Chilling out in Santa Cruz

Panajachel is really a permanent market itself and we were starting to get tired of just being seen as the next consumer. So we took a small motor boat to the village of Santa Cruz, a 30 minute boat ride away, where we would spend the next three nights.

Disembarking we headed for the first hotel we saw – Arc de Noah. With its beautiful terraced, landscaped gardens, and relaxed patrons sipping mint tea and eating poached eggs, it looked like the perfect retreat. Either that or ‘the retirement home’. As soon as we entered the gardens and were met by the muted stares of the residents we realised we were not the usual clientele. Appealing to the more mature, wealthy tourist, this place hadn’t had its name besmirched by a rucksack in nearly 20 years. Until now of course.

Getting lost in the mountains

Not to be put off, and ignoring the polite references to the ‘excellent backpacker’s next door’, we housed ourselves in one of the stone houses, whose view of the lake and twin-coned volcano more than made up for the sparse furnishings. We spent a wonderful day lounging by the lake and taking in the rays before heading up to the main village for a nose around.

Santa Cruz village is set into the mountainside and you can almost see the whole place hanging vertically before you. It’s one of the poorest villages in the area, as yet unconnected by road, the lake being its main artery to the outside world. It’s certainly a beautiful village though, and it’s easy to get lost meandering along the little paths that wind up through the houses. Tourist fatigue hasn’t set in here; everyone is friendly and welcoming. Women sitting outside weaving on huge looms invite you in for oranges and a chat.

School kids gather in the village square, playing football or shooting some hoops. They seem like any other school kids but the scene is somehow incongruous as the girls jump around in their vibrant huipiles, jet black hair swaying as they leap up to the basketball hoop hung in front of the 17^th century colonial church.

There are plenty of walks you can do around the lake or up into the mountains. A 5 mile walk takes you up over the summits and on to Solola, a town on the plateau. Solola is a little visited town with a wonderful market which serves local people rather than tourists, who rarely visit.

Armed only with a couple of litres of water, some vague directions and a sense of adventure we headed upwards, and upwards and upwards into the mountains. The path is, at first, clearly marked and hard to miss. It was hot going though and as the top soil is quite thin and dry you are constantly slipping backwards. Needless to say there was a fair amount of grumbling going on on my part, until I was humbled by the site of an octogenarian walking downhill, bare foot, with a load of firewood on her back. She appeared round a corner rather fast, making me scream so loudly the poor woman nearly dropped her load. She disappeared off down the mountainside, doubled over, and I vowed to keep my new found sense of perspective and stop whingeing. This worked very well and stopped me moaning for about five minutes.

The second half of the walk was a hot, frustrating mess. The paths up in the slopes change frequently, as farmers change where they plant their crops and find new routes between their fields. The directions no longer corresponded to the landscape and we were let astray up ever-narrowing paths. We could hear the sound of an electric chain saw ahead and decided to make for that and ask for directions. Like the fairies down the bottom of the garden though, just as we thought we had got there, the sound would suddenly seem to come from further away.

Shaking with heat and lack of food and water, we decided to call it a day and head back to Santa Cruz. We were five hours into what was meant to be a three hour walk to Solola, and we hadn’t even made it up onto the escarpment. So we headed down, feeling glum and looking in such a muddy, sorry state that a local village invited us into the shade for a sit down and some oranges as she weaved and chatted.