Molasses
San Pedro La Laguna
Lago de Atitlan, Guatemala
January 2004

In this game of survival there are four best friends: 3 meals and sleep. Life is slow. I am held in a haze. My thoughts and body percolate leisurely through a tight coffee filter. The day is spent living in an ongoing strain for reaction to external stimuli, moving lazily through polluted clouds of smoke and mental tension. In Guatemala, smoke hangs heavy in the morning air like a fresh shot musket. Smoke hangs heavy in the blistering rays of an afternoon. And smoke hangs heavy like fever in the evening glow.

A sick pig trough and barf smell aftertaste lingers in the back of my throat, absorbed into each small pore of my skin. It is the stench that hangs in the village, the stench of rectum, my barfs, my burps, and more often than not the taste of my food. It has a strong acidic wreak that torments your muscles and nostrils with gut cringing disgust. In reality it is the unpleasant aroma of airborne coffee by-product and garbage littered streets. Here I suffer from severe diarrhea and vomit spasms for over 7 days. Actually, both Mitch and I are bombarded with carcass rotted, gut wrenching, sewage releases of the gastrointestinal kind. We are under heavy attack and must drop the nuke to suppress enemy fire, so we call for Ciprofloxacin, an antibiotic medicine specially trained for this type of apocalypse. We have penetrated deep undercover to find ourselves among the strangest street peddlers, travellers, wanderers, dread-heads, deadheads, hippies, and locals alike. This is the world of San Pedro La Laguna. This… is the end of the road…

We awake in the morning before the sun appears, to walk down the path to the beach of volcanic boulders. A loose mist confronts us, while a thick mist hangs over a distant village on the mountainside across the lake. It is calm. Birds chirp and sing, forming auditory choruses of world-class stature. Beside the farm and tall grass, large groups of mosquitoes form to float endlessly like helium filled balloons on a string, caught in the breeze. Tossing fishnets, men paddle in tiny wooden homemade skiffs barely big enough for one to fit. The sun breaks at the horizon, cutting above the pyramidal edge of the volcano the village rests upon. Splintered into a thousand reaching arms of solar lust, the rays cascade through the palm trees and half finished concrete rooftops like the gentle flooding of love. Next the thistle grass, and nearby village.

look close at the rooftop in the sun 6 am i see a girl doing yoga stretches...

she sees me spying (on assignment of course) ...so then she poses... this captures the true spirit of san pedro

sunrise my favourite time of day

golden honey suckle rays fill my heart with melted waves pouring slow in mystic ways

Massive explosions burst across the lake to leave giant trails of white smoke patches snaking across the skyline. It is locals celebrating their religion by launching army, artillery power fireworks. The only thing is, they celebrate night and day… everyday. Somewhere up on the hillside, a loud jackhammer type noise erupts in these waking hours. It is like the sound of an M16.

"Rodeo" i love the smell of napalm in the morning...

listening in on the "warfare"

All of a sudden I am in "Platoon" or Vietnam itself. As I continue to walk towards the lake among this jungle style terrain, I am entranced by a vivid depiction of guerrilla warfare. Apache helicopters rise from below the volcanic ridge and torn up carnage surrounds me. Moving cautiously through the minefields, screams of horror and pleading rise from within the thistle grass. Trailing a few hundred yards behind, Mitch aka "Rodeo" paces leisurely towards me, sipping on coffee, seemingly mellow to the horror of bomb eruptions around as bits of dirt land atop his brim hat like the sound of furious rain. Keeping my head low, I look back and signal Mitch to come forth. As he arrives, in a slow deep tone I hear a "Chris, are you okay?" "Medic!" I yell. Continuing on, we head west towards the lakes edge, pursuing another enemy; fatigue, through push-ups atop the boulders, mixed with lazy sun salutations and warrior poses.

San Pedro La Laguna is a retreat; a place to cleanse your inner spirit, a gathering place for symbiotic existence and the release of negativity, absorption of energy, and sharing of compassion.

However, one must not stay here too long. Staying is dangerous; hypnotizing you like a mermaids harp, sending your mind far away into unconscious marvels. Lost in space. Lost in time. The dread-heads in this town look like the trees from "Lord of the Rings." Shaggy, ragged, and torn from the grips of reality. Basically, they have hair growing out of their ears and it looks like they haven't moved from one spot for over a thousand years. I was in one of the bohemian bars and the bartender looked as if he had one ounce of breath left in him as his lips moved slow like molasses behind his thick beard and arm length dreads. Another white guy in his twenties walks by me on the street, wearing a Chinese style coned shape straw brim hat, a funky hippie shirt, and skate shoes. As he strides passed me, the acknowledgement of my existence is non-existent as much as his own existence He looks as if he is presently transcending through a parallel universe. A total comatose case. Another man is nicknamed "Gandolf," and let me tell you it is for a reason! It is actually a Vancouver man who came here 10 years ago and just never left the outskirts of town. But this is San Pedro La Laguna. This… is the end of the road…

Coffee beans are spread flat across a courtyard to dry in the sun. The Maya walk around in traditional clothing on the cobblestone streets, selling Pan de Banano (Banana bread) to tourists and wanderers. Drums beating fill the atmosphere of a place where you will be asked if you want to buy marijuana at least three times a day. When you ask someone "Como Usted" or "How are you doing man?" they will most likely answer with a late and slow "Muy tranquillo," meaning very tranquil, or calm. The Israeli crowd hangs at a restaurant called the Zoo; playing gentle techno beats late into the night.

coffee beans drying in the sun

mitch and i chilling out by the lake

San Pedro La Laguna is a place of magic and unrestrained conviction. With an offering of the new dawn we slip away across the lake to continue our quest through this psychedelic country of Guatemala.