For the mother turtles walk and walk searching for the place that is right, though they have no "legs," only flippers for swimming in the sea.

I gratefully sank into the sand to wait.  Perhaps it was fitting that my beach hike too had been strenuous.  

Sea turtles return to lay their eggs on the same beach where they were born beginning when they are 25 years old and continuing every year after this.  Sea turtles are also know to travel up to 10,000 miles a year.  While they are astonishing swimmers they are also capable of resting on the sea floor.  But as land reptiles which adapted to the sea at about the same times the dinasaurs began to go extinct, the sea turtles needs to breathe air, at least once an hour.

Eleaza motions to us to come.  Our turtle has already laid over eighty eggs, which have been scooped out of the nest through a second hole that the collectors have dug in the sand.  The eggs are glistening white and seem to glow in the sand.  As she lays her eggs, tears seem to pour down her face.  Later I learn that sea turtles are known for crying, which is believed to allow them expel excess sea water.

 I know that taking the eggs to the hatcheries will increase the chances for their survival.  Still, I am sad thinking of the care the mother turtle takes in locating her nest and the arduous task of coming so far up on the sand.    She closes the nest by raising herself up and stomping the sand mightily with her flippers.    Then she returns to the sea, her journey only slightly less arduous as she moves down the bank of sand and catches an outbound wave.

Sea turtles live their lives as orphans.  The mother will likely never see any of her babies, nor know if any live.  The egg collectors tell us she had 92 eggs and they are happy because with the money from the hatchery they can buy food.  The walk home is an eternity.  The moon becomes an egg in my mind.  It is midnight and I will be rising at 4:30 AM to watch the sunrise from the mangrove.

By happy synchronicity, I was invited, along with other foreign students studying Spanish in Antigua, to attend a workshop about the kites (los barriletes) of Sacatepequez, led by Julio Roberto Astorias Chiquitó, a barriletero and the head of the Sumpango kite association.   I was joined by other Spanish students from Canada, France, Korea, Germany, Australia, Argentina and the US as well as a few of our Guatemalan teachers. There were several workshop participants who had never made or flown a kite before! Julio spoke of the joy of flying kites as children and how we could recreate these feelings of simple entertainment and freedom through kitemaking now, regardless of our ages.   He held up a simple kite a little over a foot in diameter for us to look at.

While the kites of my childhood were shaped like diamonds, often made of newspaper and sporting rag tales, the Day of the Dead kites of Sumpango and Santiago are round octagons made of thin tissue paper (papel de chino) mounted on thin bamboo sticks .  Four of the eight sides of the kite are decorated with “fringe,” made by cutting the tissue paper into decorative strips, often incorporating the complex techniques of paper cutting which Latin America is known for.  The tail is made of two three- feet lengths of tissue paper, also cut in original designs which flutter like leaves in the wind.  Julio explained that originally the kites were made from banana leaves and the glue from onions, but with time and the increased size and intricacy of the kites, the kitemakers had adopted tissue paper and a glue similar to Elmer’s.

Julio talked briefly about the kites as an important means of cultural identity for the Kak’icheqel Mayans, one of Guatemala’s twenty-two indigenous groups.  Decoration of the kites often illustrates the Mayan belief of  living in balance with the earth.  Many elements of kite decoration incorporate the traditional Kak’icheqel designs which are found in Mayan weavings as well as ancient Mayan glpys.  The kites also often addressinclude spiritual and political issues, such as human rights, respect for the earth and cultural recognition. 

 But this was not a lecture, Julio wanted to teach us how to make our own kites!  To begin, we were each given four bamboo sticks and a sheet of colored “papel de chino.” Before this, the only way in which I’d used tissue paper was for wrapping presents!   Assorted paper cups held glue accompanied by shorter thin bamboo sticks for applying the glue.

We each traced an octagon onto our paper using Julio’s model and assembled our sticks so that each point of our octogan was supported by one end of our sticks.  We secured the sticks with a small bit of masking tape from the communal roll and then folded over a flap of tissue paper from the one inch margin we had been instructed to include when we cut out our octogans.   Certainly the makers of the giant kites must develop considerable finess in applying glue with bamboo sticks!  As I soon found out, too much glue wrinkles the paper and causes the colors to bleed through. 

Once we had the octogan kite structure in place, our creative adventure in kite decoration began.  Helpful assistants had already distributed pre-cut zigzag shapes to represent the designs in Mayan weavings.  As we had only two pairs of scissors for our group of twenty-five, there was plenty of opportunity to lay out our zig zags and to watch others experiment with paper cuts.  As we soon found out, it was one thing to lay out the design and another to glue it in place.  Achieving a regulated flow of glue on a thin stick is an art in itself!  And once the tissue paper with glue is applied, there is no sliding the design into a more perfect symmetry!

