Posting a bit late, but we just finished a week in the beautiful town of San Marcos.
We finished the trek in what we thought was San Pedro, only to realize we were in Epcot. The perfectly colorfully painted houses, wooden benches and trash cans, cobblestone streets and cleaning crews were there and everything. But we made our way to the launch and arrived in San Marcos, a spiritual community on Lake Atitlan. Wide eyed and covered in mud, we made our way through the narrow winding paths to La Paz where we were staying. La Paz was absolutely beautiful. The grounds were covered in grass and vibrant follows and nobody complained about the hot water. We spent the day relaxing, making ourselves decently presentable, and trying to decide how we would spend the next week focusing on spiritual growth.
Meandering the two and half paths we found a variety of different things, some within our price ranges and some that we could reconsider when we have an annual salary. The group seemed to gravitate towards different healing related activities including massage, medicinal healing, and reiki, along with the yoga, meditation and metaphysics classes that Las Piramidas had to offer.
The week didn´t end up being as much of a spiritual retreat as we had hoped, but it was a growth experience nonetheless. Four of the eight made our way on a chicken boat (yes they also have chicken boats) to a chicken bus, to a lab to find out what other living things were enjoying the weather in San Marcos. Meanwhile throughout the week the group was overwhelmed with a feeling of superficiallity and had a hard time connecting to the majority of other Gringos in San Marcos. However, this disconnect brought us to a new level of awareness as tourists. We began a team ¨survey¨ with as many people as we could find about how the spiritual tourism affected the locals in San Marcos. We tried to establish a level of trust so that people would feel free to express negative aspects of it. We heard a good amount from a variety of people mostly that it brought money and money was good. With what we had left from struggling against parasites, we struggled to portray the idea that development isn´t necessarily ideal. It got pretty heavy.
AFter a busride that involved walking up the hills we got to Antigua, the oldest city in Central America for two days of free exploration. I think the highlight for most people was seeing the mostly floral displays lining all of the streets for the pre-Semana Santa Parade.
We´re in Leon as you´ll hear more about soon, but it is too hot to stay near the computer any longer.
Raquel
