A return to Guatemala

Author: By Arthur S. Harris Jr., Globe Correspondent

Date: SUNDAY, November 30, 1997

Page: M1

Section: Travel

Stories of disappeared people, quasi-military governments and surprise nighttime attacks on Indian villages around Lake Atitlan deterred us. As recently as 1994, US travel advisories warned of risks visiting this Central American nation. We'd wait. Maybe peace would someday come to this troubled nation.

How things have improved! It started with a 1995 Mayan peace accord, ending a 36-year civil war. Guatemalans who'd sought a safe haven across the border in Mexico have returned, military governments are a thing of the past, and presidents dedicated to restoring calm have taken office.

Slowly the word is spreading. Visitors are appearing, sometimes combining Guatemala with Belize and Mexico, the so-called Mayan Trail.

In our recent month of travel in a half-dozen provinces we experienced no unpleasant incidents. In fact, most Guatemalans we met -- in markets, hotels, on second-class buses, in stores -- were helpful, deciphering our pidgin Spanish and assisting us in many ways.

A cynic might say they were helpful because tourists have been scarce. With Guatemala's long reign of bad press, tourism declined. Even now we could walk into most hotels and get a room. At Chichicastenango, known for its colorful twice-weekly Indian market, there were only a few guests at the 44-room Hotel Santo Tomas. It was almost eerie in the hotel dining hall in front of a fireplace with just two waiters. Most of the guests were Europeans who've always been more fearless travelers than North Americans. It takes time for the truth to sink in -- Guatemala today carries no more risks than travel in Mexico -- and is considerably cheaper.

Chichi, as it's known by tourists and locals alike, is a small community at an altitude of 6,800 feet. After sundown, a fire feels good. For a tip, a ``roomboy'' lit a fire in our huge, tiled-floor, high ceiling, white-walled room. With chairs pulled up in front of the fireplace, we felt only slightly warmer; most of the heat was sucked up the chimney. Oh, for a North American airtight wood stove!

The outdoor market next day wasn't nearly as crowded as we'd recalled, but just as colorful. And the sellers, vividly dressed Indians, were letting things go at low prices; we hated to bargain. Hand-embroidered huipiles (a sort of blouse) at $30-$40; queen-sized, handwoven, all-wool blankets (generally called ponchos here, sarapes or tapetes in Mexico) for $50. Surely these blankets, which can also be wall hangings or rugs, would sell for more than $200 in a North American boutique.

With the exception of scrubbed and name-tagged Mormon missionaries from Utah, we were the only Anglos riding around Guatemala on second-class buses crammed in with 70 people from the country. There we were, two Norte Americanos, along with chickens, turkeys, straw baskets filled with tortillas, and babies.

For nearly an hour, grinding up a serpentine highway to the country's second largest city Quezaltenango, 7,800 feet above sea level, my wife, Phyllis, held a 2-year-old Indian girl in her lap. No childish fussing, only acceptance, for in Guatemala as in Mexico, children are picked up so often -- by older brother and sisters, by grandparents, by neighbors -- that it's second nature to be held.

Being wedged into an ancient US-made schoolbus that accommodates seven across (three in each seat and one squatting in the aisle) with straw baskets lashed atop the bus may be an unusal way for US residents to travel. But, short of renting a car, it's an inexpensive and practical way to get around Guatemala and still be close to the locals. True, unlike most of our fellow passengers who'd be returning to an earthern floor, we'd end up in a tourist hotel. Expect to pay $20-$30 for a clean double room with bath in much of the country.

Guatemala has what Rhode Island anthropology professor Eileen Maynard calls ``a dangerous beauty.'' Away from sugar-cane lowlands, the country often stuns one with its scenery: successive ridges of wooded mountains in the highlands, cloud-capped volcanic peaks, and Lake Atitlan with Indian communities on its shores. The deep turquoise lake ringed by mountains that rise from the lakeshore can only be described by an overused word: spectacular. One's first view of the lake, while zigzagging down the steep road from Solola to Panajachel on the lake shore, moves the most jaded traveler.

In a strange way, Guatemala's domestic troubles halted what might have been thoughtless despoilment of Lake Atitlan. An empty 14-story cement condominium, nearly finished before its abandonment in 1980, sits jarringly on the lake shore, testimony to development dreams.

Incredibly, it's possible in mid-winter (nominally high season) to walk into many a lakefront hotel on a weekday and get a choice of rooms. Sometimes a hotel pool in the mid-afternoon sun will be nearly empty. Weekends are different because families from the nation's capital Guatemala City visit Panajachel, the principal lakeside town. Some '60s era hippies can be seen in Panajachel, a small community on the lake with so many foreigners around that the town is sometimes called ``Gringotenango.'' We found more tourists up near Tikal in the northern part of the country where we stayed three days at Lake Peten in Flores, whose airport serves the ruins of Tikal. Most visitors we met at Tikal seemed to hail from Germany, France, and Scandinavia.

It's an hour by tour bus (two hours by local bus) from Flores to the ruins at Tikal. Tourists often day-trip to Tikal from Guatemala City. Fly up to Flores in the morning, visit the superb archeological site of Tikal with its many pyramids, and fly back to ``Guaty'' for supper. Inexpensive tours can be arranged in Guatemala City -- a morning airport pickup at hotel, a flight up to Flores and back, and a bus tour to the ruins, with guide service throughout. Few visitors spend much time in the nation's capital; it's neither scenic nor crime-free.

As sensible travelers, we didn't get involved in discussions of past dissension. Instead, we simply played the role of visitors.

Our favorite ``stay-put'' location in this Central American country is Antigua de Guatemala, once the country's capital, a 45-minute drive west of Guatemala City.

The pleasant city of 30,000 is surrounded by mountains, including several volcanoes, one of them active. It's an attractive, historic place, with colonial homes, cobblestone streets, and ruins of buildings that remain from a devastating earthquake in 1773.

Lots of North Americans, many of them students, come to Antigua because the compact city abounds in language schools. Most instruction is conversational Spanish on a one-to-one basis. We could sometimes peer into the open-air schools and see teacher and student facing each other at a small table. They would be conversing in Spanish, even if the student was a beginner. Sometimes they move on from the school to Doqa Luisa's restaurant and bakery, a hangout where making friends is easy.

Perhaps the best guidebook on Guatemala is ``La Ruta Maya'' by Tom Brosnahan (Lonely Planet Publications, $15.95).

Seven airlines fly from the United States to Guatemala City, often through connecting cities such as Houston, Miami, or Mexico City. The airlines are American, Aviateca, Continental, Iberia, Lasca, Mexicana, and Taca. On average, there are more than a dozen daily flights from US points to Guatemala City.