Everyone seemed to be completely absorbed in their process of creation. I was reminded of  my classes as a communication professor at the University of Hawaii,  where I led my students in making and flying kites as an exercise in cross-cultural communication, collaboration and the ongoing value of play in our lives.  There as here, the kitemakers were totally captivated by the opportunity of making art that takes to the skies and dances with the wind. 

The went quickly and the workshop was done before many of us had finished our long tails.  Some people wanted only to hang their kites on the walls of their homestays, while Julio helped those of us who wanted to fly our kites punch holes (again with a sharpened bamboo stick) into the face of our kites and attach the string for flying. 

Julio himself is passionate about los barriletes – both in terms of the joy they bring to all peoples and in their cultural significance for the Kak’icheqel Mayans.  He happily agreed to talk with me more about the kites of Guatemala and to show me the giant kite his group is making when I return to Sumpango on Saturday to meet again with Oscar’s group.  He even offered to lead this workshop again for the participants in my tour! 

By the time I headed home, kite fringe fluttering in the air as my kite took to the breeze, I worried a bit about the gathering clouds, so often a harbinger of rain these September days in Antigua.  Still, I couldn’t resist stopping to see my Guatemalan friends along the way and showing off my kite.  And staying to hear about the kites they had made as children.  And for once, the rain held off .    

 Mily and I have been tailing the kites of Sacatepequez, Guatemala.  Mily tells me she used to come to the kite festival in Sumpango when she was a child and that it is a happy memory of time with her mother. 

We take two “chicken buses” to get to Sumpango, so called either for the chickens which ride them to market along with their vendors or for their diminutive size.  On the first bus we are  squeezed in like sardines, six adults across and maybe two or three children more.  In this regard these US school buses with their narrow aisles are perfect for transport in Guatemala  Milly and I procure the edge of a seat each and press the inner sides of our bodies together, supporting ourselves with one rear cheek on the seat and the other suspended in air.  Guatemalans often greet each other with hugs and pats and on the bus everyone is pressed unapologetically against someone else.  Still more people wiggled past us, including the ticket taker whose  job is to remember those who he has already received 4 quetzales from as well as those who boarded on intervening stops.  When he is not collecting money he stands in the open door of the moving bus, leaning out into the street to chant “Sumpango, Sumpango.”  He is the “fetch and carry” for the driver as well, filling a bucket with water at the gas station and pouring it over the radiator when the bus overheats in a gushing cloud of steam.

It is not the main market day when we first visit Sumpango and so there are only a few women outside with bundles of vegetables and large baskets of strawberries.   Like Antigua, Sumpango is also surrounded by lush green mountains.  Mily and I walk up all three flights of stairs in the market on a quest for brewed coffee in the few small restaurants with their long mostly empty tables.    On this matter Mily is even more insistent than I as I will drink a cup of NesCafe in a pinch.    But there is no “real” coffee to be found and we head to the municipal building and get directions to the library. 

The library is small with many tables and a scattering of books.  When Mily asks for a history of Sumpango we receive a sheaf of stapled pages.  We learn that 92% of the population in Sumpango are Kaqchikel Mayans.  In Mayan, Sumpango is known as the “stomach of the hills” and indeed the carrots and cabbages in the market were the largest I have ever seen.  There are a only a few paragraphs about los barriletes gigantes, which unlike many Mayan traditions is a more recent addition, added 120 years old and specific to only two Mayan pueblos, Sumpango and Santiago, Sacatepequez.  There is little additional information about the origins of the kite festival in the library.

I am eager to meet some of the makers of the giant kites and hopefully to see the kitemaking first hand.  We return to the municipal building for more information.  The man we ask says, “just a minute please,” and brings us two chairs to sit in before he hurries off.  He returns quickly with a young man, Oskar Yuk, who beckons us to follow him to his own tiny office. 

“We only work on the kites at night and sometimes on weekends, so you can not see our kite now, though we are working on it as it takes many months to complete.  But I have here on this computer pictures of our kites from before.” 

I am immediately enchanted by the photographs.  The kites resemble large paintings, like murals.  It is hard to believe that they are not drawn or painted but are instead composed of thousands of pieces of “China paper,” cut so as to create the designs in a multitude of colors, then glued onto the base, an enormous circle of paper. 

Oskar tells us that each kite has a spiritual and philosophical meaning connected to Mayan cosmology, the earth, the stars and also themes of the future. One kite features a large figure of a women, the mountains and stars and  a spiral of Mayan glyps.  Another shows the shadow of a famous Guatemalan poet and a stretching tree.  Oskar tells us that achieving the effect of a shadowed figure is their special technique and again it seems incredible that the figure is actually made of paper.  Each kite is nearly 50 feet in diameter.  And like the smaller flying kites, there are messages to the ancestors which will be carried by the wind on this special day when the spirits of those who walked before are closer to the realm of the living.

