After lunch, we join up with Calixta Gabriel Xinquin and drive to Panajachel. Calixta is a fascinating person: a Mayan priestess and poet with a graduate degree and a large amount of experience in Ladino culture, in many ways she embodies the Mayan ideas of balance through mutual development that we learn about during the ceremony. Calixta weaves humor and levity into a ceremony that remains intense and thoughtful nonetheless; intellectual yet moving.
The main focus of the ceremony is balance. Various colors stand for various traits and at the same time less abstract entities (blood, bones, earth, sky, etc.), and each gets its focus and consideration. Some of us are surprised by the contrast between what we learn of Mayan spirituality here and our impression of the pre-Spanish mythos that we obtained elsewhere (Disney's Search for El Dorado comes to mind).
Panajachel is clearly a tourist site, but sleeping in the shadow of three large volcanoes overlooking a crystal-clear lake is an experience nonetheless.
Return to Itinerary.