After you leave a place like Atitlán, you walk around with this feeling like you could go a few blocks down the street, take a right, and be right back on Calle Cardiaco heading up to the taco stands in the center of the pueblo. At lease that’s how it hits me.
There’s something about the way Atitecos saludan total strangers and lifelong neighbors alike. Something in the way the people you meet while waiting for a bus will want to swap life stories. Something in the smile of the kids who play tour guide for one quetzal. Something ineffable that stays with you long after your plane touches down thousands of miles away. It’s more than just fond memories. In a way, it’s being a part of something.
It brings you down pretty hard to see the half-finished homes for the mudslide survivors that the Government had to abandon because of the threat of another disaster. The images on the internet and in the newsletters can’t prepare you for the site of that mammoth grave at the foot of the volcano. The giant scar that leads down onto the place where much of Panabaj once stood is still visible, a dark reminder of that night when the rains and the mud took so much.
Then, on down the road a few metros, the sounds of children playing at the
-Joel
