EC-Rider Travels

Oh my goodness, this is a beautiful place. Once again we arrived in the dark and had the wonderful surprise of drawing back the curtains to the unbelievable Lake Atitlan. A fresh water lake created in a volcanic crater, surrounded by three magnificent volcanos with villages dotted between.

We had a delicious breakfast on the terrace overlooking the lake and then headed off in a tuktuk down to the village where Mariano was waiting with his boat to take us along the coast to Santa Cruz (a different one luckily!). Here we got into kayaks and headed off around the shore-line after our trusty guide, Fito. Hysterical, and we got pretty wet, but we got the hang of it though not sure we will be representing the UK in the next olympics.

We then went to find Deedle Ratcliffe, a friend of Madeleine Wearing’s who had come out here twenty five years ago, fell in love with the lake and 24 hours later bought a plot of land. She has been here ever since, now married to an American and running a thriving hostel/hotel called La Iguana. It was absolutely buzzing with people of all ages, nationalities and walks of life who seemed to be having the most wonderful time. She was the most lovely person who had created something very special, I was sad we did not have more time to spend with her.

But Mariano was awaiting us and took us over to the other side of the bay to San Juan which was another busy community, largely of artists and weavers.

We first visited a cooperative of weavers who work together to sell their wares, keeping 80% of their takings and paying 20% to the cooperative to cover overheads. They are one of the few groups who have retained the traditional methods of creating their fabrics. Growing the cotton (four/five natural colours), cleaning it by hand to remove the endless little cotton seeds which have to be removed one by one, the seeds being kept to grow more cotton. The cotton is then beaten with two sticks for twenty minutes to flatten and stretch it. It is then spun into yarn, again by hand and then on to a spindle to create a huge ball of cotton thread. It will take two or three days (15-16 hours) to make a ball of cotton weighing 1/2lb. It is then washed and dyed in natural dyes (plants, seeds, vegetables and flowers) which is fixed using the bark of a banana plant. The length of time in the dye dictating the strength of colour.

Amazingly with the banana as a fixant – there was no dye on Ana’s hands who then explained the unbelievably complex process of weaving the thread, using a back-strap loom sitting on the floor, with the patterns all stored in their heads. It is incredibly mathematical and I could not begin to explain how this worked but the result was pretty stunning. It takes several days to make a single scarf …. and of course we had to buy one of Ana’s!

The women are responsible for the house finances and, in addition to looking after the children, the cooking, cleaning, growing vegetables, caring for domestic animals etc. they will aim to work 5-6 hours on their loom every day.

We wandered around St Juan and visited another cooperative of artists who had painted some really lovely painting, again many of which we wanted but were not too sure how they would look at 29 Smith Terrace or Lark House. One artist painted in thick paint-dots and invited me to add a few – brave I thought!

We then had a delicious lunch of quesadilla filled with chicken and cheese followed by frozen bananas dipped in chocolate. Yum! We returned to the hotel mid-afternoon and toyed with the idea of taking a boat to La Iguana to join Deedle and her guests for dinner, however the weather took a nasty turn for the worse and we were rather warned against it. 😔. Lottie and I had a happy ‘evening in’ eating homemade tacos and guacamole by the fire!