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Headdress Demonstration

We paused in a local shop, where an old Mayan woman with the friendliest smile I've ever seen demonstrated for us how they make that thing on their heads for balancing baskets and goods and stuff. She starts out with a long, thin piece of cloth 10 meters long. Then she makes a braid out of her long hair, and wraps the cloth around it tightly. Next, she winds the wrapped braid around her head, and starts winding the cloth round and round in circles, making a thin band as she goes. As the band grows wider and wider, she finally wraps the loose ends of her hair and the cloth into itself, and voilà — a flat disc-like area, about a foot in diameter. Pretty cool! Just a few more months, and Erin's hair will be long enough to do that. (Sure would like to see her carry her backpack that way!)

Backstrap Loom

Back in the boat, we took a longer trip across the lake this time (the other legs were 45-60 minutes, this one was 80-90 minutes) to San Antonio. This town was barely a dot on the map compared to the others — in fact, I didn't even see how you could get to it by car (even though there were two or three there). We visited a couple of shops and saw some young girls weaving fabric on a hand loom. It looks like it would take weeks to do something on this device that would sell for about 3 dollars, so most likely they only whip this out for the tourists.

Mild culture shock hit when I learned that one girl, running a pottery shop, was 18 and already had two boys. Our guide, who spoke her Mayan tongue, told us she'd had her first when she was 13. Common though that may be, it's still hard to grasp.

San Antonio Church

The women selling their wares in this town were much more aggressive than elsewhere. They seemed to have a new ploy for getting your attention: thrusting foreign bills at you, asking if you have change, or can change for them to local currency. One woman wielded three US dollar bills; another, 3000 lira. I didn't feel good about the whole thing, and was really growing tired of all the peddling, so I didn't trade (although I'm starting to regret the lira opportunity, since it will be replaced with the Euro by the time we get to Italy). Erin did trade for three US dollars, though — we found ourselves stuck there for several minutes while the women tried to find change. Meanwhile, "Buy this, buy this!". Sigh. The lengths these women must go to.

The last ride back to Pana was only about 20 minutes long, and pretty cold, since it was just starting to rain around the lake. We bid farewell to Tomas (after tipping him well) and went to dinner at an Asian restaurant. It was as good as the reviews said, but the peddlers kept coming. By this time, we were starting to get pretty tired of saying "No, gracias" — especially the ones who kept at it, and made us say it several times. We're ready to leave the highlands, I think.

- Keith

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