San Pedro is one of these places from where it’s hard to leave. While we have no desire to bum here for months like some grin­gos do, we grew to like our lit­tle rou­tine over the past few days. Break­fast (usu­ally a lengthy affair con­sid­er­ing any­time you order food, it takes about an hour to have it ready), a long walk either in one of the sur­round­ings vil­lages or in San Pedro, a quick drink and snack some­where, then back to the hotel for sun­set to upload the pic­tures. In the evening, we check our emails, go eat some­where, walk some more, watch TV and read. We pass out around mid­night and don’t wake up until the dogs bark and gal­los go crazy in the morning.

Hard to find a more relax­ing place.

Today, we went to explore more of San Pedro, includ­ing the actual vil­lage uphill. I was amazed by the num­ber of churches and reli­gious mes­sages writ­ten on the walls. “Busca a Dio” (look for God), “Jesús, la única solu­cion” (Jesus, the only solu­tion), “Solo Jesus puede cam­biar su vida” (Only Jesus can change your life) etc. The athe­ist in me just doesn’t get it.

I know that Latin Amer­ica is big on reli­gion and that it is part of the cul­ture, prob­a­bly like it was in Europe a few decades ago. Part of me sees no prob­lem in it: after all, the coun­try is com­ing out of a long civil war (this year is the fifteen-year peace anniver­sary). Maybe reli­gion helped peo­ple over­com­ing the scars of the war and unite the coun­try. I’m not a believer but I don’t actu­ally mind religion(s). To each his own—some believe, some don’t, and I have no desire to con­vince peo­ple God doesn’t exist as long as no one tries to con­vince he does.

Yet, part of me hopes that reli­gion won’t be a quick fix for all the local issues. I was read­ing the news­pa­per today and it turns out to be an inter­est­ing exer­cise, both lin­guis­tic and soci­o­log­i­cal. The paper here is full of sto­ries of mur­ders, traf­fic acci­dents and drug busts. On one page, read­ers com­mented on what they hoped for the coun­try in 2012 (aside from the end of the world, cf the Maya cal­en­dar). Pretty much all men­tioned some­thing along the lines of “peo­ple should fol­low the Christ”, “crime hap­pens because peo­ple don’t respect God’s will” etc.

I’m pretty sure they are a lot of peo­ple in death row who swear by the Bible or what­ever other reli­gious book. And that believ­ing in God isn’t a license to do good.

I don’t know why the mur­der rate is so high in Guatemala. But I’m sure as hell—pun intended—that it’s not because peo­ple don’t go to church enough. I tend to believe in the Marx­ist expla­na­tion, but again, maybe it’s another reli­gion as well…

After fol­low­ing Jesus’ path for a short time (climb­ing to heaven was tir­ing), we went back to the lakeshore where we took the cof­fee path. Close to the San­ti­ago dock, hun­dreds of cof­fee beans were been laid to dry on plas­tic sheet. On the other side of the lake, close to the Pana­jachel dock, we saw the actual beans, still on the trees. Of course, I took pic­tures, like the gringa I am.

God and a Chick(en)

San Pedro Church

Cof­fee Beans

Bananas

San Pedro Church

Jesus, the Only Solution

Jesus, El Senor de San Pedro

More Jesus Murales

Coca Cola

Street of San Pedro

Going to do Laundry

Doing Laun­dry in the Lake

Maya Women

Doing Laun­dry

Let­ting Cof­fee Dry

Let­ting Cof­fee Dry

Cof­fee Drying

Cof­fee Bag

San Pedro Coffee

Cof­fee

Cof­fee Beans

Related arti­cles:

1. El Lago de Atitlán
2. Belize City
3. Chicken Buses and Jesús
4. Puerto Cortes
5. Amber­gris Caye, San Pedro and La Isla Bonita