Fue mi primer día aquí en San Pedro y ya puedo ver las familias y la comunidad son muy cercanas... I'll bring it back to English here though cause my Spanish still ain't all that great. This picture was the view from my bedroom the first morning. When I arrived the pueblo of San Pedro de la laguna was at the beginning of their anniversary celebration, so "la feria" was in full swing. The crowning of the Queen of Sport and the Queen of San Pedro were two of the first nightly events I attended. The later pictures in this photo album are from the parade where the queens and others were riding their floats during the parade. Tons of people were out for the event (just click on any picture to go to more photos).
You'll notice that the women and girls usually wear traditional Tz'utujil clothing. Most everyone also speaks Tz'utujil, which is a Mayan dialect. I found that out pretty quick when I heard people speaking a language I couldn't understand and it wasn't sounding like Spanish. Really, Tz'utujil is the first language spoken in the home here and Spanish comes second.
San Pedro de la laguna, or San Pedro del lago, is located on the Southwest corner of Lake Atitlán, which is a huge lake in the mountain state of Sololá, Guatemala (see map below). The bus ride to San Pedro was around 4 hours west of Guatemala City, where my plane came in (also indicated on the map). The municipality of San Pedro la laguna contains around 13,000 people, and I was staying on the edge of town, so I'm pretty far out there. Basically, after being burnt out in the U.S. from the History Phd qualification work, I needed to get away. And as you can see... get away I did. This place is truly beautiful.
