A Backpacker's Christmas

Spending Christmas in Lago de Atitlán has been incredibly relaxing. I woke up early on my first day here and bought a fresh loaf of coconut bread to munch on. Later on, I rented a kayak and spent the afternoon exploring the lake at the base of Volcán de San Pedro. The serene beauty of the landscape dissolved any remnants of North American stress that I had carried with me from the States. It's really hard to worry about anything when you are floating around on calm waters enjoying a sunny morning beneath the silhouettes of three enormous volcanoes. A good chunk of my book and a sunburn later, I headed back to the village to grab a late lunch. While I was in the middle of enjoying a huge, spicy beef burrito beside the lake, Mira and Milly showed up - they had finally arrived from Antigua. They were planning on going up to the main Catholic church later in the evening to check out Christmas mass, and I decided to join them for the experience. I spent the rest of the afternoon lounging on a hammock on my hotel balcony with a great view of the sunset behind the mountains on the far shore of the lake.

Around 8pm, I met up with Mira and Milly near the pier in the middle of the backpacker part of town, and we climbed up the steep cobblestone rode toward the center of the Mayan village. Waiting for mass to begin, we sat down at the front of the plaza and watched local life over cold beer and greasy tacos. Women and girls from all over the village slowly made their way toward the church, dressed in traditional skirts and blouses with the addition of ornately decorated church shawls. The men who passed by were dressed mostly in western clothes, but occasionally an old man would don traditional clothing as well - short white cotton trousers with colorful patterns sewn down the legs and cotton shirts with equally intricate striped patterns - and usually a cowboy hat.

We wandered up to the church entrance and realized we might have waited a bit too long. It was already packed!!! It seemed like there were about a thousand people crammed into the aisles. We squeezed into the back of the crowd. Luckily, the locals are very short and we had no problem seeing all the way to the front. I only stayed for about twenty minutes to get a feel for the atmosphere, but it was definitely worth the climb up the hill. The priest directed the service in both Spanish and the local Mayan dialect, marimba music - adapted for church hymns - played in the background, and old women shawled their heads in piety. The energy and faith shared by the congregation filled the room with each song they sang. The sermon given in Mayan was fascinating to listen to. The language sounds so foreign and ancient to my Anglo ears. It sounds almost like a mix of Arabic, Spanish, and Mongolian - lots of strange sounds we don't hear in English. Punctuating the sermon were frequent, loud explosions coming from the plaza behind us - children setting off fireworks to celebrate the occasion. Occasionally, one would burst so powerfully that we could feel the deafening pressure envelop the entire congregation.

I left early and headed back down to the village to get some sleep - I was exhausted from a loooonnggg dayy of kayaking around the lake and eating burritos ;) Thankfully I had some earplugs, otherwise I never would have been able to sleep through the raucous night of fireworks and celebration.

I slept in for my first time on Christmas morning, and spent the better part of the early afternoon lounging in my hammock and reading my book. I heard someone call my name from the street below, and I looked down to find the Brits and their Irish friends heading into town. Jenny ran up to give me a Christmas present - a stick of local artisan ginger-chocolate. I had lost track of them the day before, but it's a small village so I assumed I'd find them again before the big Christmas dinner that was being planned. They had gone up to the village market the day before to pick up ingredients, and we planned to meet at Milly and Mira's hostel (which had a stove) later in the evening to cook up a few dishes from each of our backgrounds: a potato dish by the Irish, potato pancakes by the Czech (how appropriate for Hanukah!), and something curried by the Brits. I headed up to the the market later on and bought noodles, tomatoes, and some other spices and vegetables to make a traditional New Jersey dish --- pasta a la whatever is around. I also picked up a pineapple and a bottle of rum, figuring you can't have a good Guatemalan Christmas without either.

I got to their hotel just before dark to find a huge spread of ingredients covering every possible surface. One table stacked with chicken legs and chunks of beef, a chair covered with vegetables, a pair of stools piled high with rum, beer, and fresh limes. Before I unloaded my ingredients, I promptly got the most important step out of the way - Cuba Libre numero uno. Matt and I headed down the steps through the garden to the terraced lawn on the edge of a cliff overlooking the lake to see what we could do about starting a campfire. Being in the tropics, there was very little dry wood or kindling to be found, and we also needed some skewers to do the meat grilling, so we wandered over to a small shop where the owner seemed to have a way of finding anything we could possibly need - he had already provided us with butter, limes, water, beer, lighters, and cutlery - so why not firewood and skewers? (By the way - his shop was about the size of the back of a pickup truck.) We explained what we needed to the guy and he led us across the street to his workshop/patio. Lo and behold, he had a stockpile of firewood rivaling any I've seen in the American northeast before winter! And the skewers? He just so happened to be building a roof for his patio, and he had a 15 foot long piece of skewer-thick, scrap metal lying on the ground next to a huge wire cutter. He cut us a few rusty pieces just the right length. Nobody wants to eat off of rusty skewers though.. but not to fear, he also had sandpaper to clean them up to a fresh sparkle. We still needed some kindling, so we grabbed a few dead cornstalks and dried husks from his garden and back we went to start our campfire by the lake.

After the fire was satisfactorily burning with a vengeance, I headed back up to the "kitchen" to help everyone else prepare the meal. The original 8 of us turned into 10 and then 13 and then 15 as we collected some South Africans, Guatemalans, and a French girl - and then, completely by surprise - the Brazilian/Guatemalan/Colombian/Argentinians and the Canadians showed up that we had met and partied with in Semuc Champey! The night was destined to be incredible. Conor and Karl the Irish guys worked on skewering the meat, Mira the Czech sliced onions and potatoes on his frisby, Jo the Brit crushed mint, limes, and sugar into a modified Coke bottle to make mojitos, Jenny worked on fresh guacamole and a garden salad, Matt stoked the fire and started working on the stash of beer, the South Africans worked on setting up tables and chairs on the terrace and covered them with banana leaves (makeshift plates) and candles, Milly the German slaved over the stove making potatoes and onions, vegetable coconut curry, and rice, and I cooked up a tasty, fresh tomato and garlic pasta sauce to put over an assortment of noodles that I found in the market. Karl, who was obsessed with the Sopranos, was ecstatic to have authentic Jersey Italian food.

Finally, after everything was done cooking and the sun had definitively set, the whole mob of us sat down family style for the most lively and eclectic Christmas dinner I have ever had the privileged to enjoy. More food than any of us could possibly eat, and more rum and beer than we could ever collectively finish off. After the first course, we remembered that we had been grilling the meat and potatoes over the coals of the campfire. Barely able to take another bite, we forced ourselves to eat a second course. The guitars eventually came out and the rest of the night was spent singing, laughing, and story telling in a Babel-esque smörgåsbord of languages and accents.

Somehow, I woke up at 7 the next morning to start a looonggg, painfulllll day of travel. Life is good.