Travels on Lake Atitlan

     Many of us started our Sunday by attending mass at 7:30. It was very busy this morning because many of the community children were receiving their first communion, but it was a beautiful service.

      After a quick breakfast of pancakes and refried beans, we hopped onto a boat to visit two other cities across the lake. Our first stop was San Pedro, about an hour away from San Lucas Toliman.  We only had an hour to spend in San Pedro- Bruce even specified it as an hora gringa (American time), which REALLY means an hour, not an hora chapin (Guatemalan time), which we have discovered can be anywhere between 30 minutes and three hours.  We enjoyed a quick tour of the town markets before re-boarding the boat for a short ride to Santiago, a more tourist-oriented city with a good bit of history.  Our first destination was the Church of Saint Santiago, where a series of violent riots during the Guatemalan Civil War resulted in the death of a prominent American priest and mission worker, Father Stanley Rother.  After learning a bit more about Father Stanley's life, we headed for the market streets, where the vendors were incredibly determined to sell to us gringos.  The more headstrong people from our group ended up with real bargains, while the naive ones got the shaft from experienced Guatemalan vendors.

Church in Santiago

Father Stanley Rother

    
     And we can't forget the most important part of the day: Donna and Bruce renewed their marriage vows, new "rings" and all, presided by the captain of our boat! What a fun end to our relaxing boat trip.