There are several groups in addition to Oskar’s making the giant kites.  These enormous t kites are not flown, but are mounted on huge bamboo frames and pulled upright for the festival where they are part of a design competition.  But in this process of mounting and raising the kite upright is the same challenge that besets those who will fly smaller kites – the wind and the weather.  A enormous kite can be torn by the wind in the process of moving it from horizontal to vertical, destroying months of work.  Fortunately this has not happened to Oskar’s group in the four years they have come together to make the kites.

Oskar’s group has about 20 members, including his brothers, his niece and their friends.  Oskar tells us that the group collectively decides on the design.  And they not only work on weekends and at night, but they work all night long on many nights, cutting and gluing and creating the intricate motifs of the kite from the thin, colored papers.  Indeed there were amusing photos of group members who had fallen asleep where they were working, a bucket of glue beside them!

 Looking at the photos, I could not help but be moved by the sheer beauty of the kites and the incredible devotion of the kitemakers.  Much of the money for their creation is raised and donated by the kitemakers themselves in honor of this creative and meaningful tradition. The actual kites will be seen for only a day on November 1 and then burned.

 Oskar invited us to return on a day later in September to watch them work, which we happily agreed to do.  Mily and I visited the La Iglesia de San Augustin Obisbo where we paused to take in the vista of the mountains surrounding Sumpango and the women below with their bundles of food wrapped in woven cloth,es.  Inside la iglesia, a sweet shaded quiet, statues of virgins and the Christ child, and lit votive candles with their flickering prayers.

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I have journeyed to Lake Atitlan where I am staying in an acquaintance’s  bungalow located in a Maya Kichiquel barrio in Panajachel, the largest town on the Lake.   As I write I am oh so grateful  for the music on my computer and my earphones!  It turns out my temporary accommodations in this “basico” room with bed, chair, toilet and cold water shower share a wall with the community sports field!  In fact, it’s almost like being in the game.   Last night I could hear the whistles, grunts, shouted names and the thud of the soccer ball against “my” wall until the game shut down at midnight.  Today when I got back from wandering Panajachel  there was even more noise as the playing field became the stage for a political rally.  The art of the portable loudspeaker is something that Guatemalans have really mastered.  You don’t even have to attend the rally to hear the political speeches for the upcoming national election in the middle of September.  The light coming over the mountains this morning was exquisite though and the relative silence was indeed golden.

Unlike many places in Guatemala where indigenous people have lost their land, my acquaintance, a long time expat in Panajachel, says that many Mayans in this area have been able to get legal title to these lands where the Mayans have lived for thousands of years.  The houses here are made of concrete blocks as opposed to some of the poorer and more tentative tin dwellings  I passed on my shuttle trip here.  The Mayans in this area have a reputation as skilled and mighty builders.  It is easy to imagine the ancestors of these peoples constructing the architectural wonders of the ancient Mayan pyramids.
 
I do not think I could ever tire of watching the Mayan women in  their corte skirts, intricate huipils and thin soled sandals.  On top of their heads, they carry enormous  bundles  the size of clothesbaskets, their mysterious contents secured in  woven cloth.    Their load rests, unsecured, on velvet or woven headbands.   It’s as if the bundles float above their heads as they weave through kids, dogs, bikes, tuk tuks and tourists, walking on cobblestone streets and foot paths without tripping or even glancing down at the uneven ground. 

There continue to be Mayan calendar “day keepers” in this area and consistent ritual is a part of life for many people .  The  Mayan shamans are becoming more vocal about their understanding of the 2012 prophesies of the Mayan calendar.  Some of these Mayan shamans now offer ceremonies to foreigners as well as education about the Mayan calendar and the living Mayan culture.  I will make several visits to Lake Atitlan as I explore contacts for this aspect of the BFGT tours.

This afternoon I wandered  Panajachel , a center for much of the Mayan artenisia from this area.  It was captivating to immerse myself in the truly remarkable handwork of the Mayans:  masks with animals and multiple faces, wool soaked in volcanic water made into ponchos and thick blankets, weavings made into jackets, shirts, headbands, table clothes, purses, travel bags and even bookmarks with small Mayan woven dolls attached to them.   There  has also been a creative explosion in  beadwork and jewelry, with very attractive and unusual  beaded bracelets and necklaces  for sale in several tiendas

The artenisia has both evolved and diversified since I was here in 1995.  There is a stronger movement for fair trade here and more opportunities for children to attend school.   But still there are children nearly hidden under piles of weavings,  their hands full with bookmarks and bracelets, walking  up and down the artenisia street all day and late into the night selling.

Also in evidence were Argentinean fire dancers who dance with sinuous grace while swinging lit torches and an all-woman marimba band pwith one of the most accomplished marimba players I have encountered so far playing in one of the many local cafes .

Tomorrow I will get a closer look at Lake Atitlan as I board a local boat across the lake to San Pedro, one of the many pueblos on the shores of this lake which Aldous Huxley called, “the most beautiful lake in the world.”